Jean Byron, a true sunny delight, will be fondly remembered for her iconic three-season-long role as the vivacious and grounding "Natalie Lane" on The Patty Duke Show (1963),where she played the mother of the talented Patty Duke, and was always there to help her teenage daughter regroup when she got into trouble. Born Imogene Burkhart in Paducah, Kentucky, in 1925, Jean was a musically inclined teen singer on radio before even graduating from high school.
Her family's move to California further fueled her interest in show business, and she began apprenticing on the local stage and working on radio, earning her first contract with Columbia Pictures and adopting the stage name Jean Byron for billing purposes. Her movie career started uneventfully in 1952, co-starring with Johnny Weissmuller in Voodoo Tiger (1952),one of a series of "Jungle Jim" adventure programmers.
Jean's early film roles were uninspired, opposite a radioactive creature in The Magnetic Monster (1953) and as a handmaiden to Rhonda Fleming's "Cleopatra" in Serpent of the Nile (1953),which led her to wisely focus on television as a more viable medium. She appeared on top TV shows of the day, including westerns such as Yancy Derringer (1958),Fury (1955),My Friend Flicka (1955),Cheyenne (1955),and Laramie (1959),which showcased her wholesome and lovely on-screen presence.
Jean also became a household name as an on-camera spokeswoman for products like Revlon and Lux soap, earning the nickname "The Lux Girl". She landed recurring roles on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959) comedy and solidified her status on The Patty Duke Show (1963) from 1963 to 1966.
Following the series' demise, Jean's appearances became less frequent, and she was mostly seen on late 60s and 70s TV, as well as on the dinner theater circuit and in musical stage shows, where she portrayed "Mama Rose" in one production of "Gypsy". Jean retired in the 1980s and moved to Mobile, Alabama, to be closer to her extended family. Her final appearance was a happy occasion with an nostalgic TV-movie reunion show that brought her back together with former cast members Patty Duke and TV husband William Schallert, among others, in 1999.
Jean was briefly married to handsome actor Michael Ansara, but had no children and never remarried. She died at the age of 80 after developing an infection following surgery for a hip replacement, and was buried in Mobile Memorial Gardens.
