She was born Georgia Lamar Shanton on June 7, 1910 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her family moved to New York City when she was ten. After high school she attended Florida State College for women. Babs started modeling and was quickly signed by the John Powers agency. The lovely brunette was five feet, seven inches tall and weighed 110 pounds. She married jeweler Albert Humphreys in May of 1931 but they separated just six months later. During the 1930s she appeared in advertisements for many products including Lucky Strike cigarettes. Babs also performed with the Ziegfeld Follies and sang with the Lucky Strike Dance Orchestra.
In 1935 she married millionaire Louis Marshall Hemingway and gave up her career to be a socialite. Their son Marshall was born in 1937. After divorcing Louis she married Townsend Bradley Martin, a racehorse owner, in 1941. The couple had two sons together and appeared to have a happy marriage. They lived on a large estate called "Twelve Furlongs" in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Tragically on May 5, 1947 Babs died after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was only thirty-six years old. Her doctor said that she had committed suicide because she was "temporarily insane." Babs was buried at Westbury Friends Cemetery in Westbury, New York.
