Jeanne Crain

Sweet, fresh-faced and pretty former beauty queen, who went to entered films as a 20th Century Fox starlet in 1943, before she was 20. From her earliest films ("State Fair" 1945, "Centennial Summer" 1946), Crain exclusively played wholesome, girl-next-door ingenues or young just-married women in a series of light entertainments, until she was cast against type in the Elia Kazan racial drama "Pinky" (1949), about a young black woman passing for white. In the 1950s, Crain's attempt to reshape her screen personality to a more glamourous image and more sophisticated fare met with only moderate success. She did appear in several interesting films, including Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "People Will Talk" (1951) and Jean Negulesco's "Take Care of My Little Girl" (1953). Her stardom petered out toward the end of the decade and her work since 1960 has been very sporadic. Married since 1945, she is the mother of seven children.

• Born:
  May 25, 1925 in Barstow, California, USA
• Died:
  December 14, 2003.
• Job Titles:
  Actor, Model

Family

• Daughter: Jeanine Cherie Brinkman. born in March 1952
• Daughter: Lisabett A Brinkman. born in November 1957
• Daughter: Maria J Brinkman. born in January 1960
• Father: George Crain. became head of English department at Inglewood High School in Los Angeles
• Mother: Loretta Crain.
• Sister: Rita Marie Crain. born in January 1927; served as Jeanne s stand-in during the mid-1940s
• Son: Christopher Brinkman. born on May 25, 1965
• Son: Michael Anthony Brinkman. born in January 1949
• Son: Paul Frederick Brinkman. born in April 1947
• Son: Timothy Peter Brinkman. born in August 1950

Education

• Inglewood High School
• St Mary s Academy

Milestones

• 1926 Family moved to Los Angeles (date approximate)
• 1941 Named Miss Long Beach (the Miss California contest) and became runner-up in Miss America finals
• 1941 While in high school, tested by Orson Welles for Lucy (the Anne Baxter role) in The Magnificent Ambersons
• 1941 Won Interscholastic Shakespearean Contest held at Occidental College
• 1942 Named Camera Girl of 1942
• 1943 Screen debut (posing in a bathing suit) in The Gang s All Here
• 1944 Screen acting debut, Home in Indiana
• Beauty contests led to modeling on covers of CORONET, LADIES HOME JOURNAL and TRUE ROMANCE
• Signed by 20th Century Fox for their starlet school