Jean Hagen

Jean Hagen
Hagen in 1955
Born	Jean Shirley Verhagen (1923-08-03)August 3, 1923 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	August 29, 1977(1977-08-29) (aged 54) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Northwestern University
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1945–1977
Spouse	Tom Seidel ​ ​ (m. 1947; div. 1965)​
Children	2

Jean Hagen (born Jean Shirley Verhagen;^[a] August 3, 1923 – August 29, 1977) was an American actress best known for her role as Doll Conovan in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and 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 on the first three seasons (1953–56) of the television series The Danny Thomas Show (when titled as Make Room for Daddy).^[2]

Hagen was born August 3, 1923, in Chicago, to Christian Verhagen, a Dutch immigrant, and Marie, his Chicago-born wife. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, when she was 12, and she graduated from Elkhart High School. She studied drama at Northwestern University, where she was a roommate of actress Patricia Neal. She graduated from Northwestern in 1945.^[3] She also worked as an usher.^[4]

Hagen began her show-business career in radio in the 1940s performing in Light of the World, Hollywood Story, and other programs.^[5] Using her birth name (Jean Verhagen), she played Betty Webster on Those Websters.^[6]

Hagen first appeared on Broadway in Swan Song. She acted in Another Part of the Forest, Ghosts, Born Yesterday,^[5][7] and The Traitor.^[8]

Her film debut was as a comical femme fatale in the 1949 Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn film Adam's Rib, directed by George Cukor. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) provided Hagen with her first starring role. Hagen played Doll Conover, a woman who sticks by criminal Dix's side until the bitter end. She appeared in the film noir Side Street (1950), playing a gangster's sincere but dim girlfriend. Hagen gave a memorable comic performance in Singin' in the Rain as the vain, spoiled, and talentless silent film star Lina Lamont. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.^[9]

By 1953, she had joined the cast of the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy. After she left the show, Marjorie Lord was cast as Danny's second wife and played opposite Thomas 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 The DuPont Show with June Allyson; Also in 1960, Hagen was Marie Brandt on Wagon Train in the episode "The Marie Brandt Story"; and in 1963 Hagen portrayed Sarah Proctor on Wagon Train in the episode “The Sarah Proctor Story”. 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 television series, Hagen was unable to resume her film career in starring roles. Her health began to decline due to an alcohol problem and she spent many years hospitalized or under medical care in the 1960s.^[10] After appearing with Fred MacMurray in the Disney comedy The Shaggy Dog (1959), for the remainder of her career she 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).

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 made her final acting appearance the next year in the television movie Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn.

Jean Hagen married actor Tom Seidel (who originated the role of Dr. Sanderson in the play Harvey) on June 12, 1947, in Brentwood, California. The couple had two children, Christine Patricia and Aric Phillip. According to Lorraine LoBianco's authoritative biography, Seidel, in his attempt to stop his wife from drinking, divorced her and gained custody of the children. It did not work; Hagen's alcoholism only worsened, finally becoming so severe by 1968 that she was hospitalized and lapsed into a coma at UCLA Medical Center. She managed to survive the ordeal, and her daughter, Christine, said that after she emerged from the coma, Hagen never drank again.^[11]

Unfortunately, another health problem arose: throat cancer. Patricia Neal wrote in her autobiography that Hagen went to Germany "'for laetrile, a supposed cure unavailable in the United States. But she was bubbly and bright and so much the way I remembered her from the old days.'"^[12][13]

Hagen died, twenty-six days after her 54th birthday, of esophageal cancer on August 29, 1977, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital.^[5]

Hagen was nominated for a 1956 Emmy Award in the "Best actress (continuing performance)" category.^[14] She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1502 Vine Street for her contributions to television.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jean Hagen.

• Jean Hagen at IMDb
• Jean Hagen at the Internet Broadway Database