Jan Duggan

Duggan was born Genevieve Hussey in St. Louis, Missouri.[3] She was the daughter of George W. Hussey Sr. and Mary E. Flynn, she had three siblings. Her father died from a gunshot wound in 1894 in an act that was considered an homicide. She and the rest of her family lived in St. Louis until 1909, when the family relocated to Dallas, Texas, except her brother.

Voice lessons and breathing exercises that were administered for her frailty in childhood helped to prepare her for her career. She sang in light opera and in concerts in St. Louis and taught voice lessons after she moved to Dallas.[3]

Duggan started her career in 1933 after she was cast as the "Bowery Nightingale" in the revival of "The Drunkard" in the Los Angeles Theatre Mart. Her film career started in 1934, appearing in films like The Old Fashioned Way, Wagon Wheels, The County Chairman, A Damsel in Distress, Mountain Music during the 1930s. During the 1940s she appeared in My Little Chickadee, Manhattan Heartbeat, The Big Store and Dudes Are Pretty People among others.

For 20 of the 24 years from 1933 through 1957, Duggan sang between the second and third acts of The Drunkard at the Theater Mart in Los Angeles. She estimated that the number of performances exceeded 7,300.[4]

In 1915, Duggan married Eugene Fowler Duggan. They had one stillborn daughter died in 1920. Eugene died in 1942 and she never remarried. She died on March 10, 1977,[1] in Anaheim, California, aged 96.[5] She was buried in Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas.

• The Drunkard (1933)

• Jan Duggan at IMDb
• Jan Duggan at Find a Grave