Kathleen Freeman

MAIN

Recommend (0)

•

Comments (0)

BIRTHDAY

February 17, 1919

Chicago, IL

DIED

August 23, 2001

RECENT CREDITS

As Told by Ginger (TV) Mar. 10, 2002

Ready to Rumble (FILM) Apr. 7, 2000

Becker (TV) Jan. 10, 2000

Blues Brothers 2000 (FILM) Feb. 6, 1998

ER (TV) Nov. 14, 1996

View all Kathleen Freeman Credits

BIOGRAPHY

Expand Full Bio

The inimitable American actress Kathleen Freeman has been convulsing film audiences with portrayals of dowdy, sharp-tongued matrons since she was in her 20s. After stage work, Freeman began taking bit roles in major-studio features in 1948, seldom getting screen credit but always making a positive impression. The best of her earliest roles was in Singin' in the Rain (1952); Freeman played long-suffering vocal coach Phoebe Dinsmore, whose Herculean efforts to get dumb movie star Jean Hagen to grasp the proper enunciation of the phrase "I can't staaaand him" proved uproariously futile. Often cast as domestics, Freeman had a year's run in 1953 as the "spooked" maid on the ghostly TV sitcom Topper. Freeman was a particular favorite of comedian Jerry Lewis, who cast the actress in showy (and billed!) roles in such farces as The Errand Boy (1961), The Nutty Professor (1963) and Who's Got the Action?. As Nurse Higgins in Lewis' Disorderly Orderly (1964), Freeman weeps quietly as Jerry meekly scrapes oatmeal off her face and babbles "Oh, Nurse Higgins...you're all full of...stuff." Lewis so trusted Freeman's acting instincts that he sent her to the set of director William Wyler's The Collector (1965) in order to help build up the confidence of Wyler's nervous young leading lady Samantha Eggar. Throughout the '70s and '80s, Freeman took occasional "sabbaticals" from her movie and TV assignments to do stage work, enjoying a lengthy run in a Chicago production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap. Like many character actors of the '50s, Kathleen Freeman is frequently called upon to buoy the projects of baby-boomer directors: she was recently seen as an hysterical Julia Child clone in Joe Dante's Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Collapse Full Bio

Headlines

News Roundup: Aug. 24

Aug. 24, 2001

Sean Penn lashes out at apathetic Hollywood; country music star Wynonna gets engaged; "Hercules" Kevin Sorbo and wife have baby; character actress Kathleen Freeman and Serpico author Peter Maas die; A Knight's Tale producer sues filmmakers; actor Richard Burton's diary stolen; Madonna's childhood home is on the auction block; Miramax's Rent scrapped; James Bond will drive famed...

Read Story

View all Kathleen Freeman Headlines