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The daughter of an army colonel, blond Charlotte Merriam entered films at the age of 13 when offered a contract by Universal during a visit to that studio. She had a couple of good supporting roles in the early '20s -- Captain Blood (1924), Edna Ferber's So Big (1924) -- but was playing bit parts by the end of the silent era. After the advent of sound, the no longer quite young Merriam began specializing in portraying tarnished society women, notably Marcia Mae Jones' drunken mother in 1931's Night Nurse ("I'm a dipsomaniac! A dipsomaniac, I tell ya! And I'm proud of it") and as the syphilis infected Elise in Damaged Lives (1934). She seems to have retired after that.