Jump to content

Jean Simmons: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
Tags: Reverted Mobile edit Mobile web edit
 
(39 intermediate revisions by 16 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{short description|British actress and singer (1929–2010)}}
{{short description|British actress (1929–2010)}}
{{distinguish|Gene Simmons|Jen Simmons}}
{{distinguish|Gene Simmons|Jen Simmons}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2021}}
Line 10: Line 10:
| birth_name = Jean Merilyn Simmons
| birth_name = Jean Merilyn Simmons
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1929|1|31}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1929|1|31}}
| birth_place = [[Islington]], [[Metropolitan Borough of Islington]], [[County of London]], England
| birth_place = [[Islington]], London, England
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2010|1|22|1929|1|31}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2010|1|22|1929|1|31}}
| death_place = [[Santa Monica, California|Santa Monica]], [[Los Angeles County]], [[California]], U.S.
| death_place = [[Santa Monica, California]], U.S.
| resting_place = [[Highgate Cemetery]], [[London Borough of Camden]], [[Greater London]], England
| resting_place = [[Highgate Cemetery]], London, England
| nationality = British<br />American<!-- she became a US citizen as is clearly stated in the text -->
| citizenship = United Kingdom<br />United States<!-- she became a US citizen as is clearly stated in the text -->
| spouse = {{plainlist|
| spouse = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Stewart Granger]]|1950|1960|end=div}}
* {{marriage|[[Stewart Granger]]|1950|1960|end=div}}
Line 25: Line 25:
}}
}}


'''Jean Merilyn Simmons''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE}} (31 January 1929 – 22 January 2010) was a British actress and singer.<ref>{{cite news |last=Nelson |first=Valerie J. |title=Jean Simmons dies at 80; radiant beauty was known for stunning versatility |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/23/local/la-me-jean-simmons23-2010jan23 |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=23 January 2010 |access-date=12 August 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Vallance |first=Tom |title=Jean Simmons: Actress who dazzled opposite the likes of Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jean-simmons-actress-who-dazzled-opposite-the-likes-of-marlon-brando-kirk-douglas-and-laurence-olivier-1878829.html |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |location=London |date=26 January 2010}}</ref> 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.<ref name=NYTObit>{{cite news |last=Harmetz |first=Aljean |author-link=Aljean Harmetz |title=Jean Simmons, Actress, Dies at 80 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/movies/24simmons.html |quote=Jean Simmons, the English actress who made the covers of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' and ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazines by the time she was 20 and became a major mid-century star alongside strong leading men like [[Laurence Olivier]], [[Richard Burton]] and [[Marlon Brando]], often playing their demure helpmates, died on Friday at her home in [[Santa Monica, California]]. She was 80. The cause was [[lung cancer]], according to Judy Page, her agent. |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=23 January 2010 |access-date=24 January 2010}}</ref>
'''Jean Merilyn Simmons''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE}} (31 January 1929 – 22 January 2010) was a British actress and singer.<ref>{{cite news |last=Nelson |first=Valerie J. |title=Jean Simmons dies at 80; radiant beauty was known for stunning versatility |url=https://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-jean-simmons23-2010jan23-story.html |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=23 January 2010 |access-date=12 August 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Vallance |first=Tom |title=Jean Simmons: Actress who dazzled opposite the likes of Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jean-simmons-actress-who-dazzled-opposite-the-likes-of-marlon-brando-kirk-douglas-and-laurence-olivier-1878829.html |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |location=London |date=26 January 2010}}</ref> 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.<ref name=NYTObit>{{cite news |last=Harmetz |first=Aljean |author-link=Aljean Harmetz |title=Jean Simmons, Actress, Dies at 80 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/movies/24simmons.html |quote=Jean Simmons, the English actress who made the covers of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' and ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazines by the time she was 20 and became a major mid-century star alongside strong leading men like [[Laurence Olivier]], [[Richard Burton]] and [[Marlon Brando]], often playing their demure helpmates, died on Friday at her home in [[Santa Monica, California]]. She was 80. The cause was [[lung cancer]], according to Judy Page, her agent. |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=23 January 2010 |access-date=24 January 2010}}</ref>


Simmons was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress]] for ''[[Hamlet (1948 film)|Hamlet]]'' (1948), and won a [[Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy|Golden Globe Award for Best Actress]] for ''[[Guys and Dolls (film)|Guys and Dolls]]'' (1955). Her other film appearances include ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946), ''[[The Blue Lagoon (1949 film)|The Blue Lagoon]]'' (1949), ''[[So Long at the Fair]]'' (1950), ''[[Angel Face (1953 film)|Angel Face]]'' (1953), ''[[Young Bess]]'' (1953), ''[[The Robe (film)|The Robe]]'' (1953), ''[[The Big Country]]'' (1958), ''[[Elmer Gantry (film)|Elmer Gantry]]'' (1960), ''[[Spartacus (film)|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 (miniseries)|The Thorn Birds]]'' (1983).
Simmons was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress]] for ''[[Hamlet (1948 film)|Hamlet]]'' (1948), and won a [[Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy|Golden Globe Award for Best Actress]] for ''[[Guys and Dolls (film)|Guys and Dolls]]'' (1955). Her other film appearances include ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946), ''[[Black Narcissus]]'' (1947), ''[[The Blue Lagoon (1949 film)|The Blue Lagoon]]'' (1949), ''[[So Long at the Fair]]'' (1950), ''[[Angel Face (1953 film)|Angel Face]]'' (1953), ''[[Young Bess]]'' (1953), ''[[The Robe (film)|The Robe]]'' (1953), ''[[The Big Country]]'' (1958), ''[[Elmer Gantry (film)|Elmer Gantry]]'' (1960), ''[[Spartacus (film)|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 (miniseries)|The Thorn Birds]]'' (1983).


==Biography==
==Biography==
Line 33: Line 33:
Simmons was born on 31 January 1929, in [[Islington, London]],<ref>''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Jean Simmons, (Brian McFarlane) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-103243?rskey=Ex2fdt&result=2]</ref> to [[Charles Simmons (gymnast)|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.<ref>{{cite news |title=Jean Simmons' Age Is Exposed |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1985589/jean_simmons_age/ |work=The Salina Journal |issue=96 |volume=116 |page=20 |date=26 April 1967 |access-date=14 March 2015 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref>
Simmons was born on 31 January 1929, in [[Islington, London]],<ref>''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Jean Simmons, (Brian McFarlane) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-103243?rskey=Ex2fdt&result=2]</ref> to [[Charles Simmons (gymnast)|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.<ref>{{cite news |title=Jean Simmons' Age Is Exposed |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1985589/jean_simmons_age/ |work=The Salina Journal |issue=96 |volume=116 |page=20 |date=26 April 1967 |access-date=14 March 2015 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref>


During the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to [[Winscombe]], [[Somerset]].<ref name=picturegoer>"Are They Being Fair to Jean Simmons?", ''[[Picturegoer]]'', 2 August 1947.</ref> Her father, a physical education teacher,<ref>Per [[Gloria Hunniford]] in ''Sunday, Sunday'' television interview LWT, autumn 1985</ref> 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 dance]]r.<ref>''TV Times'', 22–28 March 1975, p. 4</ref>
During the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to [[Winscombe]], [[Somerset]].<ref name=picturegoer>"Are They Being Fair to Jean Simmons?", ''[[Picturegoer]]'', 2 August 1947.</ref> Her father, a physical education teacher,<ref>Per [[Gloria Hunniford]] in ''Sunday, Sunday'' television interview LWT, autumn 1985</ref> taught briefly at [[Sidcot School]], and sometime 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 dance]]r.<ref>''TV Times'', 22–28 March 1975, p. 4</ref>


===Early films===
===Early films===
On her return to London, Simmons enrolled at the [[Aida Foster stage school|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.<ref>{{cite book| title=So You Want to be in Pictures?| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K9UBAAAACAAJ| first=Val| last=Guest| page=58| year=2001| publisher=Reynolds & Hearn| isbn=978-1903111154|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
On her return to London, Simmons enrolled at the [[Aida Foster stage school|Aida Foster School of Dance]]. She was spotted by director [[Val Guest]], who cast her in the [[Margaret Lockwood]]-starring vehicle ''[[Give Us the Moon]]'' (1944) in a large role as Lockwood's sister.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guest |first=Val |url= |title=So You Want to be in Pictures? |publisher=Reynolds & Hearn |year=2001 |isbn=978-1903111154 |page=58}}</ref>
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 (film)|Sports Day]]'' (1945).
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 (film)|Sports Day]]'' (1945).


Simmons had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile ''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (film)|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 Rank Organisation|the J. Arthur Rank Organisation]].
Simmons had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile ''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (film)|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 with [[the Rank Organisation|the J. Arthur Rank Organisation]].{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}}


===''Great Expectations'' and stardom===
===''Great Expectations'' and stardom===
[[File:Jean Simmons 1948 crop.jpg|thumb|left|Simmons at the [[20th Academy Awards|1948 Academy Awards]], where she received her first [[Academy Awards|Oscar]] nomination]]
Simmons became a star in Britain when she was cast as the young Estella in [[David Lean]]'s version of ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946). The movie was the third-most popular film at the British box office in 1947, and Simmons received excellent reviews.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27893195 |title=Anna Neagle Most Popular Actress |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=3 January 1948 |access-date=24 April 2012 |page=3 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Simmons became a star in Britain when she was cast as the young Estella in [[David Lean]]'s version of ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946). The movie was the third-most-popular film at the British box office in 1947, and Simmons received excellent reviews.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27893195 |title=Anna Neagle Most Popular Actress |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=3 January 1948 |access-date=24 April 2012 |page=3 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>


The experience of working on ''Great Expectations'' caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously:{{blockquote|text=I thought acting was just a lark, meeting all those exciting movie stars, and getting £5 a day which was lovely because we needed the money. But I figured I'd just go off and get married and have children like my mother. It was working with David Lean that convinced me to go on.<ref name=weekly>''[[Woman's Weekly (UK magazine)|Woman's Weekly]]'', Christmas 1989<!-- ISBN (if any), pages needed --></ref>}}
The experience of working on ''Great Expectations'' caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously:{{blockquote|text=I thought acting was just a lark, meeting all those exciting movie stars, and getting £5 a day which was lovely because we needed the money. But I figured I'd just go off and get married and have children like my mother. It was working with David Lean that convinced me to go on.<ref name=weekly>''[[Woman's Weekly (UK magazine)|Woman's Weekly]]'', Christmas 1989<!-- ISBN (if any), pages needed --></ref>}}
[[File:Black Narcissus (1947), screenshot of Jean Simmons.png|thumb|right|Simmons in ''[[Black Narcissus]]'' (1947)]]

Simmons had support roles in ''[[Hungry Hill (film)|Hungry Hill]]'' (1947) with Margaret Lockwood and the [[Powell and Pressburger|Powell-Pressburger]] film ''[[Black Narcissus]]'' (1947), playing an Indian woman in the latter alongside [[Sabu Dastagir|Sabu]].<ref name="reelclassics">[http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Simmons/simmons-bio.htm Biography], reelclassics.com; accessed 24 April 2014.</ref><ref name=picturegoer/>
Simmons had support roles in ''[[Hungry Hill (film)|Hungry Hill]]'' (1947) with Margaret Lockwood and the [[Powell and Pressburger|Powell-Pressburger]] film ''[[Black Narcissus]]'' (1947), playing an Indian woman in the latter alongside [[Sabu Dastagir|Sabu]].<ref name="reelclassics">[http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Simmons/simmons-bio.htm Biography], reelclassics.com; accessed 24 April 2014.</ref><ref name=picturegoer/>


Simmons was top-billed for the first time in the drama ''[[Uncle Silas (film)|Uncle Silas]]'' (1947). She followed it with ''[[The Woman in the Hall]]'' (1947). Neither was particularly successful; but Simmons was then in a huge international hit, playing [[Ophelia]] in [[Laurence Olivier]]'s ''[[Hamlet (1948 film)|Hamlet]]'' (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. Olivier offered her the chance to work and study at the [[Old Vic]], advising her to play anything they offered her to get experience; but she was under contract to Rank, which vetoed the idea.<ref>{{cite news| first=Philip| last=French| url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/23/the-unforgettable-jean-simmons| title=Jean Simmons: an unforgettable English rose| work=[[The Observer]]| location=London| date=24 January 2010}}</ref>
Simmons was top-billed for the first time in the drama ''[[Uncle Silas (film)|Uncle Silas]]'' (1947). She followed it with ''[[The Woman in the Hall]]'' (1947). Neither was particularly successful, but Simmons was then in a huge international hit, playing [[Ophelia]] in [[Laurence Olivier]]'s ''[[Hamlet (1948 film)|Hamlet]]'' (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. Olivier offered her the chance to work and study at the [[Old Vic]], advising her to play anything they offered her to get experience, but she was under contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, which vetoed the idea.<ref>{{cite news| first=Philip| last=French| url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/23/the-unforgettable-jean-simmons| title=Jean Simmons: an unforgettable English rose| work=[[The Observer]]| location=London| date=24 January 2010}}</ref>


Simmons had the lead in [[Frank Launder]]'s ''[[The Blue Lagoon (1949 film)|The Blue Lagoon]]'' (1949), based on [[The Blue Lagoon (novel)|the 1908 novel]] by [[Henry De Vere Stacpoole]] and co-produced with Launder's partner [[Sidney Gilliat]],<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55886550 |title=...and from London |newspaper=[[The Mail (Adelaide)|The Mail]] |volume=35 |issue=1,806 |date=4 January 1947 |access-date=10 October 2017 |page=9 (Sunday Magazine) |location=Adelaide |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> a project originally announced for Lockwood a decade earlier. It was a considerable financial success.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gillett |first1=Philip |title=The British working class in postwar film |date=2003 |publisher=Manchester University Press |location=Manchester |isbn=0719062578 |page=200 |url=https://archive.org/details/britishworkingcl0000gill |access-date=3 April 2023}}</ref>
Simmons had the lead in [[Frank Launder]]'s ''[[The Blue Lagoon (1949 film)|The Blue Lagoon]]'' (1949), based on [[The Blue Lagoon (novel)|the 1908 novel]] by [[Henry De Vere Stacpoole]] and co-produced with Launder's partner [[Sidney Gilliat]],<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55886550 |title=...and from London |newspaper=[[The Mail (Adelaide)|The Mail]] |volume=35 |issue=1,806 |date=4 January 1947 |access-date=10 October 2017 |page=9 (Sunday Magazine) |location=Adelaide |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> a project originally announced for Lockwood a decade earlier. It was a considerable financial success.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gillett |first1=Philip |title=The British working class in postwar film |date=2003 |publisher=Manchester University Press |location=Manchester |isbn=0719062578 |page=200 |url=https://archive.org/details/britishworkingcl0000gill |access-date=3 April 2023}}</ref>
Line 58: Line 59:


===Howard Hughes and Victor Mature===
===Howard Hughes and Victor Mature===
⚫
[[File:Victor Mature - Jean Simmons - 1967.jpg|thumb|right|Simmons with [[Victor Mature]] in ''[[Androcles and the Lion (1952 film)|Androcles and the Lion]]'' (1952)]]
Granger became a Hollywood star in ''[[King Solomon's Mines (1950 film)|King Solomon's Mines]]'' (1950) and was signed to a contract by MGM, so Simmons moved to Los Angeles with him. In 1951, Rank sold her contract to [[Howard Hughes]], who then owned [[RKO Pictures]].<ref>{{cite book| title=Howard Hughes, The Untold Story| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WnbDirjSyHUC&q=simmons| first1=Peter| last1=Brown| first2=Pat| last2=Broeske| page=241| publisher=Penguin| year=1997| isbn=978-0451180285}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| title=The Year of the Flirt| newspaper=[[The Guardian]]| location=London| last=Lennon| first=Peter| author-link=Peter Lennon| date=12 November 1999| url=https://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0,,254808,00.html}}</ref>
Granger became a Hollywood star in ''[[King Solomon's Mines (1950 film)|King Solomon's Mines]]'' (1950) and was signed to a contract by MGM, so Simmons moved to Los Angeles with him. In 1951, Rank sold her contract to [[Howard Hughes]], who then owned [[RKO Pictures]].<ref>{{cite book| title=Howard Hughes, The Untold Story| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WnbDirjSyHUC&q=simmons| first1=Peter| last1=Brown| first2=Pat| last2=Broeske| page=241| publisher=Penguin| year=1997| isbn=978-0451180285}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| title=The Year of the Flirt| newspaper=[[The Guardian]]| location=London| last=Lennon| first=Peter| author-link=Peter Lennon| date=12 November 1999| url=https://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0,,254808,00.html}}</ref>


Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances by angrily telling Hughes over the phone: "Mr Howard bloody Hughes, you'll be sorry if you don't leave my wife alone."<ref>{{cite web |title=Stewart Granger Jean Simmons and Claire Bloom – adventures of two north London girls |url=https://www.aenigma-images.com/tag/stewart-granger/ |website=aenigma |access-date=26 December 2020}}</ref> To punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] where director [[William Wyler]] wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film ''[[Roman Holiday]]''; the role made a star of [[Audrey Hepburn]].
Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances by angrily telling Hughes over the phone: "Mr. Howard bloody Hughes, you'll be sorry if you don't leave my wife alone."<ref>{{cite web |title=Stewart Granger Jean Simmons and Claire Bloom – adventures of two north London girls |url=https://www.aenigma-images.com/tag/stewart-granger/ |website=aenigma |access-date=26 December 2020}}</ref> To punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] where director [[William Wyler]] wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film ''[[Roman Holiday]]''; the role made a star of [[Audrey Hepburn]].{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}}


⚫
Her first Hollywood film was ''Androcles and the Lion'' (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by ''[[Angel Face (1953 film)|Angel Face]]'' (1953), directed by [[Otto Preminger]] with [[Robert Mitchum]]. [[David Thomson (film critic)|David Thomson]] wrote that "she might now be spoken of with the awe given to [[Louise Brooks]]" if Simmons only starred in that film.<ref name="Thomson">{{cite news| first=David| last=Thomson| url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/24/jean-simmons-obituary| title=Jean Simmons obituary| work=The Guardian| date=25 January 2010}}</ref> Smarting over his rebuff from Granger, Hughes instructed Preminger to treat Simmons as roughly as possible, leading the director to demand that costar Mitchum repeatedly slap the actress harder and harder, until Mitchum turned and punched Preminger, asking if that was how he wanted it.<ref>{{cite news| last=Bernstein| first=Adam| title=English actress was known for roles in the films 'Hamlet' and 'Elmer Gantry'| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012205323.html| access-date=1 January 2018| newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]| date=24 January 2010}}</ref> He also made her appear in ''[[She Couldn't Say No (1954 film)|She Couldn't Say No]]'' (1954), a comedy with Mitchum.
⚫
[[File:Victor Mature - Jean Simmons - 1967.jpg|thumb|left|Simmons with [[Victor Mature]] in ''[[Androcles and the Lion (1952 film)|Androcles and the Lion]]'' (1952)]]
⚫
Her first Hollywood film was ''Androcles and the Lion'' (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by ''[[Angel Face (1953 film)|Angel Face]]'' (1953), directed by [[Otto Preminger]] with [[Robert Mitchum]]. [[David Thomson (film critic)|David Thomson]] wrote "if she had made only one film – Angel Face – she might now be spoken of with the awe given to [[Louise Brooks]]."<ref name="Thomson">{{cite news| first=David| last=Thomson| url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/24/jean-simmons-obituary| title=Jean Simmons obituary| work=The Guardian| date=25 January 2010}}</ref> Smarting over his rebuff from Granger, Hughes instructed Preminger to treat Simmons as roughly as possible, leading the director to demand that costar Mitchum repeatedly slap the actress harder and harder, until Mitchum turned and punched Preminger, asking if that was how he wanted it.<ref>{{cite news| last=Bernstein| first=Adam| title=English actress was known for roles in the films 'Hamlet' and 'Elmer Gantry'| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012205323.html| access-date=1 January 2018| newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]| date=24 January 2010}}</ref> He also made her appear in ''[[She Couldn't Say No (1954 film)|She Couldn't Say No]]'' (1954), a comedy with Mitchum.


A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952.<ref name="Thomson"/> They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money.<ref>{{cite news| title=Looking at Hollywood: Story of Talking Animals Bought for Movie| last=Hopper| first=Hedda| newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune|Chicago Daily Tribune]]| url=https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/search/#query=Looking+at+Hollywood%3A+Story+of+Talking+Animals+Bought+for+Movie&ymd=1952-07-18| date=18 July 1952| page=A4|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio—she would be lent out. She would make an additional picture for 20th Century Fox while RKO got the services of Victor Mature for one film.<ref>{{cite news| title=Jean Simmons Suit Settled by Hughes: British Actress Wins on Points; Producer to Pay All Costs of Trial| url=https://latimes.newspapers.com/search/#query=Jean+Simmons+Suit+Settled+by+Hughes%3A+British+Actress+Wins+on+Points%3B+Producer+to+Pay+All+Costs+of+Trial| newspaper=Los Angeles Times| date=18 July 1952| page=A1|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952.<ref name="Thomson"/> They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hopper |first=Hedda |date=18 July 1952 |title=Looking at Hollywood: Story of Talking Animals Bought for Movie |url= |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune|Chicago Daily Tribune]] |page=A4}}</ref> Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio—she would be lent out. She would make an additional picture for 20th Century Fox while RKO got the services of Victor Mature for one film.<ref>{{cite news| title=Jean Simmons Suit Settled by Hughes: British Actress Wins on Points; Producer to Pay All Costs of Trial| url=https://latimes.newspapers.com/search/#query=Jean+Simmons+Suit+Settled+by+Hughes%3A+British+Actress+Wins+on+Points%3B+Producer+to+Pay+All+Costs+of+Trial| newspaper=Los Angeles Times| date=18 July 1952| page=A1|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
[[File:Jean Simmons 1954.jpg|thumb|left|Publicity portrait of Simmons for MGM]]

MGM cast her in the lead of ''[[Young Bess]]'' (1953) playing a young [[Queen Elizabeth I]] with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled ''[[Affair with a Stranger]]'' (1953) with Mature; it flopped.
MGM cast her in the lead of ''[[Young Bess]]'' (1953) playing a young [[Queen Elizabeth I]] with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled ''[[Affair with a Stranger]]'' (1953) with Mature; it flopped.{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}}


===20th Century Fox===
===20th Century Fox===
⚫
Fox asked Simmons back for ''[[The Egyptian (film)|The Egyptian]]'' (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular.{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}} She had the lead in Columbia's ''[[A Bullet Is Waiting]]'' (1954). More widely seen was{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}} ''[[Désirée (film)|Désirée]]'' (1954), where Simmons played [[Désirée Clary]] opposite [[Marlon Brando]]'s [[Napoleon Bonaparte]].
Simmons went over to [[20th Century Fox]] to play the female lead in ''[[The Robe (film)|The Robe]]'' (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was ''[[The Actress]]'' (1953) at MGM alongside [[Spencer Tracy]], although it was one of her favorites.{{cn|date= January 2023}}

⚫
Fox asked Simmons back for ''[[The Egyptian (film)|The Egyptian]]'' (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's ''[[A Bullet Is Waiting]]'' (1954). More widely seen was ''[[Désirée (film)|Désirée]]'' (1954), where Simmons played [[Désirée Clary]] to [[Marlon Brando]]'s [[Napoleon Bonaparte]].


Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller ''[[Footsteps in the Fog]]'' (1955). Then, [[Joseph Mankiewicz]] cast her opposite Brando in the screen adaptation of ''Guys and Dolls'' (1955), where she did her own singing in a role turned down by [[Grace Kelly]]; it was a big hit.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=1957-01-02 |title=109 top money films of 1956 |url=https://archive.org/details/variety205-1957-01 |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |volume=205 |issue=5 |pages=1 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller ''[[Footsteps in the Fog]]'' (1955). Then, [[Joseph Mankiewicz]] cast her opposite Brando in the screen adaptation of ''Guys and Dolls'' (1955), where she did her own singing in a role turned down by [[Grace Kelly]]; it was a big hit.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=1957-01-02 |title=109 top money films of 1956 |url=https://archive.org/details/variety205-1957-01 |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |volume=205 |issue=5 |pages=1 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>


Simmons played the title role in ''[[Hilda Crane]]'' (1956) at Fox, a box-office disappointment. So, too, were ''[[This Could Be the Night (film)|This Could Be the Night]]'' (1957) and ''[[Until They Sail]]'' (1957), both at MGM.
Simmons played the title role in ''[[Hilda Crane]]'' (1956) at Fox, a box-office disappointment.{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}} So, too, were ''[[This Could Be the Night (film)|This Could Be the Night]]'' (1957) and ''[[Until They Sail]]'' (1957), both at MGM.
[[File:Jean Simmons by Ernest A. Bachrach, 1955.jpg|thumb|right|Simmons by [[Ernest Bachrach]], 1955]]


Simmons had a big success, though, in ''[[The Big Country]] ''(1958), directed by [[William Wyler]]. She starred in ''[[Home Before Dark (film)|Home Before Dark]]'' (1958) at Warner Bros. and ''[[This Earth Is Mine (1959 film)|This Earth Is Mine]]'' (1959) with [[Rock Hudson]] at Universal. In the opinion of film critic [[Philip French]], ''Home Before Dark'' was "perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in [[Mervyn LeRoy]]'s psychodrama."<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/apr/06/1| title=Philip French's screen legends – No 11: Jean Simmons profile| work=The Observer| date=6 April 2008| first=Philip| last=French}}</ref>
Simmons had a big success, though, in ''[[The Big Country]] ''(1958), directed by [[William Wyler]]. She starred in ''[[Home Before Dark (film)|Home Before Dark]]'' (1958) at Warner Bros. and ''[[This Earth Is Mine (1959 film)|This Earth Is Mine]]'' (1959) with [[Rock Hudson]] at Universal. In the opinion of film critic [[Philip French]], ''Home Before Dark'' was "perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in [[Mervyn LeRoy]]'s psychodrama."<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/apr/06/1| title=Philip French's screen legends – No 11: Jean Simmons profile| work=The Observer| date=6 April 2008| first=Philip| last=French}}</ref>
Line 85: Line 85:
She took some years off screen, then returned in ''[[All the Way Home (1963 film)|All the Way Home]]'' (1963) with [[Robert Preston (actor)|Robert Preston]]. She did ''[[Life at the Top (film)|Life at the Top]]'' (1965) with [[Laurence Harvey]], ''[[Mister Buddwing]]'' (1966) with [[James Garner]], ''[[Divorce American Style]]'' (1967) with [[Dick Van Dyke]], and ''[[Rough Night in Jericho (film)|Rough Night in Jericho]]'' (1967) with [[George Peppard]] and Dean Martin.
She took some years off screen, then returned in ''[[All the Way Home (1963 film)|All the Way Home]]'' (1963) with [[Robert Preston (actor)|Robert Preston]]. She did ''[[Life at the Top (film)|Life at the Top]]'' (1965) with [[Laurence Harvey]], ''[[Mister Buddwing]]'' (1966) with [[James Garner]], ''[[Divorce American Style]]'' (1967) with [[Dick Van Dyke]], and ''[[Rough Night in Jericho (film)|Rough Night in Jericho]]'' (1967) with [[George Peppard]] and Dean Martin.


Simmons did ''[[Heidi (1968 film)|Heidi]]'' (1968) for TV, then Brooks wrote and directed ''[[The Happy Ending]]'' (1969) for her, and she received her second Oscar nomination.
Simmons did ''[[Heidi (1968 film)|Heidi]]'' (1968) for TV, then Brooks wrote and directed ''[[The Happy Ending]]'' (1969) for her, and she received her second Oscar nomination.{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}}


===1970s and 1980s===
===1970s and 1980s===
By the 1970s, Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in [[Stephen Sondheim]]'s ''[[A Little Night Music]]'', then took the show to London, thus originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the [[West End theatre|West End]]. Performing in the show for three years, she said she never tired of Sondheim's music; "No matter how tired or 'off' you felt, the music would just pick you up."<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.sondheimguide.com/night.html| publisher=The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide| title=A Little Night Music: 1974 Touring Production; 1975 London Production| access-date=12 August 2018}}</ref>
By the 1970s, Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in [[Stephen Sondheim]]'s ''[[A Little Night Music]]'', then took the show to London, thus originating the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the [[West End theatre|West End]]. Performing in the show for three years, she said she never tired of Sondheim's music; "No matter how tired or 'off' you felt, the music would just pick you up."<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.sondheimguide.com/night.html| publisher=The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide| title=A Little Night Music: 1974 Touring Production; 1975 London Production| access-date=12 August 2018}}</ref>


She portrayed Fiona "Fee" Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the miniseries ''The Thorn Birds'' (1983); she won an [[Emmy Award]] for her role. She appeared in ''[[North and South (miniseries)|North and South]]'' (1985–86), again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main, and starred in ''[[The Dawning]]'' (1988) with [[Anthony Hopkins]] and [[Hugh Grant]]. In 1989, Simmons appeared as murder mystery author Eudora McVeigh Shipton, a self proclaimed rival to Jessica Fletcher, in the two part [[Murder, She Wrote]] episode "Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall" with [[Angela Lansbury]].
She portrayed Fiona "Fee" Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the miniseries ''The Thorn Birds'' (1983); she won an [[Emmy Award]] for her role. She appeared in ''[[North and South (miniseries)|North and South]]'' (1985–86), again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main, and starred in ''[[The Dawning]]'' (1988) with [[Anthony Hopkins]] and [[Hugh Grant]]. In 1989, Simmons appeared as murder mystery author Eudora McVeigh Shipton, a self proclaimed rival to Jessica Fletcher, in the two-part [[Murder, She Wrote]] episode "Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall" with [[Angela Lansbury]].


===1990s and 2000s===
===1990s and 2000s===
In 1991, she made a late-career appearance in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "[[The Drumhead]]" as a retired [[Starfleet]] admiral and hardened legal investigator who conducts a [[Witch-hunt#Metaphorical usage|witch hunt]]. That same year she starred in a remake of ''[[Great Expectations (1989 TV series)|Great Expectations]]'', this time playing the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother, and as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins, in the short-lived revival of the 1960s daytime series [[Dark Shadows (1991 TV series)|''Dark Shadows'']], in roles originally played by [[Joan Bennett]]. From 1994 until 1998, Simmons narrated the [[A&E Network|A&E]] documentary television series ''[[Mysteries of the Bible]]''. In 1995, she appeared in
In 1991, she made a late-career appearance in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "[[The Drumhead]]" as a retired [[Starfleet]] admiral and hardened legal investigator who conducts a [[Witch-hunt#Metaphorical usage|witch hunt]]. That same year, she starred in a remake of ''[[Great Expectations (1989 TV series)|Great Expectations]]'', this time playing the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother, and as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins, in the short-lived revival of the 1960s daytime series [[Dark Shadows (1991 TV series)|''Dark Shadows'']], in roles originally played by [[Joan Bennett]]. From 1994 until 1998, Simmons narrated the [[A&E Network|A&E]] documentary television series ''[[Mysteries of the Bible]]''. In 1995, she appeared in ''[[How to Make an American Quilt]]'' with [[Winona Ryder]], [[Maya Angelou]], [[Ellen Burstyn]], [[Anne Bancroft]], and [[Alfre Woodard]]. In 2004, she voiced the lead role of Sophie in the English dub of ''[[Howl's Moving Castle (film)|Howl's Moving Castle]]''.<ref name="reelclassics"/>
"How to Make an American Quilt" with: [[Winona Ryder]], [[Maya Angelou]], [[Ellen Burstyn]], [[Anne Bancroft]], and [[Alfre Woodard]]. In 2004, she voiced the lead role of Sophie in the English dub of ''[[Howl's Moving Castle (film)|Howl's Moving Castle]]''.<ref name="reelclassics"/>


==Personal life==
==Personal life==
[[File:Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons, 1955.jpg|thumb|left|Simmons with her first husband [[Stewart Granger]] in 1955]]
Simmons was married and divorced twice. At 21, she married [[Stewart Granger]] in Tucson, Arizona on 20 December 1950.<ref>{{cite news| title=English Stars Married Here| url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2000315/english_stars_married_here/| access-date=16 March 2015| work=[[Tucson Citizen|Tucson Daily Citizen]]| volume=78| issue=304| date=21 December 1950| page=4| via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}</ref> She and Granger became US citizens in 1956;<ref>{{cite news| title=The Stewart Grangers Become Citizens of US| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19560608&id=Zx8aAAAAIBAJ&pg=1136,4989103| access-date=16 March 2015| work=[[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel|The Milwaukee Journal]]| agency=[[Associated Press]]| date=9 June 1956| page=1}}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> in the same year, their daughter Tracy Granger was born. They divorced in 1960.<ref>{{cite news| title=Jean Simmons Files To Divorce Stewart Granger| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19600708&id=a75OAAAAIBAJ&pg=7294,4472816| access-date=16 March 2015| work=[[The Blade (Toledo)|The Blade]]| agency=[[United Press International]]| date=8 July 1960| location=[[Toledo, Ohio]]| page=7}}</ref>
Simmons was married and divorced twice. At 21, she married [[Stewart Granger]] in Tucson, Arizona, on 20 December 1950.<ref>{{cite news| title=English Stars Married Here| url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2000315/english_stars_married_here/| access-date=16 March 2015| work=[[Tucson Citizen|Tucson Daily Citizen]]| volume=78| issue=304| date=21 December 1950| page=4| via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}</ref> She and Granger became US citizens in 1956;<ref>{{cite news| title=The Stewart Grangers Become Citizens of US| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19560608&id=Zx8aAAAAIBAJ&pg=1136,4989103| access-date=16 March 2015| work=[[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel|The Milwaukee Journal]]| agency=[[Associated Press]]| date=9 June 1956| page=1}}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> in the same year, their daughter Tracy Granger was born. They divorced in 1960.<ref>{{cite news| title=Jean Simmons Files To Divorce Stewart Granger| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19600708&id=a75OAAAAIBAJ&pg=7294,4472816| access-date=16 March 2015| work=[[The Blade (Toledo)|The Blade]]| agency=[[United Press International]]| date=8 July 1960| location=[[Toledo, Ohio]]| page=7}}</ref>
⚫
[[File:Grave of Jean Simmons.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Grave of Jean Simmons in [[Highgate Cemetery]], London]]

On 1 November 1960, Simmons married director Richard Brooks;<ref>{{cite news| title=Actress Weds Film Director| url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2114492/actress_weds_film_director/| access-date=1 April 2015| work=[[The Odessa American]]| agency=Associated Press| issue=263| date=2 November 1960| volume=35| page=27| via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}</ref> their daughter, Kate Brooks, was born a year later in 1961. Simmons and Brooks divorced in 1980.{{sfn|Daniel|2011|p=210}} Although both men were significantly older than Simmons, she denied she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just 16, but she said: "They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, softly spoken man. My husbands were both much noisier and much more opinionated&nbsp;... it's really nothing to do with age&nbsp;... it's to do with what's there&nbsp;– the twinkle and sense of humour."<ref name=weekly/> And in a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film ''Going Undercover'' (1988,<ref name="BFIGU">{{cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b795f0c10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707144213/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b795f0c10|url-status=dead|archive-date=7 July 2020|title=Going Undercover (1988)|work=BFI|access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref><ref name="LAT1988">{{cite news|last=Wilmington|first=Michael|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-20-ca-3471-story.html|title=''Going Undercover''—the Gags, Ideas Get Lost in the Chase|work=Los Angeles Times|date=20 June 1988|access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref> a.k.a. ''Yellow Pages''; completed 1985)<ref name="BBFCYP">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/yellow-pages-1985|title=Yellow Pages (1985)|work=British Board of Film Classification|access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref> she elaborated slightly on her marriages, stating, {{blockquote|text=It may be simplistic, but you could sum up my two marriages by saying that, when I wanted to be a wife, Jimmy [Stewart Granger] would say: "I just want you to be pretty." And when I wanted to cook, Richard would say: "Forget the cooking. You've been trained to act&nbsp;– so act!" Most people thought I was quite helpless&nbsp;– a clinger and a butterfly&nbsp;– during my first marriage. It was Richard Brooks who saw what was wrong and tried to make me stand on my own two feet. I'd whine: 'I'm afraid.' And he'd say: 'Never be afraid to fail. Every time you get up in the morning, you are ahead.'}}
On 1 November 1960, Simmons married director Richard Brooks;<ref>{{cite news| title=Actress Weds Film Director| url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2114492/actress_weds_film_director/| access-date=1 April 2015| work=[[The Odessa American]]| agency=Associated Press| issue=263| date=2 November 1960| volume=35| page=27| via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}</ref> their daughter, Kate Brooks, was born a year later, in 1961. Simmons and Brooks divorced in 1980.{{sfn|Daniel|2011|p=210}} Although both men were significantly older than Simmons, she denied that she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just 16, but she said: <blockquote>They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, softly spoken man. My husbands were both much noisier and much more opinionated&nbsp;... it's really nothing to do with age&nbsp;... it's to do with what's there&nbsp;– the twinkle and sense of humour.<ref name=weekly/></blockquote> In a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film ''Going Undercover'' (1988,<ref name="BFIGU">{{cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b795f0c10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707144213/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b795f0c10|url-status=dead|archive-date=7 July 2020|title=Going Undercover (1988)|work=BFI|access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref><ref name="LAT1988">{{cite news|last=Wilmington|first=Michael|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-20-ca-3471-story.html|title=''Going Undercover''—the Gags, Ideas Get Lost in the Chase|work=Los Angeles Times|date=20 June 1988|access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref> a.k.a. ''Yellow Pages''; completed 1985)<ref name="BBFCYP">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/yellow-pages-1985|title=Yellow Pages (1985)|work=British Board of Film Classification|access-date=7 July 2020}}</ref> she elaborated slightly on her marriages, stating, {{blockquote|text=It may be simplistic, but you could sum up my two marriages by saying that, when I wanted to be a wife, Jimmy [Stewart Granger] would say: "I just want you to be pretty." And when I wanted to cook, Richard would say: "Forget the cooking. You've been trained to act&nbsp;– so act!" Most people thought I was quite helpless&nbsp;– a clinger and a butterfly&nbsp;– during my first marriage. It was Richard Brooks who saw what was wrong and tried to make me stand on my own two feet. I'd whine: 'I'm afraid.' And he'd say: 'Never be afraid to fail. Every time you get up in the morning, you are ahead.'}}


Simmons had two daughters, Tracy Granger (a film editor since 1990), and Kate Brooks (a TV production assistant and producer), one by each marriage&nbsp;– their names bearing witness to Simmons's friendship with [[Spencer Tracy]]<ref>''Picture Show and TV Mirror'', 2 July 1960, p. 7. Simmons says her daughter was named after Spencer Tracy in interview, but adds, "Jimmy [Granger] says he got the name from the role Katharine Hepburn played in ''[[The Philadelphia Story (film)|The Philadelphia Story]].''"</ref> and [[Katharine Hepburn]]. Simmons moved to the East Coast of the US in the late 1970s, briefly owning a home in New Milford, Connecticut. She returned to California, settling in Santa Monica, California, where she lived until her death.
Simmons had two daughters, Tracy Granger (a film editor since 1990), and Kate Brooks (a TV production assistant and producer), one by each marriage&nbsp;– their names bearing witness to Simmons's friendship with [[Spencer Tracy]]<ref>''Picture Show and TV Mirror'', 2 July 1960, p. 7. Simmons says her daughter was named after Spencer Tracy in interview, but adds, "Jimmy [Granger] says he got the name from the role Katharine Hepburn played in ''[[The Philadelphia Story (film)|The Philadelphia Story]].''"</ref> and [[Katharine Hepburn]]. Simmons moved to the East Coast of the US in the late 1970s, briefly owning a home in New Milford, Connecticut. She returned to California, settling in Santa Monica, California, where she lived until her death.{{Citation needed |date=August 2024}}


In the [[2003 New Year Honours]], Simmons was appointed an [[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] (OBE) for services to acting.<ref name="LG 31 December 2002">{{London Gazette |issue=56797 |date=31 December 2002 |page=24 |supp=y}}</ref>
In the [[2003 New Year Honours]], Simmons was appointed an [[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] (OBE) for services to acting.<ref name="LG 31 December 2002">{{London Gazette |issue=56797 |date=31 December 2002 |page=24 |supp=y}}</ref>
Line 108: Line 108:


==Death==
==Death==
⚫
[[File:Grave of Jean Simmons.jpg|thumb|right|Grave of Jean Simmons in [[Highgate Cemetery]], London]]
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.<ref name="death">{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8476400.stm| title=British-born Hollywood actress Jean Simmons dies at 80| publisher=[[BBC News]]| access-date=23 January 2010| date=23 January 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3516771.stm| title=Obituary: Jean Simmons|publisher=BBC News| access-date=12 August 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7061131/Jean-Simmons.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7061131/Jean-Simmons.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live| title=Obituary: Jean Simmons| newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]| location=London| access-date=12 August 2018}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
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.<ref name="death">{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8476400.stm| title=British-born Hollywood actress Jean Simmons dies at 80| publisher=[[BBC News]]| access-date=23 January 2010| date=23 January 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3516771.stm| title=Obituary: Jean Simmons|publisher=BBC News| access-date=12 August 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2010-01-23 |title=Jean Simmons |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7061131/Jean-Simmons.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=2024-07-12 |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |language=en}}</ref>


==Filmography==
==Filmography==
Line 606: Line 607:


==Bibliography==
==Bibliography==
⚫
* {{cite book|last=Capua|first=Michelangelo|title=Jean Simmons: Her Life and Career|date=2022|publisher=[[McFarland & Company]]|location=Jefferson, North Carolina|isbn=978-1-4766-8224-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Daniel |first=Douglass K. |title=Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HBpagIZywpwC&q=simmons |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]] |location=Madison, WI |year=2011 |pages=66, 141, 233 |isbn=978-0299251239}}
* {{cite book |last=Daniel |first=Douglass K. |title=Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HBpagIZywpwC&q=simmons |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]] |location=Madison, WI |year=2011 |pages=66, 141, 233 |isbn=978-0299251239}}
⚫
* Capua, Michelangelo. ''Jean Simmons: Her Life and Career''. McFarland, 2022. {{ISBN|978-1-4766-8224-2}}.


==External links==
==External links==
Line 659: Line 660:
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners]]
[[Category:Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners]]
[[Category:Military personnel from London]]
[[Category:People from Islington (district)]]
[[Category:People from Islington (district)]]
[[Category:Actors from the London Borough of Islington]]
[[Category:Actors from the London Borough of Islington]]

Latest revision as of 11:51, 25 November 2024

Not to be confused with Gene Simmons or Jen Simmons.

Jean Simmons
OBE
Simmons in a 1955 studio publicity shot
Born
Jean Merilyn Simmons

(1929-01-31)31 January 1929
Islington, London, England
Died22 January 2010(2010-01-22) (aged 80)
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Resting placeHighgate Cemetery, London, England
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
United States
Occupation(s)Actress, singer
Years active1944–2010
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1950; div. 1960)​
​
​
(m. 1960; div. 1980)​
Children2
FatherCharles 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]

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), 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 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 sometime 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-starring 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 with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.[citation needed]

Great Expectations and stardom

[edit]
Simmons at the 1948 Academy Awards, where she received her first Oscar nomination

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:

I thought acting was just a lark, meeting all those exciting movie stars, and getting £5 a day which was lovely because we needed the money. But I figured I'd just go off and get married and have children like my mother. It was working with David Lean that convinced me to go on.[11]

Simmons in Black Narcissus (1947)

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

Simmons was top-billed for the first time in the drama Uncle Silas (1947). She followed it with The Woman in the Hall (1947). Neither was particularly successful, but Simmons was then in a huge international hit, playing Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. Olivier offered her the chance to work and study at the Old Vic, advising her to play anything they offered her to get experience, but she was under contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, which vetoed the idea.[13]

Simmons had the lead in Frank Launder's The Blue Lagoon (1949), based on the 1908 novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole and co-produced with Launder's partner Sidney Gilliat,[14] a project originally announced for Lockwood a decade earlier. It was a considerable financial success.[15]

Stewart Granger

[edit]

Simmons starred with Stewart Granger in the comedy Adam and Evelyne (1949). It was her first adult role, and Granger and she became romantically involved; they soon married.[16]

Simmons made two films that were popular at the local box office: So Long at the Fair (1950) with Dirk Bogarde and Trio (1950), where she was one of several stars. She was then in Cage of Gold (1950) with David Farrar and Ralph Thomas' The Clouded Yellow (1950) with Trevor Howard. In 1950, Simmons was voted the fourth-most popular star in Britain.[17]

Howard Hughes and Victor Mature

[edit]
Simmons with Victor Mature in Androcles and the Lion (1952)

Granger became a Hollywood star in King Solomon's Mines (1950) and was signed to a contract by MGM, so Simmons moved to Los Angeles with him. In 1951, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures.[18][19]

Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances by angrily telling Hughes over the phone: "Mr. Howard bloody Hughes, you'll be sorry if you don't leave my wife alone."[20] To punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount where director William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday; the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn.[citation needed]

Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by Angel Face (1953), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. David Thomson wrote that "she might now be spoken of with the awe given to Louise Brooks" if Simmons only starred in that film.[21] Smarting over his rebuff from Granger, Hughes instructed Preminger to treat Simmons as roughly as possible, leading the director to demand that costar Mitchum repeatedly slap the actress harder and harder, until Mitchum turned and punched Preminger, asking if that was how he wanted it.[22] He also made her appear in She Couldn't Say No (1954), a comedy with Mitchum.

A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952.[21] They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money.[23] Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio—she would be lent out. She would make an additional picture for 20th Century Fox while RKO got the services of Victor Mature for one film.[24]

Publicity portrait of Simmons for MGM

MGM cast her in the lead of Young Bess (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled Affair with a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.[citation needed]

20th Century Fox

[edit]

Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular.[citation needed] She had the lead in Columbia's A Bullet Is Waiting (1954). More widely seen was[citation needed] Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary opposite Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte.

Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). Then, Joseph Mankiewicz cast her opposite Brando in the screen adaptation of Guys and Dolls (1955), where she did her own singing in a role turned down by Grace Kelly; it was a big hit.[25]

Simmons played the 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 by Ernest Bachrach, 1955

Simmons had a big success, though, in The Big Country (1958), directed by William Wyler. She starred in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal. In the opinion of film critic Philip French, Home Before Dark was "perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoy's psychodrama."[26]

Elmer Gantry and Richard Brooks

[edit]

Simmons went into Elmer Gantry (1960), directed by Richard Brooks, who became her second husband. It was successful, as was Spartacus (1960), where she played Kirk Douglas's character's love interest. Simmons then did The Grass Is Greener (1960) with Mitchum, Cary Grant, and Deborah Kerr.

She took some years off screen, then returned in All the Way Home (1963) with Robert Preston. She did Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey, Mister Buddwing (1966) with James Garner, Divorce American Style (1967) with Dick Van Dyke, and Rough Night in Jericho (1967) with George Peppard and Dean Martin.

Simmons did Heidi (1968) for TV, then Brooks wrote and directed The Happy Ending (1969) for her, and she received her second Oscar nomination.[citation needed]

1970s and 1980s

[edit]

By the 1970s, Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, then took the show to London, thus originating the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End. Performing in the show for three years, she said she never tired of Sondheim's music; "No matter how tired or 'off' you felt, the music would just pick you up."[27]

She portrayed Fiona "Fee" Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983); she won an Emmy Award for her role. She appeared in North and South (1985–86), again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main, and starred in The Dawning (1988) with Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant. In 1989, Simmons appeared as murder mystery author Eudora McVeigh Shipton, a self proclaimed rival to Jessica Fletcher, in the two-part Murder, She Wrote episode "Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall" with Angela Lansbury.

1990s and 2000s

[edit]

In 1991, she made a late-career appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead" as a retired Starfleet admiral and hardened legal investigator who conducts a witch hunt. That same year, she starred in a remake of Great Expectations, this time playing the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother, and as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins, in the short-lived revival of the 1960s daytime series Dark Shadows, in roles originally played by Joan Bennett. From 1994 until 1998, Simmons narrated the A&E documentary television series Mysteries of the Bible. In 1995, she appeared in How to Make an American Quilt with Winona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, and Alfre Woodard. In 2004, she voiced the lead role of Sophie in the English dub of Howl's Moving Castle.[12]

Personal life

[edit]
Simmons with her first husband Stewart Granger in 1955

Simmons was married and divorced twice. At 21, she married Stewart Granger in Tucson, Arizona, on 20 December 1950.[28] She and Granger became US citizens in 1956;[29] in the same year, 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 born a year later, in 1961. Simmons and Brooks divorced in 1980.[32] Although both men were significantly older than Simmons, she denied that she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just 16, but she said:

They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, softly spoken man. My husbands were both much noisier and much more opinionated ... it's really nothing to do with age ... it's to do with what's there – the twinkle and sense of humour.[11]

In a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film Going Undercover (1988,[33][34] a.k.a. Yellow Pages; completed 1985)[35] she elaborated slightly on her marriages, stating,

It may be simplistic, but you could sum up my two marriages by saying that, when I wanted to be a wife, Jimmy [Stewart Granger] would say: "I just want you to be pretty." And when I wanted to cook, Richard would say: "Forget the cooking. You've been trained to act – so act!" Most people thought I was quite helpless – a clinger and a butterfly – during my first marriage. It was Richard Brooks who saw what was wrong and tried to make me stand on my own two feet. I'd whine: 'I'm afraid.' And he'd say: 'Never be afraid to fail. Every time you get up in the morning, you are ahead.'

Simmons had two daughters, Tracy Granger (a film editor since 1990), and Kate Brooks (a TV production assistant and producer), one by each marriage – their names bearing witness to Simmons's friendship with Spencer Tracy[36] and Katharine Hepburn. Simmons moved to the East Coast of the US in the late 1970s, briefly owning a home in New Milford, Connecticut. She returned to California, settling in Santa Monica, California, where she lived until her death.[citation needed]

In the 2003 New Year Honours, Simmons was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting.[37]

In 2003, she became the patron of the British drugs and human rights charity Release. In 2005, she signed a petition to British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him not to upgrade cannabis from a class C drug to class B.[38]

Death

[edit]
Grave of Jean Simmons in Highgate Cemetery, London

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]

Filmography

[edit]
Year Film Role Notes
1944 Give Us the Moon Heidi
Mr. Emmanuel Sally Cooper Billed as Jean Simmonds
Sports Day Peggy
1945 Kiss the Bride Goodbye Molly Dodd[42]
Meet Sexton Blake! Eva Watkins[43]
The Way to the Stars A singer
Caesar and Cleopatra Harpist Uncredited
1946 Great Expectations Estella as a girl
1947 Hungry Hill Jane Brodrick
Black Narcissus Kanchi
Uncle Silas Caroline Ruthyn
The Woman in the Hall Jay Blake
1948 Hamlet Ophelia Volpi Cup for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1949 Adam and Evelyne Evelyne Kirby
The Blue Lagoon Emmeline Foster
1950 So Long at the Fair Vicky Barton Bambi Award for Best Actress – International (2nd place)
Trio Evie Bishop Segment "Sanatorium"
Bambi Award for Best Actress – International (2nd place)
Cage of Gold Judith Moray
The Clouded Yellow Sophie Malraux
1952 Androcles and the Lion Lavinia
1953 Angel Face Diane Tremayne Jessup
Young Bess Princess Elizabeth National Board of Review Award for Best Actress (also for The Robe and The Actress)
Affair with a Stranger Carolyn Parker
The Robe Diana National Board of Review Award for Best Actress (also for Young Bess and The Actress)
The Actress Ruth Gordon Jones National Board of Review Award for Best Actress (also for Young Bess and The Robe)
1954 She Couldn't Say No Corby Lane AKA Beautiful but Dangerous
The Egyptian Meryt
A Bullet Is Waiting Cally Canham
Désirée Désirée Clary
Demetrius and the Gladiators Diana Appeared in a clip from The Robe
1955 Footsteps in the Fog Lily Watkins
Guys and Dolls Sergeant Sarah Brown Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress
1956 Hilda Crane Hilda Crane Burns
1957 This Could Be the Night Anne Leeds Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Until They Sail Barbara Leslie Forbes
1958 The Big Country Julie Maragon
Home Before Dark Charlotte Bronn Laurel Award for Top Female Dramatic Performance (4th place)
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1959 This Earth Is Mine Elizabeth Rambeau
1960 Elmer Gantry Sharon Falconer Laurel Award for Top Female Dramatic Performance (3rd place)
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Spartacus Varinia
The Grass Is Greener Hattie Durant Laurel Award for Top Female Comedy Performance (5th place)
1963 All the Way Home Mary Follett
1965 Life at the Top Susan Lampton
1966 Mister Buddwing The Blonde
1967 Divorce American Style Nancy Downes
Rough Night in Jericho Molly Lang
1968 Heidi Fräulein Rottenmeier TV
1969 The Happy Ending Mary Wilson Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1971 Say Hello to Yesterday Woman
1972 The Odd Couple Princess Lydia Episode: "The Princess"
1975 Mr. Sycamore Estelle Benbow
The Easter Promise Constance Payne TV
1977 Hawaii Five-O Terri O'Brien TV; Episode "A Cop on the Cover"
1978 The Dain Curse Aaronia Haldorn TV
Dominique Dominique Ballard
1979 Beggarman, Thief Gretchen Jordache Burke TV
1981 A Small Killing Margaret Lawrence TV
Golden Gate Jane Kingsley TV
Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls Helen Lawson TV
1983 The Thorn Birds Fee Cleary TV
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
1984 December Flower Etta Marsh TV
All for Love Deidre Mackay Episode: "Down at the Hydro"
1985 Midas Valley Molly Hammond TV
North and South Clarissa Gault Main TV
1986 North and South Book II Clarissa Gault Main TV
1987 Perry Mason: The Case of the Lost Love Laura Robertson TV
1988 Inherit the Wind Lucy Brady TV
The Dawning Aunt Mary
Going Undercover Maxine de la Hunt[44] Released as Going Undercover in the US in 1988.[33][34] Straight to video in the UK as Yellow Pages (completed 1985).[35][44]
1989 Great Expectations Miss Havisham TV
Murder, She Wrote Eudora McVeigh Shipton Episode: "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall"
Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation Rear Admiral Norah Satie Episode: "The Drumhead"
Dark Shadows Elizabeth Collins Stoddard

Naomi Collins

They Do It with Mirrors Carrie-Louise Serrocold TV; Miss Marple (TV series)
1994 In the Heat of the Night Miss Cordelia TV; Episode: "Ches and the Grand Lady"
1994–1998 Mysteries of the Bible Narrator
1995 How to Make an American Quilt Em Reed Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Daisies in December Katherine Palmer
2001 Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Council Member 2 Voice
2003 Winter Solstice Countess Lucinda Rhives Released in Germany as Wintersonne
2004 Jean Simmons: Rose of England Herself
Howl's Moving Castle Old Sophie Voice, English version
2005 Thru the Moebius Strip Shepway Voice
2009 Shadows in the Sun Hannah Final film role

Box office ranking

[edit]

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.

  • 1949 – 4th[45] (9th most popular overall)[46]
  • 1950 – 2nd (4th most popular overall)[47]
  • 1951 – 3rd[48]

Awards and nominations

[edit]
Year Association Category Nominated work Result
1949 Academy Awards Best Supporting Actress Hamlet Nominated
1950 Daily Mail National Film Awards Most Outstanding British Actress of the Year Won
1953 National Board of Review Best Actress The Actress / The Robe / Young Bess Won
1956 Golden Globe Awards Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Guys and Dolls Won
1957 BAFTA Awards Best Foreign Actress Nominated
1958 Golden Globe Awards Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy This Could Be the Night Nominated
1959 Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Home Before Dark Nominated
1961 BAFTA Awards Best Foreign Actress Elmer Gantry Nominated
1961 Golden Globe Awards Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Nominated
1970 Academy Awards Best Actress The Happy Ending Nominated
1970 Golden Globe Awards Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Nominated
1983 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie The Thorn Birds Won
1984 Golden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Nominated
1989 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series Murder, She Wrote Nominated
1996 Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture How to Make an American Quilt Nominated

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Nelson, Valerie J. (23 January 2010). "Jean Simmons dies at 80; radiant beauty was known for stunning versatility". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
  2. ^ Vallance, Tom (26 January 2010). "Jean Simmons: Actress who dazzled opposite the likes of Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier". The Independent. London.
  3. ^ Harmetz, Aljean (23 January 2010). "Jean Simmons, Actress, Dies at 80". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 January 2010. Jean Simmons, the English actress who made the covers of Time and Life magazines by the time she was 20 and became a major mid-century star alongside strong leading men like Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Marlon Brando, often playing their demure helpmates, died on Friday at her home in Santa Monica, California. She was 80. The cause was lung cancer, according to Judy Page, her agent.
  4. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Jean Simmons, (Brian McFarlane) [1]
  5. ^ "Jean Simmons' Age Is Exposed". The Salina Journal. Vol. 116, no. 96. 26 April 1967. p. 20. Retrieved 14 March 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ^ a b "Are They Being Fair to Jean Simmons?", Picturegoer, 2 August 1947.
  7. ^ Per Gloria Hunniford in Sunday, Sunday television interview LWT, autumn 1985
  8. ^ TV Times, 22–28 March 1975, p. 4
  9. ^ Guest, Val (2001). So You Want to be in Pictures?. Reynolds & Hearn. p. 58. ISBN 978-1903111154.
  10. ^ "Anna Neagle Most Popular Actress". The Sydney Morning Herald. National Library of Australia. 3 January 1948. p. 3. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  11. ^ a b Woman's Weekly, Christmas 1989
  12. ^ a b Biography, reelclassics.com; accessed 24 April 2014.
  13. ^ French, Philip (24 January 2010). "Jean Simmons: an unforgettable English rose". The Observer. London.
  14. ^ "...and from London". The Mail. Vol. 35, no. 1, 806. Adelaide. 4 January 1947. p. 9 (Sunday Magazine). Retrieved 10 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  15. ^ Gillett, Philip (2003). The British working class in postwar film. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 200. ISBN 0719062578. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  16. ^ "JEAN SIMMONDS TO FACE F/LIGHTS (sic)". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Queensland. 16 November 1948. p. 4. Retrieved 20 June 2015 – via National Library of Australia.
  17. ^ "Critics Praise Drama: Comedians Win Profits". The Sydney Morning Herald. National Library of Australia. Australian Associated Press. 29 December 1950. p. 3. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  18. ^ Brown, Peter; Broeske, Pat (1997). Howard Hughes, The Untold Story. Penguin. p. 241. ISBN 978-0451180285.
  19. ^ Lennon, Peter (12 November 1999). "The Year of the Flirt". The Guardian. London.
  20. ^ "Stewart Granger Jean Simmons and Claire Bloom – adventures of two north London girls". aenigma. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  21. ^ a b Thomson, David (25 January 2010). "Jean Simmons obituary". The Guardian.
  22. ^ Bernstein, Adam (24 January 2010). "English actress was known for roles in the films 'Hamlet' and 'Elmer Gantry'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  23. ^ Hopper, Hedda (18 July 1952). "Looking at Hollywood: Story of Talking Animals Bought for Movie". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. A4.
  24. ^ "Jean Simmons Suit Settled by Hughes: British Actress Wins on Points; Producer to Pay All Costs of Trial". Los Angeles Times. 18 July 1952. p. A1.
  25. ^ "109 top money films of 1956". Variety. Vol. 205, no. 5. 2 January 1957. p. 1 – via Internet Archive.
  26. ^ French, Philip (6 April 2008). "Philip French's screen legends – No 11: Jean Simmons profile". The Observer.
  27. ^ "A Little Night Music: 1974 Touring Production; 1975 London Production". The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
  28. ^ "English Stars Married Here". Tucson Daily Citizen. Vol. 78, no. 304. 21 December 1950. p. 4. Retrieved 16 March 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  29. ^ "The Stewart Grangers Become Citizens of US". The Milwaukee Journal. Associated Press. 9 June 1956. p. 1. Retrieved 16 March 2015.[permanent dead link‍]
  30. ^ "Jean Simmons Files To Divorce Stewart Granger". The Blade. Toledo, Ohio. United Press International. 8 July 1960. p. 7. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  31. ^ "Actress Weds Film Director". The Odessa American. Vol. 35, no. 263. Associated Press. 2 November 1960. p. 27. Retrieved 1 April 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  32. ^ Daniel 2011, p. 210.
  33. ^ a b "Going Undercover (1988)". BFI. Archived from the original on 7 July 2020. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  34. ^ a b Wilmington, Michael (20 June 1988). "Going Undercover—the Gags, Ideas Get Lost in the Chase". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  35. ^ a b "Yellow Pages (1985)". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  36. ^ Picture Show and TV Mirror, 2 July 1960, p. 7. Simmons says her daughter was named after Spencer Tracy in interview, but adds, "Jimmy [Granger] says he got the name from the role Katharine Hepburn played in The Philadelphia Story."
  37. ^ "No. 56797". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2002. p. 24.
  38. ^ Goodchild, Sophie (18 December 2005). "Sting leads campaign against Blair's plan to reclassify cannabis". The Independent. London. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
  39. ^ "British-born Hollywood actress Jean Simmons dies at 80". BBC News. 23 January 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  40. ^ "Obituary: Jean Simmons". BBC News. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
  41. ^ "Jean Simmons". The Daily Telegraph. 23 January 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  42. ^ "Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945)". IMDb. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  43. ^ "Meet Sexton Blake (1945)". IMDb. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  44. ^ a b Brown, David (2001). "James Kenelm Clarke". In Allon, Yoram; Cullen, Del; Patterson, Hannah (eds.). Contemporary British and Irish Film Directors. Wallflower Press. p. 60, viii. ISBN 9781903364215.
  45. ^ "Bob Hope Takes Lead from Bing In Popularity". Canberra Times. National Library of Australia. 31 December 1949. p. 2. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
  46. ^ "Tops At Home". The Courier-Mail. Brisbane: National Library of Australia. 31 December 1949. p. 4. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
  47. ^ "Bob Hope Best Draw In British Theatres". The Mercury. Hobart, Tasmania: National Library of Australia. 29 December 1950. p. 4. Retrieved 27 April 2012.
  48. ^ "Vivien Leigh Actress of the Year". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Queensland, Australia: National Library of Australia. 29 December 1951. p. 1. Retrieved 27 April 2012.

Bibliography

[edit]
[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to Jean Simmons.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jean Simmons.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Jean_Simmons&oldid=1259481152"