![]() ![]() ![]() Sitting on a bench at UC Irvine and flipping through the stills, she laughs out loud at a picture from “The Disorderly Orderly,” showing her with Lewis. “I think politics is pretty much the way it was in the Roman Forum. “There are just as many flakes and inept people today as there were long ago,” she said, drawing a parallel with the political scene. “When I come to the set, people don’t say, ‘Oh God, here comes one of those this-is-the-way-we-did-it-in-the-’50s actresses.’ I’m not that at all.”įreeman is not one to reminisce about any “golden age” of Hollywood-she says she’s having as much fun now as she ever had. “That just means I’m not static,” said Freeman, who is a big advocate of changing with the times and keeping a youthful outlook. Her acceptance by new generations of film comics has landed her roles in the aforementioned “Blues Brothers,” in addition to the recent “Dragnet” film, “Innerspace” with Martin Short, and Joe Dante’s “Gremlins II,” in which she played a character named Microwave Marge. “You have to get it from someone who’s been there.”įreeman has managed to keep herself busy in an industry and a comedy climate that has evolved over the years. “Acting is a hand-me-down profession,” she said. “I do tell some delicious stories about what’s happened over the years.”īefore her stage appearance, Freeman will conduct an afternoon workshop for Irvine middle school and high-school performing-arts students. “It’s a wonderful, eclectic kind of potpourri,” she said of her show. ![]() The show is a benefit for the Irvine Education Foundation, which supports curricula in the Irvine Unified School District. “If you play the leading lady, generally speaking, you have a shorter acting life.”įreeman will perform tonight in the Irvine Barclay Theatre in a one-woman show that combines musical and comedy sketches with anecdotes from her career. The roles span 40 busy years, which illustrates one of the advantages of character work: “One of the best things about being a character actor is longevity,” Freeman explained. Klink?-to a new episode of “Doogie Howser, M.D.” airing later this month. Burkhalter’s sister, the one who was always chasing Col. She was the foil to Jerry Lewis in such films as “The Nutty Professor” and “The Disorderly Orderly,” the vocal coach in “Singin’ in the Rain,” Sister Mary Stigmata in “The Blues Brothers.” Television roles range from episodes of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to a recurring character on “Hogan’s Heroes”-remember Gen. When Freeman shuffles through stills from her countless film and TV roles, the characters pop back into the memory with instant clarity: “Oh yeah, I remember that. It’s a character actor’s lot to have a face that is oh-so familiar but can’t quite be placed, to work in film after film but have a name that’s not quite on everybody’s tongue. Maybe she’s just wound up because of her rush-hour trek from her home in Van Nuys to UC Irvine, but when she walks, it’s a struggle to keep up, and when she laughs, it’s a joyous noise that echoes off the buildings and startles the self-absorbed students walking by. The first thing you notice about Kathleen Freeman is her energy. ![]()
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