Born Pansy Wilcox, she was the sister of director
Fred M. Wilcox, who directed
Lassie Come Home (1943) and
Forbidden Planet (1956), and actress
Ruth Selwyn (born Ruth Wilcox), who was
married to producer-director
Edgar Selwyn, one of the founders of Goldwyn
Pictures and who was instrumental in the establishment of
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. She was the mother-in-law of actor
Helmut Dantine, of
Casablanca (1942) fame. Pansy and her siblings were the children of
James Wilcox, a Kentucky optometrist and drugstore owner, who was
married six times, twice to one woman. His six children were from his
first wife.