From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jean Peters October 15 1926 October 13 2000 was an American actress known as a star of 20th Century Fox in the late 1940s and early 1950s and as the second or possibly third wife of Howard Hughes Although possibly best remembered for her siren role in Pickup on South Street 1953 Peters was known for her resistance to be turned into a sex symbol preferring to play unglamorous downtoearth women