(6 of 11)
Northern Sophistication. Walter and Jean were married in the summer of 1943, and soon she too joined the university faculty as an English instructor, teaching World War II veterans how to clean, load and fire a gerund. Christopher, their first son, was born two years later, and their next baby was stillborn. The difficulty was in the Rh factor, and her obstetrician told Jean she would have no more children. The outcome of his prediction is well known, and it began with twins, delivered, like the later two, by Caesarean section.
During his eleven years at Catholic University (1938-49), Walter Kerr helped build one of the most respected college drama departments in the U.S., meanwhile collaborating with Jean on various Broadway projects, most notably the 1949 revue, Touch and Go. Having decided that they needed "metropolitan sophistication," they moved north, where, after a season as drama critic on Commonweal, he moved into the vacancy left by Howard Barnes on the New York Herald Tribune. He quickly outclassed all other daily reviewers in town. Meanwhile, Jean began writing her comic essays and the comedy, King of Hearts, which had a medium run on Broadway in 1954. She often worked in the front seat of theii Chevrolet, parked away from the dis tractions of home. The "metropolitai sophistication" Walter had been looking for materialized in a growing circle o friends that now includes poets, book reviewers, critics, surgeons, directors, pro ducers, actors, and a Dy Dee diaper service man who once followed Walter int< a bathroom and argued about the theater with him while he tried to take a shower But there was only limited time for socia life as the Kerrs settled down to life 01 the emerald aisle.
Sidewalk Talk. She goes with hin to most openings on and off Broadway Producers give them two of the best seat assigned to the enemy—at one end of thi fifth-or sixth-row center, balanced by thi Times at the opposite end. The othe papers and magazines get slightly inferio angles. After the play begins, Jean Ker is death on audience whisperers, turninj fierce eyes toward them until they dis appear into the upholstery. "I wouldn' talk when the curtain is up," she says "any more than I would dump babies ou of their carriages."
At intermissions, the critics head fo the sidewalk—except for the Times, whicl traditionally stays indoors—and they obe; a gentlemen's agreement not to discus the play. Jean Kerr does most of thi talking anyway, about everything fron babies to books, and she is fast friend with nearly every man on murderers' row She even became the godmother of Georgi Jean Nathan when the late critic, at 75 was converted to Catholicism.