Jean Hagen

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.

Hagen was born on August 3, 1923 in Chicago to Christian Verhagen, a Dutch immigrant, and his Chicago-born wife Marie. 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. She also worked as a theater usherette.

Radio

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

Stage

Hagen first appeared on Broadway in Swan Song. She acted in Another Part of the Forest, Ghosts, Born Yesterday, and The Traitor.

Film and television

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. Hagen received excellent reviews playing 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 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 departure and her character was killed off rather than recast, 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 The DuPont Show with June Allyson; 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 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 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 Seidel (b. 1950) and Aric Phillip Seidel (1952–2012). 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. 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.'" A Democrat, she supported the run of Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 presidential election.

Hagen died at age 54 of esophageal cancer on August 29, 1977 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, and was buried in Chapel of the Pines Crematory.

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