After traveling to London to undertake the female lead in the 1956 screen adaptation of George Orwell's "1984", Sterling starred in the title role of the syndicated TV series "Publicity Girl". While she continued to act up to the 1980s, she tended to concentrate more on stage work (i.e., touring as the mother in "Butterflies Are Free"), accepting the occasional film and TV role. In 1967, she was among the ensemble of "The Incident" (1967), about a crime that occurs on a NYC subway, and she was one of the few big name stars to grace the small screen in a regular role on a soap opera when she joined the cast of CBS' "The Guiding Light" in 1969. Ten years later, she essayed the role of First Lady Lou Hoover in the NBC miniseries "Backstairs at the White House". In 1981, she had her last screen role (to date), playing the wife of a US Supreme Court Justice (played by Walter Matthau) in the comedy "First Monday in October" and the following year, she made her last TV appearance (to date) as the mother of a reformed convict (Beau Bridges) in the CBS drama "Dangerous Company".
Sterling was married twice, first to actor John Merrivale (from 1941 to 1948) and then to actor Paul Douglas (from 1950 until his death in 1959).