L. Genevieve (or Genevieve L.) Hussey, better known as Jan, was born on 6 November 1881 in St. Louis, St. Louis Co., MO. The daughter of George W. Hussey, Sr. and Mary E. Flynn, her known siblings included Marie Alida, Mabel Frances, and George W. Hussey.
Her paternal grandfather, a Civil War vet, died in Maine in 1883. Her maternal grandparents were Irish immigrants. Sadly, her father died in 1894 in St. Louis due to a gunshot wound from an act that was evidently a homicide. Jan, her mother, her grandmother, and other family members were living at Cook Avenue at the time of his death, and remained in that area of the city for years.
By 1901, Jan performed in concert in St. Louis and, not surprisingly, is listed as vocal music teacher in several St. Louis city directories and elsewhere as a soprano and member of The Association of Missouri State Music Teachers.
Mary Hussey died in 1905 and, by 1909, Jan, her Grandmother Sarah, and possibly other family members moved to Dallas, Dallas Co., TX. Her brother George remained behind at the Cook Avenue address.
Around 1915, Jan married New Orleans-born Eugene Fowler Duggan, the son of Joseph Henry Dugan and Adèle Ida Fowler, who had been living in Dallas for some time. She and Eugene are known to have had one daughter, stillborn on 22 September 1920. It seems that in the next ten years, Jan began to travel back and forth between Los Angeles and Dallas.
Thus, in addition to her singing ventures, she had acting experience by the time she was selected by W.C. Fields to appear in his movie "The Old Fashioned Way" (1934) as the clueless widow Cleopatra Pepperday, whom Fields' character describes as "all dressed up like a well-kept grave."
In 1933, Jan had helped inaugurate a revival of William H.S. Smith's old-time melodrama, "The Drunkard" (or "The Fallen Saved"), by appearing as "Mrs. Wilson"; moreover, the program promised "MISS JAN DUGGAN, Singer Extraordinary will entertain between the Second and Third acts with a group of unique songs."
Newspaper releases indicate Fields visited the show at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles some thirty times. There was evidently something that spoke to him in the story, a portion of which—like Jan and certain other cast members—would wend its way into Fields' script.
To classic movie buffs, Fields' "The Old Fashioned Way" is not only Jan's onscreen debut, but her greatest claim to fame, with a very "unique song" anchoring their best scene together. The "New York Times" described her as an "excellent comic foil" for Fields, who ensured she became part of his stock company, securing roles for her in several other of his movies, including: "Mississippi" (1935), with Bing Crosby; You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" (1939), with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy; "The Bank Dick" (1940); and his famed collaboration with Mae West, "My Little Chickadee" (1940).
Regarding the latter, research into Fields' personal letters indicates he suggested Jan for "Mrs. Gideon," the character eventually assayed by Margaret Hamilton. Instead, his "good luck charm," as described by the press, played one of Gideon's coterie of do-gooders who runs Flower Belle Lee (West) out of Brushwood Gulch.
However, something lost on most, if not all, film historians is that Jan in fact played two characters, filling in as a saloon girl in Greasewood City, a brief part shot entirely in profile, as if to hide the fact she was pulling double duty – or that this "saloon girl" was nearly 60. It would not be beyond Fields to attempt to arrange two paychecks, particularly if he felt his good luck charm had been wronged in losing the plum role.
Jan was to Fields what Margaret Dumont was to Groucho Marx, making it a bit ironic that the same year Maggie appeared with Fields in Universal's "Never Give a Sucker An Even Break" (1941), Jan appeared with the Marx Brothers in MGM's "The Big Store" (1941), somehow surviving a prime encounter with Groucho:
Customer (Jan): Can you tell me the price of this bed?
Wolf J. Flywheel (Groucho): $8,000.
Customer: Why that's preposterous! I can get the same bed anywhere in town for $25.
Flywheel: Yes, but not with ME in it.
Jan also appeared in Will Rogers' "The County Chairman" (1935); Andy Clyde's short, "Alimony Aches" (1935); the Ritz Brothers' "Life Begins in College" (1937) and "Kentucky Moonshine" (1938); and Jack Benny's "The Meanest Man in the World" (1943), as well as in such films as Jean Harlow's "Reckless" (1935) and the Fred Astaire – Burns and Allen musical, "A Damsel in Distress" (1937).
As Genevieve or Genevieve H. Duggan, Jan appears in the 1920, 1930, and 1940 Dallas censuses with Eugene. The 1940 census indicates her home in 1935 was Los Angeles and is the first to list her as an actress, specifically in "moving pictures."
Though still based in Dallas, Eugene actually died in 1942 in Los Angeles during a visit to see Jan in Hollywood; press stories of the time describe him as a widely known cotton broker, adding that he was prominent in civic affairs. Perhaps due to Eugene's death just months before Benny's "Meanest Man" began production, Jan's "Mrs. Throckmorton" was her last onscreen performance.
The culmination of her movie career did not mean, however, that Jan's muse remained idle. Having remained in the cast of "The Drunkard" since its inception, she continued her participation till as late as summer 1951, with one source indicating she may have remained till 1954. …In which case, she "retired" around age seventy-three, after twenty-one years in the same show.
It seems likely that Jan inherited Dallas property from Eugene (and perhaps her grandmother), but it must have been long since sold, for she chose to remain in California for nearly a quarter century after she left the Theatre Mart, passing away on 10 March 1977 at age 95. She, Eugene, and their daughter are buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park.
Biography by:
James "Jim" E. Zielinski
(Find-a-Grave Member # 46969917)
January – February 2014
Her paternal grandfather, a Civil War vet, died in Maine in 1883. Her maternal grandparents were Irish immigrants. Sadly, her father died in 1894 in St. Louis due to a gunshot wound from an act that was evidently a homicide. Jan, her mother, her grandmother, and other family members were living at Cook Avenue at the time of his death, and remained in that area of the city for years.
By 1901, Jan performed in concert in St. Louis and, not surprisingly, is listed as vocal music teacher in several St. Louis city directories and elsewhere as a soprano and member of The Association of Missouri State Music Teachers.
Mary Hussey died in 1905 and, by 1909, Jan, her Grandmother Sarah, and possibly other family members moved to Dallas, Dallas Co., TX. Her brother George remained behind at the Cook Avenue address.
Around 1915, Jan married New Orleans-born Eugene Fowler Duggan, the son of Joseph Henry Dugan and Adèle Ida Fowler, who had been living in Dallas for some time. She and Eugene are known to have had one daughter, stillborn on 22 September 1920. It seems that in the next ten years, Jan began to travel back and forth between Los Angeles and Dallas.
Thus, in addition to her singing ventures, she had acting experience by the time she was selected by W.C. Fields to appear in his movie "The Old Fashioned Way" (1934) as the clueless widow Cleopatra Pepperday, whom Fields' character describes as "all dressed up like a well-kept grave."
In 1933, Jan had helped inaugurate a revival of William H.S. Smith's old-time melodrama, "The Drunkard" (or "The Fallen Saved"), by appearing as "Mrs. Wilson"; moreover, the program promised "MISS JAN DUGGAN, Singer Extraordinary will entertain between the Second and Third acts with a group of unique songs."
Newspaper releases indicate Fields visited the show at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles some thirty times. There was evidently something that spoke to him in the story, a portion of which—like Jan and certain other cast members—would wend its way into Fields' script.
To classic movie buffs, Fields' "The Old Fashioned Way" is not only Jan's onscreen debut, but her greatest claim to fame, with a very "unique song" anchoring their best scene together. The "New York Times" described her as an "excellent comic foil" for Fields, who ensured she became part of his stock company, securing roles for her in several other of his movies, including: "Mississippi" (1935), with Bing Crosby; You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" (1939), with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy; "The Bank Dick" (1940); and his famed collaboration with Mae West, "My Little Chickadee" (1940).
Regarding the latter, research into Fields' personal letters indicates he suggested Jan for "Mrs. Gideon," the character eventually assayed by Margaret Hamilton. Instead, his "good luck charm," as described by the press, played one of Gideon's coterie of do-gooders who runs Flower Belle Lee (West) out of Brushwood Gulch.
However, something lost on most, if not all, film historians is that Jan in fact played two characters, filling in as a saloon girl in Greasewood City, a brief part shot entirely in profile, as if to hide the fact she was pulling double duty – or that this "saloon girl" was nearly 60. It would not be beyond Fields to attempt to arrange two paychecks, particularly if he felt his good luck charm had been wronged in losing the plum role.
Jan was to Fields what Margaret Dumont was to Groucho Marx, making it a bit ironic that the same year Maggie appeared with Fields in Universal's "Never Give a Sucker An Even Break" (1941), Jan appeared with the Marx Brothers in MGM's "The Big Store" (1941), somehow surviving a prime encounter with Groucho:
Customer (Jan): Can you tell me the price of this bed?
Wolf J. Flywheel (Groucho): $8,000.
Customer: Why that's preposterous! I can get the same bed anywhere in town for $25.
Flywheel: Yes, but not with ME in it.
Jan also appeared in Will Rogers' "The County Chairman" (1935); Andy Clyde's short, "Alimony Aches" (1935); the Ritz Brothers' "Life Begins in College" (1937) and "Kentucky Moonshine" (1938); and Jack Benny's "The Meanest Man in the World" (1943), as well as in such films as Jean Harlow's "Reckless" (1935) and the Fred Astaire – Burns and Allen musical, "A Damsel in Distress" (1937).
As Genevieve or Genevieve H. Duggan, Jan appears in the 1920, 1930, and 1940 Dallas censuses with Eugene. The 1940 census indicates her home in 1935 was Los Angeles and is the first to list her as an actress, specifically in "moving pictures."
Though still based in Dallas, Eugene actually died in 1942 in Los Angeles during a visit to see Jan in Hollywood; press stories of the time describe him as a widely known cotton broker, adding that he was prominent in civic affairs. Perhaps due to Eugene's death just months before Benny's "Meanest Man" began production, Jan's "Mrs. Throckmorton" was her last onscreen performance.
The culmination of her movie career did not mean, however, that Jan's muse remained idle. Having remained in the cast of "The Drunkard" since its inception, she continued her participation till as late as summer 1951, with one source indicating she may have remained till 1954. …In which case, she "retired" around age seventy-three, after twenty-one years in the same show.
It seems likely that Jan inherited Dallas property from Eugene (and perhaps her grandmother), but it must have been long since sold, for she chose to remain in California for nearly a quarter century after she left the Theatre Mart, passing away on 10 March 1977 at age 95. She, Eugene, and their daughter are buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park.
Biography by:
James "Jim" E. Zielinski
(Find-a-Grave Member # 46969917)
January – February 2014
L. Genevieve (or Genevieve L.) Hussey, better known as Jan, was born on 6 November 1881 in St. Louis, St. Louis Co., MO. The daughter of George W. Hussey, Sr. and Mary E. Flynn, her known siblings included Marie Alida, Mabel Frances, and George W. Hussey.
Her paternal grandfather, a Civil War vet, died in Maine in 1883. Her maternal grandparents were Irish immigrants. Sadly, her father died in 1894 in St. Louis due to a gunshot wound from an act that was evidently a homicide. Jan, her mother, her grandmother, and other family members were living at Cook Avenue at the time of his death, and remained in that area of the city for years.
By 1901, Jan performed in concert in St. Louis and, not surprisingly, is listed as vocal music teacher in several St. Louis city directories and elsewhere as a soprano and member of The Association of Missouri State Music Teachers.
Mary Hussey died in 1905 and, by 1909, Jan, her Grandmother Sarah, and possibly other family members moved to Dallas, Dallas Co., TX. Her brother George remained behind at the Cook Avenue address.
Around 1915, Jan married New Orleans-born Eugene Fowler Duggan, the son of Joseph Henry Dugan and Adèle Ida Fowler, who had been living in Dallas for some time. She and Eugene are known to have had one daughter, stillborn on 22 September 1920. It seems that in the next ten years, Jan began to travel back and forth between Los Angeles and Dallas.
Thus, in addition to her singing ventures, she had acting experience by the time she was selected by W.C. Fields to appear in his movie "The Old Fashioned Way" (1934) as the clueless widow Cleopatra Pepperday, whom Fields' character describes as "all dressed up like a well-kept grave."
In 1933, Jan had helped inaugurate a revival of William H.S. Smith's old-time melodrama, "The Drunkard" (or "The Fallen Saved"), by appearing as "Mrs. Wilson"; moreover, the program promised "MISS JAN DUGGAN, Singer Extraordinary will entertain between the Second and Third acts with a group of unique songs."
Newspaper releases indicate Fields visited the show at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles some thirty times. There was evidently something that spoke to him in the story, a portion of which—like Jan and certain other cast members—would wend its way into Fields' script.
To classic movie buffs, Fields' "The Old Fashioned Way" is not only Jan's onscreen debut, but her greatest claim to fame, with a very "unique song" anchoring their best scene together. The "New York Times" described her as an "excellent comic foil" for Fields, who ensured she became part of his stock company, securing roles for her in several other of his movies, including: "Mississippi" (1935), with Bing Crosby; You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" (1939), with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy; "The Bank Dick" (1940); and his famed collaboration with Mae West, "My Little Chickadee" (1940).
Regarding the latter, research into Fields' personal letters indicates he suggested Jan for "Mrs. Gideon," the character eventually assayed by Margaret Hamilton. Instead, his "good luck charm," as described by the press, played one of Gideon's coterie of do-gooders who runs Flower Belle Lee (West) out of Brushwood Gulch.
However, something lost on most, if not all, film historians is that Jan in fact played two characters, filling in as a saloon girl in Greasewood City, a brief part shot entirely in profile, as if to hide the fact she was pulling double duty – or that this "saloon girl" was nearly 60. It would not be beyond Fields to attempt to arrange two paychecks, particularly if he felt his good luck charm had been wronged in losing the plum role.
Jan was to Fields what Margaret Dumont was to Groucho Marx, making it a bit ironic that the same year Maggie appeared with Fields in Universal's "Never Give a Sucker An Even Break" (1941), Jan appeared with the Marx Brothers in MGM's "The Big Store" (1941), somehow surviving a prime encounter with Groucho:
Customer (Jan): Can you tell me the price of this bed?
Wolf J. Flywheel (Groucho): $8,000.
Customer: Why that's preposterous! I can get the same bed anywhere in town for $25.
Flywheel: Yes, but not with ME in it.
Jan also appeared in Will Rogers' "The County Chairman" (1935); Andy Clyde's short, "Alimony Aches" (1935); the Ritz Brothers' "Life Begins in College" (1937) and "Kentucky Moonshine" (1938); and Jack Benny's "The Meanest Man in the World" (1943), as well as in such films as Jean Harlow's "Reckless" (1935) and the Fred Astaire – Burns and Allen musical, "A Damsel in Distress" (1937).
As Genevieve or Genevieve H. Duggan, Jan appears in the 1920, 1930, and 1940 Dallas censuses with Eugene. The 1940 census indicates her home in 1935 was Los Angeles and is the first to list her as an actress, specifically in "moving pictures."
Though still based in Dallas, Eugene actually died in 1942 in Los Angeles during a visit to see Jan in Hollywood; press stories of the time describe him as a widely known cotton broker, adding that he was prominent in civic affairs. Perhaps due to Eugene's death just months before Benny's "Meanest Man" began production, Jan's "Mrs. Throckmorton" was her last onscreen performance.
The culmination of her movie career did not mean, however, that Jan's muse remained idle. Having remained in the cast of "The Drunkard" since its inception, she continued her participation till as late as summer 1951, with one source indicating she may have remained till 1954. …In which case, she "retired" around age seventy-three, after twenty-one years in the same show.
It seems likely that Jan inherited Dallas property from Eugene (and perhaps her grandmother), but it must have been long since sold, for she chose to remain in California for nearly a quarter century after she left the Theatre Mart, passing away on 10 March 1977 at age 95. She, Eugene, and their daughter are buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park.
Biography by:
James "Jim" E. Zielinski
(Find-a-Grave Member # 46969917)
January – February 2014
Her paternal grandfather, a Civil War vet, died in Maine in 1883. Her maternal grandparents were Irish immigrants. Sadly, her father died in 1894 in St. Louis due to a gunshot wound from an act that was evidently a homicide. Jan, her mother, her grandmother, and other family members were living at Cook Avenue at the time of his death, and remained in that area of the city for years.
By 1901, Jan performed in concert in St. Louis and, not surprisingly, is listed as vocal music teacher in several St. Louis city directories and elsewhere as a soprano and member of The Association of Missouri State Music Teachers.
Mary Hussey died in 1905 and, by 1909, Jan, her Grandmother Sarah, and possibly other family members moved to Dallas, Dallas Co., TX. Her brother George remained behind at the Cook Avenue address.
Around 1915, Jan married New Orleans-born Eugene Fowler Duggan, the son of Joseph Henry Dugan and Adèle Ida Fowler, who had been living in Dallas for some time. She and Eugene are known to have had one daughter, stillborn on 22 September 1920. It seems that in the next ten years, Jan began to travel back and forth between Los Angeles and Dallas.
Thus, in addition to her singing ventures, she had acting experience by the time she was selected by W.C. Fields to appear in his movie "The Old Fashioned Way" (1934) as the clueless widow Cleopatra Pepperday, whom Fields' character describes as "all dressed up like a well-kept grave."
In 1933, Jan had helped inaugurate a revival of William H.S. Smith's old-time melodrama, "The Drunkard" (or "The Fallen Saved"), by appearing as "Mrs. Wilson"; moreover, the program promised "MISS JAN DUGGAN, Singer Extraordinary will entertain between the Second and Third acts with a group of unique songs."
Newspaper releases indicate Fields visited the show at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles some thirty times. There was evidently something that spoke to him in the story, a portion of which—like Jan and certain other cast members—would wend its way into Fields' script.
To classic movie buffs, Fields' "The Old Fashioned Way" is not only Jan's onscreen debut, but her greatest claim to fame, with a very "unique song" anchoring their best scene together. The "New York Times" described her as an "excellent comic foil" for Fields, who ensured she became part of his stock company, securing roles for her in several other of his movies, including: "Mississippi" (1935), with Bing Crosby; You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" (1939), with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy; "The Bank Dick" (1940); and his famed collaboration with Mae West, "My Little Chickadee" (1940).
Regarding the latter, research into Fields' personal letters indicates he suggested Jan for "Mrs. Gideon," the character eventually assayed by Margaret Hamilton. Instead, his "good luck charm," as described by the press, played one of Gideon's coterie of do-gooders who runs Flower Belle Lee (West) out of Brushwood Gulch.
However, something lost on most, if not all, film historians is that Jan in fact played two characters, filling in as a saloon girl in Greasewood City, a brief part shot entirely in profile, as if to hide the fact she was pulling double duty – or that this "saloon girl" was nearly 60. It would not be beyond Fields to attempt to arrange two paychecks, particularly if he felt his good luck charm had been wronged in losing the plum role.
Jan was to Fields what Margaret Dumont was to Groucho Marx, making it a bit ironic that the same year Maggie appeared with Fields in Universal's "Never Give a Sucker An Even Break" (1941), Jan appeared with the Marx Brothers in MGM's "The Big Store" (1941), somehow surviving a prime encounter with Groucho:
Customer (Jan): Can you tell me the price of this bed?
Wolf J. Flywheel (Groucho): $8,000.
Customer: Why that's preposterous! I can get the same bed anywhere in town for $25.
Flywheel: Yes, but not with ME in it.
Jan also appeared in Will Rogers' "The County Chairman" (1935); Andy Clyde's short, "Alimony Aches" (1935); the Ritz Brothers' "Life Begins in College" (1937) and "Kentucky Moonshine" (1938); and Jack Benny's "The Meanest Man in the World" (1943), as well as in such films as Jean Harlow's "Reckless" (1935) and the Fred Astaire – Burns and Allen musical, "A Damsel in Distress" (1937).
As Genevieve or Genevieve H. Duggan, Jan appears in the 1920, 1930, and 1940 Dallas censuses with Eugene. The 1940 census indicates her home in 1935 was Los Angeles and is the first to list her as an actress, specifically in "moving pictures."
Though still based in Dallas, Eugene actually died in 1942 in Los Angeles during a visit to see Jan in Hollywood; press stories of the time describe him as a widely known cotton broker, adding that he was prominent in civic affairs. Perhaps due to Eugene's death just months before Benny's "Meanest Man" began production, Jan's "Mrs. Throckmorton" was her last onscreen performance.
The culmination of her movie career did not mean, however, that Jan's muse remained idle. Having remained in the cast of "The Drunkard" since its inception, she continued her participation till as late as summer 1951, with one source indicating she may have remained till 1954. …In which case, she "retired" around age seventy-three, after twenty-one years in the same show.
It seems likely that Jan inherited Dallas property from Eugene (and perhaps her grandmother), but it must have been long since sold, for she chose to remain in California for nearly a quarter century after she left the Theatre Mart, passing away on 10 March 1977 at age 95. She, Eugene, and their daughter are buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park.
Biography by:
James "Jim" E. Zielinski
(Find-a-Grave Member # 46969917)
January – February 2014
Family Members
Siblings
Children
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
