Crain was born in Barstow, California, to George A. Crain, who was a high school English teacher,[1] and Loretta Crain, née Carr. Both of Crain's parents were Roman Catholics of Irish descent.[2] By 1930, they were living in Inglewood, California at 822 S. Walnut Avenue.[3] When her parents divorced in 1934, her mother, her sister Rita Marie (who served as Crain's stand-in during the mid-1940s), and she moved to 5817 Van Ness Ave in Los Angeles.[4][1]
Crain began winning leads in school plays at 14 and beauty contests at 15. An excellent ice skater, she first attracted attention when she was crowned Miss Pan-Pacific at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles. She attended Inglewood High School where her father was head of the English department.[1][5] While still in high school, she was asked to take a screen test with Orson Welles, but she did not get the part. After high school, she enrolled at UCLA to study drama. In 1943, at age 18, she appeared in a bit part in the film The Gang's All Here, produced by 20th Century Fox.[6][7]
Career
20th Century Fox
State Fair trailer for her third lead starring role
At age 19, Crain was cast by Fox in her first sizable role, in the romantic drama Home in Indiana (1944) with Walter Brennan, in which she played the love interest of Lon McCallister's character. The film, shot in Technicolor, was popular at the box office and established Crain as a film name.[8]
Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Fox, gave Crain top billing in In the Meantime, Darling (1944), directed by Otto Preminger, where she played a war bride. Her acting was critically panned, but she gained nationwide attention. It resulted in her landing the lead role in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim in October 1944, a musical film which was eventually made with Betty Grable as the star.[9]
Crain first received critical acclaim when she starred in Winged Victory (1944). She co-starred in 1945 with Dana Andrews in the musical film State Fair, where Louanne Hogan dubbed Crain's singing. After that, Crain often had singing parts in films, and they were invariably dubbed, usually by Hogan.
State Fair was a hit, as was Leave Her to Heaven (1945), in which Crain played the "good" sister of her "bad" sibling, played by Gene Tierney, both of whom are in love with Cornel Wilde's character. Crain became established as one of Fox's bigger stars—so much so that Zanuck refused to let her play the comparatively small part of Clementine in My Darling Clementine (1946).
Crain and Wilde were reunited in Centennial Summer (1946), directed by Preminger, Fox's attempt to match the success of Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). More popular was Margie (1946), which displayed her ice skating ability, and where she and Conrad Janis danced around the ice rink as her boyfriend, played by Alan Young, slipped and stumbled after them.
Crain had another big success when she starred with Myrna Loy and Clifton Webb in the 1950 biographical film Cheaper by the Dozen, although hers was more of a supporting role. She had a cameo as herself in I'll Get By (1951) and starred in Take Care of My Little Girl (1951), a mildly popular drama about snobbery in college sororities.
Next, Crain paired with Cary Grant in the Joseph L. Mankiewicz film of the offbeat comedy/drama People Will Talk (1951). Despite Crain's intense campaigning for the female lead, Anne Baxter was initially cast in the part; but when she had to forfeit due to pregnancy, Crain got the role after all.[10]
While still at 20th Century Fox, Crain played a young wife losing her mind amid high-seas intrigue in Dangerous Crossing (1953), co-starring Michael Rennie. She starred in Vicki (1953), a remake of I Wake Up Screaming; and Fox tried her in a Western, City of Bad Men (1954). Both films performed only mildly at the box office, and Crain left the studio.
Universal
Crain in 1954
Crain made Duel in the Jungle (1954) in Britain and then Man Without a Star (1955), a Western with Kirk Douglas at Universal, where she played the lead female role of a hard-nosed ranch-owner.
She showed her dancing skills in 1955's Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, a quasi-sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes based on Anita Loos' novel and co-starring Jane Russell. The film was shot partly in Paris and was released in France as A Paris Pour les Quatre (To Paris for the Four), and in Belgium as Cevieren Te Parijs. Later in the 1950s, Crain, Russell, and another actress formed a short-lived singing and dancing lounge act on the Las Vegas Strip.
Crain dancing with her husband Paul Brinkman at the Mocambo, 1946
At the height of her stardom in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Crain was known as "Hollywood's Number One party girl", and she was quoted as saying she was invited to at least 200 parties a year.[13]
Against her mother's wishes, on December 31, 1945, Crain married Paul Brinkman,[5] a former contract player at RKO Pictures who was credited as Paul Brooks. He later became a top executive with an arms manufacturing company. They had seven children.[14]
In the mid-1950s, the marriage became rocky and Crain obtained an interlocutory divorce decree. Each claimed the other was unfaithful, and she alleged he was abusive. However, they reconciled on December 31, 1956,[15] and Crain had three more children with Brinkman through 1965.[1]
In the early 1960s, she was one of many conservative actors who spent their time promoting the Republican Party.[14]
Crain and her husband remained married, although they later lived separately in Santa Barbara County, maintaining an amicable relationship, with Brinkman visiting Crain approximately once a month and on her birthday.[14] Brinkman died in October 2003.[5][6]
Crain's career is documented in the Jeanne Crain Collection of memorabilia assembled by Charles J. Finlay, a longtime 20th Century Fox publicist, which resides at the Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.[19]
Her son, Paul F. Brinkman Jr., a television executive, is most known for his work on the television series JAG.[20]
^Kirby, Walter (February 3, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 40. Retrieved June 3, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
^Kirby, Walter (February 22, 1953). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 40. Retrieved June 23, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
