AllMovie

Discovered by W.C. Fields in a popular Los Angeles parody of the ancient barnstormer The Drunkard, hatchet-faced Jan Duggan breezed into the comedian's 1934 paean to barnstorming itself, The Old-Fashioned Way. Duggan plays widow Cleopatra Pepperday, whose heartfelt but longwinded and off-key rendition of "Gathering Up the Sea Shells" is interrupted by Fields' wholly insincere "Wonderful, wonderful; You make Jenny Lind sound like a mangy alley cat with asthma." Duggan went on to become part of the comedian's onscreen coterie, but her roles elsewhere were minimal. She died in 1977 at the age of 95.