Jean Simmons Biography

The beautiful female star of David Lean's 'Great Expectations', Lawrence Olivier's 'Hamlet' and Stanley Kubrick's 'Spartacus', Jean Simmons played opposite the greatest actors of her generation during a career that spanned six decades.

Jean Merilyn Simmons was born on 31 January 1929 in London, England to physical education teacher Charles and his wife Winifred.

She was the youngest of four children who were evacuated to Somerset during World War II. Simmons would often join her eldest sister on the village stage to sing songs before they moved back to London.

Producer Val Guest lifted Simmons out of a dancing school, in the dreary suburb of Cricklewood, after she had attended just two weeks tuition. Guest saw in Simmons the fresh face needed for his upcoming film 'Give Us the Moon'. Simmons was 14 and her father warned that her luck would not last. He was wrong.

Simmons' beauty and genuine, if untrained, talent carried her from success to success. In 1946, she played Estella in 'Great Expectations', alongside soon to be famous actors John Mills and Alec Guinness.

Two years later, Lawrence Olivier, desperate that she play Ophelia in his new production of 'Hamlet', pleaded with Rank organisation (to whom she was contracted) for 30 days of her time. They agreed.

'Hamlet' catapulted Simmons to international stardom; she was nominated for two Oscars and her face covered Time magazine. Next, she went to Fiji to make 'The Blue Lagoon'.

Married to swashbuckling actor Stewart Granger in 1950, the couple moved to Hollywood, and had daughter Tracey six years later. The union lasted a decade.

Ignoring the fact Simmons was married, Howard Hughes wanted her. He bought her contract and then tried to force her to sign a new one when it expired. Simmons refused.

Hughes tried to wreck her career, threatening to sue other studios should they hire her. The matter was finally settled out of court.

After making the successful transition from British films to Hollywood, Simmons was made a US citizen in 1956.

Simmons married the writer-director Richard Brooks in 1960, staying off screen for a few years until 'Spartacus' in 1960. They had daughter Kate before divorcing in 1977.

She continued to work through out the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, in film and television. Key roles over these decades included 'All the Way Home' (1963), 'Life at the Top' (1965) and the Brooks directed 'The Happy Ending' in 1969 for which she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar.

During the 1970s, Simmons mainly appeared in TV movies such as 'The Easter Promise' in 1975 and shows such as 'Hawaii Five-O' in 1977. Her main roles in the 1980s included the mini-series 'The Thorn Birds' in 1983 and 'North and South' in 1985 and 1986.

Her most notable roles in the 1990s and 2000s were 'Great Expectations' in 1991, 'Howl's Moving Castle' in 2004 and 'Shadows in the Sun' in 2009.

Simmons was made an OBE for her services to film in 2003. She also became the patron of the UK drugs and human rights charity Release in the same year, after publicly battling with an alcohol addiction since 1986.

She lived in Santa Monica, California with her dog and two cats before she died from lung cancer on 22 January 2010 at the age of 80. She was cremated in Santa Monica and her ashes were interred at Highgate Cemetery in London.