"People! I ain't people!
I'm a shimmering glowing star in the cinema firm-a-mint!"
This weekend would have been the 85th birthday of Jean Hagen - Jean who? I hear you say... Well, this rather fab Oscar-nominated actress was one of the most enjoyable things in the whole unwieldy conglomeration that was the original movie Singin' in the Rain.
I have always had an uneasy relationship with the film, partly because Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds in this are just so uncharismatic, bland and yawnsome (until Gene dances, of course!), and partly because I think it tries so very hard to be camp (dream sequences, Cyd Charisse, glittery costumes etc) and yet still struggles to be that.
However, the whole is a sum of its parts - and the parts in which the lovely Jean Hagen appear are indeed all-time classics. So let's celebrate:
Jean Hagen on IMDB
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