page_title: Jean Parker
section_title: 1938–1949: Film and stage
hierarchical_section_title: Jean Parker / Biography / 1938–1949: Film and stage
caption_attribution_description: English: From Photoplay, 1949
context_page_description: Jean Parker was an American film and stage actress. A native of Montana, Parker's parents were indigent during the Great Depression, and she was adopted by a family in Pasadena, California at age 10. She initially aspired to have a career as an illustrator and artist, and was discovered at age 17 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executive Louis B. Mayer after a photograph of her was published in a Los Angeles newspaper following her winning a poster contest.
  She made her feature film debut in the pre-code drama Divorce in the Family, before being loaned to Columbia Pictures, who cast her in Frank Capra's Lady for a Day. The same year, she starred as Elizabeth March in George Cukor's adaptation of Little Women opposite Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, and Frances Dee. Subsequent roles included lead parts in the drama Sequoia, and in the British comedy-fantasy The Ghost Goes West.
  Parker later starred in the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces, followed by the sports film The Pittsburgh Kid, and the film noir Dead Man's Eyes, opposite Lon Chaney Jr.
context_section_description: In 1938, she had the lead role in the drama Romance of the Limberlost, followed by a supporting part in RKO's comedy The Flying Deuces (1939) opposite Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. On November 9, 1939 she opened the Downtown Theatre in Oakland, California, and in December 1941, at the Orinda Theater in Contra Costa County.  In January 1940, after four years of marriage to McDonald, Parker was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce, which was finalized on January 23, 1941. On February 14, 1941, Parker married Los Angeles radio commentator Henry Dawson Sanders, known professionally as Douglas Dawson. Beginning in September 1941, the couple operated a flying service (the Dawson-Parker Parker Flying Service) from Palm Springs Airport in California, which was eventually shuttered at the outbreak of World War II. In July 1942, Sanders joined the United States Coast Guard, and in September 1942 the couple were separated preceding their July 1943 divorce. A month after she was granted her final divorce decree on July 29, 1944, Parker married Dr. Kurt "Curtis" Arthur Grotter, a Hollywood insurance broker and former correspondent for a group of Czechoslovakian newspapers and active with the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, as he had a substantial loss of vision. 
  Parker remained active in film throughout the war, playing opposite Lon Chaney Jr. in the film noir thriller Dead Man's Eyes (1944). For Monogram Pictures, she inaugurated the Kitty O'Day mystery film series, playing the title character in two films: Detective Kitty O'Day (1944), and Adventures of Kitty O'Day (1945). In the latter part of the 1940s, Parker appeared in several stage productions: She made her Broadway debut in the title role of the comedy Loco in 1946. Journalist Lee Evans of The Cincinnati Enquirer gave the play a middling review, noting that while the play was "fairly well acted," Parker "does not create any great stir with her performance." Parker returned to Broadway with a starring role opposite Bert Lahr in Burlesque (1946–1947). 
  In late 1948, she replaced Judy Holliday in the national touring Broadway production of Born Yesterday, co-starring with Lon Chaney, Jr.. Her performance in the production was well-received by audiences. A review of the October 1948 Philadelphia premiere by The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the production a rave review, noting: "To say that piquant and personable Miss Parker, and Chaney as her uncouth, comedy Caliban, play their parts as though they had been written for them, is the highest possible praise, but is amply merited for the zestful spontaneity of their performances." In the summer of 1949, Parker appeared in a production of the comedy play Light Up the Sky, opposite Gregory Peck, which opened at the La Jolla Playhouse before having touring performances throughout the fall of that year. On December 29, 1949, Parker and her third husband, Grotter, were granted a divorced following their July 1949 separation. In April 1947, Jean Parker Christened Seaboard Air Line passenger train, "The Silver Comet" at New York's Penn station, before the trains first run to Birmingham, Alabama.
caption: Parker (center) in a stage production of Light Up the Sky with Gregory Peck (second from left), 1949
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