Jean Porter

Bennie Jean Porter was born on December 8, 1922, in Cisco, Texas, to a Texas and Pacific Railway worker and a music teacher. She would go on to build a career as an American film, television, and stage actress, working professionally under the name Jean Porter until her retirement from acting in 1961. She died on January 13, 2018, in Canoga Park, California, at the age of 95, survived by two daughters and a stepson.

Porter demonstrated an early aptitude for performance. At age one she was named the most beautiful baby in Eastland County, and by age ten she was hosting a Saturday morning radio program on WRR in Dallas, Texas. She also spent a summer performing with Ted Lewis's Vaudeville Band. In 1935, at twelve years old, she relocated to Hollywood and enrolled in dancing lessons at the Fanchon and Marco dance school. Her screen work began quietly — she appeared in Allan Dwan's 1936 musical Song and Dance Man without receiving a screen credit — before she took on small roles in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) and The Under-Pup (1939). Producer Hal Roach subsequently signed her and featured her in comedies, including his 1940 adventure One Million B.C., as well as Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) and Hellzapoppin' (1941).

Porter's stage work preceded her peak film years. In 1939 she appeared on Broadway in The American Way, the same year she was taking early film roles. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed her in 1941 on loan from Roach, and throughout the 1940s she worked steadily as a comedic ingenue in B pictures, appearing in nearly thirty features alongside performers including Esther Williams, Mickey Rooney, Margaret Dumont, and the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. Among her more notable film credits from this period are The Youngest Profession (1943), Bathing Beauty (1944), Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945), and Till the End of Time (1946). She later departed MGM for Columbia after the studio began reducing its roster and selling portions of its backlot, choosing to leave rather than remain at her existing salary under uncertain conditions.

On May 12, 1948, Porter married writer-director Edward Dmytryk in Ellicott City, Maryland — her first marriage and his second. Dmytryk had directed her as a replacement for Shirley Temple in Till the End of Time two years prior. The marriage placed Porter at the center of one of Hollywood's most turbulent political episodes. Dmytryk was among the Hollywood Ten, the most prominent group of industry figures blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Facing a contempt of Congress charge, he was fired from RKO and barred from working in the United States. The couple relocated to England, where Porter gave birth to the first of their three children. When Dmytryk's passport expired in 1950, they were compelled to return to the United States, and he subsequently served a six-month prison sentence on the contempt charge.

With no active career and no income during this period, Porter took on the financial support of her family. She signed with producer Robert L. Lippert for two low-budget features, G.I. Jane and Kentucky Jubilee, at a nominal salary. Dick Powell assisted her by arranging her casting in Cry Danger (1951). She continued working in television, appearing regularly on The Red Skelton Show and The Abbott and Costello Show. Dmytryk directed her once more in The Left Hand of God (1955), and her final television appearances came on Sea Hunt and 77 Sunset Strip before she retired from acting in 1961.

Porter was also a writer. She authored the unpublished memoir The Cost of Living, which chronicled her life with Dmytryk. She wrote Chicago Jazz and Then Some, a biography of jazz pianist Jess Stacy, published in 2010 by BearManor Media. She also co-authored On Screen Acting with her husband, published by Routledge in 1984.