Jean Brooks

Acting

Jean Brooks

Born 1915-12-23 · Houston, Texas, USA

Fluent in Spanish, Jean Brooks began professionally by singing with Enric Madriguera and Orchestra in New York. She had a small role in the New York City-filmed The Crime of Doctor Crespi (1935) and the second lead in a Broadway play, "Name Your Poison" (1938), with Lenore Ulric, all under her real name of Jeanne Kelly. She was signed by an independent film production company that had gone under by the time she got to Hollywood. She spent several years at Universal as a leading lady in "B" pictures, including several Johnny Mack Brown westerns, but her option was dropped in late 1941. By this time she had married writer (later director) Richard Brooks and, with a certain Broadway hoofer having just signed at MGM, dropped the Kelly and became Jean Brooks. She signed with RKO, where film buffs know her for her three appearances for cult producer Val Lewton, particularly her stunning performance as a haunted devil worshiper in The Seventh Victim (1943). Her clipped delivery and intense, forceful acting style made her a promising bet for stardom, but RKO lost interest in her by mid-'44 and her roles got gradually smaller until she was dropped in 1946. She and Brooks divorced (his later studio biographies omitted her name as one of his ex-wives). For many years she was listed as a "Lost Player" championed in several magazine articles by writer Doug McClelland. She was eventually located in San Francisco, where she had moved after her film career petered out, and was employed as a classified ad solicitor on the "San Francisco Examiner" newspaper. She had married a printer called Leddy. Her death at the Kaiser Hospital in Richmond, California, in 1963 was due to nutritional problems caused by alcoholism, a sad ending for a stylish and talented performer who didn't get the breaks she deserved, both personally and professionally. Date of Death 25 November 1963, Richmond, California  (extreme malnutrition & alcoholism)

Acting credits

The Seventh Victim poster
6.4

After young Mary Gibson discovers that her older sister Jacqueline has disappeared, she leaves her boarding school and heads to New York City to track down her sibling. But Mary gets drawn deeper into the mystery.

The Seventh Victim

1943

The Invisible Man Returns poster
6.3

The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.

The Invisible Man Returns

1940

The Green Hornet Strikes Again! poster
6.8

Second serial featuring The Green Hornet and Kato.

The Green Hornet Strikes Again!

1940

Buck Privates poster
6.8

Petty con artists Slicker Smith and Herbie Brown mistakenly join the Army evading the cops. The cop chasing them winds up as their drill instructor. A rich young man and his former working class chauffeur are not only in the same unit, they're vying for a pretty girl who seems attracted to both.

Buck Privates

1941

The Leopard Man poster
6.5

When a leopard escapes during a publicity stunt, it triggers a series of murders.

The Leopard Man

1943

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe poster
5.8

A mysterious plague, the Purple Death, ravages the earth. Dr. Zarkov, investigating in his spaceship, finds a ship from planet Mongo seeding the atmosphere with dust. Sure enough, Ming the Merciless is up to his old tricks. So it's back to Mongo for Flash, Dale, and Zarkov.

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe

1940

The Falcon in Hollywood poster
6.2

Suave amateur detective Tom Lawrence--aka Michael Arlen's literary hero The Falcon--arrives in Hollywood for some rest and relaxation, only to find himself involved in the murder of a movie actor. There's no shortage of suspects: the costume designer to whom he was married, a tyrannical director, a beautiful young French starlet, a Shakespeare-quoting producer, even a New York gangster. Helping The Falcon solve the crime is a cute, wise-cracking cab driver and a pair of bumbling cops.

The Falcon in Hollywood

1944

Badlands of Dakota poster
6.0

In the Dakotas during the days of the Great Gold Boom, brothers Jim and Bob Holliday are bumping heads over the affections of pretty Anne Grayson. While all this is going on, Wild Bill Hickok does his best to neutralize the local criminal element-and to fend off the romantic overtures of boisterous Calamity Jane.

Badlands of Dakota

1941

The Crime of Doctor Crespi poster
5.1

A crazed scientist invents a serum that induces a catatonic state in anyone who gets the injection. He uses the serum to paralyze his enemies, in order to bury them alive.

The Crime of Doctor Crespi

1935

Two O'Clock Courage poster
6.3

A cab driver nearly hits a man with amnesia, then helps him unravel his past, only to discover he's a murder suspect as she falls for him.

Two O'Clock Courage

1945

The Falcon in Danger poster
6.1

Two industrialists disappear from an airplane while the plane is in the air. Also missing is $100,000. The Falcon investigates and discovers a plot against the government.

The Falcon in Danger

1943

The Bamboo Blonde poster
5.6

A pilot of a B 29 meets Louise Anderson, a singer in a New York nightclub. He falls in love with her, but he had to leave next day for action in the Pacific. He lets paint her picture on his bomber, the "Bamboo Blonde" and becomes a hero with his crew sinking a Japanese battleship and shooting down a Japanese fighter wing. Back in New York, he leaves his fiancée and engages him to Louise.

The Bamboo Blonde

1946

Tango Bar poster
7.6

Ricardo Fuentes (Carlos Gardel) leaves Buenos Aires after loosing in horse races to go to Barcelona, where he plans to open a tango bar, a new concept of tango dance show and dance saloon. On the ship he meets Laura Montalván (Rosita Moreno) who happens to be a thief working with a thief pal. Ricardo watches them robbing a lady's bracelet aboard but decides not to report them because he has fallen in love with Laura. Once in Barcelona, he opens the tango bar but Laura's partner tells him he sold the bracelet and now needs to recover it to avoid both Laura and him going to jail.

Tango Bar

1935

The Falcon and the Co-Eds poster
6.7

The Falcon is called to a young woman's school to investigate a murder. When he arrives, another victim is discovered.

The Falcon and the Co-Eds

1943

Women in the Night poster
4.0

During WW2 six allied nations women at Shanghai University are arrested by the Germans accused of killing a German officer and forced to entertain the Japanese.

Women in the Night

1948

Riders of Death Valley poster
6.8

The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.

Riders of Death Valley

1941

A Night of Adventure poster
5.0

A lawyer tries to clear his wife's lover of murder charges.

A Night of Adventure

1944

A Dangerous Game poster
7.0

Detectives Dick Williams and Andy McAllister find themselves trying to solve several crimes at an isolated mentally-ill hospital, where the patients range from slightly daffy to criminally insane, and they don't know which is which. A gang is out to steal a fortune inherited by one of the patients and, before Dick and Andy solve the case, several patients are transferred to the cemetery. And 'tiddlie-winks" are indeed involved.

A Dangerous Game

1941

The Falcon's Alibi poster
5.3

A society sleuth sets out on the trail of a society matron's lost jewels.

The Falcon's Alibi

1946

The Boss of Big Town poster
6.2

Quality was seldom a consideration in the low-budget films of PRC Studios; still, the company was a welcome harbor for character actors who aspired to occasional leading roles. In Boss of Big Town, veteran supporting player John Litel is top-billed as crusading city market official Michael Lynn. When a criminal gang muscles in on the local food distribution markets, Lynn vows to throw the rascals out. First, however, he pretends to join the villains as a paid government stooge, the better to find out the identity of the "Mister Big" behind the distribution racket. The exposure of the "mystery villain" will come as a shock to fans of the 1927 Cecil B. DeMille epic The King of Kings--but not to dyed-in-the-wool movie buffs.

The Boss of Big Town

1942

Miracle on Main Street poster
5.4

On Christmas Eve in the Spanish quarter of L.A. police try to arrest a couple running a shady floor show. Hiding in a church, the young woman finds an abandoned baby and uses it as cover to escape capture.

Miracle on Main Street

1939

No artwork available
7.0

A comedy about a man who tries to avoid giving up the $10,000,000 trust he's been administering so well that there's hardly any money left.

Meet the Chump

1941

Son of Roaring Dan poster
8.0

In this exciting western, Roaring Dan is the meanest old cuss around. He and his "son" are constantly bickering. But things are not as they seem as the young man is only pretending to be Dan's son so they can find the killers of the young man's real father. Among the guilty are two women.

Son of Roaring Dan

1940

Youth Runs Wild poster
4.5

The teens of a defense-plant town hop on the road to juvenile delinquency while their parents are busy with the war.

Youth Runs Wild

1944