Jean was the daughter of playwright Aurania Rouverol[1] (1886-1955), who created Andy Hardy and wrote many of the films in the MGM series. She was an actress on stage, radio, and in motion pictures before turning to writing novellas, books, and screenplays for motion pictures and television. She came to Hollywood in the 1930's and began working as an actress for Paramount, RKO, and Universal studios.
Her acting activities also involved performing on radio and among her many radio credits was playing Betty Carter Barbour on One Men's Family for more than a dozen years. She wrote novellas for several magazines including McCalls, Housewife, and Seventeen. Jean's screenplays credits include The Miracle, Legend of Lylah Clare, Face in the Rain, Autumn Leaves, and So Young, So Bad. She has many daytime television writing credits for such series As the World Turns, Bright Promise, Guiding Light, and Search For Tomorrow and was nominated for an Emmy for her writing in this genre.
Her books include: "Writing for Daytime Drama," "Writing for the Soaps," "Storm Wind Rising," "Juarez, A Son of the People," "Pancho Villa, A Biography," and "Harriet Beecher Stowe, Woman Crusader." Her most recent book is "Refugees from Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist Years" which is an account of her family's and friends' years in Mexico after they fled the U.S. rather than be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Jean was the recipient of the Morgan Cox Award from the Writers Guild of America in 1987. She has taught at University of Southern California and University of California at Los Angeles and has lectured on US Daytime Drama in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
With ART, she can be heard in "Alonzo's Watch" (2005), The Bickersons, FBI in Peace and War, Quiet Please: "The Good Ghost", and The Whistler.
Jean Rouverol Butler
