Born September 1, 1919 in New York, Haal was a singer and competed as Miss New York State in the 1935 and 1937 Miss America pageants as Miss New York. In 1938, she went to London for a singing engagement and met the actor/director/screenwriter Peter Godfrey, whom she married two years later, he was almost 20 years her senior. She initially entered films at RKO, working as Renee Haal, and made her début in Sam Wood's Kitty Foyle (1940), the film that garnered Ginger Rogers her Oscar. Her next movie, Unexpected Uncle, was directed by Peter Godfrey, who also directed her in the romantic thriller Highways by Night in 1942.