Born in Des Moines, Ms. Love made her Broadway debut in The Member of the Wedding. She went from that show to a supporting role in another Broadway hit, Clifford Odets' The Country Girl. The Rose Tattoo came next, her co-stars including Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach. Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that she and Don Murray "attack their scenes as though no other young couple had ever been in love before." Ms. Love won a Clarence Derwent Award for her performance.

She returned to Broadway in 1953 in Burgess Meredith's comedy The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, followed by William Inge's Bus Stop, in which she created the role of roadside waitress Elma Duckworth. After five winners in a row, Ms. Love picked her first losing horse in 1957's The Egghead. It lasted three weeks. Flowering Cherry (1959) and A Distant Bell (1960) both lasted five performances each.

In film, Ms. Love made her debut playing a juvenile delinquent in "So Young So Bad" in 1950. Her best-known role was as Gary Cooper’s daughter in "Friendly Persuasion" (1956), about a Quaker family during the Civil War.

On television, she appeared principally in guest roles from 1950 until her retirement in the early 1970s. She also taught English and drama at Morningside High School in Inglewood, CA.

Ms. Love married playwright James Vincent McGee in 1948 and they divorced in 1978; he died in 1985. She was married to her college sweetheart, Alan Paul Gooding from Jan. 22, 1983, until her death in Los Angeles, California, at age 85.