BIO

Jeanne Crain was born Jeanne Elizabeth Crain in Barstow, California, in 1925.    Her father was a school teacher.   She moved to Los Angeles as a young child.   An excellent ice skater, Crain received a skating title for her abilities.

While still in high school, she completed a screen test opposite the actor Orson Welles.   She did not get the part, but in 1943, at the age of 18, she appeared in her first film for Twentieth Century Fox.

In 1949, Crain received an Academy Award nomination for Actress for her performance in Pinky (1949).

She appeared in more than 35 feature films.   Crain's last film role was in 1972.

She married the actor Paul Brooks in 1946.   The couple raised 7 children. One is the film location manager Paul F. Brinkman, Jr.. Two children predeceased her.   Her youngest, Christopher Brinkman, died of a drug overdose in 1997.

The marriage was rocky and in the mid-1950s Crain obtained a divorce decree.   Each spouse claimed the other had been unfaithful, but the couple briefly reconciled.   As a lifelong devout Roman Catholic, she and her husband Paul remained married, though they lived separately.

Crain died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California, in 2003, a few months after her husband passed away.   She was 78 years old.

Additional biographical information is available at:

NOTED FILMS