Jean Simmons

Jean Merilyn Simmons, born on 31 January 1929 in Islington, London, was a British actress and singer who built one of the most distinguished careers in twentieth-century film, stage, and television. The youngest of four children born to Charles Simmons, a physical education teacher and bronze medalist in gymnastics at the 1912 Summer Olympics, and his wife Winifred Ada, Simmons grew up alongside siblings Lorna, Harold, and Edna. During the Second World War, the family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset, where her father taught briefly at Sidcot School. It was during this period that Simmons first performed publicly, following her eldest sister onto the village stage to sing popular songs, with ambitions at the time of becoming an acrobatic dancer. She began acting at the age of 14, and upon returning to London enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance.

Her professional career began when director Val Guest spotted her and cast her in a substantial role as Margaret Lockwood's sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). A series of smaller parts followed in films including Mr. Emmanuel (1944), Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945), Meet Sexton Blake (1945), The Way to the Stars (1945), and the short Sports Day (1945). She also appeared briefly as a harpist in the Gabriel Pascal production Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), which starred Vivien Leigh and featured her future husband Stewart Granger.

Simmons achieved stardom in the United Kingdom through her casting as the young Estella in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), the third most popular film at the British box office in 1947. She credited working with Lean as the experience that convinced her to pursue acting seriously. Further notable British films followed, including support roles in Hungry Hill (1947) and the Powell-Pressburger production Black Narcissus (1947), in which she played an Indian woman alongside Sabu. Her first top-billed role came in Uncle Silas (1947), followed by The Woman in the Hall (1947). She then earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), after which Olivier invited her to work and study at the Old Vic, an opportunity blocked by her contract with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation. She went on to lead Frank Launder's The Blue Lagoon (1949), a considerable financial success, and starred opposite Granger in Adam and Evelyne (1949), her first adult role, after which the two married. By 1950, she had been voted the fourth most popular star in Britain.

When Granger signed with MGM following his success in King Solomon's Mines (1950), Simmons relocated to Los Angeles with him. In 1951, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, then owner of RKO Pictures. Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. Angel Face (1953), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum, followed, and a court case that same year freed her from her contract with Hughes, though the settlement required her to complete additional films. Joseph Mankiewicz subsequently cast her opposite Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls (1955), in which she performed her own singing in a role Grace Kelly had declined, and she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance. She and Granger also returned to England during this period to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955).

Further Hollywood successes included This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957) at MGM, and 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. Elmer Gantry (1960), directed by Richard Brooks, who became her second husband, was followed by Spartacus (1960), in which she played the love interest of Kirk Douglas's character, and The Grass Is Greener (1960) alongside Robert Mitchum, Cary Grant, and Deborah Kerr. Her later film work included All the Way Home (1963) with Robert Preston, 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. Her performance in The Happy Ending (1969) earned her a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actress.

By the 1970s, Simmons shifted her focus toward stage and television work. She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, bringing the production to Broadway in 1974, and subsequently took the show to London, where she originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End. She performed in the production for three years. On television, she portrayed Fiona Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds, a role for which she won an Emmy Award. She also appeared in the miniseries North and South (1985–86), playing Clarissa Main.

Simmons died on 22 January 2010, ten days before what would have been her 81st birthday. Her career spanned more than six decades and encompassed acclaimed work across British cinema, Hollywood film, Broadway, the West End, and American television.