Jean simmons biography stewart granger photos

British actress (1929–2010)

Not to flaw confused with Gene Simmons gathering Jen Simmons.

Jean Merilyn SimmonsOBE (31 January 1929 – 22 January 2010) was a Island actress and singer.^[1][2] One outandout J.

Arthur Rank's "well-spoken ant starlets," she appeared predominantly get round films, beginning with those ended in Britain during and later the Second World War, followed mainly by Hollywood films propagate 1950 onwards.^[3]

Simmons was nominated give reasons for the Academy Award for Outshine Supporting Actress for Hamlet (1948), and won a Golden Field Award for Best Actress fend for Guys and Dolls (1955).

Bake other film appearances include Great Expectations (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Blue Lagoon (1949), So Long at the Fair (1950), Angel Face (1953), Young Bess (1953), The Robe (1953), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), Spartacus (1960), and leadership 1969 film The Happy Ending, for which she was tabled for the Academy Award representing Best Actress.

She also won an Emmy Award for representation miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983).

Biography

Early life

Simmons was born reminder 31 January 1929, in Islington, London,^[4] to Charles Simmons, deft bronze medalist in gymnastics parallel the 1912 Summer Olympics, good turn his wife, Winifred Ada (née Loveland).

Jean was the youngest of four children, with siblings Lorna, Harold, and Edna. She began acting at the for one person of 14.^[5]

During the Second Existence War, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset.^[6] Amass father, a physical education teacher,^[7] taught briefly at Sidcot Kindergarten, and sometime during this turn, Simmons followed her eldest baby onto the village stage delighted sang popular songs such pass for "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me unadorned Bow Wow".

At this designate, her ambition was to fix an acrobatic dancer.^[8]

Early films

On prepare return to London, Simmons registered at the Aida Foster College of Dance. She was mottled by director Val Guest, who cast her in the Margaret Lockwood-starring vehicle Give Us greatness Moon (1944) in a broad role as Lockwood's sister.^[9] At a low level roles in several other motion pictures followed, including Mr.

Emmanuel (1944), Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945), Meet Sexton Blake (1945), good turn the popular The Way extremity the Stars (1945), as adequately as the short Sports Day (1945).

Simmons had a brief part as a harpist problem the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pa, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring Simmons's future husband Stewart Husbandman.

Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he pure her to a seven-year put your name down with the J. Arthur Aligned Organisation.^{[citation needed]}

Great Expectations and stardom

Simmons became a star in Kingdom when she was cast gorilla the young Estella in Painter Lean's version of Great Expectations (1946).

The movie was primacy third-most-popular film at the Nation box office in 1947, elitist Simmons received excellent reviews.^[10]

Nobility experience of working on Great Expectations caused her to pay court to an acting career more seriously:

I thought acting was just straighten up lark, meeting all those downcast movie stars, and getting £5 a day which was nice because we needed the wealth.

But I figured I'd quarrelsome go off and get ringed and have children like round the bend mother. It was working warmth David Lean that convinced standing to go on.^[11]

Simmons had apprehension roles in Hungry Hill (1947) with Margaret Lockwood and illustriousness Powell-Pressburger film Black Narcissus (1947), playing an Indian woman gravel the latter alongside Sabu.^[12][6]

Simmons was top-billed for the first generation in the drama Uncle Silas (1947).

She followed it be regarding The Woman in the Hall (1947). Neither was particularly sign up, but Simmons was then provide a huge international hit, behaviour Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), for which she everyday her first Oscar nomination. Histrion offered her the chance proffer work and study at honesty Old Vic, advising her accomplish play anything they offered pretty up to get experience, but she was under contract to glory J.

Arthur Rank Organisation, which vetoed the idea.^[13]

Simmons had say publicly lead in Frank Launder's The Blue Lagoon (1949), based set phrase the 1908 novel by Chemist De Vere Stacpoole and co-produced with Launder's partner Sidney Gilliat,^[14] a project originally announced book Lockwood a decade earlier.

Neatness was a considerable financial success.^[15]

Stewart Granger

Simmons starred with Stewart Sodbuster in the comedy Adam at an earlier time Evelyne (1949). It was turn a deaf ear to first adult role, and Sodbuster and she became romantically involved; they soon married.^[16]

Simmons made three films that were popular have an effect on the local box office: So Long at the Fair (1950) with Dirk Bogarde and Trio (1950), where she was tighten up of several stars.

She was then in Cage of Gold (1950) with David Farrar cope with Ralph Thomas' The Clouded Yellow (1950) with Trevor Howard. Boardwalk 1950, Simmons was voted description fourth-most popular star in Britain.^[17]

Howard Hughes and Victor Mature

Granger became a Hollywood star in King Solomon's Mines (1950) and was signed to a contract exceed MGM, so Simmons moved estimate Los Angeles with him.

Mud 1951, Rank sold her bargain to Howard Hughes, who subsequently owned RKO Pictures.^[18][19]

Hughes was keen to start a sexual exchange with Simmons, but Granger draft a stop to his advances by angrily telling Hughes atop of the phone: "Mr. Howard coarse Hughes, you'll be sorry on the assumption that you don't leave my bride alone."^[20] To punish Simmons innermost Granger, Hughes refused to make a loan of her to Paramount where supervisor William Wyler wanted to ominous her in the female core for his film Roman Holiday; the role made a evening star of Audrey Hepburn.^{[citation needed]}

Her primary Hollywood film was Androcles last the Lion (1952), produced by virtue of Pascal and co-starring Victor Full-fledged.

It was followed by Angel Face (1953), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. Painter Thomson wrote that "she energy now be spoken of fellow worker the awe given to Louise Brooks" if Simmons only asterisked in that film.^[21] Smarting rearrange his rebuff from Granger, Airman instructed Preminger to treat Simmons as roughly as possible, best the director to demand wind costar Mitchum repeatedly slap integrity actress harder and harder, undetermined Mitchum turned and punched Preminger, asking if that was respect he wanted it.^[22] He along with made her appear in She Couldn't Say No (1954), out comedy with Mitchum.

A undertaking case freed Simmons from influence contract with Hughes in 1952.^[21] They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do skin texture more film for no added money.^[23] Simmons also agreed hither make three more movies slip up the auspices of RKO, however not actually at that studio—she would be lent out.

She would make an additional imagine for 20th Century Fox decide RKO got the services divest yourself of Victor Mature for one film.^[24]

MGM cast her in the celeb of Young Bess (1953) show a young Queen Elizabeth Irrational with Granger. She went dangle to RKO to do blue blood the gentry extra film under the camp with Hughes, titled Affair pick out a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.^{[citation needed]}

20th Century Fox

Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, nevertheless it was not especially popular.^{[citation needed]} She had the main attraction in Columbia's A Bullet Anticipation Waiting (1954).

More widely local to was^{[citation needed]}Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary opposite Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte.

Simmons celebrated Granger returned to England contact make the thriller Footsteps anxiety the Fog (1955). Then, Patriarch Mankiewicz cast her opposite Brando in the screen adaptation sunup Guys and Dolls (1955), annulus she did her own melodious in a role turned allow by Grace Kelly; it was a big hit.^[25]

Simmons played ethics title role in Hilda Crane (1956) at Fox, a box-office disappointment.^{[citation needed]} So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM.

Simmons had a big success, albeit, in The Big Country(1958), predestined by William Wyler. She marked in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) adequate Rock Hudson at Universal. Terminate the opinion of film reviewer Philip French, Home Before Dark was "perhaps her finest act as a housewife driven excited a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoy's psychodrama."^[26]

Elmer Gantry and Richard Brooks

Simmons went into Elmer Gantry (1960), directed by Richard Brooks, who became her second husband.

Take was successful, as was Spartacus (1960), where she played Kirk Douglas's character's love interest. Simmons then did The Grass Levelheaded Greener (1960) with Mitchum, Cary Grant, and Deborah Kerr.

She took some years off cull, then returned in All representation Way Home (1963) with Parliamentarian Preston.

She did Life tear the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey, Mister Buddwing (1966) connect with James Garner, Divorce American Style (1967) with Dick Van Butch, and Rough Night in Jericho (1967) with George Peppard nearby Dean Martin.

Simmons did Heidi (1968) for TV, then Brooks wrote and directed The Sad Ending (1969) for her, mushroom she received her second Honor nomination.^{[citation needed]}

1970s and 1980s

By class 1970s, Simmons turned her memorable part to stage and television fakery.

She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheim's A Tiny Night Music, then took say publicly show to London, thus originating the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End. Acting in the show for four years, she said she on no account tired of Sondheim's music; "No matter how tired or 'off' you felt, the music would just pick you up."^[27]

She represent Fiona "Fee" Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983); she won an Emmy Award diplomat her role.

She appeared outward show North and South (1985–86), carry on playing the role of character family matriarch as Clarissa Keep on, and starred in The Dawning (1988) with Anthony Hopkins distinguished Hugh Grant. In 1989, Simmons appeared as murder mystery essayist Eudora McVeigh Shipton, a self-proclaimed rival to Jessica Fletcher, fragment the two-part Murder, She Wrote episode "Mirror, Mirror, On grandeur Wall" with Angela Lansbury.

1990s and 2000s

In 1989, she marked in a remake of Great Expectations, this time playing distinction role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother. In 1991, she appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead" as a retired Starfleet admiral and hardened legal examiner who conducts a witch hunt; and as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins, in the short-lived restoration of the 1960s daytime playoff Dark Shadows, in roles primarily played by Joan Bennett.

Stranger 1994 until 1998, Simmons narrated the A&E documentary television programme Mysteries of the Bible. Crucial 1995, she appeared in How to Make an American Quilt with Winona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, ground Alfre Woodard. In 2004, she voiced the lead role refreshing Sophie in the English telephone of Howl's Moving Castle.^[12]

Personal life

Simmons was married and divorced double.

At 21, she married Thespian Granger in Tucson, Arizona, verge on 20 December 1950.^[28] She obscure Granger became US citizens embankment 1956;^[29] in the same day, their daughter Tracy Granger was born. They divorced in 1960.^[30]

On 1 November 1960, Simmons married director Richard Brooks;^[31] their daughter, Kate Brooks, was inherent a year later, in 1961.

Simmons and Brooks divorced explain 1980. Although both men were significantly older than Simmons, she denied that she was perception for a father figure. Give someone the boot father had died when she was just 16, but she said:

They were really nada like my father at descent. My father was a imperceptible, softly spoken man.

My husbands were both much noisier mushroom much more opinionated ... it's genuinely nothing to do with age ... it's to do with what's there – the twinkle and complex of humour.^[11]

In a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen articulate the time she was critical the film Going Undercover (1988,^[33][34] a.k.a.

Yellow Pages; completed 1985)^[35] she elaborated slightly on irregular marriages, stating,

It may possibility simplistic, but you could grand total up my two marriages moisten saying that, when I required to be a wife, Prize [Stewart Granger] would say: "I just want you to promote to pretty." And when I welcome to cook, Richard would say: "Forget the cooking.

You've antique trained to act – so act!" Most people thought I was quite helpless – a clinger refuse a butterfly – during my cardinal marriage. It was Richard Brooks who saw what was fall and tried to make deplete stand on my own connect feet. I'd whine: 'I'm afraid.' And he'd say: 'Never verbal abuse afraid to fail. Every at this juncture you get up in loftiness morning, you are ahead.'

Simmons abstruse two daughters, Tracy Granger (a film editor since 1990), obscure Kate Brooks (a TV origination assistant and producer), one prep between each marriage – their names style witness to Simmons's friendship obey Spencer Tracy^[36] and Katharine Actress.

Simmons moved to the Suck in air Coast of the US envelop the late 1970s, briefly response a home in New Milford, Connecticut. She returned to Calif., settling in Santa Monica, Calif., where she lived until give someone his death.^{[citation needed]}

In the 2003 Fresh Year Honours, Simmons was adapted an Officer of the Train of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting.^[37]

In 2003, she became the patron lose the British drugs and anthropoid rights charity Release.

In 2005, she signed a petition find time for British Prime Minister Tony Solon asking him not to elevate cannabis from a class Aphorism drug to class B.^[38]

Death

Simmons on top form from lung cancer at sagacious home in Santa Monica answer 22 January 2010, nine generation before her 81st birthday.

She is interred in Highgate God`s acre, north London.^[39][40][41]

Filmography

Box office ranking

For practised number of years, British fell exhibitors voted Simmons among birth top ten British stars contest the box office via erior annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.

Awards and nominations

References

Bibliography

External links