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Biographer Discusses Actress Jean Arthur After Plattsburgh Unveils Building-Size Mural

Mural of Jean Arthur in downtown Plattsburgh by artist Brendon Palmer-Angell
Pat Bradley/WAMC
Mural of Jean Arthur in downtown Plattsburgh by artist Brendon Palmer-Angell

Earlier this month, members of the Plattsburgh arts community unveiled a huge mural on the back of a downtown building depicting a woman born in Plattsburgh in 1900 as Gladys Georgianna Greene. She became one of Hollywood’s most popular stars of the 1930’s and 40’s.  Oscar nominated and known as Jean Arthur, she stared in classic films by Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford and others.  But she was a very private individual who shunned publicity. In 1997, biographer John Oller published “Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew.” Oller visited Plattsburgh this week to view the mural.  He tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chef Pat Bradley he had always been a fan of 1930’s and 40’s era movies and wrote the book because no one had ever fully delved into Arthur’s life.
“I knew that there had been dozens of books written on Katherine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe and Betty Davis but I knew Jean Arthur, I knew her film work. I didn’t know much about her other than the fact that no one knew much about her. And the more I started getting into the research I realized I had really hit upon a unique subject here.”

The mural of Jean Arthur, sponsored by Outside Art: Plattsburgh Public Art Project and painted by Brendon Palmer-Angell, is on the back of a former bank building at the corner of Brinkerhoff and Marion streets.  There is also a plaque in front of the house at 94 Oak Street marking her birthplace.