Jean Parker, the lovely, petite leading lady of early American cinema, died on November 30 of complications of a stroke at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 90.

Born on August 11, 1915 in Deer Lodge, Montana, Jean Parker relocated to Pasadena, California with her family in 1930 when Jean's father got a job as the head chef for a local hotel. As a youth, Jean's first passion was art, and after she won a statewide prize for a poster depicting Father Time, her poster, along with her photograph, appeared on a float in that year's New Year's Day Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, where Ida Koverman, executive assistant to MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, spotted her picture and recommended to Mayer that he give her a screen test.

She made her film debut in the Jackie Cooper tearjerker Divorce in the Family and then followed that up as the Duchess Maria in Rasputin and the Empress (both 1932), a film notable as the only one to star all three Barrymore siblings, Ethel, Lionel and John. From there, Parker became a gorgeous ingenue that highlighted several films of the early '30s: Walter Huston's daughter in the political fantasy Gabriel over the White House; the young daughter May Robson needs to impress in Frank Capra's Lady for a Day; Beth to Katharine Hepburn's Jo in the adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's literary classic Little Women (all 1933); a young mountain girl who raises an orphaned fawn in the remarkable family film Sequoia (1934); and as the romantic lead opposite Robert Donat in Rene Clair's The Ghost Goes West (1935).

Unfortunately, Parker's string of good roles didn't last. Her later pictures were simply not worthy of her talent but there were a few bright spots - the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Flying Deuces (1939); a bizarre thriller about a killer ghost that has since become a cult item - Tomorrow We Live (1942); and matching wits with John Carradine in Bluebeard (1944). The gap in decent film parts did give Parker the opportunity to develop her stagecraft. In 1946, she hit Broadway with Bert Lahr in his popular revue Burlesque; and in 1949 she replaced Judy Holliday in the Garson Kanin-Ruth Gordon comedy Born Yesterday.

Parker's last notable movie was with Gregory Peck in the sensitive character study The Gunfighter (1950), after that, she concentrated on regional theater with her husband, the actor Robert Lowery. By the '60s and '70s, she worked as an acting coach before retiring from the business completely. She is survived by her son, also named Robert; and granddaughters, Katie and Nora.

by Michael T. Toole