1915–1932: Early life

Parker was born on August 11, 1915, in Deer Lodge, Montana, to Lewis A. Green, a gunsmith, hunter, and chef from South Dakota,^[1] and Melvina Burch (later known professionally as Mildred Brenner, who worked in the MGM set department), a native of Deer Lodge.^{[lower-alpha 1][2][3]} Many of the details surrounding Parker's birth have been reported with little consistency.^{[lower-alpha 1]} Secondary sources regarding her birth year range from 1912 to 1916, and some claim she was born in Butte, not Deer Lodge.^{[lower-alpha 1]} Furthermore, some sources state her birth name as Lois Mae (or May) Green, while others indicate she was born Luise Stephanie Zelinska.^{[lower-alpha 1]} Despite these discrepancies, Parker's son, Robert, insisted she was born Lois May Green in Deer Lodge in 1915,^[11] which is consistent with contemporaneous Montana birth records from the United States Census Bureau.^[12]

Parker's parents were unemployed and experienced poverty.^[2] At some point in her early childhood, between ages 6 and 10,^{[lower-alpha 2]} she was adopted by the Spickard family of Pasadena, California.^[5] She relocated there, and attended elementary school before graduating from Pasadena's John Muir High School. Her original aspirations were in the fine arts and illustration.^[2] In 1932, at age 17, Parker — then known as Lois May Green — entered a poster illustration competition, which resulted in her photograph appearing in a Los Angeles newspaper.^[2] Ida Koverman, an assistant to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) executive Louis B. Mayer, saw this photo and persuaded Mayer to give Parker a screen test.^[2] By Parker's account: "My ambition was to be an artist. I had no thought of acting."^[13]

1932–1937: Career beginnings

Parker photographed by George Hurrell, 1935

Following a successful screen test, Parker was signed to MGM and given her stage name of Jean Parker.^[2] She made her feature film debut in the drama Divorce in the Family (1932),^[10] followed by an uncredited role in Rasputin and the Empress (1932).^[2] She subsequently appeared in minor roles in the political fantasy film Gabriel Over the White House (1933), and the drama The Secret of Madame Blanche (also 1933).^[2]

Parker with a mountain lion on the set of Sequoia (1934)

In 1933, MGM loaned Parker to Columbia Pictures, who provided her with larger parts in their films, beginning with a major supporting role in Frank Capra's comedy-drama Lady for a Day, playing the estranged daughter of an indigent saleswoman in New York City.^[2] The same year, Parker was loaned to RKO Pictures to appear in George Cukor's film adaptation of Little Women, portraying Elizabeth March opposite Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, and Frances Dee.^[2] She later reflected: "Playing Beth was the hardest thing I ever did. I was scared stiff, for I had no real training in acting. To make it harder still, I was only 16 while the others were all over 24. I was terribly shy then... but all the girls did everything they could to help me, particularly Miss Hepburn."^[7]

The following year, RKO gave Parker her first starring role in Two Alone,^[7] which was followed by a series of leading roles for MGM, including in the drama Sequoia, in which she played a woman living among the sequoia forests of northern California raising a mountain lion and orphaned fawn;^[13] the romance Operator 13, in which she starred opposite Marion Davies and Gary Cooper, playing a Southern belle during the American Civil War;^[7] and in the drama A Wicked Woman, in which she starred as the daughter of a woman (played by Mady Christians) who murders her abusive husband.^[14] She also starred in the British film The Ghost Goes West for United Artists, playing the daughter of an American businessman opposite Robert Donat and Elsa Lanchester.^[2]

Though forging a successful acting career at the time, Parker continued to utilize her artistic talents, contracting in June 1935 to make eight original sketches a month for a Beverly Hills shop.^[15] In December 1935, Parker became engaged to New York socialite newspaperman George E. McDonald, and eloped with him to Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 22, 1936.^[16]

1938–1949: Film and stage

In 1938, she had the lead role in the drama Romance of the Limberlost, followed by a supporting part in RKO's comedy The Flying Deuces (1939) opposite Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. On November 9, 1939, she opened the Downtown Theatre in Oakland, California, and in December 1941, at the Orinda Theater in Contra Costa County.^[15] In January 1940, after four years of marriage to McDonald, Parker was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce, which was finalized on January 23, 1941.^[17] On February 14, 1941, Parker married Los Angeles radio commentator Henry Dawson Sanders, known professionally as Douglas Dawson.^[18] Beginning in September 1941, the couple operated a flying service (the Dawson-Parker Parker Flying Service)^[19] from Palm Springs Airport in California, which was eventually shuttered at the outbreak of World War II.^[20] In July 1942, Sanders joined the United States Coast Guard, and in September 1942 the couple were separated preceding their July 1943 divorce.^[21] A month after she was granted her final divorce decree on July 29, 1944, Parker married Dr. Kurt "Curtis" Arthur Grotter, a Hollywood insurance broker and former correspondent for a group of Czechoslovakian newspapers and active with the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, as he had a substantial loss of vision.

Parker (center) in a stage production of Light Up the Sky with Gregory Peck (second from left), 1949

Parker remained active in film throughout the war, playing opposite Lon Chaney Jr. in the film noir thriller Dead Man's Eyes (1944). For Monogram Pictures, she inaugurated the Kitty O'Day mystery film series, playing the title character in two films: Detective Kitty O'Day (1944), and Adventures of Kitty O'Day (1945). In the latter part of the 1940s, Parker appeared in several stage productions: She made her Broadway debut in the title role of the comedy Loco in 1946.^[22] Journalist Lee Evans of The Cincinnati Enquirer gave the play a middling review, noting that while the play was "fairly well acted," Parker "does not create any great stir with her performance."^[23] Parker returned to Broadway with a starring role opposite Bert Lahr in Burlesque (1946–1947).^[22]

In late 1948, she replaced Judy Holliday in the national touring Broadway production of Born Yesterday, co-starring with Lon Chaney Jr.^[22][24] Her performance in the production was well received by audiences.^[25] A review of the October 1948 Philadelphia premiere by The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the production a rave review, noting: "To say that piquant and personable Miss Parker, and Chaney as her uncouth, comedy Caliban, play their parts as though they had been written for them, is the highest possible praise, but is amply merited for the zestful spontaneity of their performances."^[26] In the summer of 1949, Parker appeared in a production of the comedy play Light Up the Sky, opposite Gregory Peck, which opened at the La Jolla Playhouse^[27] before having touring performances throughout the fall of that year.^[28] On December 29, 1949, Parker and her third husband, Grotter, were granted a divorced following their July 1949 separation.^[29] In April 1947, Jean Parker Christened Seaboard Air Line passenger train, "The Silver Comet" at New York's Penn station, before the trains first run to Birmingham, Alabama.

1950–2005: Later career and retirement

Parker and Chaney continued to appear in touring productions of Born Yesterday through 1950.^[30] Also in 1950, Parker returned to film with a supporting role in The Gunfighter opposite Gregory Peck, playing a saloon singer.^[2] The following year, in 1951, while appearing at a nightclub in Sydney, Australia,^[31] Parker made international headlines when she was escorted off Bondi Beach by swimsuit inspector Abe Laidlaw, who measured her bikini and determined it was too skimpy.^[15][32][33]

On May 19, 1951, Parker secretly married actor Robert Lowery Hanks at the home of a friend in Hialeah, Florida. The two had previously co-starred in the 1944 film The Navy Way.^[34] In late 1951, Parker and Lowery co-starred in a touring stage production of Sidney Kingsley's Detective Story.^[35] Critic Harold Whitehead, reviewing a Montreal performance of the play, observed that Parker seemed "shaky and ill-at-ease" throughout.^[35] The following year, on September 24, 1952, Parker gave birth to her only child, a son, Robert Lowery Hanks II, in Los Angeles.^[36]

Parker continued to appear occasionally in films throughout the remainder of the 1950s, including a starring role opposite Edward G. Robinson in the film noir Black Tuesday (1954), followed by a role in A Lawless Street (1955). In 1954, Parker played the role of "Cattle Kate Watson of Wyoming" in an episode of the syndicated television series Stories of the Century, the first western program to win an Emmy Award.^[37] Later in her career and life, Parker continued a successful stint on the West Coast theatre circuit and worked as an acting coach.^[15] Parker filed for divorce from her fourth husband, Lowery, in September 1957, but it was never finalized.^[15] She made her last film appearance was in Apache Uprising (1965).^[38]

Parker worked as an acting coach in the 1970s for a time, but spent the following several decades largely out of the public eye, earning a reputation as a "Hollywood recluse."^[13]

In 1998, she moved into the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.^[13]