All this shapely character "broad" had to do was open her mouth to
induce laughter--and so she did, primarily on TV during the '50s and
'60s. And although she milked that unmistakable rasp for all its worth,
she also showed great comedy sense. Born Jean Leete on February 23,
1923, in Charleston, West Virginia, actress Jean Carson (not to be
confused with pert British actress
Jeannie Carson of
Hey, Jeannie! (1956) TV fame)
was trained in music and dance and started performing by age 12. With
high aspirations of becoming an actress, she subsequently studied at
Carnegie-Mellon University.
She was first discovered appearing on Broadway in 1948 in
George S. Kaufman's "Bravo!" with a
cast including Kevin McCarthy and
Oscar Homolka. Set in New York, the show
was a bust (running only 44 performances), but Jean made a wonderful
comic impression and earned a Theatre World award in the process. She
followed this with another Kaufman-staged play, "Metropole," in 1949 as
well as "The Bird Cage" (1950) with
Melvyn Douglas and
Maureen Stapleton and "Men of
Distinction" (1953) with
Robert Preston, but these shows
fared just as badly. A hit Broadway comedy finally came her way with
"Anniversary Waltz" in 1954, which ran 544 performances. Jean stood out
among the cast just for those inimitable deep tones alone.
She was typically on display throughout the '50s and '60s, gracing many
of the popular shows of the day, including "The Red Buttons Show," "The
Tom Ewell Show," "Wagon Train," "Sugarfoot," "Perry Mason," "The
Untouchables" and "Gomer Pyle." Surprisingly, she never had her own TV
sitcom, although she did appear as a regular on the short-lived
The Betty Hutton Show (1959)
playing a girlfriend to the star. A single standout episode of "The
Twilight Zone" had Jean and
Fred Clark as a pair of thieves who
discover that a camera they've stolen takes pictures of the future.
Jean essayed a number of bleached blonde floozies, jailbirds, party
girls and gold diggers over the course of her career but was never
better than as both convict Jalene Naomi and good time girl Daphne on
The Andy Griffith Show (1960).
In one classic episode, her character Jalene was partnered up with
cohorts Jane Dulo and
Reta Shaw as three dames hiding out from the
law who hold both Deputy Barney and Floyd hostage while putting designs
on them at the same time.
An unfortunate alcohol problem dogged Jean's career for many years.
Active with Alcoholics Anonymous, she eventually retired from Hollywood
in the early 1980s and moved to the Palm Springs area to be closer to
family. There she appeared occasionally in such local theater
productions as "The Elephant Man" and "Steel Magnolias." Jean had been
in spiraling health since suffering a paralytic stroke in September of
2005. She died in a Palm Desert convalescent home on November 2, 2005,
at age 82. Two sons survive.
