Mona Freeman

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

American actress (1926–2014)

title: "Mona Freeman" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1926-births", "2014-deaths", "american-film-actresses", "american-television-actresses", "american-portrait-painters", "actresses-from-new-york-(state)", "artists-from-new-york-(state)", "painters-from-new-york-(state)", "paramount-pictures-contract-players", "20th-century-american-actresses", "20th-century-american-painters", "20th-century-american-women-painters", "burials-at-forest-lawn-memorial-park-(hollywood-hills)", "21st-century-american-women"] description: "American actress (1926–2014)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Freeman" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American actress (1926–2014) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameMona Freeman
imageMona Freeman in That Brennan Girl.jpg
captionFreeman in That Brennan Girl (1946)
birthnameMonica Elizabeth Freeman
birth_date
birth_placeBaltimore, Maryland, U.S.
death_date
death_placeBeverly Hills, California, U.S.
occupationActress, painter
yearsactive1944–1972
spouse{{plainlist
* {{marriagePat Nerney
* {{marriageH. Jack Ellis
children1
::

| name = Mona Freeman | image = Mona Freeman in That Brennan Girl.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Freeman in That Brennan Girl (1946) | birthname = Monica Elizabeth Freeman | birth_date = | birth_place = Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Beverly Hills, California, U.S. | othername = | occupation = Actress, painter | yearsactive = 1944–1972 | spouse = {{plainlist|

| children = 1}} ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Cliff_Robertson_Mona_Freeman_Two_Worlds_of_Charlie_Gordon_1961.JPG" caption="Charly]]''."] ::

Monica Elizabeth "Mona" Freeman (June 9, 1926 – May 23, 2014) was an American actress and painter.

Early years

Freeman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Pelham, New York. A lumberman's daughter, she was a model while in high school, and was selected the first "Miss Subways" of the New York City transit system in 1940.

Career

Paramount Pictures signed Freeman to a contract after she moved to Hollywood.

Her contract was later sold to Paramount Pictures. Her first film appearance was in the 1944 film Till We Meet Again. She became a popular teenage movie star. After a series of roles as a pretty, naive teenager, she complained of being typecast.

As an adult, Freeman's career slowed and she appeared in mostly B-movies, though an exception was her role in the film noir Angel Face (1952). She also co-starred in the hit film Jumping Jacks with the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Mona_Freeman_MS853_cropped.jpg" caption="Mona Freeman in 1953"] ::

Freeman's appearances in films ended in the 1950s, but she continued to work in television. Among her appearances were seven guest roles on The United States Steel Hour from 1960 to 1962 and three on Perry Mason, all of them roles as Mason's client: Jane Wardman in "The Case of the Lurid Letter" (1962), Rosanne Ambrose in "The Case of the Illicit Illusion" (1964), and Ellen Payne in "The Case of the 12th Wildcat" (1965). She appeared in two episodes of Wanted: Dead or Alive starring Steve McQueen titled "The Fourth Headstone" (Season One, Episode 9, air date 11/1/1958) and "Breakout" (Season 2 Episode 4, aired 9/26/1959), and two episodes of Maverick titled "The Cats of Paradise" (1959) and "Cruise of the Cynthia B." (1960), both starring James Garner, in which she played a recurring role as crazy-eyed swindler Modesty Blaine. She also appeared in an episode of Riverboat titled "The Boy from Pittsburgh" (1959) starring Darren McGavin and Burt Reynolds, an episode of Checkmate titled "Don't Believe a Word She Says" (1961) starring Doug McClure and Sebastian Cabot, and an episode of The Tall Man titled "Petticoat Crusade" (1961) starring Barry Sullivan as Pat Garrett and Clu Gulager as Billy the Kid, along with numerous other leading lady roles in various television series, including anthologies.

Freeman was a portrait painter and concentrated on painting after 1961. Her best-known portrait is that of businesswoman Mary See, founder of See's Candies.

Personal life and death

Freeman married Pat Nerney, a car dealer, in Los Angeles in 1945. The couple had one daughter, Mona. They divorced in 1952. In 1961, she married H. Jack Ellis, a businessman from Los Angeles.

Freeman died on May 23, 2014, at the age of 87 after a long illness, at her Beverly Hills home.

Partial filmography

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Mona_Freeman_in_Angel_Face_trailer.jpg" caption="Angel Face]]'' (1953) starring [[Robert Mitchum]] and [[Jean Simmons"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/That_Brennan_Girl_(1946)_still_1.jpg" caption="James Dunn]] in ''[[That Brennan Girl]]'' (1946)"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Mona_Freeman,_husband_Pat_Nerney,_and_Phyllis_Thaxter,_1949.jpg" caption="Photoplay]]'', 1949"] ::

Partial television credits

References

References

  1. Lamparski, Richard. (July 1, 1982). "Whatever became of-- ?: eighth series: the best (updated) and newest of the famous Lamparski profiles of personalities of yesteryear". Crown Publishers.
  2. (June 8, 1951). "Greetings". Mexico Ledger.
  3. (2015). "Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2014". McFarland.
  4. Frost, Natasha. (October 4, 2017). "The Miss Subways Pageant Charted the Highs and Lows of 20th-Century Feminism in New York:From a 1940s beauty queen to a 2017 performance artist".
  5. Ilnytzky, Ula. (October 12, 2012). "Decades of Miss Subways smiled on NYC straphangers".
  6. Chawkins, Steve. (June 6, 2014). "Film star Mona Freeman, typecast as teen in '40s and '50s, dies at 87". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  7. (2007). "Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages". [[Gale (publisher).

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

1926-births2014-deathsamerican-film-actressesamerican-television-actressesamerican-portrait-paintersactresses-from-new-york-(state)artists-from-new-york-(state)painters-from-new-york-(state)paramount-pictures-contract-players20th-century-american-actresses20th-century-american-painters20th-century-american-women-paintersburials-at-forest-lawn-memorial-park-(hollywood-hills)21st-century-american-women