German postcard by H.S.K.-Verlag, Kölm (Cologne), no. 506. Photo: Paramount. Mona Freeman in Copper Canyon (John Farrow, 1950).
Belgian postcard, no. 119. Photo: Warner Bros.
The first of the 'Miss Subway' girls
Monica Elizabeth Freeman was born in 1926 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Her father, Stuart Freeman, was a contractor. She worked as a professional model while still in high school. She was a teenage cover girl for John Robert Powers and was the first of the 'Miss Subway' girls of the New York City transit system in 1940.
Freeman was signed to a film contract by Howard Hughes, who gave her a two-year contract after seeing one of her photographs on a magazine cover. Paramount wound up buying out her contract from Hughes, while she had never done a bit of work for the eccentric mogul.
The 18-year-old's first role was as Barbara Stanwyck's teen stepdaughter in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) but she photographed so young, she was replaced by Jean Heather. She still made her debut in the film, however, when she was instead handed a one-line bit part as Edward G. Robinson's secretary.
She was also cast to play Elizabeth Taylor's older sister in National Velvet (Clarence Brown, 1944) but once again was replaced (by Angela Lansbury) because she did not look old enough. In truth, Mona was six years Taylor's senior.
She became a popular teenage film star in such films as Junior Miss (George Seaton, 1945), That Brennan Girl (Alfred Santell, 1946) and Mother Wore Tights (Walter Lang, 1947) with Betty Grable as her mother. After a series of roles as a pretty, naive teenager she complained of being typecast.
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1081. Photo: Paramount.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no W. 573. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Working her way out of the teenage ingénue role
As Mona Freeman worked her way out of the teenage ingénue role, however, she found that she had less success in adult roles, and instead of landing parts in A pictures she found herself relegated to B Westerns and somewhat tawdry crime dramas like Flesh and Fury (Joseph Pevney, 1952) with Tony Curtis and Jan Sterling, and the British production Before I Wake (Albert S. Rogell, 1955) with Jean Kent.
An exception was her role in the Film Noir Angel Face (Otto Preminger, 1952), with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. She also co-starred in the hit comedy Jumping Jacks (Norman Taurog, 1952), with the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
She retired from film and toured with Edward G. Robinson in a 1958 production of Paddy Chayefsky's 'Middle of the Night' and over the next years appeared on television in such series as Wagon Train, Maverick, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and in multiple episodes of the United States Steel Hour and Perry Mason.
Her final role was in the TV film Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (George McCowan, 1972) with Martin Landau. In later years she ran an art studio and gallery and became a portrait painter of note.
Mona Freeman passed away in 2014 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. She was married twice. In 1945, she married Patrick Weldon Nerney, a wealthy Hollywood auto dealer. They had one child, actress Monie Ellis (1947), and divorced in 1953. Her second husband was Los Angeles businessman Jack Ellis, whom she married in 1961. He officially adopted Mona's daughter and the couple remained together till his death in 1992.
Italian postcard in the Divi del Cinema Series, no. 31.
Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, A.X., no 1055. Photo: Paramount.
American Arcade card.
Sources: Bob Hufford (Find A Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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