ARTHUR, JEAN

(1900–1991)

   Jean Arthur’s most famous Western role is Marian Starrett, the winsome farm wife in Shane (1953). She loves her husband (Van Heflen) and son (Brandon De Wilde) but is drawn perilously close to Shane (Alan Ladd), the ex-gunfighter and idol of her son. However, 17 years earlier Jean Arthur played quite a different role in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman (1936). As Calamity Jane, Arthur played a rough-talking, masculine muleskinner who falls in love with Wild Bill Hickok(Gary Cooper) and follows him to Deadwood. Some critics wondered how a glamorous star like Arthur could be credible as a Calamity Jane, but Arthur had a long career in Hollywood, playing many kinds of roles. Her Western career spanned back to numerous silent shorts of the 1920s such as Ridin’ Rivals (1926), where she played opposite Buddy Roosevelt and Wally Wales.