Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE (January 31, 1929 – January 22, 2010) was a British actress and singer. One of J. Arthur Rank’s “well-spoken young starlets”, she appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Great Britain during and after World War II, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onwards. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hamlet (1948), with Laurence Olivier (who also directed), John Laurie, Esmond Knight, Anthony Quayle, and Niall MacGinnis; and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Joseph L. Mankiewicz Guys and Dolls (1955), with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine.
Simmon’s other film appearances include George Sindney’s Young Bess (1953), with Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, and Charles Laughton; Henry Koster‘s The Robe (1953), with Richard Burton, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie, Dean Jagger, Jay Robinson, Richard Boone, and Jeff Morrow; John Farrow‘s A Bullet Is Waiting (1954), with Rory Calhoun, Stephen McNally, and Brian Aherne; Richard Brooks’ Elmer Gantry (1960), with Burt Lancaster, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley Jones, and Patti Page; Stanley Kubrick‘s Spartacus (1960), with Kirk Douglas, Olivier, Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Tony Curtis; and The Happy Ending (1969, with John Forsythe, Jones, Lloyd Bridges and Teresa Wright – 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), with Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward, Barbara Stanwyck, Christopher Plummer, Piper Laurie, Richard Kiley, Bryan Brown, Mare Winningham, and Philip Anglim.
Other notable films include David Lean‘s Great Expectations (1948), with John Mills, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Martita Hunt, Alec Guinness, and Valerie Hobson; Otto Preminger‘s Angel Face (1953), with Robert Mitchum; George Cukor‘s The Actress (1953), with Spencer Tracy, Tracy, Teresa Wright, and Anthony Perkins; Michael Curtiz‘s The Egyptian (1954), with Edmund Purdom, Bella Darvi, Victor Mature, Gene Tierney, Ustinov, and Michael Wilding; Robert Wise’s Until They Sail (1957), with Joan Fontaine, Paul Newman, Laurie, and Sandra Dee; William Wyler‘s The Big Country (1958), with Gregory Peck, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, and Burl Ives; and Henry King‘s The Earth is Mine (1959), with Rock Hudson, Claude Rains, and Dorothy McGuire.
Films in the 1960s include Stanley Donen‘s The Grass is Greener (1960), with Cary Grant; All the Way Home (1963), with Robert Preston, Pat Hingle, Aline MacMahon, and Thomas Chalmers; Life at the Top (1965), with Laurence Harvey, Honor Blackman, Michael Craig, and Donald Wolfit; Delbert Mann’s Mister Buddwing (1966), with James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, and Angela Lansbury; Bud Yorkin’s Divorce American Style (1967), with Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Reynolds, Jason Robards, and Van Johnson; Rough Night in Jericho (1967), with Dean Martin and George Peppard; and the TV movie Heidi (1968), with Maximilian Schell, Michael Redgrave, Jennifer Edwards, and Walter Slezak.
Later films include Michael Anderson’s Dominique (1978), with Cliff Robertson, Jenny Agutter, Simon Ward, and Ron Moody; The Dawning (1989), with Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Grant, Trevor Howard, and Rebecca Pidgeon; How to Make an American Quilt (1995), with Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Nelligan, and Alfre Woodard; Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), with the voices of Ming-Na Wen, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Peri Gilpin, and Steve Buscemi; the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki‘s Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), with Emily Mortimer, Lauren Bacall, Christian Bale, Josh Hutcherson and Billy Crystal; and her final film was Shadows in the Sun (2009), with James Wilby, Jamie Dornan, and Ophelia Lovibond.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Give Us the Moon (1944) – directed by Val Guest
- Mr, Emmanuel (1944) – directed by Harold French – credited as Jean Simmonds
- Sports Day (1945) – directed by Francis Searle – short
- Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945) – directed by Paul L. Stein
- Meet Sexton Blake! (1945) – directed by John Harlow
- The Way to the Stars (1945) – directed by Anthony Asquith – aka Johnny in the Clouds
- Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) – directed by Gabriel Pascal – uncredited
- Great Expectations (1946) – directed by David Lean
- Hungry Hill (1947) – directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
- Black Narcissus (1947) – directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
- Uncle Silas (1947) – directed by Charles Frank – aka The Inheritance
- The Woman in the Hall (1947) – directed by Jack Lee
- Hamlet (1948) – directed by Laurence Olivier
- The Blue Lagoon (1949) – directed by Frank Launder
- Adam and Evelyne (1949) – directed by Harold French – aka Adam and Evalyn
- So Long at the Fair (1950) – directed by Terence Fisher & Antony Darnborough – aka The Black Curse
- Trio (1950) – directed by Ken Annakin & Harold French – anthology
- Cage of Gold (1950) – directed by Basil Dearden
- The Clouded Yellow (1950) – directed by Ralph Thomas
- Androcles and the Lion (1952) – directed by Chester Erskine & Nicholas Ray (uncredited)
- Angel Face (1953) – directed by Otto Preminger
- Young Bess (1953) – directed by George Sidney
- Affair with a Stranger (1953) – directed by Roy Rowland
- The Robe (1953) – directed by Henry Koster
- The Actress (1953) – directed by George Cukor
- She Couldn’t Say No (1954) – directed by Lloyd Bacon – aka Beautiful but Dangerous
- The Egyptian (1954) – directed by Michael Curtiz
- A Bullet Is Waiting (1954) – directed by John Farrow
- Désirée (1954) – directed by Henry Koster
- Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) – directed by Delmer Daves – archive footage
- Footsteps in the Fog (1955) – directed by Arthur Lubin
- Guys and Dolls (1955) – directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Hilda Crane (1956) – directed by Philip Dunne – aka The Many Loves of Hilda Crane
- This Could Be the Night (1957) – directed by Robert Wise
- Until They Sail (1957) – directed by Robert Wise
- The Big Country (1958) – directed by William Wyler
- Home Before Dark (1958) – directed by Mervyn LeRoy
- This Earth Is Mine (1959) – directed by Henry King
- Elmer Gantry (1960) – directed by Richard Brooks
- Spartacus (1960) – directed by Stanley Kubrick
- The Grass Is Greener (1960) – directed by Stanley Donen
- All the Way Home (1963) – directed by Alex Segal
- Life at the Top (1965) – directed by Ted Kotcheff
- Mister Buddwing (1966) – directed by Delbert Mann
- Soldier in Love (1967) – directed by George Schaefer – TV movie
- Divorce American Style (1967) – directed by Bud Yorkin
- Rough Night in Jericho (1967) – directed by Arnold Laven
- Heidi (1968) – directed by Delbert Mann – TV movie
- The Happy Ending (1969) – directed by Richard Brooks
- Say Hello to Yesterday (1971) – directed by Alvin Rakoff
- Decisions! Decisions! (1971) – directed by Alex Segal – TV movie
- The Easter Promise (1975) – directed by Paul Bogart – TV movie
- Mr. Sycamore (1971) – directed by Pancho Kohner
- The Dain Curse (1978) – directed by E.W. Swackhamer – miniseries
- Dominique (1979) – directed by Michael Anderson – aka Dominique Is Dead
- Beggarman, Thief (1979) – directed by Lawrence Doheny – TV movie
- Golden Gate (1981) – directed by Paul Wendkos – TV movie
- Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls (1981) – directed by Walter Grauman – miniseries
- A Small Killing (1981) – directed by Steven Hilliard Stern – TV movie
- The Thorn Birds (1983) – directed by Daryl Duke – miniseries
- December Flower (1984) – directed by Stephen Frears – TV movie
- Midas Valley (1985) – directed by Gus Trikonis – TV movie
- Going Undercover (1985) – directed by James Kenelm Clarke
- North & South: Book I (1985) – directed by Richard T. Heffron – miniseries
- North & South: Book II (1986) – directed by Kevin Connor – miniseries
- Perry Mason: The Case of the Lost Love (1987) – directed by Ron Satlof – TV movie
- Inherit the Wind (1988) – directed by David Greene – TV movie
- A Friendship in Vienna (1988) – directed by Arthur Allen Seidelman – TV movie
- The Dawning (1988) – directed by Robert Knights
- Great Expectations (1989) – directed by Kevin Connor – miniseries
- Laker Girls (1990) – directed by Bruce Seth Green – TV movie
- People Like Us (1990) – directed by William Hale – TV movie
- Miss Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (1991) – directed by Norman Stone – TV movie
- One More Mountain (1994) – directed by Dick Lowry – TV movie
- How to Make an American Quilt (1995) – directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
- Daisies in December (1995) – directed by Mark Haber – TV movie
- Her Own Rules (1998) – directed by Bobby Roth – TV movie
- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)* – directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi
- Winter Solstice (2003) – directed by Martyn Friend – TV movie
- Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)** – directed by Hayao Miyazaki – English dub
- Thru the Moebius Strip (2005) – directed by Glenn Chaika & Kelvin Lee
- Shadows in the Sun (2009) – directed by David Rocksavage
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