Jane Kean

Jane Kean (April 10, 1923 – November 26, 2013) was an American actress and singer born in Hartford, Connecticut, whose career encompassed Broadway, nightclubs, recordings, radio, television, and film across seven decades. She is perhaps best remembered by television audiences for portraying Trixie Norton on The Jackie Gleason Show and for voicing the character Belle in the 1962 television special Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol.

Kean trained as an actress under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Early in her career, she and her older sister Betty Kean formed a comedy duo that performed on the nightclub circuit throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Her Broadway career ran from 1943 to 1971, beginning with Fats Waller's musical Early to Bed in 1943. Subsequent stage credits included Call Me Mister, in which she succeeded Betty Garrett, and Along Fifth Avenue and The Girl From Nantucket. In 1955, Jane and Betty Kean appeared together on Broadway as sisters in the musical Ankles Aweigh. Kean also took over the lead role in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, succeeding Jayne Mansfield, and later joined the cast of Carnival!, succeeding Kaye Ballard. Additional Broadway credits included The Pajama Game and Take Me Along, the latter of which starred Jackie Gleason in a featured role alongside her.

Kean's work with Gleason in Take Me Along led directly to her casting on his weekly television program. From 1966 to 1970, she played Trixie Norton in a series of color, music-driven hour-long Honeymooners episodes on The Jackie Gleason Show, succeeding Joyce Randolph, who had originated the role in earlier sketches and in the 1955–56 sitcom The Honeymooners. Beyond Gleason's program, Kean appeared on The Phil Silvers Show, including the episode Doberman, Missing Heir, as well as Make Room for Daddy, The Lucy Show, Love, American Style, The Love Boat, The Facts of Life, and Dallas. Her feature film work included the role of Miss Taylor in Walt Disney's live-action and animated musical Pete's Dragon. Her final film, Abner, The Invisible Dog, in which she played Aunt Ida, was completed in 2013. She was also profiled in the 2011 PBS documentary Troupers.

In her personal life, Kean was married to director and producer Dick Linkroum from 1962 to 1969, and subsequently to actor and producer Joe Hecht from 1970 until his death in 2005. She had no children. Through her sister Betty's marriages, Kean was the sister-in-law of both actor Lew Parker and actor Jim Backus, with whom she had co-starred in Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. In 2003, Kean published a memoir titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Honeymooners ... I Had a Life. She died on November 26, 2013, at age 90, at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, following a hemorrhagic stroke.