Gateson’s musical schooling helped her land a job in the chorus in a play called The Pink Lady. She made her Broadway debut at the age of 21 in the chorus of the musical The Dove of Peace on November 4, 1912; the show closed after 12 performances. During the much longer run of her next Broadway play, The Little Cafe (November 12, 1913 – March 14, 1914), she played several of the characters. In 1917’s Broadway musical Have a Heart, she sang two songs. She performed in musical comedies for another decade, ending with Oh, Ernest! (1927), but also appeared in non-musical comedies and dramas. After the Broadway comedy As Good as New in 1930, she set out for Hollywood.

Gateson made her film debut in 1931, after more than two decades on the stage, playing secondary character roles as women of wealth and breeding, who were often haughty and aloof. She is perhaps best known as the society matron who attempts to thwart Mae West’s character’s plans for social climbing in the 1935 film Goin’ to Town, and as a rather kinder socialite whom Harold Lloyd teaches to box in 1936’s The Milky Way.

She made her small screen debut in 1949. She was featured in the 1949 television soap opera One Man’s Family and found success in 1954 at age 63 playing matriarch Grace Harris Tyrell on the daytime soap The Secret Storm, a role she would play until 1968. Gateson also made numerous other television appearances in the 1950s, including episodes of Hallmark Hall of Fame, Robert Montgomery Presents, and United States Steel Hour.

Gateson suffered a stroke, which ended her acting career, and died several years later in 1977 of pneumonia, at the age of 86 in Manhattan.