Kathleen Freeman (February 17, 1919 - August 23, 2001) was an American film, television, and stage 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.
Early life
Freeman was born in Chicago, Illinois. She began her career as a child, dancing in her parents' vaudeville act. After a stint studying music at UCLA, she went into acting full time, working on the stage, and finally entering films in 1948. She was a founding member of the Circle Players at The Circle Theatre, started in 1946, now know as El Centro Theatre .
Career
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 11 movies.[1] 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 Missouri Traveler (1958), 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 (referred to as The Penguin) in John Landis' The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000, had cameos in Joe Dante's Innerspace and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (as tipsy cooking host Microwave Marge in 2), and a Ma Barker type gangster mother in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult.
Freeman was also a familiar presence on television, from the 1950s until her death, with regular or recurring roles on many sitcoms, including Topper (as Katie the maid), The Donna Reed Show (as Mrs. Wilgus, the Stone's busybody next door neighbor), Hogan's Heroes (as Frau Gertrude Linkmeyer, General Burkhalter's sister, who longed to wed Colonel Klink), Mrs. Kate Harwell, Sandy Duncan's landlady and friend in Funny Face; I Dream of Jeannie (as a grouchy supervisor in a false preview of Maj. Nelson's future), the short-lived prehistoric sitcom It's About Time (as Mrs. Boss), and as the voice of Peg Bundy's mom, an unseen character on Married... with Children. She played guest roles on countless other shows, from The Lucy Show and The Beverly Hillbillies to Home Improvement. She also played Sister Agnes in an episode of The Golden Girls. Freeman was considered for the part of Alice the housekeeper on The Brady Bunch, the role that ultimately went to Ann B. Davis.
In 1969, Freeman made a guest appearance on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., playing Sergeant Carter's mother in the episode "I'm Always Chasing Gomers." She costarred in the 1973-74 sitcom Lotsa Luck, playing Dom DeLuise's mother.
In later years, Freeman also worked extensively as a voice actress, playing Ma Crackshell on DuckTales, a Theban woman in Disney's Hercules, and fortune teller Madame Xima in the video game Curse of Monkey Island.
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.
In her final episode of As Told By Ginger, Season 2's "No Hope For Courtney," her character, Mrs. Gordon, retires from her teaching job and two of her students try to get her back. The script was originally written to have Mrs. Gordon come back to work, but Freeman died before the episode was finished. The script was then re-written to make her character die as well. The episode was dedicated in her memory.
Personal life
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.
Freeman was a lesbian; the British reports of her death included her surviving long-time companion, Helen Ramsey,[2] but the U.S. obituaries did not.
Filmography
The Naked City (1948)
Casbah (1948)
Behind Locked Doors (1948)
Annie Was a Wonder (1948, short subject)
The Saxon Charm (1948)
Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949)
The Story of Molly X (1949)
No Man of Her Own (1950)
House by the River (1950)
The Reformer and the Redhead (1950)
Once a Thief (1950)
Lonely Heart Bandits (1950)
A Life of Her Own (1950)
The Second Face (1950)
The Company She Keeps (1951)
Cry Danger (1951)
Cause for Alarm! (1951) (scenes deleted)
Appointment with Danger (1951)
Strictly Dishonorable (1951)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Behave Yourself! (1951)
Come Fill the Cup (1951)
Let's Make It Legal (1951)
The Wild Blue Yonder (1951)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
Love Is Better Than Ever (1952)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Talk About a Stranger (1952)
Kid Monk Baroni (1952)
Skirts Ahoy! (1952)
Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952)
Monkey Business (1952)
O. Henry's Full House (1952)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
The Magnetic Monster (1953)
She's Back on Broadway (1953)
Confidentially Connie (1953)
A Perilous Journey (1953)
The Glass Wall (1953)
Dream Wife (1953)
The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953)
Half a Hero (1953)
The Glass Web (1953)
Battle of Rogue River (1954)
Athena (1954)
3 Ring Circus (1954)
The Far Country (1955)
Artists and Models (1955)
The Midnight Story (1957)
Pawnee (1957)
Kiss Them for Me (1957)
The Missouri Traveller (1958)
Too Much, Too Soon (1958)
The Fly (1958)
Houseboat (1958)
The Buccaneer (1958)
North to Alaska (1960)
The Ladies Man (1961)
The Errand Boy (1961)
Wild Harvest (1962)
Madison Avenue (1962)
The Nutty Professor (1963)
Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
Mail Order Bride (1964)
The Patsy (1964)
The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
The Rounders (1965)
That Funny Feeling (1965)
Marriage on the Rocks (1965)
Three on a Couch (1966)
Point Blank (1967)
Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)
Death of a Gunfighter (1969)
Hook, Line & Sinker (1969)
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Which Way to the Front? (1970)
Support Your Local Gunfighter! (1971)
Head On (1971)
Stand Up and Be Counted (1972)
Where Does It Hurt? (1972)
Unholy Rollers (1972)
So Evil, My Sister (1974)
The Strongest Man in the World (1975)
The Norseman (1978)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Heartbeeps (1981)
Gall Force: Eternal Story (1986) (voice in English version)
The Best of Times (1986)
The Malibu Bikini Shop (1986)
Dragnet (1987)
Innerspace (1987)
Inside Out (1987)
In the Mood (1987)
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
The Wrong Guys (1988)
Hollywood Chaos (1989)
Chances Are (1989)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
The Willies (1991)
Joey Takes a Cab (1991)
Dutch (1991)
FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) (voice)
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992) (voice)
Reckless Kelly (1993)
Hocus Pocus (1993)
Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
Two Guys Talkin' About Girls (1995)
Carpool (1996)
Hercules (1997) (voice)
Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
Richie Rich's Christmas Wish (1998) (direct-to-video)
I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998)
Seven Girlfriends (1999)
Ready to Rumble (2000)
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
Joe Dirt (2001)
Shrek (2001) (voice)
References
1.^ Jerry Lewis tells it like it is — and was from usatoday.com, originally published Aug 29, 2002; data retrieved Mar 6, 2009
2.^ Obituary: Kathleen Freeman
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