Slight, birdlike Jean Adair came to the screen after playing a
succession of crotchety or maternal roles on the stage. She was born
Violet McNaughton in Ontario, Canada, and absolved her acting studies
in Chicago. After extensive touring with local stock companies and a
few seasons on the vaudeville Orpheum Circuit performing in one-act
plays, she landed a starring role on Broadway in the 1922 comedy hit
"It's a Boy!". From then on, she was never out of work.
The screen, alas, saw very little of Jean Adair. She danced a waltz
with Gene Kelly in a minor musical,
Liebe auf den zweiten Blick (1947).
Otherwise, we remember her from her one indelible performance, a role
she created for the original stage version of the long-running black
farce and subsequent film version,
Arsen und Spitzenhäubchen (1944):
as Martha Brewster, one of two goofy spinster aunts (the other was
Josephine Hull), who dispatch lonely old
geezers by poisoning their elderberry wine.
