At age 13, in 1936, Miller became a showgirl at the Bal Tabarin. She was hired as a dancer in the “Black Cat Club” in San Francisco (she reportedly told them she was 18). There, she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout/comic Benny Rubin (although some sources say this occurred at Bal Tabarin). This led Miller to be given a contract with RKO in 1936 at the age of 13 (she had also told them she was 18, and apparently provided a fake birth certificate, procured by her father – with the name “Lucy Ann Collier”) and she remained there until 1940. In 1937, she played Ginger Rogers’ dancing partner in Gregory La Cava’s Stage Door. In 1938, she played the quirky, constantly dancing Essie Carmichael in the best-picture Oscar-winner, Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take it With You, starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, Jimmy Stewart and Edward Arnold.

In 1941, she signed with Columbia Pictures, where, starting with Time Out for Rhythm, she starred in 11 B movie musicals from 1941 to 1945. In July 1945, with World War II still raging in the Pacific, she posed in a bathing suit as a Yank magazine pin-up girl. She ended her contract in 1946 with one “A” film, The Thrill of Brazil. The ad in Life magazine featured Miller’s leg in a stocking tied with a large red bow as the “T” in “Thrill”. She finally hit her mark in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals such as Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949), and Kiss Me Kate (1953).

Miller married three times, to Reese Llewellyn Milner in 1946, to William Moss in 1958, and to Arthur Cameron in 1961, and in between marriages dated such well-known men as Howard Hughes, Conrad Hilton, and Louis B. Mayer. During her marriage to Reese Llewellyn Milner, while pregnant with daughter Mary in her last trimester, she was thrown down the stairs by Milner and went into early labor. Her baby Mary lived only three hours on November 12, 1946.

Her film career effectively ended in 1956 as the studio system lost steam to television, but she remained active in the theater and on television. In 1969, she starred on Broadway in the musical Mame, in which she wowed the audience in a tap number created just for her. In 1979, she astounded audiences in the Broadway show Sugar Babies with fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney, which toured the United States extensively after its Broadway run. In 1983, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. She appeared in a special 1982 episode of The Love Boat, joined by fellow showbiz legends Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Della Reese, Van Johnson and Cab Calloway in a storyline that cast them as older relatives of the show’s regular characters. Her last stage performance was a 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, in which she played hardboiled Carlotta Campion and received rave reviews for her rendition of the song “I’m Still Here”.

On February 8, 1960, Miller received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Blvd.

At the age of 63, Miller sang and tap danced to “42nd Street” at the opening of the Disney MGM Studios on May 1, 1989. This would be her last live dance performance.

She was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1993 when she was surprised by Michael Aspel.

For her contribution to the motion-picture industry, Miller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Blvd. In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. To honor Miller’s contribution to dance, the Smithsonian Institution displays her favorite pair of tap shoes, which she playfully nicknamed “Moe and Joe”.

Miller appeared as a dance instructor in Home Improvement episode “Dances with Tools” (1993) Between 1995 and 2001, Molly Shannon parodied Miller several times on Saturday Night Live in a recurring sketch titled “Leg-Up!” In 2001, she took her last role, playing “Coco” in director David Lynch’s critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive.

Miller died, aged 80, from lung cancer on January 22, 2004, and her remains were interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.