Jean Porter


Bennie Jean Porter was an American film and television actress. She was notable for her roles in The Youngest Profession, Bathing Beauty, Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, Till the End of Time, Cry Danger, and The Left Hand of God.
Porter was notable for her marriage to Edward Dmytryk, who was one of the Hollywood Ten, the most prominent blacklisted group in the film industry during the McCarthy era.

Early life

Porter was born in Cisco, Texas to a Texas and Pacific Railway worker and a music teacher. As a baby, she was called the "Most Beautiful Baby" in Eastland County. At 10 years old, she hosted a half-hour radio show on Saturday mornings on the WRR station in Dallas, and she got a summer job with Ted Lewis's vaudeville band.

Career

At the age of 12, Porter arrived at Hollywood and took dancing lessons at the Fanchon and Marco dancing school, where she was discovered by director Allan Dwan. Porter acted in Dwan's 1936 musical Song and Dance Man, but did not appear in the credits.

Beginning with a bit parts in movies such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and One Million B.C., she eventually established herself as an actress for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941.
While never a big star, she was active throughout the 1940s, appearing in almost 30 motion pictures alongside MGM stars such as Esther Williams, Mickey Rooney, and the comedy duo Abbott and Costello. In the 1950s, Porter appeared mainly in television series such as The Red Skelton Show, Sea Hunt, and 77 Sunset Strip. She retired from acting in 1961. Porter was lent to RKO to act in Till the End of Time.
She was married to film director and writer Edward Dmytryk, who was one of the Hollywood Ten, the most prominent blacklisted group in the film industry during the McCarthy-era. The two married May 12, 1948, in Ellicott City, Maryland. They had three children. Dmytryk was blacklisted because he refused to respond to allegations of communism. In the late 1940s, Porter and Dmytryk escaped to England. After they returned to the U.S. in 1951, Dmytryk was imprisoned for 6 months for contempt of Congress.
Porter was the author of the unpublished book The Cost of Living, about Dmytryk and her. She also wrote Chicago Jazz and Then Some, about jazz pianist Jess Stacy, and with her husband, On Screen Acting''.

Filmography