Jean Peters, a 20th Century Fox contract player whose unpretentious beauty earned her leading roles in some of the top films of the late 1940s and early ’50s before she abandoned her career and practically disappeared from view after a secretive marriage to billionaire Howard Hughes, has died.
She died Oct. 13 in her home in Carlsbad, Calif. She was 73.
The cause of death was leukemia, The Associated Press reported.
Ms. Peters was a lead actress from the moment she arrived in Hollywood at the age of 21 after winning a Miss Ohio State beauty contest whose prizes included a Fox screen test.
The studio quickly offered her a seven-year contract. Within months of being driven cross-country by her widowed mother, the owner of a tourist camp outside their hometown, Canton, Ms. Peters was chosen as the female lead in the lavish epic “Captain from Castille,” opposite Tyrone Power.
Although never considered one of Hollywood’s greats, the green-eyed, fresh-faced actress had a straightforward naturalness on camera that made her a favorite leading lady of some of the top stars of the period.
She appeared with Ray Milland in the baseball comedy “It Happens Every Spring” (1949) and with Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan’s “Viva Zapata!” (1952), Richard Widmark in Sam Fuller’s “Pickup on South Street” (1953), Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe in “Niagara” (1953), Spencer Tracy in “Broken Lance” (1954), Burt Lancaster in “Apache” (1954) and, as one of three women in Rome in “Three Coins in the Fountain” (1954).
Ms. Peters, whose final movie was “A Man Called Peter” (1955), retired from film acting and was rarely seen in public during the 13 years she remained married to Hughes.
According to reports at the time of her divorce from Hughes, Peters had agreed not to discuss their private life together.
