Meet Jean Peter Scott

EnGendered Species, an inspiring Art History Class I participated in at California State University, Long Beach found me reflecting on my brilliant and talented mother who impersonated the great male actors of her time and whose close friends were gay men.

Jean Peter Scott, my amazing mother, was born November 5, 1905 in Alameda, California. Her father, Walter Kendall Scott, a man of many interests, was a medical doctor, a dentist, a playwright, an actor, and world traveler. Her mother, Jennie Gourley, daughter of Santa Barbara’s Harbor Master, had been a Los Angeles schoolteacher in the 1890’s. My mother came from a long line of bright and interesting people.

I saw my mother as a colorful, eccentric genius. She recited poetry, introduced me to authors D. H. Lawrence, Noel Coward, and Oscar Wilde, and saw me more clearly than I saw myself. She never gave me advice or told me what to do, but would instead make a profoundly funny comment such as “don’t dance in the sun with butter on your head.”


Because my mother could bark like a big dog, my sons, my friends, and I always called her “Rover.” When I wandered off in stores, she’d bark and feeling embarrassed, I hurried back to her. Rover had the rare gift of being both spontaneous and un-self-conscious in delightfully funny ways!


She was an unusual woman in her era. After graduating in theatre arts from the University of California, Berkeley, she went to Columbia University in New York, where in one year she earned a master’s degree in journalism. Returning to Berkeley,
she took a radio job writing a daily soap opera about the humorous adventures
of cleaning lady Lena Genster. And five mornings a week America’s housewives
listened to her as Martha Mead giving recipes and advise for homemakers. Although she was not in the least bit domestic, she was completely convincing as the Martha Stewart of her day. She was an actress with a gift for transforming herself into whoever she wished to be, including her role as my mother!


Traveling through Europe she collected authentic costumes for her club act, Two Blue Jeans, in which she adroitly impersonated many male entertainers, including Chinese opera star, Mei Ling Feng, actor/singers Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier, as well as Scotsman Sir Harry Lauder. During World War II, she operated the Westwood Village Playhouse, drawing portraits of the actors to hang in the lobby, directing plays, writing publicity, and performing character rolls.


When she fell ill, I took care of her. The love and admiration I held for her never diminished. She joined her theatre idols in 1982 at the age of 76. She was a mother like no other. She taught me to appreciate the wonder and magic of an unconventional life.

by Penelope Scott-Doherty