Jean Hagen (August 3, 1923 – August 29, 1977) was an American film actress.
Her film debut was as a femme fatale in Adam’s Rib in 1949. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) provided Hagen with her first starring role beside Sterling Hayden, with excellent reviews. She appeared in the film noir Side Street (1950) playing a gangster’s sincere, but none-too-bright, gun moll. She is arguably best remembered for her comic performance in Singin’ in the Rain as the vain and talentless silent movie star Lina Lamont; Hagen received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
By 1953, she had joined the cast of the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy. As the first wife of Danny Thomas, Hagen received three Emmy Award nominations, but after three seasons, she grew dissatisfied and left the series. Thomas, who also produced the show, reportedly did not appreciate Jean’s departing the successful series, and her character was killed off rather than recast. This was the first TV character to be killed off in a family sitcom. Marjorie Lord was cast a year later as Danny’s second wife and played opposite Thomas successfully for several seasons. Hagen starred in the 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Season 3, Episode 7, entitled “Enough Rope for Two”. She appeared as Frida Daniels in The Shaggy Dog starring with Fred MacMurray. In 1960, she appeared as Elizabeth in the episode “Once Upon a Knight” of CBS’s anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson.