Jean Kerr's great break was a collection of humorous essays about suburban life called Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1957). Touch and Go earned a rave review from the New York Times' reviewer Brooks Atkinson, who appreciated the "breezy and informed wit" and called it the best new show of the season. By the mid 1950s, Kerr had begun to find her way and her voice, writing sketches and lyrics for 1949's Touch and Go, sketches for John Murray Anderson's Almanac in 1953, and teaming with Eleanor Brooke to write the play King of Hearts, which had a successful run on Broadway. Kerr's first comic play, 1948's Jenny Kissed Me, met a fate similar to Bernadette. While the play was a flop commercially, they were able to continue working in the field. She collaborated with her husband for her first undertaking: an adaptation of Franz Werfel's famous novel The Song of Bernadette in 1946. Remembering a tirade from her father delivered years earlier-"the only damn thing you're good at is talk"-she decided to write plays. She and husband found living on a teacher's salary difficult. Jean Kerr began her writing during her MFA years at Catholic University, in part because of requirements of the program, in part because of her nature, and in part out of necessity. After the burgeoning family moved to the New York suburbs, they became fodder for Jean Kerr's stories. They had one daughter, Katharine, and five sons: Christopher, Colin, John, Gilbert, and Gregory. At Catholic University she met Professor Walter Kerr, a drama critic and future Pulitzer Prize winner. In the meantime, Jean Collins proceeded with her education, earning her BA at Marywood College (now University) in 1943 and an MFAfrom Catholic University in 1945.
During her childhood, she determined her life's goal was "to be able to sleep until noon." She realized that her own temperament was unsuited to such habits. Her parents were Thomas and Kitty Collins. Jean Kerr was born Bridge Jean Collins on July 10, 1923, in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
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