Born in 1911, Jeanette Nolan began her acting career in the Pasadena Community Playhouse. While still a student at Los Angeles City College, she made her radio debut in 1932, aged 20, in "Omar Khayyam", the first transcontinental broadcast from station KHJ. Her film debut was probably also her best part: Lady Macbeth opposite director/actor Orson Welles's Macbeth (1948). Her final film role was as Tom Booker (Robert Redford)'s mother, Ellen Booker, in The Horse Whisperer (1998).

She appeared in more than 300 television shows, including episode roles in Perry Mason (1957), I Spy (1965), MacGyver (1985), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), and as a regular on The Richard Boone Show (1963) and The Virginian (1962). She received four Emmy nominations.

Nolan died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, in 1998, aged 86, following a stroke.