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Jean Willes
Biography:
Jean Willes' sly, hard-boiled painted ladies gussied up a number of "B" level 50s and 60s comedy and drama. Usually gaudy and cheap in style with money, men or fame (or all of the above) permeating their avid, aggressive little minds, this brassy, curvaceous blonde (sometimes brunette) was scattered all over the place on both the large and small screen during her heyday. If she appeared in a comedy she was probably a golddigger or emasculating wife; if it was a melodrama she was most assur... more
Jean Willes' sly, hard-boiled painted ladies gussied up a number of "B" level 50s and 60s comedy and drama. Usually gaudy and cheap in style with money, men or fame (or all of the above) permeating their avid, aggressive little minds, this brassy, curvaceous blonde (sometimes brunette) was scattered all over the place on both the large and small screen during her heyday. If she appeared in a comedy she was probably a golddigger or emasculating wife; if it was a melodrama she was most assuredly a prostitute or party girl; if it was a crimer she was usually the gun moll; if it was a western she was no doubt a tough-as-nails saloon girl, and if the picture had a war setting she was probably a resolute WAC or WAVE. A forceful, sometimes intimidating presence, she was a durable player but remained in the secondary ranks despite her potential. She came off as a wily, smarter version of a Barbara Nichols or Iris Adrian, and, in retrospect, was certainly capable of much more than she was given during her three-decade plus career. She was born Jean Donahue in Los Angeles on April 15, 1923, and was raised for a time in Utah before moving with her family to Seattle, Washington. Interested in an acting career, she eventually returned to the town of her birth and started showing up in comedy film shorts for Columbia in 1942 under her own name. She typically dished out a haranguing wife or played a smart and sexy foil to such enjoyable funsters as Harry Langdon, Andy Clyde, Eddie Foy Jr., Joe DeRita, Sterling Holloway Hugh Herbert, Harry von Zell, Max Baer, the duo of Wally Vernon and Eddie Quillan, and The Three Stooges in a number of their various vehicles. Following a series of bit parts in such feature length films as So Proudly We Hail! (1943), Here Come the Waves (1944), and Salty O'Rourke (1945), Jean married a professional wrestler in 1947 and began using the marquee name of Willes, her married name. After years of small or unbilled parts, Jean finally began earning co-star status in such post-war feature-length programmers as Revenue Agent (1950) opposite Douglas Kennedy, in one of A Yank in Indo-China (1952), and one of Johnny Weissmuller's "Jungle Jim" outings, but she wisely continued to appear in her bread-and-butter comedy shorts, knowing where her steady income still came from. Jean became a standard cheesecake fixture in the Hollywood maelstrom and her work on film and TV continued to flow. If she was lucky enough to score a role in an "A" film, she was barely glimpsed as in the topnotch Bob Hope comedy Son of Paleface (1952) and the classic "Best Picture" war epic From Here to Eternity (1953). Guest spots on TV were more visible and she was frequently seen in westerns settings ("Wyatt Earp," "Maverick") and crime dramas ("Perry Mason"). Largely an unsympathetic player, she occasionally played decent ladies and could also touch you with a good tawdry, hard-luck story. Showier roles in films came in the form of a nurse who succumbs to the aliens in the cult sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and as one of four gals vying for the attentions of an aging Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens (1956), one of his lesser efforts. A definitive product of the late 40s and 50s, she began to be seen less and less by the time the 1960s rolled around. She could be spotted in Ocean's Eleven (1960) and as Ernest Borgnine's girlfriend in the film version of McHale's Navy (1964), which were rather standard. Her last films came with The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) and Bite the Bullet (1975). She retired the following year after a few more TV roles, and died in the Van Nuys, California of liver cancer on January 3, 1989, at the age of 65. Her second husband was NFL football player Gerard Cowhig who died at their Van Nuys home in 1995. They had one son, Gerry.
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