In 1954, Whitfield was only 15 years old when she played the lead role in the musical comedy White Christmas.

She played Susan Waverly, who is the granddaughter of Major General Thomas Waverly (Dean Jagger), who owns the Columbia Inn hotel where Danny Kaye as Phil Davis and Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace take the stage.

Whitfield kept playing small parts in movies throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Her last movie role was in Robert Altman’s 1999 comedy Cookies’ Fortune.