Classic Movie Travels: Jean Darling
Dorothy Jean LeVake was born on August
23, 1922, in Santa Monica, California, to Rollin Darling and Dorothy Hamilton. Her
name was changed to Jean Darling at five months old when her mother and father
separated. By the next month, she began appearing in films fulfilling baby
roles. In 1926, she performed in a screen test for the Our Gang series, working in 46 silent featurettes and five silent
featurettes for the series. Her tenure with the series ended in 1929.
As the years went on, Darling worked in
other film roles. She attended the Lawlor Professional School for young
performers in Los Angeles, California. Darling appeared uncredited in the Stan
Laurel and Oliver Hardy film Babes in
Toyland (1934) and as the young Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre (1934). She also maintained a rigorous schedule at the
age of 14, performing as many as seven shows a day on radio and the stage in
addition to keeping up with her studies.
In 1940, she studied voice and was
awarded a scholarship by the New York Municipal Opera Association. After
turning down a film role in MGM’s Andy
Hardy series, Darling debuted on Broadway as part of the 1942 production of
Count Me In. Her stage career thrived
when she appeared in the original Broadway production of Carousel in 1945 as Carrie Pipperidge, working in 850 performances
of the show.
In the 1950s, she was actively working on
radio and television, hosting an NBC New York City television show called A Date with Jean Darling. She also had a
show called The Singing Knit-Witch
which aired in Hollywood.
On June 14, 1954, she married Reuben
Bowen, who worked under the stage name of Kajar the Magician. Darling assisted
him with his magic act, singing songs and touring with him internationally. The
duo appeared in the May 23, 1955, issue of Look
Magazine with Kajar performing a levitation illusion with Darling. She was
also photographed visiting the set of the children’s television show Clubhouse Gang, where she is signing
autographs for children. She and Bowen had a son named Roy Hamilton-Bowen. She
and Bowen ultimately separated in the 1970s.
In 1974, Darling moved to Dublin,
Ireland. There, she wrote mystery stories, with over 50 of them published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Whispers. She also took on the persona
of “Aunt Poppy,” reading her stories on Irish public radio and television.
Additionally, she enjoyed writing radio plays and journalistic writing.
Over the years, Darling gave interviews
about her career and time working for Hal Roach and appeared in documentaries
on the subject, even attending conventions and film festivals as a special
guest. She published her first book of memoirs A Peek at the Past in 1994. Her second memoir, Buttercakes and Banana Oil, was released in 2008. Her final acting
role was in The Butler’s Tale (2013),
a silent comedy short.
Darling later moved with her son to
Rodgau, Germany. She passed away in a Rödermark, Germany, nursing home from a lung ailment on September 4,
2015, at age 93.
Darling was buried at Dudenhofen
Friedhof, located in Dudenhofen, Kreis Offenbach, Hessen, Germany. Her epitaph
translates to “A star so near and yet so far.”
Today, there are some extant point of
interest in relation to Darling’s life.
In 1930, she and her mother resided at
7196 Woodrow Wilson Dr., Los Angeles, California. The home remains.
Her home in Ireland stands at 294 S.
Circular Rd., Dublin, Ireland.
…
–Annette Bochenek for Classic Movie Hub
Annette Bochenek pens our monthly Classic Movie Travels column. You can read all of Annette’s Classic Movie Travel articles here.
Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.
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