Through her mother's connections, Hutchinson made her film debut at the age of 13 in The Little Princess (1917), starring Mary Pickford. She later attended the Cornish School—now Cornish College of the Arts—in Seattle, receiving a diploma in 1929. She moved to New York City, where she began acting in theater. By the late 1920s, she was one of the actors able to make the transition from silent movies to talkies.

On August 12, 1924, Hutchinson married Robert W. Bell, a stage Director, in Washington, D.C. In 1926, she met the Actress Eva Le Gallienne, and became a member of Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre company. By 1927, the two women were involved in an affair and Hutchinson and Bell, who separated in 1928, were divorced in 1930. The press quickly dubbed her Le Gallienne's "shadow", a term which at the time meant lesbian. Both actresses survived the scandal and carried on with their respective careers.

Hutchinson's Broadway debut came in The Bird Cage (1925). Her other Broadway credits included The Cherry Orchard (1933), Alice in Wonderland (1932), Dear Jane (1932), Alison's House (1931), Camille (1931), Alison's House (1930), The Women Have Their Way (1930), The Living Corpse (1929), Mademoiselle Bourrat (1929), The Cherry Orchard (1929), The Seagull (1929), Peter Pan (1928), The Cherry Orchard (1928), Hedda Gabler (1928), Improvisations in June (1928), The First Stone (1928), 2 x 2 = 5 (1927), The Good Hope (1927), Inheritors (1927), The Cradle Song (1927), Twelfth Night (1926), The Unchastened Woman (1926), and A Man's Man (1925).

Hutchinson and Le Gallienne were intimately involved for a number of years. Although Hutchinson was married three times, Le Gallienne never married. Hutchinson married James F. Townsend in 1935; they later divorced. Her final marriage was to actor Staats Cotsworth in 1972; he died in 1979.

At Universal, she played Elsa von Frankenstein in one of her more memorable roles alongside actor Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff in Son of Frankenstein (1939). She later played Mrs. Townsend in North by North West (1959) and Love Is Better Than Ever, starring Elizabeth Taylor.

On television, she made four guest appearances on Perry Mason. In 1958, she played Leona Walsh in "The Case of the Screaming Woman". In 1959, she played Miriam Baker in "The Case of the Spanish Cross". In 1961, she played Miss Sarah McKay in "The Case of the Barefaced Witness", and in 1962, she played Amelia Corning in "The Case of the Mystified Miner".

In The Rifleman episode "The Prodigal" in 1960, she played Christine, outlaw Billy St. John's mother.

Hutchinson continued to work steadily through the 1970s in film, radio, and television, establishing a solid career in supporting roles. She appeared on Rawhide in 1962 in the episode "Grandma's Money", The Twilight Zone in the episode "I Sing the Body Electric", and Gunsmoke.. She also appeared in the 1974 episode of Little House on the Prairie (If I Should Wake Before I Die).

She died, aged 94, on June 4, 1998 at the Florence Nightingale Nursing Home in Manhattan. Her ashes were scattered near her niece’s home at Springfield, Oregon.