
Jean Hagen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jean Hagen (born Jean Shirley Verhagen, August 3, 1923 – August 29, 1977) was an American actress best known for her role as Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain (1952), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Hagen was also nominated three times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Margaret Williams (1953–56) on the television series Make Room For Daddy.
Her film debut was as a comical femme fatale in the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn 1949 classic Adam's Rib, directed by George Cukor. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) provided Hagen with her first starring role alongside Sterling Hayden. Hagen received excellent reviews playing "Doll" Conover, a woman who sticks by criminal Dix's side until the bitter end. She appeared too in the film noir Side Street (1950) playing a gangster's sincere but none-too-bright nightclub-singer girlfriend.
Hagen is best remembered for her comic performance in Singin' in the Rain as the vain and talentless silent movie star Lina Lamont. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this memorable performance.
By 1953, she had joined the cast of the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy. For her portrayal as the first wife of Danny Thomas, Hagen received three Emmy Award nominations, but after three seasons, she grew dissatisfied with the role and left the series. Thomas, who also produced the show, reportedly did not appreciate Hagen's departing the successful series, and her character was killed off rather than recast. This was the first TV character to be killed off in a family sitcom. Marjorie Lord was cast a year later as Danny's second wife and played opposite Thomas successfully for the remainder of the series.
In 1957 Hagen co-starred in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents titled "Enough Rope for Two", portraying a woman who accompanies two thieves trying to retrieve stolen money from a desert mine shaft. She then appeared as Elizabeth in the 1960 episode "Once Upon a Knight" on CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson; and the following year she guest-starred on The Andy Griffith Show in the episode "Andy and the Woman Speeder".
Although she made frequent guest appearances in various television series, Hagen was unable to successfully resume her film career in starring roles. After appearing with Fred MacMurray in the Disney comedy The Shaggy Dog (1959), Hagen for the remainder of her career played supporting roles, such as Marguerite LeHand, personal secretary to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960), and the friend of Bette Davis in Dead Ringer (1964). In the 1960s, Hagen's health began to decline and she spent many years hospitalized or under medical care. Much later, in 1976, she made a comeback of sorts playing character roles in episodes of the television series Starsky and Hutch and The Streets of San Francisco. She, however, made her final acting appearance the next year in the television movie Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 0.074 |
Birthday | 1923-08-03 |
Place of Birth | Chicago, Illinois, USA |
Also Known As | Jean Shirley Verhagen, Jean Verhagen, |

1952

Singin' in the Rain
8.1/3198
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
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Singin' in the Rain

1964

Dead Ringer
6.9/104
The working class twin sister of a callous wealthy woman impulsively murders her out of revenge and assumes the identity of the dead woman. But impers...
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Dead Ringer

1949

Adam's Rib
7.1/310
A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who...
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Adam's Rib

1962

Panic in Year Zero!
6.2/95
While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and...
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Panic in Year Zero!

1959

The Shaggy Dog
6.1/91
Through an ancient spell, a boy changes into a sheepdog and back again. It seems to happen at inopportune times and the spell can only be broken by an...
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The Shaggy Dog

1952

Carbine Williams
6.4/17
David Marshall Williams is sent to a prison farm where he works in the tool shop and eventually develops the precursor of the famous M-1 Carbine autom...
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Carbine Williams

1960

The Snows of Kilimanjaro
0/0
A writer reflects on his life as he lies dying from an infection after a safari in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, after Earnest Hemingway's short st...
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The Snows of Kilimanjaro

1950

The Asphalt Jungle
7.476/486
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of v...
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The Asphalt Jungle

1955

The Big Knife
6/83
Movie star Charlie Castle draws the ire of Hollywood producer Stanley Hoff when he refuses to sign a new seven-year contract. Castle is sick of the lo...
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The Big Knife

1950

Side Street
6.6/35
A struggling young father-to-be gives in to temptation and impulsively steals an envelope of money from the office of a corrupt attorney. Instead of a...
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Side Street

1960

Sunrise at Campobello
6/14
The story of Franklin Roosevelt's bout with polio at age 40 in 1921 and how his family (and especially his wife Eleanor) cope with his illness. From b...
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Sunrise at Campobello

1951

No Questions Asked
6/16
With the help of some seedy gangsters, young attorney Steve Keiver makes some quick cash by bending the law, and in the process, he impresses the mobs...
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No Questions Asked

1953

Arena
4.7/9
Left by his wife, a vain rodeo star picks up a floozy and rides a bad Brahman bull.
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Arena

1950

Ambush
5.1/14
A Westerner searches for a white woman held by the Apaches.
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Ambush

1952

Shadow in the Sky
6.6/5
Burt, a Marine suffering from Battle Fatigue, is deathly afraid of rain and confined to an asylum, but showing improvement. He wants to live with his...
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Shadow in the Sky

1957

Spring Reunion
5.8/4
A spinster finally finds the right man when she returns to her alma mater after 15 years for a class reunion.
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Spring Reunion

1953

Latin Lovers
4.6/7
An heiress searches for true love while vacationing in Brazil.
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Latin Lovers

1950

A Life of Her Own
5.3/18
A young woman from Kansas moves to New York City, becomes highly successful at a prestigious modeling agency, and falls in love with a married man.
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A Life of Her Own

1953

Half a Hero
5.5/2
A man moves his family from the big city to the suburbs.
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Half a Hero

1977

Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn
5.9/8
In this sequel to Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Alexander's story is told in both the past and the present. Alexander's parents send him away f...
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Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

1951

Night Into Morning
5.8/9
Berkeley university professor adjusts (using alcohol) to tragic fire deaths of wife & son.
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Night Into Morning

2002

Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer
7.7/6
American Masters Series. Documentary on Gene Kelly that gives insight into his dancing, how he formed a style (first "blue collar dancer") and develop...
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