Kathleen Freeman (February 17, 1919 - August 23, 2001) was an American film, television, voice actress, and stage actress. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, she portrayed acerbic maids, secretaries, teachers, busybodies, nurses, and battle-axe neighbors and relatives, almost invariably to comic effect. She was best known for her roles as Miss Olin in "Hocus Pocus" and Mrs. Gordon in "As Told by Ginger".

Early life

Freeman was born in Chicago, Illinois. She began her career as a child, dancing in her parents' vaudeville act. After a stint studying music at University of California, Los Angeles, she went into acting full-time, working on the stage, and finally entering films in 1948. She was a founding member, in 1946, of the Circle Players at The Circle Theatre, now known as El Centro Theatre.

Career

Freeman made her film debut in Wild Harvest (1947). Freeman's most notable early role was an uncredited part in the 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain, as Jean Hagen's diction coach, Phoebe Dinsmore.

Beginning with the 1954 film 3 Ring Circus, Freeman became a favorite foil of Jerry Lewis, playing opposite him in 11 films. These included most of Lewis's better known comedies, including The Disorderly Orderly as Nurse Higgins, The Errand Boy as the studio boss's wife, and especially The Nutty Professor as Millie Lemon. Over 30 years later, she made a small cameo appearance in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.

Other film roles included appearances in The Missouri Traveler (1958), the horror film The Fly (1958), the Western spoofs Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), and appearances in a spate of comedies in the 1980s and 1990s. Freeman played Sister Mary Stigmata (referred to as The Penguin) in John Landis' The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000, had cameos in Joe Dante's Innerspace and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (as tipsy cooking host Microwave Marge in 2), and a Ma Barker type gangster mother in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult.

In addition to teaching acting classes in Los Angeles, Freeman was a familiar presence on television. In 1958 and 1959, she appeared three times on Buckskin, a children's program set in a hotel in a fictitious Montana town. She appeared from the 1950s until her death in regular or recurring roles on many sitcoms, including six episodes of The Bob Cummings Show (as Bertha Krause), Topper (as Katie the maid), and The Donna Reed Show (as Mrs. Celia Wilgus, the Stone's busybody next door neighbor, with Howard McNear as her husband, Wilbur).

Freeman was cast on Hogan's Heroes (as Frau Gertrude Linkmeyer, General Burkhalter's sister, who longed to wed Colonel Klink), Funny Face (as Mrs. Kate Harwell, Sandy Duncan's landlady and friend), I Dream of Jeannie (as a grouchy supervisor in a fantasy preview of Major Nelson's future), the short-lived prehistoric sitcom It's About Time (as Mrs. Boss), and as the voice of Peg Bundy's mom, an unseen character on Married... with Children.

She remained active in her last two years, with a regular voice role on As Told by Ginger, a voice bit in the animated feature film Shrek, a guest appearance on the sitcom Becker and scoring a Tony Award nomination and a Theatre World Award for her role as Jeannette Burmeister in the Broadway musical version of The Full Monty.

In her final episode of As Told by Ginger, Season 2's "No Hope for Courtney", Freeman's character, Mrs. Gordon, retires from her teaching job although Carl and Hoodsey try convincing her to return to work. The script was originally written to have Mrs. Gordon return to Lucky Elementary School, but Freeman died before the episode was finished. The script was then re-written and Mrs. Gordon died as well. The episode was dedicated in Freeman's memory.

Death

Weakened by illness, Freeman was forced to leave the Full Monty cast. Five days later, she died of lung cancer at age 82 at Lenox Hill Hospital. She was cremated and her ashes inurned in a niche at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. She never married. British reports of her death included her surviving long-time companion, Helen Ramsey, but U.S. obituaries did not.

Filmography

• The Naked City (1948)
• Casbah (1948)
• Behind Locked Doors (1948)
• Annie Was a Wonder (1948, short subject)
• The Saxon Charm (1948)
• Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949)
• The Story of Molly X (1949)
• No Man of Her Own (1950)
• House by the River (1950)
• The Reformer and the Redhead (1950)
• Once a Thief (1950)
• Lonely Heart Bandits (1950)
• A Life of Her Own (1950)
• The Second Face (1950)
• The Company She Keeps (1951)
• Cry Danger (1951)
• Cause for Alarm! (1951) (scenes deleted)
• Appointment with Danger (1951)
• Strictly Dishonorable (1951)
• A Place in the Sun (1951)
• Behave Yourself! (1951)
• Come Fill the Cup (1951)
• Let's Make It Legal (1951)
• The Wild Blue Yonder (1951)
• The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
• Love Is Better Than Ever (1952)
• Singin' in the Rain (1952)
• Talk About a Stranger (1952)
• Kid Monk Baroni (1952)
• Skirts Ahoy! (1952)
• Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952)
• Monkey Business (1952)
• O. Henry's Full House (1952)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)
• The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
• The Magnetic Monster (1953)
• She's Back on Broadway (1953)
• Confidentially Connie (1953)
• A Perilous Journey (1953)
• The Glass Wall (1953)
• Dream Wife (1953)
• The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953)
• Half a Hero (1953)
• The Glass Web (1953)
• Battle of Rogue River (1954)
• Athena (1954)
• 3 Ring Circus (1954)
• The Far Country (1955)
• Artists and Models (1955)
• The Midnight Story (1957)
• Pawnee (1957)
• Kiss Them for Me (1957)
• The Missouri Traveller (1958)
• Too Much, Too Soon (1958)
• The Fly (1958)
• Houseboat (1958)
• The Buccaneer (1958)
• North to Alaska (1960)
• The Ladies Man (1961)
• The Errand Boy (1961)
• Wild Harvest (1962)
• Madison Avenue (1962)
• The Nutty Professor (1963)
• Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
• Mail Order Bride (1964)
• The Patsy (1964)
• The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
• The Rounders (1965)
• That Funny Feeling (1965)
• Marriage on the Rocks (1965)
• Three on a Couch (1966)
• Point Blank (1967)
• Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)
• Death of a Gunfighter (1969)
• Hook, Line & Sinker (1969)
• The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969)
• The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
• Myra Breckinridge (1970)
• Which Way to the Front? (1970)
• Support Your Local Gunfighter! (1971)
• Head On (1971)
• Stand Up and Be Counted (1972)
• Where Does It Hurt? (1972)
• Unholy Rollers (1972)
• So Evil, My Sister (1974)
• The Strongest Man in the World (1975)
• The Norseman (1978)
• The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Heartbeeps (1981)
• Gall Force: Eternal Story (1986) (voice in English version)
• The Best of Times (1986)
• The Malibu Bikini Shop (1986)
• Dragnet (1987)
• Innerspace (1987)
• Inside Out (1987)
• In the Mood (1987)
• Teen Wolf Too (1987)
• The Wrong Guys (1988)
• Hollywood Chaos (1989)
• Chances Are (1989)
• The Golden Girls (1990)
• Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
• The Willies (1991)
• Joey Takes a Cab (1991)
• Dutch (1991)
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) (voice)
• Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992) (voice)
• Reckless Kelly (1993)
• Hocus Pocus (1993)
• Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
• Two Guys Talkin' About Girls (1995)
• Carpool (1996)
• Hercules (1997) (voice)
• Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
• Richie Rich's Christmas Wish (1998) (direct-to-video)
• I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998)
• Seven Girlfriends (1999)
• Ready to Rumble (2000)
• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
• Joe Dirt (2001)
• Shrek (2001) (voice)
• As Told by Ginger (2000 - 2003) (voice)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]