![]() ![]() Not that she was fat and ugly, but she was MOVIE fat and ugly… that means pleasant to look at but not drop-dead gorgeous. When they needed to portray a character that was fat and ugly, they called Kathleen. But, how important is recognition to an actor? That isn’t rhetorical, I actually need to know this as I haven’t known an actor since high school.īy the early fifties, half of her roles were television. ![]() The roles got larger even though she still was not often listed at the end of the movie. And, these were good movies like Singin’ in the Rain and Monkey Business. Freeman did a great job but, if aliens ever have to decide whether to wipe out our species on the basis of that movie, I wouldn’t make any long-term plans.Īfter that, Kathleen Freeman averaged about seven movie roles a year, most uncredited. It was a short movie about fond memories the narrator had of his housekeeper, Annie, essentially a slave. And, she so impressed producers that she wasn’t credited in the film… or the next three.Īfter three non-credited roles, she did star, probably for the only time, as a Swedish house-servant in Annie was a Wonder. She said, “Did you read about that bathtub murder?”. Her first role was “girl on train” in the movie Naked City. I think a lot of accountants start out the same way…Īfter college, the roles started like a torrent of a trickle of a tidal wave of non-activity. Sure, they’ll eventually find you freebasing old Marx Brothers routines in a rest stop bathroom, trying to amuse a group of hikers from Des Moines but, until you hit rock bottom, humor seems like a perfectly viable career. To potential clowns, comics, comedians, humorists and lumberjacks, a first laugh is as addictive as that first refreshing shot of heroin. Her own explanation is that, during a musical performance, she “got a laugh”. Freeman did study music for a while but, she eventually switched to acting. Let me say, at this point, that “it” decides a lot of things and that “it” is wrong about half the time. At that point, it was decided that she go to the University of California to study music. She performed with her parents off and on until she came of age. It is highly unlikely that her singing killed vaudeville but upon finishing her first number, a priest was called to deliver last rites just in case. Kathleen began performing on stage with her parents at the age of two because it was cheaper than hiring a baby sitter. Despite what you may have heard, minstrel shows were not racist they were sensitive portrayals of African-americans as stupid, cowardly and clueless or, as I believe it was called, “Cultural Sensitivity in the Time of Cholera”. Her parents were a well-known vaudeville team: Jessica sang and Frank performed in black-face as a minstrel. Kathleen Freeman was born on the seventeenth of February in the year 1919 to Jessica Dixon & Frank Freeman and was immediately upstaged. So let it be with Kathleen Turner, a woman who was never a star, but always recognizable… Some people are born to play bit parts others have bit parts thrust upon them still, others are born to have bit parts thrust upon them and, a fourth group is essential because they did most of the thrusting. ![]()
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