Jeanne Dante

Biography

Blue-eyed, convent-educated child actress Jeanne Dante had a couple of minor hits on Broadway to her name, featured near the top of the bill in 'Brass Ankles' and 'Thunder on the Left'. Universal, therefore, snatched her up and brought her to Hollywood in the hope of having discovered another Deanna Durbin. Accordingly, Jeanne was given star billing in her screen debut Four Days Wonder (1936) as a 13-year detective fiction enthusiast who gets sucked into a real life mystery. A mildly humorous spoof, it was based on a story by Winnie-the-Pooh author A.A. Milne but due to its low budget failed to generate much interest at the box office. Also, as it turned out, Jeanne posed no threat to Deanna. Having subsided to bit parts, she ended up taking a long sabbatical from films and reemerged as an adult actress with MGM in 1951. Speaking parts were still not coming her way, however, and after a bit role in The FBI Story (1959), she left show business forever.