Jeanne Eagels was born in 1890 as Amelia Jeannine Eagles. Her parents were Edward and Julia Sullivan Eagles. She had five siblings. In Kansas City, they began at the age of seven years of her career as an actress when she played the gravedigger in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Their ambitions were so large that it was 12 years old left her home town and the Dubinsky Brothers traveling theater show followed and toured with the troupe through the Midwest. At first she appeared as a dancer, but soon played leading roles in comedies and dramas.

Around 1911, she moved to New York to pursue her career. Because of the harsh competitive struggle to find a role on Broadway, they had to start from the bottom. Maybe then they got a commitment girl as a revue in the Ziegfeld Follies Broadway shows. During this time she took acting classes at Beverly Sitgreaves, who already was with great Eagels idol Sarah Bernhardt on the stage. Eagels changed the spelling of her birth name "Eagles to" because they felt it would look better on posters.

Although she fought for recognition as a character actress, bestowed on her more her beauty, her talent and luck larger roles in better plays. Her stage career thrived, and in 1915 she was seen in her first film, The House of Fear, a silent film, too. 1916/1917 she made three films for the Thanhouser Film Corporation.

Eagels earned recognition and honor along with her stage partner George Arliss successful in three Broadway productions. In 1918 she participated in Daddies, a David Belasco - Staging and was always known. She completed this commitment because of an illness, then went to Europe. Between 1919 and 1921 she appeared again in a few Broadway shows. In 1922 she became the star in the play Rain, that, in the role of Sadie Thompson until 1924 played to full houses almost 900 times. Two more years, she went on tour with the play and returned for a farewell performance as Sadie 1926, once back on Broadway.

In 1925 she married Edward Harris Coy, a former football player of Yale University. In 1928, the childless marriage was divorced.

1926 Eagels got the role of Roxie Hart in Maurine Dallas Watkins offered pieces Chigago. You already rehearsing for the piece finally as the role but then declined, probably because of disagreements with the director. The next engagement, they chose a comedy, Her Cardboard Lover (1927), in which she appeared with Leslie Howard as co-star. The piece was only a modest success, and after a season on Broadway, she interrupted her work there to rotate a movie. She played with John Gilbert in the MGM film Man, Woman and sin, directed by Monta Bell. Then she went on tour, this time with the play Her Cardboard Lover. 1928, after she had missed a gig in Milwaukee, it was occupied by the actors union with a 18-month performance ban. This ban was Eagels but not on it, making films. She worked at two sound films for Paramount Pictures. The Letter and Jealousy, both published in 1929. Their acting performance as Leslie Crosby in The Letter was highly praised by the critics.

Shortly before she was to return to Broadway, died at the age of 39 years Eagels surprisingly in a hospital in New York. The investigating pathologists could not agree on the exact cause of death, the toxicology was not yet so advanced as today. The facts, however, pointed out to one death occurred from alcohol or heroin. Eagels remains were transferred to their home town and buried in Calvary Cemetery.
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