Gibbs, who was the third of four children, born as Margaret Bradley in Chicago, Illinois, to Douglas Bradley, a self-taught mechanic (later ice truck carrier), and Ophelia Birdie Kemp, a grocery store clerk and a restaurant manager, who would also worked in a church theater, where her mother would charged the whole family $1.00 to watch a show, 10 cents for the children and 25 cents for the adults. Her mother also sold all the snacks in the concession stand. Her grandmother also ran a boarding home, where there were 3 rooms, had done most of the ironing little Margaret had tried. In 1935, a distraught Margaret soon realized her parents were getting divorced as her mother left Chicago to pursue a popular evangelical ministry on radio in another midwestern state. As a young film buff of the 1940s, she grew up watching the movies in the likes of: Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power and Vivien Leigh, as she would go out to certain movie theaters. She also learned there were almost no African-American moviestars, who were so popular at the time. She once had a crush on William Marshall, prior to acting.

Despite of her parents divorce, Margaret stayed with her father and two siblings in Chicago, while her mother moved to Detroit, Michigan. Her older sister, Vera Louise, was named after her own aunt, Margaret was named after her own aunt, and her younger sister, Freda was named after her aunt's husband's-sister. She's of German descent by her grandfather. From what little Margaret has been raised, her mother had a lot of sayings, she didn't understand at the time, though mostly what she said are true. At a very young age, she wanted to adopt and save each and every one of the dogs. She lost one of her four dogs, one disappeared and she went looking for the other, she didn't find the other dog. She went to the pound, where she was told about the dogs and the final cage, who only had five days to live. Nobody adopted them, they were all dead.[citation needed] She wanted to have all the dogs, but couldn't get them all, she was only allowed to pick one. She tried to get the dog to her grandmother's house, but her grandmother wouldn't allow her too, hence, Margaret was kicked out of her house, that same year she graduated from Chicago's popular Wendell Phillips High School, in 1949. It was also at Wendell Phillips (where she attended, and became a classmate to the late Sam Cooke).

After her father's death at 16, and the eviction of her grandmother's at 18, she couldn't take her dog back to the pound. She took her dog to reside at her best friend's house, whom she had given a dog to, who in turn, her best friend also had a dog. The cat came by the window suffered a busted eye, and was immediately taken in - hence, her best friend, had had enough. Young Margaret took the Chicago Transit Authority bus, where she took the cat in the bag, to the veterinarian. The vet said she couldn't take the cat in the bag, after badgering the veterinarian, he took Bradley around and showed her some other pets, including birds, among other things that other pet customers had brought, but never came back, hence, she couldn't take her cat back, hence, she was forced to keep it, feeding the cat some food.[citation needed] Her best friend had insisted on Margaret and herself to give up the place, hence, they both had to let their own dogs go. She was also looking for work. Her best friend told her to lie on just about everything. Margaret's first job was working in the Garment District, where she jumped up though she came up with the name of A.H. Gleberman, and said she'd made it someplace else like Racine, Wisconsin. She went in and had the experience working as a factor, wiping chalk marks on clothing. One of the staff came in to work, and Bradley's boss said of another co-worker she was let go, hence she used her time card to clock her, and was determined to work. The next day, going against the boss's orders, the same co-worker of Bradley's came back to work, clock in, but was already informed, she was fired, hence, Margaret's boss had stopped using her as an employee. Bradley was asked by her best friend if she had any sewing experience, and she said yes, fortunately for Margaret and unfortunately for her best friend, she didn't know how to turn the sewing machine on. She later worked at a men's factory, whose job was to straighten up the zippers while cutting the ribbons. Plus she was celebrating for doing her work, though she was too slow.

Later, she worked at Service Bindary, who did her usual two jobs, making sure there was succession of jobs, she went in for an interview realizing they weren't hiring. Later, her boss told her the work was hiring and was immediately taken in, after reviewing her application. Her job was to take the easels, at the time, they made all the displays, where it was a mounting in a book-bindary company. Every display have been stood up with an easel, like a cardboard, where they pull the easel on the back and hose it up. She ran the easels through the glue machine, and put it over there. She got a lot of experience in working through that. She also hired a lot of people for the job. She also had a job working in the mailroom. In the same situation as her previous job (in the factory), one of her co-workers, the mailclerk, had one beer too many and continued using the bathroom, until her boss was furious with her co-worker, noticing he wasn't there, hence, she was just sitting there, waiting for him to return. Despite of her co-worker's drinking behavior, he got fired and Bradley took over.

A lady who grew up with her wanted to know from her if Bradley knew how to run a switchboard, when she didn't, hence, she stayed in the mailroom.

She wanted to be a comedic actress, playing the kind of roles she would more likely to do. Despite not doing dramatic roles, Bradley eventually wound up in comedy.

Before she got to do some acting, she also worked in a all-black Gotham hotel in Detroit, where she worked as a switchboard, the job that everybody was more familiar with her, and later she worked for the Department of Street Railways, where she worked for a switchboard in a bus company.

In order for her to become an actress, she legally changed her name from Margaret Bradley to Marla Gibbs. This was because her name was too long, she wanted to go with the ebb and flow of her newly, rechristened name.

Before the start of the acting career, between 1963 and 1975, Gibbs had worked as an airline attendant with United Airlines before relocating with her children from Detroit to Los Angeles. Soon afterwards, she joined PASLA (Performing Arts Society of Los Angeles) with her daughter, Angela, and studied at the Mafundi Institute and Watts Writers Workshop (both in Watts, California). Ms. Gibbs soon performed in several well-received productions including Medea, Amen Corner and The Gingerbread Lady at the Zodiac Theatre.

Gibbs also had a wide variety of guest-starring roles. She made her guest-starring debut on an episode of Barney Miller. The part led to other roles such as: The Love Boat, 3 episodes of Pryor's Place opposite Richard Pryor, A Different World, In The Heat of the Night, Empty Nest, Lincoln Heights, she reprised her role as Florence Johnston on the very last episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, 2 episodes of Martial Law, Touched By An Angel with Roma Downey and Della Reese, Dawson's Creek, Happily Ever After, The King of Queens, Judging Amy, ER, The Rerun Show, among many others.