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Jeanne Crain (May 25, 1925 - December 14, 2003)
was an United States|American acting|actress.  

Born Jeanne Elizabeth Crain in Barstow,
California, she moved to Los Angeles,
California|Los Angeles as a young child.  While
still in high school, she was asked to make a
screen test opposite Orson Welles.  She did not
get the part, but in 1943, at the age of 18, she
appeared in a bit part in the movie The Gang's All
Here.

In 1944 she starred in Home in Indiana, and In the
Meantime, Darling.  Her acting was critically
panned, but she rebounded in the hit Winged
Victory. During World War II, Crain's fan mail was
second in volume only to that of Betty Grable. 

In 1945 she starred in State Fair, and in 1949 in
three films,A Letter to Three Wives, The Fan (1949
movie)|The Fan and Pinky (1949 movie)|Pinky, for
which she was nominated for the Academy Award for
Best Actress. Pinky was a controversial movie,
since it told the story of a girl who
passing#race|passes for white in the northern
United States. Although Lena Horne and other black
actresses were considered for the role, Darryl F.
Zanuck chose to cast a white actress for
box-office reasons.

In 1950, Crain starred opposite Myrna Loy and
Clifton Webb in Cheaper by the Dozen.  Next, Crain
paired up with Cary Grant, for the Joseph L.
Mankiewicz production of  People Will Talk (1951)
.  1952 saw Crain again teamed with Loy in the
release of Belles on Their Toes, the sequel to
Cheaper by the Dozen. Crain then starred in a
string of pictures for Universal, including
notable pairings with Kirk Douglas, such as Man
Without a Star (1955).  

Also in 1955, Crain also showed off her lively
dancing abilities in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes,
co-starring Jane Russell, Alan Young, and Rudy
Vallee. The production was filmed on location in
Paris and Crain's singing in the film was dubbed,
as was customary. The film was based on the Anita
Loos novel that was a sequel to her acclaimed
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Gentlemen Marry
Brunettes was popular throughout Europe at the
time and was released in France as A Paris Pour
les Quatre ("Paris For The Four"), and in Belgium
as Cevieren Te Parijs.

In 1956, Crain starred opposite Glenn Ford, Russ
Tamblyn, and Broderick Crawford in the compelling
Western (genre)|Western, Fastest Gun Alive. The
film was directed by Russell Rouse.

Roles became fewer in the 1960s as Crain went into
semi-retirement. Crain was captivating as
Nefertiti in the 1961 Italian production of Queen
of the Nile, with Edmund Purdom and Vincent Price.
Her last role was in Skyjacked in 1972.

Against her mother's wishes, Crain married former
RKO Studios contract player Paul Brinkman on
December 31, 1946; the first of their 7 children
was born the following April. During the early
1950s, Crain was earning approx. $3,500 per week. 
Crain and her husband Brinkman bought a large,
lovely home for their growing family on Roxbury
Drive in Beverly Hills. (The home can be seen and
is described by Bette Davis in candid footage of a
driving sequence in the 1952 now cult-classic, The
Star.) The marriage was rocky for some years.
Crain obtained an interlocutory divorce decree,
each spouse claiming the other had been unfaithful
(she also claimed Brinkman had been abusive), but
the couple reconciled on the eve of their 11th
wedding anniversary. 

As a lifelong devout Catholic, Jeanne Crain
Brinkman and her husband Paul remained married,
though they lived separately in Santa Barbara,
California, until Mr. Brinkman's death in October
of 2003. Crain passed away a few months later and
it was speculated that she died of a broken heart.
 Crain's funeral Mass was held at the Old Santa
Barbara Mission. Crain is buried in the Brinkman
family plot at Santa Barbara Cemetery.  The couple
outlived two of their children.  The Brinkmans
were survived by five adult children, including
Paul Brinkman Jr., a successful television
executive, most known for his work on CBS TV's
JAG.  Crain was also survived by many
grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Crain's career is fully documented by an
extraordinary collection of memorabilia about her
assembled by the late Charles J. Finlay (longtime
publicist at 20th Century Fox). The Jeanne Crain
collection resides perpetually at the Wesleyan
University Cinema Archives in Middletown,
Connecticut.  These archives also hold the papers
of Frank Capra, Ingrid Bergman, Clint Eastwood,
and others.

==External links==
* http://www.wesleyan.edu/cinema/ Wesleyan U. Film
Archives Website
* http://www.bretcrain.com/jeannecrain/
*imdb name|id=0002022|name=Jeanne Crain