Jane Greer: Movies & Box Office

Jane Greer, born Bettejane Greer on September 9, 1924 in Washington, D.C., emerged as one of the most enigmatic figures of classic Hollywood noir. Her early life was marked by a striking incident at age fifteen when a facial palsy left the left side of her face temporarily paralysed; the intensive facial exercises she performed to recover are often credited with giving her the famous “Mona Lisa smile” that RKO promoted as the woman with the Mona Lisa smile. After legally changing her name to Jane Greer in 1945, she transitioned from a beauty‑contest winner and big‑band singer—who had performed with Enric Madriguera’s orchestra—to a film star after being discovered by Howard Hughes in a 1942 issue of Life magazine. Hughes placed her under contract with RKO, and she quickly became associated with the femme fatale archetype, most memorably as Kathie Moffat in the 1947 classic Out of the Past, a role that secured her place in film‑history and later earned a cameo reinterpretation in the 1984 remake Against All Odds. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s she appeared in such titles as Dick Tracy, The Big Steal, The Prisoner of Zenda and Man of a Thousand Faces, demonstrating a versatility that extended beyond noir into comedy and adventure. When studio politics limited her opportunities at MGM, she negotiated a release in 1952 and continued to work steadily in both film and the burgeoning medium of television, guest‑starring on series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Columbo, Falcon Crest and Twin Peaks until her retirement in 1996. Greer’s personal life was equally eventful: she married singer Rudy Vallée in 1943, with the marriage ending the following year, and later wed attorney Edward Lasker in 1947, with whom she had three sons—including screenwriter Alex Lasker and producer Lawrence Lasker—before divorcing in 1963. A lifelong Democrat and Catholic, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and remained a beloved figure until her death from cancer on August 24, 2001, in Los Angeles.