Career
Among her most famous roles were as Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason, and as the voice of Belle in the perennial favorite Mister Magoo"s Christmas Carol. Jane Kean was the sister-in-law of actor Lew Parker, best known as Lou Marie, the father of Marlo Thomas"s character, Ann Marie, on That Girl. She was also the sister-in-law of Jim Backus, with whom she co-starred in Mister Magoo"s Christmas Carol.
Parker and Backus were two of Betty Kean"s husbands.
Television audiences remember Kean for her role of Trixie Norton in a series of hour-long Honeymooners episodes—in color and with music—on The Jackie Gleason Show from 1966-1970. She succeeded Joyce Randolph, who had played the role in earlier sketches and on the 1955-1956 sitcom The Honeymooners, but Kean went on to play the role for many more years than her predecessor.
Other credits included appearances on The Philosophy Silvers Show, Make Room for Daddy, The Lucy Show, Love, American Style, The Love Boat, The Facts of Life and Dallas. Her feature films include the character of Mission Taylor in Walt Disney"s live-action musical with animation Pete"s Dragon and voiced the character Belle in the 1962 television special Mister Magoo"s Christmas Carol, which continues to be shown every year.
She was profiled in the 2011 documentary Troupers, which aired on Public Broadcasting Service. Her last film, Abner the Invisible Dog, in which she played "Aunt Ida", was completed in 2013.
In 2003, she wrote a memoir, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Honeymooners. I Had a Life.
Kean died on November 26, 2013 at age 90, at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California of complications from a fall.