Jean Simmons

Among her other films were 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 Happy Ending (1969), 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).

Jean Simmons studied at Aida Foster Theatre School. The recorded working language is English. Places of work recorded in the authority are United States and United Kingdom. Residence is recorded at Crouch End and Santa Monica. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Order of the British Empire, National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Targa d'Oro.

• Name — Jean Simmons • Honorific Suffix — OBE • Birth Name — Jean Merilyn Simmons • Born — 31 January 1929 • Birthplace — Islington, London, England • Died — 22 January 2010 • Place of death — Santa Monica, California, US • Resting Place — Highgate Cemetery • Citizenship — * United Kingdom • United States (from 1956) • Children — 2 • Father — Charles Simmons • Occupation — Actress, singer • Years Active — 1944–2010

Simmons was born on 31 January 1929, in Islington, London, to Charles Simmons, a physical education teacher, 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. During the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset. Her father, a bronze medalist in gymnastics at the 1912 Summer Olympics, 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.

On her return to London from Somerset, Simmons enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance. She was spotted by director Val Guest, who cast her in a large role as Margaret Lockwood's sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). 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.

• Illustration — Simmons at the 1948 Academy Awards, where she received her first Oscar nomination Simmons was cast as the young Estella in David Lean's version of Great Expectations (1946). The film was the third-most-popular at the British box office in 1947, Simmons received excellent reviews, and achieved stardom in the UK. The experience of working on Great Expectations caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously: 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. 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. 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, a project originally announced for Lockwood a decade earlier. It was a considerable financial success. 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. 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.

• Illustration — 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. 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." 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 "if she had made only one film – Angel Face – she might now be spoken of with the awe given to Louise Brooks." 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. 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. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. 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. Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). Then, Joseph Mankiewicz cast her opposite Marlon 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. So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM. The Big Country (1958), directed by William Wyler, was a great success for Simmons. 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." 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.

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." 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.

In 1989, she starred in a remake of Great Expectations, this time playing the 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 investigator who conducts a witch hunt; 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.

• Illustration — 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. She and Granger became US citizens in 1956 and in the same year, their daughter Tracy Granger was born. They divorced in 1960. On 1 November 1960, Simmons married director Richard Brooks; their daughter, Kate Brooks, was born a year later. Simmons and Brooks divorced in 1980. Although both men were significantly older than she, Simmons denied that she was looking for a father figure. Her father died when she was 16 years-old, but regarding her choice of husbands 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. In a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film Going Undercover (1988, a.k.a. Yellow Pages; completed 1985) she elaborated slightly on her marriages, stating, Simmons had two daughters, Tracy Granger and Kate Brooks, one by each marriage. Tracy's name reflects her friendship with Spencer Tracy; Tracy became a film editor, and Kate a TV production assistant and producer. In the 2003 New Year Honours, Simmons was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting. 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.

• Illustration — Grave of Jean Simmons in Highgate Cemetery, London Simmons, aged 80, died from lung cancer at her home in Santa Monica on 22 January 2010. She was interred in Highgate Cemetery, north London.

• 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 • Meet Sexton Blake! — Eva Watkins • 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 — Released as Going Undercover in the US in 1988. Straight to video in the UK as Yellow Pages (completed 1985). • 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

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 (9th most popular overall) • 1950 – 2nd (4th most popular overall) • 1951 – 3rd

Jean Simmons was recorded at birth as Jean Merilyn Simmons. Her recorded languages were English and British English. She was the child of Charles Simmons. She married Stewart Granger and Richard Brooks. One child is recorded: Tracy Granger.

Jean Simmons is recorded with the occupation television actor. Simmons worked at United Kingdom. Simmons worked at United States. Recorded as having received Officer of the Order of the British Empire, National Board of Review Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.