Jean Stapleton

Acting

Biography

Jean Stapleton was born Jeanne Murray in Manhattan, New York City, to Marie A. (Stapleton), an opera singer, and Joseph Edward Murray, a billboard advertising salesman. Her paternal grandparents were Irish. She was a cousin of actress Betty Jane Watson. Other relatives in show business were her uncle, Joseph E. Deming, a vaudevillian; and her brother Jack Stapleton, a stage actor. She graduated from Wadleigh High School, NYC, in 1939, and attended Hunter College. She worked as a secretary before becoming an actress. Stapleton made her stage debut at the Greenwood Playhouse, Peaks Island, Maine, in the summer of 1941, and her New York stage debut in "The Corn Is Green" (1948). She appeared on Broadway in the musicals "Damn Yankees" (1955) and "Bells Are Ringing" (1956), and later repeated her roles in the movie versions (Damn Yankees (1958) and Bells Are Ringing (1960)). Her other Broadway roles included the original companies of "Rhinoceros" (1961) and "Funny Girl" (1964). Stapleton also played Abby Brewster in the 1986-87 revival of "Arsenic and Old Lace".

Filmography Movies

Acting

MOVIE

Michael

5.7(0.7K)

Tabloid reporters are sent by their editor to investigate after the paper recieves a letter from a woman claiming an angel is living with her.

Pursuit of Happiness

5.4(0.0K)

An advertising executive fails to realize that the woman of his dreams is his best friend since first grade, now married to his cheating co-worker.

Dead Man's Folly

6.3(0.1K)

During a murder hunt game at a country house, to which Hercule Poirot is invited as an "expert", a real murder occurs.

You've Got Mail

6.7(3.6K)

Book superstore magnate Joe Fox and independent book shop owner Kathleen Kelly fall in love in the anonymity of the Internet—both blissfully unaware that he's trying to put her out of business.

Damn Yankees

6.5(0.0K)

Film adaptation of the George Abbott Broadway musical about a Washington Senators fan who makes a pact with the Devil to help his baseball team win the league pennant.

Cold Turkey

6.3(0.0K)

Reverend Brooks leads his small Iowa town in a contest to stop smoking for a month. But some tobacco executives don't want them to win, and try everything they can to make them smoke. If townspeople don't go nuts from wanting a cigarette, or kill each other from irritation and frustration, they will win a huge prize.

Up the Down Staircase

7.1(0.0K)

Sylvia, a novice schoolteacher, is hired to teach English in a high school, but she’s met with an apathetic faculty, a delinquent student body and an administration that drowns its staff in paperwork. The following days go from bad to worse as Sylvia struggles to reach her most troubled students.

Play Trailer

Up the Down Staircase

Sadie Finch

MOVIE

Bells Are Ringing

6.5(0.1K)

Ella Peterson works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. She listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse.

Play Trailer

Bells Are Ringing

Sue

Good Evening CaptainMOVIE

MOVIE