The interest for the theater was awakened at Kim Stanley as a teenager when she had seen a performance of the play The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn in the lead role. After high school, although they initially began to study psychology, but her real passion was still a member of the theater. She went through Texas to California, where she began in Pasadena to play theater. The first successes there led them to New York, where she played in off-Broadway productions. A professional training, they finally got on the New York Actors Studio, where she was briefed by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. 1952 she succeeded with the play Picnic by William Inge on Broadway breakthrough. Directed by Joshua Logan, the 27-year-old playing a 12-year-old girl. The next play by William Inge, "Bus Stop" was also a great stage for her success. Their role played in the later film Marilyn Monroe. Kim Stanley became one of the great theater actresses on Broadway. She was twice nominated for a Tony Award, was this most important American Theater, but never win.

Kim Stanley played with Shirley Knight, and Geraldine Page, directed by Lee Strasberg in Three Sisters by Anton P. Chekhov. Has been criticized as destructive of that production in London, she moved to the mid-1960s, back from the theater stage. She went to her home to New Mexico and gave up her life where acting classes at the College of Santa Fe. As an actress she sometimes returned to television series and movies into the active actor's life. Overall, however, she turned only five films in the course of their careers, although each of these films was in the audience firmly in mind. Kim Stanley was nominated in spite of this small number of films twice for Oscar, in 1965 as best actress for Bryan Forbes thriller On a gloomy afternoon, and in 1983 as supporting actress for Frances. For her television work she has received two Emmy Awards.
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