Jean Simmons
Jean Merilyn Simmons OBE (31 January 1929 – 22 January 2010) was a British actress and singer.[1][2] One of J. Arthur Rank's "well-spoken young starlets," she appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Britain during and after the Second World War, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onwards.[3]
Not to be confused with Gene Simmons or Jen Simmons.
Jean Simmons
22 January 2010 (aged 80)
Highgate Cemetery, London, England
British
American
Actress, singer
1944–2010
2
- Charles Simmons (father)
Simmons was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hamlet (1948), and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Guys and Dolls (1955). Her other film appearances include Great Expectations (1946), 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 the 1969 film The Happy Ending, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won an Emmy Award for the miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983).
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Simmons was born on 31 January 1929, in Islington, London,[4] to Charles Simmons, a bronze medalist in gymnastics at the 1912 Summer Olympics, and his wife, Winifred Ada (née Loveland). Jean was the youngest of four children, with siblings Lorna, Harold, and Edna. She began acting at the age of 14.[5]
During the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset.[6] Her father, a physical education teacher,[7] taught briefly at Sidcot School, and some time during this period, Simmons followed her eldest sister onto the village stage and sang popular songs such as "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow". At this point, her ambition was to be an acrobatic dancer.[8]
Early films[edit]
On her return to London, Simmons enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance. She was spotted by director Val Guest, who cast her in the Margaret Lockwood vehicle Give Us the Moon (1944) in a large role as Lockwood's sister.[9]
Small roles in several other films followed, including Mr. Emmanuel (1944), Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945), Meet Sexton Blake (1945), and the popular The Way to the Stars (1945), as well as the short Sports Day (1945).
Simmons had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring Simmons's future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Great Expectations and stardom[edit]
Simmons became a star in Britain when she was cast as the young Estella in David Lean's version of Great Expectations (1946). The movie was the third-most popular film at the British box office in 1947, and Simmons received excellent reviews.[10]
The experience of working on Great Expectations caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously:
Death[edit]
Simmons died from lung cancer at her home in Santa Monica on 22 January 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday. She is interred in Highgate Cemetery, north London.[39][40][41]
For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted Simmons among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.