JANE KEAN

April 10, 1924

Jane Kean was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 10, 1924. Her show business career spanned seven decades. Among her most famous roles were as Trixie Norton on “The Jackie Gleason Show”, and as the voice of Belle in the perennial favorite “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol.”

Kean and her older sister Betty Kean, formed a comedy duo that worked the nightclub circuit throughout the 1940s and ‘50s. The two appeared on Broadway as sisters in the1955 musical, Ankles Aweigh. She studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. She had a featured role in the Broadway musical Take Me Along which starred Jackie Gleason, who would remember her a few years later when casting his television program. Audiences remember Kean for her role of Trixie Norton in 48 hour-long “Honeymooners” episodes—in color and with music—on “The Jackie Gleason Show” from 1966 to 1970. She succeeded Joyce Randolph, who had played the role in earlier sketches and on the 1955–56 sitcom. 

Her feature films include the character of Miss Taylor in Walt Disney’s live-action musical with animation Pete’s Dragon

She made her screen debut in Sailors on Leave (1941) playing Sunshine. Her television debut came in 1949 in an episode of “Fireside Theatre” with her sister. 

In January 1955, the Kean Sisters were musical guests on Desilu Productions’ “Shower
of Stars”. They shared the stage with Ethel Merman and Red Skelton. 

In 1956, she was on the Desilu lot to film an episode of “The Danny Thomas Show” titled “Bunny Gets into the Act”. She played Cactus Kate.

On January 31, 1966, Kean appeared on “The Lucy Show” as Pussycat on “Lucy and the Soap Opera” (TLS S4;E19). Actually, Pussycat was a character on the soap opera “Camden Cove”.  Pussycat is a key figure in a courtroom scene, along with spectator Lucy Carmichael.

In 2003, she wrote a memoir, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Honeymooners…I Had a Life.

Her final screen role was playing Aunt Ida in the 2013 film Abner the Invisible Dog.  She died a month after its release, in November 2013, at age 90.