OBIT: Kathleen Freeman - RIP

Subject: Obit:Kathleen Freeman - RIP
From: Fiolar
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 05:31 AM

The character actress Kathleen Freeman has died of cancer aged 82. She appeared in almost 100 films and her last job was as the voice of an old woman in "Shrek" (2001). One of her great comedy roles was as the diction coach in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) attempting to get Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) to correctly say "I can't stand him," instead of "I keent stendim." She made her film debut in "The Naked City" (1948) and appeared in such films as "The Fly" (1958); "The Blues Brothers" (1980) and "Blues Brothers 2000" (1998) among many others.

Subject: RE: OBIT: Kathleen Freeman - RIP
From: Dave Swan
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 12:18 PM

Kathleen Freeman was a kind, funny, woman who frequently appeared on stage as well as film. She befriended me when I was a college boy, and I have fond memories of time spent with her. She was as gracious as could be to the many people hwo would approach her, never getting impatient when a meal or a conversation was interrupted. A kind lady and a class act.

I've got to dig out the old photos.

Fear no more the heat of the sun...

D

Subject: RE: OBIT: Kathleen Freeman - RIP
From: GUEST,Beadie
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 04:00 PM

Auf weidershein, Genedegefrau Burkhalter.

Subject: RE: OBIT: Kathleen Freeman - RIP
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 04:20 PM

We saw her perform, the week before she died, in the musical version of "The Full Monty"(the second time we'd seen it)--she was wonderful as a wisecracking, rehearsal pianist, and her song, "Things Could Be Better" is still echoing in my head--

Here is the Obituary from the New York Times:

August 24, 2001

Kathleen Freeman, Actress Playing Comic Character Roles, Dies at 78

By JESSE McKINLEY

athleen Freeman, the veteran character actress whose salty comic talents were most recently on display in the current Broadway musical "The Full Monty," died yesterday at Lenox Hill Hospital. She was 78.

The cause was lung cancer, said Michael Hartman, a publicist for the show.

Ms. Freeman, who had been suffering from the disease for a year, fell ill over the weekend, but only after finishing a two-performance day on Saturday. Her death was announced to the cast yesterday before last evening's performance.

The daughter of a husband-and- wife vaudeville team, Ms. Freeman was literally born into show business, growing up on the song-and- dance circuit. She did her bit to help the act — she took to the stage for the first time at the age of 2 — but the family business eventually failed.

Ms. Freeman, however, had already caught the acting bug, a condition that only grew worse when she got a bit part in a play while attending the University of California at Los Angeles to study music. "A terrible thing happened," she said. "I got a laugh."

It was to be the first of many. With a jowly face, quizzical eyes and an almost perpetually furrowed brow, Ms. Freeman soon established herself as a nimble character actress, turning her talent for deadpan into a lengthy career.

In the years between her first screen credit (a one-line part in the 1948 noir film, "The Naked City") to her last (as the old woman in this year's "Shrek"), Ms. Freeman would indelibly mark dozens of films in a variety of small but memorable roles.

In "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), she was Phoebe Dinsmore, the frustrated vocal coach to a squeaky-voiced bombshell played by Jean Hagen. In "North to Alaska" (1960), Ms. Freeman played a drunken Swedish prospector who lambasts a stunned John Wayne. And in a more recent turn she was the avenging nun, Sister Mary Stigmata, opposite John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in "The Blues Brothers" (1980).

Perhaps her best-known comic partnership was with Jerry Lewis, with whom she tangled in eight films, including "The Nutty Professor" and "The Ladies' Man." She and Mr. Lewis shared a love, she said, "for clowns and crazy people."

Generations of television audiences also knew Ms. Freeman's elastic mug. She was a regular on numerous 1960's sitcoms, including "The Beverly Hillbillies," playing Flo Shafer, one of the bumpkins' many nemeses; and "Hogan's Heroes," as Frau Linkmeier, the great love of Colonel Klink.

While she belonged to two prominent Los Angeles theater companies, the Circle and Players Ring Theaters, in the 1940's, Ms. Freeman's Broadway debut did not come until 1978 in Georges Feydeau's "13 Rue de l'Amour," with Louis Jourdan. There, she played Madame Spritzer, a downwardly mobile countess.

It was a performance that Walter Kerr, the theater critic for The New York Times, said exemplified Ms. Freeman's talent for subtle, savage comedy. "Even in midflight," he wrote, "she has the patience to sit on a line, to isolate it, and nail it to the floor."

Though she toured with several other productions, she only returned to Broadway last fall in "The Full Monty," playing Jeanette Burmeister, a tough-talking, tough-loving pianist. Her entrance, lurching up from behind a piano at the end of Act I, was typically one of the biggest ovations of the night.

In June that performance was recognized with a Tony nomination, an honor she described as "a hoot." She didn't win, but she said she didn't care.

In a interview in January, Ms. Freeman described how she felt about her career and life.

"I think," she said, "I'm a living example of the fact that you don't have to be in every inch of a film or play to be important to it."

Subject: RE: OBIT: Kathleen Freeman - RIP
From: GUEST,iamjohnne
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 04:28 PM

Kathleen Freman will be missed. Who can forget her with Phil Silvers when the Beverly Hillbillies went to New York and she was dressed as an Indian squaw. She brought many laughs to tv and to movies.

Johnne

"goin where the weather suits my clothes"