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Jean Hagen

Jean Hagen

Acting

Biography

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

The Andy Griffith Show
7.6

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960 and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife, a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee, and a precocious young son, Opie. Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. Andy Griffith stated in a Today Show interview, with respect to the time period of the show: "Well, though we never said it, and though it was shot in the '60s, it had a feeling of the '30s. It was when we were doing it, of a time gone by." The series never placed lower than seventh in the Nielsen ratings and ended its final season at number one. It has been ranked by TV Guide as the 9th-best show in American television history. Though neither Griffith nor the show won awards during its eight-season run, series co-stars Knotts and Bavier accumulated a combined total of six Emmy Awards. The show, a semi-spin-off from an episode of The Danny Thomas Show titled "Danny Meets Andy Griffith", spawned its own spin-off series, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., and a reunion telemovie, Return to Mayberry. The show's enduring popularity has generated a good deal of show-related merchandise. Reruns currently air on TV Land, and the complete series is available on DVD. All eight seasons are also now available by streaming video services such as Netflix.

The Andy Griffith Show

1960Series
The Detectives
6.7

The Detectives is an American crime drama series which ran on ABC during its first two seasons, and on NBC during its third and final season. The series, starring motion picture star Robert Taylor, was produced by Four Star Television. Captain Matt Holbrook (Robert Taylor) is head of the detective division of a large metropolitan police force—a man whose devotion to duty, professional brilliance, and quick judgment are reflected in his 20-year career on the force. His aides, Lt. Johnny Russo (Tige Andrews), Lt. Otto Lindstrom (Russ Thorson), and Sgt. Chris Ballard (Mark Goddard) form a team that is both proficient and warmly human. The stories stress the interrelationships between the men as well as the solutions to crimes and the apprehension of criminals, adding a dimension of human drama to the excitement, action, and suspense inherent in each story of the detectives' difficult, sometimes thankless, and frequently dangerous assignments.

The Detectives

1959Series
Stagecoach West
6.7

Stagecoach West is an American Western drama television series which ran for thirty-eight episodes on the ABC network from October 4, 1960, until June 27, 1961. Characters Luke Perry and Simon Kane operate the Timberland Stage Line from fictitious Outpost, Missouri to San Francisco, California. Simon's 15-year-old son, David "Davey" Kane, joins the two as they face stagecoach robbers, murderers, inclement weather, and human interest stories. Perry and Kane, who are both deputy U.S. marshals, had been on opposite sides of the American Civil War; Kane, a captain in the Union Army, while Perry had fought for the Confederate States of America. The one-hour black-and-white program was offered at 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays opposite NBC's Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff, and CBS's The Red Skelton Show. Rogers became well-known a dozen years later on M*A*S*H, and Bray later portrayed the forest ranger Corey Stuart on Lassie from 1964–1969, both on CBS. Child actor Richard Eyer had starred in a number of films in the 1950s, including Friendly Persuasion and Desperate Hours. Stagecoach West was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television. It is believed that the series was cancelled despite the high quality of its production because of the glut of westerns on television at the time that it aired. The same fate had fallen on CBS's Johnny Ringo, a 1959 one-season spin-off of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.

Stagecoach West

1960Series