Biography
Actress Jean Willes spent the first ten years of her life shuttling up and down the West Coast; born in Los Angeles, she was raised in Salt Lake City, then moved with her family to Seattle. In 1943, she made her film debut in
So Proudly We Hail. Shortly afterward, she was signed by Columbia Pictures, billed under her given name, Jean Donahue. She was busiest in Columbia's B-pictures, Westerns, and two-reel comedies, playing a statuesque brunette foil for such comedians as
The Three Stooges,
Sterling Holloway,
Hugh Herbert, and
Bert Wheeler. In 1947, she changed her billing to her married name, Jean Willes. Some of her most memorable feature-film roles included the hostess at the New Congress Club who delivers a bored, by-rote recitation of the club's rules in
From Here to Eternity (1953);
Kevin McCarthy's "zombie-fied" nurse in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); one of
Clark Gable's quartet of leading ladies in A King and Four Queens (1956); the lady lieutenant who chews out
Andy Griffith in
No Time for Sergeants (1958); and
Ernest Borgnine's would-be-sweetheart in
McHale's Navy (1964). Jean Willes also made some 400 TV appearances (often as a sharp-tongued, down-to-earth blonde) in such series as
The Jack Benny Show,
The Twilight Zone,
Perry Mason, and
The Beverly Hillbillies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide