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 known professionally as Mildred Brenner), one of 18 children of a pioneer family that came to Montana from Missouri and Iowa. Jean's maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister.
Parker was an accomplished gymnast and dancer, and was adopted by the Spickard family of Pasadena during her formative years when both her father and mother were unemployed during the Great Depression. As Lois Green, she entered a poster-painting contest and won for portraying Father Time. Ida Koverman, assistant to MGM studio chief
Louis B. Mayer, heard that a pretty teenage girl had won the contest; she contacted the would-be starlet, and had Mayer offer her an MGM contract.
Parker made several important films in her career, including
The Ghost Goes West (1935) with
Robert Donat;
Sequoia (1934) with
Russell Hardie, shot in the Sequoia National Forest near Springville, California;
Little Women (1933) with
Joan Bennett and
Katharine Hepburn;
Operator 13 (1934) with
Marion Davies; and many other films.
After several successful cross-country trips entertaining injured servicemen during World War II, 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" with
Bert Lahr, and in the hit "Born Yesterday", 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.
Parker died on November 30, 2005 at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, aged 90, from a stroke. She was survived by her son and two granddaughters, Katie and Nora Hanks.
Apache Uprising(1965)as Mrs. Hawks
Frontier Doctor(1958)as Liz Lambert
The Parson and the Outlaw(1957)as Mrs. Sarah Jones
The Red Skelton Hour(1951)as Clara Appleby
Private Secretary(1953)as Edmee Esmond
Zenobia(1939)
A Wicked Woman(1934)
You Can't Buy Everything(1934)
Little Women(1933)
Pantomime Quiz(1947)as Self
Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen(2004)
Living Famously(2002)as Georgette
The Laurel and Hardy Show(1986)as Georgette, Mary Tibbett (1986)
Cocoon(1985)as Character in film clip from 'Flying Deuces'
