Jean Parker was born Lois Mae Green in Deer Lodge, MT, in 1915. Her father was Lewis Green, a gunsmith and hunter, and her mother was Melvina Burch, one of 18 children of a pioneer family that came to Deer Lodge from Missouri and Iowa. Jean's maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister.
Jean was an accomplished gymnast and dancer, and was adopted by the Spickard family of Pasadena during her formative years when both her father and mother were unemployed during the Great Depression. Jean had entered a poster painting contest and won for portraying Father Time. Ida Koverman, assistant to MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, heard that a pretty teenage girl had won the contest; she contacted Jean, and when she saw how pretty Jean actually was had Mayer offer her an MGM contract. Jean made several important films in her career, including Fantôme à vendre (1935) with Robert Donat; Sequoia (1934) with Russell Hardie, shot in the Sequoia National Forest near Springville, CA; Les quatre filles du Docteur March (1933) with Joan Bennett and Katharine Hepburn; L'agent N° 13 (1934) with Marion Davies; and many other fine films.
After several successful cross-country trips entertaining injured servicemen during World War II, Jean lost her successful flying service, co-owned with Douglas Dawson in Palm Springs, married and divorced Curt Grotter of the Braille Institute in Los Angeles; and moved on to New York to star in the play "Loco". She also starred on Broadway in "Burlesque" with Bert Lahr and in "Born Yesterday", filling the role for Judy Holliday. Jean's husband, actor Robert Lowery, played opposite her as Brock in the play for a short stint. Jean was living at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, at the time of her death from a stroke in November 2005. She has one son, Robert, an executive with the city of Los Angeles who makes his home in Redondo Beach, California; and two grandchildren, twin girls Katie and Nora.
