Jacque Lynn Colton is an actress who was one of the founding members of the first La MaMa Repertory Troupe directed by Tom O’Horgan that went to Europe in 1965. She, along with Michael Warren Powell, Mari-Claire Charba, Victor LiPari and Kevin O’Connor, were the remaining five actors to stay on in Denmark after the split of the initial two companies in Paris and Copenhagen.  Starving and without money for a return ticket to New York they played in ‘dinky little places’ in Denmark developing a cohesive style and company character incorporating great physicality not typical to American theater at that time.  Subsequently, Colton appeared in over 200 plays and on television and in the movies.  Some of her Off-Broadway plays include: THE HOSTAGE(1961) THE WHITE WHORE AND THE BIT PLAYER (1962), FRUSTRATA, OR THE DIRTY LITTLE GIRL WITH THE RED PAPER ROSE STUCK IN HER HEAD IS DEMENTED (1964), THE FAMILY JOKE (1964), THE GENERAL RETURNS FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER (1964), BABY DOLL (1964) THE BAPTISM(1964), TIDY PASSIONS, OR KILL KALEIDOSCOPE (1965), LITTLE MOTHER (1965), THIS IS THE RILL SPEAKING (1965), AMERICA HURRAH (1965), THE HUNTER AND THE BIRD (1965), THE RECLUSE (1965), 6 FROM LA MAMA (1966), RIMERS OF ELDRITCH (1966), IN CIRCLES (1967) HUUI, HUUI (1968), BOY ON THE STRAIGHT-BACK CHAIR (1969), THE DISINTEGRATION OF JAMES CHERRY (1970),KINGFISH (1989).  Her movies include; Gremlins, Four Star (Andy Warhol’s 24 hour movie), Heartbreak Hotel, Mr. Mom, Big Bad Mama II, Love at First Bite, and Just You and Me Kid. She was seen on television in Three’s Company, The Lucy Show, Hart to Hart, Superior Court, All My Children, Mary, Medical Center, and Silver Spoons, among others.

Jacque Lynn Colton’s Jewish grandfather was killed by a Cossack in Russia when the grandmother was pregnant with Colton’s father.  The grandmother and her son emigrated to Portland, Oregon, to be near her sisters and brothers in Canada.  She remarried and her new husband sold newspapers on the street.  Colton’s father became a Golden Gloves boxer and athlete.  He graduated from high school and became a short order cook at a bus station.  In 1925 he went to Medford’s National Guard Encampment, found a stationery and supply store he liked, borrowed money and bought it, doing business there until the 1980s.  Before the first La MaMa tour in 1964, Mari-Clare Charba convinced Jacque Lynn Colton to join her in Paris where she had a scholarship for the Sorbonne waiting for her.  They two had met and became friends while performing in LeRoi Jones’ (Amiri Baraka) play THE BAPTISM, and Tom Eyen’s FRUSTRATA, OR THE DIRTY LITTLE GIRL WITH THE RED PAPER ROSE STUCK IN HER HEAD IS DEMENTED.  In New York, Colton asked playwright Eyen to write ‘a little something to ‘pay for our supper’ in case they ran out of money, that they could perform in the streets.  Eyen wrote for them THE WHITE WHORE AND THE BIT PLAYER.  They performed the play in small venues in Paris, passing out flyers in front of The American Express Office crying ‘Do you speak English?  We are doing a play in English.’ Returning to New York City, and always the starving Underground actress, she frequented Max’s Kansas City which was around the corner from her apartment for Happy Hour, rubbing elbows with Andy Warhol who invited her to join him and his group as he sat next to her and fed her.  During the first World Tour with LaMaMa, Colton, traveled to Paris, Copenhagen, Sweden (where they had a residency and Colton stayed with Swedish actress Julia Ege).  In Denmark , Colton saw a production by Jerzy Grotowski that she thought was the most experimental theater she had ever seen.  Colton thought, ‘I have to work with him!’   She talked to Grotowski who gave her a scholarship, and she stayed in Holstebro, Denmark, leaving the La Mama troupe to study with him.  While in Denmark, Colton directed in English Danish actors who spoke in Danish a production of THE HUNTER AND THE BIRD, by Jean-Claude van Italie, that aired on Danish National television.  Returning to New York, she taught the methods of Grotowski at The Open Theater, directed plays, performed in movies and television and more commercial theater including a tour of Blithe Spirit with Shirley Booth.  In 1971, when the tour arrived in Los Angeles, she decided to stay there and create a new life for herself on the West Coast.  Avery Schreiber invited her to appear on the Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour.   She did twenty-two commercials in her first two years in Los Angeles and made enough money to buy a house.  Colton has since worked with many West Coast theaters including the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre, A Noise Within, The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Open Fist Theater, Pilot Theater and Theatre West.