Jeanne Crain in her big starring moment as "Margie"

In 1943 at 18, Jeanne Crain was under contract with 20th Century Fox. She had a small part in the Alice Faye musical The Gang's All Here. The next year she played the love interest of Lon McCallister in Home in Indiana also starring Walter Brennan. The Technicolor film was a big hit with movie audiences and Crain was on her way to movie stardom.

Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, wanted to groom Crain as the next Janet Gaynor. Crain's natural beauty and pleasant screen personality made her a hit with film fans. Typical of the studio system, Crain was in movies one after the other. In 1944 she starred in In the Meantime, Darling directed by Otto Preminger and Winged Victory. In 1945, she co-starred with Dana Andrews, another star on the rise, in State Fair in the role that Gaynor created in 1933. Also that year, she played the good girl cousin of bad girl Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven, the studio's biggest box office success up to that time.

Crain's banner year would be 1946. She starred in Centennial Summer, again directed by Preminger, Fox's attempt to match the success of M-G-M's Meet Me in St. Louis. She received top billing over Cornel Wilde and Fox veteran Linda Darnell. But her biggest success that year was Margie.

The film begins with the now-married Margie telling her daughter about her high school days at Central High, the school her daughter is attending.

Every once in a while an actress makes a role her own and it's hard to imagine anyone else playing the part. This was the case with Margie, directed by Henry King. The film with music set during the 1920s was a perfect fit for Crain. At just 21 years of age, she was totally believable as Margie McDuff a high school senior with a crush on her French teacher (Glenn Langan).

Crain as Margie McDuff, daydreaming while studying

The promotion of Crain for the film was enormous. The poster proclaimed "Jeanne Crain in her big starring moment as Margie." The poster went on to call Crain "The girl of the moment..." She was on the cover of Life magazine. In the film, Crain is surrounded by a wonderful supporting cast which includes Langan, Lynn Barrie, Allan Young, Barbara Lawrence, Conrad Janis, Esther Dale, and Hattie McDaniel. But it's Crain's picture.

As the shy Margie always having trouble with her bloomers, Crain is believable and charming. It's easy to see how she quickly endeared herself to movie audiences. During the 1940s, her fanmail was second only to Betty Grable.

A month before the movie's release, Jeanne Crain was on the cover of Life with the cover story promoting Margie.

Crain's Margie wishes she were popular like her best friend Marybelle Tenor and her steady beau Johnny "Johnikins" Green (Janis). But her strict grandmother (Dale), who she lives with, encourages her to concentrate on her studies and not to be as flighty as Marybelle. Margie is smart and she's a good debater. The debate scene in the film is classic with the subject being of great concern to many Americans during the 1920s: "Take the Marines out of Nicaragua!"

Margie's father (Hobart Cavanaugh) is an undertaker or "mortician" as Margie would say to Roy Hornsdale (Young). Her father's profession embarrasses her but she adores him. He lives apart from Margie and her grandmother and always seems occupied with his work.

Jeanne Crain, Conrad Janis, and Barbara Lawrence

When the new Central High French teacher Professor Ralph Fontayne (Langan) arrives on the scene, Margie becomes smitten with him and it seems that the feeling may be mutual. Through several embarrassing situations between Margie and the professor, Margie is convinced she has ruined her chances of winning his attention. But Margie is about the underdog coming out on top so you can be sure of a happy ending.

Of all the films Crain made none is as much fun as Margie. She's lovely, sweet, and absolutely perfect in the title role.

If you haven't seen this film, you own it to yourself to give it a look.

Ann E. Todd, Glen Langan, and Jeanne Crain

Must see Jeanne Crain films

Home in Indiana (1944)

State Fair (1945)

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Apartment for Peggy (1948)

The Fan (1949)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

Pinky (1949)

Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)

The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951)

People Will Talk (1951)

10 Things You May Not Know About Jeanne Crain

Jeanne Crain (1925 - 2003) was one of the most popular movie stars during the 1940s. She received more fan mail during World War II than any other star, except Betty Grable. A teenage beauty queen, she signed a long-term contract with Twentieth Century-Fox in 1943. Crain worked there exclusively until she was released from her contract in 1953. She was a favorite of studio head Darryl F. Zanuck until her constantly being pregnant kept her from starring in movies he chose for her.

1. She was born in Bartsow, California on May 25, 1925.

Jeanne Crain with Darryl Zanuck and his children Richard and Darrylin

2. While still in high school she auditioned for Orson Welles for a part in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). She didn’t get the part, Anne Baxter did.

3. She had a bit part (unbilled) in The Gang’s All Here (1943) starring Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda.

4. Home in Indiana (1944) was the film that introduced Crain to American filmgoers.

5. She appeared in several musicals, but always had her voice dubbed. Vocalist Louanne Hogan most frequently dubbed for Crain.

6. She and her husband, Paul Brinkman, had seven children plus a pet lion.

Crain with her pet lion

7. She was an excellent figure skater and got to show off her skills in the movie Margie (1946).

8. Bette Davis’s character in The Star (1952) describes and points out Crain’s house on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills while riding in a car.

9. She was on the cover of Life Magazine twice: in 1946 for Margie and in 1949 for Pinky, for which she was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award.

10. Crain lost out on playing Eve Harrington in All About Eve (1950) because she was pregnant. Anne Baxter got the role and the rest, as they say, is history.

Jeanne Crain: More Than Just a Pretty Face

A Fan's Perspective
I’m an unabashed fan of Jeanne Crain. Today is her birthday; if she were still with us, she’d be 86 years old. Crain was a beauty for sure, but she was also a talented movie actress who doesn’t get the credit she deserves. On screen she had a unique quality. Film fans loved her. During the war years, her fan mail was second only to Betty Grable's.

A studio photograph of Jeanne Crain

Home at Twentieth Century Fox
Signed to an exclusive contract with Twentieth Century Fox in 1943, Crain went through the star making machine. Cast in small roles at first alongside bigger stars, Crain made Home in Indiana and In the Meantime Darling in 1944. A hit with the public from the start, Crain received her best critical notices that same year in Winged Victory. But bigger roles and greater fame were on the horizon.

From Second Lead to Major Star
In 1945, Crain starred as Margy Frake in the hit musical, State Fair opposite Dana Andrews. That same year she played Gene Tierney’s stepsister in the box office blockbuster, Leave Her to Heaven. The film was a triumph for Tierney, earning her a best actress nod, but Crain had the film’s final closeup, beautifully photographed in Technicolor by none other than Academy Award winning cinematographer, Leon Shamroy. Next up for Crain was another musical, Centennial Summer (1946). Fox’s answer to M-G-M’s Meet Me in St. Louis, featured original music by Jerome Kern. But it would be her next film that would make her a household name and pop culture icon.

Crain made the cover of Life in 1946.

Historic Bubble Bath
With hers the only name above the title in Margie (1946), studio chief Darryl Zanuck propelled Crain to movie superstardom. As Margie MacDuff, a shy high school student during the roaring twenties, Crain was pitch-perfect. Noting Crain’s increasing popularity, Life magazine did a feature on the young actress, calling her “…one of Hollywood’s most talented young stars.” The feature goes on about the movie magic required to film a bubble bath scene that required “…a specially designed machine which could blow 250 [bubbles] per second out of a mixture of soap and glycerine…the small army of technicians present agreed that this was a scrubbing sensational enough to make Claudette Colbert’s historic 1932 milk bath in The Sign of the Cross look like Saturday night along Tobacco Road.” They don’t write publicity pieces like that anymore!

William Holden, Crain, and Edmund Gwen starred in the classic Apartment for Peggy.

Neglected Classic
In 1948, Crain starred in Apartment for Peggy with William Holden and recent Academy Award winner, Edmund Gwen. One of the neglected post-World War II films, Apartment for Peggy explores the housing shortage veterans encountered, among other issues, upon returning home. Directed by George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street), Crain received some of her best reviews ever. The New York Times’s Bosley Crowther had this to say about the film: “It is the true demonstration of a GI student, which William Holden plays, and, especially, the vivid characterization, by Jeanne Crain, of his wife… Anyone who doesn't see it will be missing one of the best comedies of the year.”

Crain received her one and only Best Actress nomination for Pinky.

One Amazing Year!
On a winning streak and with world-wide popularity, Crain made three successful films released in 1949: A Letter to Three Wives, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, The Fan, directed by Otto Preminger, and Pinky, directed by Elia Kazan. The latter earned Crain her one and only Best Actress Academy Award nomination, playing a light-skinned black woman passing for white. The controversial movie was the top grossing film of the year. All this success brought Crain to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the honor of immortalizing her hands and footprints in cement.

Crain's hands and footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre

 

Pregnant Pauses
Other successes followed Crain into the 1950s, but the actress was growing tired of playing teenagers when she was in real life a wife and mother. Seemingly forever pregnant, Crain missed out on several top roles Zanuck had lined up for her. Supposedly, he “punished” Crain by casting her in some B-pictures that did nothing to move her career forward. Frustrated, Crain bought out her contract and left Fox where she had been a major star for 10 years. Unfortunately, Crain’s freelance work never equaled the success she attained at her former studio. The movie business was changing and the studios were dropping major stars and hiring new (and cheaper) talent.

One of Crain's last films for Fox

Enduring Popularity
Crain’s film career pretty much ended in the early-1960s, but her popularity with movie fans continued until her death in 2003. Liked and admired by her costars as well as the public, Crain left a tremendous body of film work that is a testament to both her talent and radiant beauty.