Kathleen Freeman
From Alfred Hitchcock Wiki
- born: 17/Feb/1919 (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
- died: 23/Aug/2001 (New York, New York, USA) - lung cancer
Biography
Kathleen Freeman was an American film, television, and stage character actress. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, she portrayed tart maids, secretaries, teachers, busybodies, nurses, and battle-axe neighbors, almost invariably to comic effect.
Freeman's most notable early role was an uncredited part in the 1952 musical "Singin' in the Rain", as Jean Hagen's articulate diction coach Phoebe Dinsmore. In 1954, Freeman played receptionist Miss Seely for lawyer Adam Calhorn Shaw (Edmund Purdom) in "Athena". Beginning with the 1955 film "Artists and Models", Freeman became a favorite foil of Jerry Lewis, playing opposite him in ten movies. These included most of Lewis's better known comedies, including "The Disorderly Orderly" as Nurse Higgins, "The Errand Boy" as the studio boss's wife, and especially "The Nutty Professor" as Millie Lemon. Over thirty years later, she had a small cameo in "The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps", a sequel to the remake of the Lewis film.
Still other film roles included appearances in the horror film "The Fly" (1958), the Western spoofs "Support Your Local Sheriff!" (1969) and "Support Your Local Gunfighter" (1971), and appearances in a spate of comedies in the 1980s and 1990s. Freeman played Sister Mary Stigmata in John Landis' "The Blues Brothers" and "Blues Brothers 2000", had cameos in Joe Dante's "Innerspace" and "Gremlins 2", and a Ma Barker type gangster mother in "Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult".
Freeman remained active in her last two years, with a regular voice role on "As Told By Ginger", a voice bit in "Shrek", a guest appearance on "Becker" and, most notably, scoring a Tony Award nomination and a Theatre World Award for her role of accompanist Jeannette Burmeister in the Broadway musical version of "The Full Monty".
Weakened by illness, Freeman was forced to leave the "Full Monty" cast. Five days later, she died of lung cancer at age 82. Her ashes are inurned in a niche at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.
Filmography
With Hitchcock...
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - You'll Be the Death of Me (18/Oct/1963) - cast: Mrs. McCleod
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - The World's Oldest Motive (12/Apr/1965) - cast: Angela Morrow