Jean Dalrymple

Jean Van Kirk Dalrymple (September 2, 1902 – November 15, 1998[1]) was an American theater producer, manager, publicist, and playwright.

Although she had no aspirations for a theater career, she was asked to replace an actress and entered the vaudeville Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit with boyfriend (future Hollywood screen writer) Dan Jarrett.

For another sketch The Woman Pays, Jean and Dan hired Archibald Leach, a handsome young man with a British accent but no acting experience, whom they saw walking on stilts at Coney Island; he would later be known as Cary Grant.

She then wrote a play, Salt Water, that attracted the interest of theater producer John L. Golden.

At City Center, she produced revivals of Our Town, Porgy and Bess, Othello (starring Paul Robeson and Jose Ferrer), A Streetcar Named Desire (starring Uta Hagen and Anthony Quinn), Pal Joey (with Bob Fosse and Viveca Lindfors), King Lear (with Orson Welles), and many others.