Jean Parker

American film and stage actress Jean Parker (1915–2005) landed her first screen test while still in high school. She played the tragic Beth in the original Little Women (1933), starred as the spoiled daughter of an American chain store millionaire who persuades her nouveau riche father to transport a Scottish castle in the hilarious British fantasy-comedy The Ghost Goes West (1936), and she was a perfect stooge for Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as an innkeeper's daughter with whom Ollie falls in love in The Flying Deuces (1939).


British postcard by Art Photo, no. 177.


British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 40. Photo: M.G.M.


British postcard in the Colourgraph Series, London, no. C 203a. Photo: Paramount.

Winning a poster-painting contest

Jean Parker was born Lois Mae Green in 1915. Her father was Lewis Green, a gunsmith and hunter, and her mother was Pearl Melvina Burch. Later, her mother worked at MGM in the set department and created magnificent flowers, trees and other greenery for such notable films as National Velvet (1944), known professionally as Mildred Brenner.

Lois was an accomplished gymnast and dancer. At age 10, she was adopted by the Spickard family of Pasadena when both her father and mother were unemployed during the Great Depression. She initially aspired to be an illustrator and artist. At 17, she entered a poster-painting contest and won for portraying Father Time.

After a photograph of her was published in a Los Angeles newspaper, Ida Koverman, the assistant to MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, contacted the would-be starlet and had Mayer offer her an MGM contract.

She made her feature film debut in the pre-code drama Divorce in the Family (Charles Reisner, 1932), before being loaned to Columbia Pictures, who cast her in Frank Capra's Lady for a Day (1933).

Parker made several important films in the following years, including Little Women (George Cukor, 1933) with Joan Bennett and Katharine Hepburn; Sequoia (Chester M. Franklin, Edwin L. Marin, 1934) with Russell Hardie, shot in the Sequoia National Forest near Springville, California; Operator 13 (Richard Boleslawski, 1934) with Marion Davies and Gary Cooper; and The Ghost Goes West (René Clair, 1935) with Robert Donat.


Dutch postcard by the Rialto Theatre, Amsterdam, 1934. Photo: Remaco Radio Picture. Publicity still for Little Women (George Cukor, 1933). In the picture are Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, Jean Parker and Spring Byington. The Dutch title of the film and the book by Louise M. Alcott is Onder moeders vleugels.


Dutch postcard by JosPe, Arnhem, no. 347. Photo: M.G.M.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 950. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer (M.G.M.).


Dutch postcard by JosPe, Arnhem, no. 390. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 810. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Entertaining injured servicemen during World War II

Jean Parker remained active in film throughout the 1940s. Parker later starred in the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces (A. Edward Sutherland, 1939), followed by the sports film The Pittsburgh Kid (Jack Townley, 1941), and the Film Noir Dead Man's Eyes (Reginald Le Borg, 1944), opposite Lon Chaney Jr.

After several successful cross-country trips entertaining injured servicemen during World War II, Jean Parker wed and divorced Curt Grotter of the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, and moved on to New York to star in the play 'Loco'. She also starred on Broadway in 'Burlesque' (1946-1947) with Bert Lahr, and in the hit 'Born Yesterday' (1948), filling in for Judy Holliday.

Parker's fourth and last husband, actor Robert Lowery, played opposite her as Brock in the play for a short stint. By this marriage, Parker bore her only child, a son, Robert Lowery Hanks.

By the 1950s, Parker's film career had slowed, though she continued to appear in supporting parts in the Westerns The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950) with Gregory Peck and Toughest Man in Arizona (R. G. Springsteen, 1952), and the Film Noir Black Tuesday (Hugo Fregonese, 1954) opposite Edward G. Robinson. Parker made her final film appearance in Apache Uprising (R. G. Springsteen, 1965) starring Rory Calhoun.

Later in her career, she played in the West Coast theatre circuit and worked as an acting coach. Parker died in 2005 at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, aged 90, from a stroke. She lived there from 1998 until her death. Jean was survived by her son and two granddaughters, Katie and Nora Hanks.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, no. P 143. Photo: Fox. Charles Boyer and Jean Parker in Caravan (Erik Charell, 1934).


Dutch postcard. Sent by mail in 1948.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P. 156. Photo: M.G.M. Russell Hardie and Jean Parker in Sequoia (Chester M. Franklin, Edwin L. Marin, 1934).


British Real Photograph postcard, no. 100b. Photo: London Films. Jean Parker in The Ghost Goes West (René Clair, 1935).


British Real Photograph postcard, no. 100. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


Dutch postcard, sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1942.

Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Robert Sieger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.