I know, Joe is kind of touchy about the obit threads, and I haven't started any lately. But Jean Simmons was simply such a class act all of her life, and she had a very long career because she started acting young. I can't think of a better person to start a "I'm so sorry she's gone" thread for.

Jean Simmons dies at 80; radiant beauty was known for stunning versatility. From the L.A. Times.

Jean Simmons, a radiant British actress who as a teenager appeared opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in "Hamlet" and emerged a star whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s in such films as "Guys and Dolls, "Elmer Gantry" and "Spartacus," has died. She was 80.

Simmons, who won an Emmy Award for her role in the 1980s miniseries "The Thorn Birds," died Friday evening at her home in Santa Monica, said Judy Page, her agent. She had lung cancer.

"Jean Simmons' jaw-dropping beauty often obscured a formidable acting talent," Alan K. Rode, a writer and film historian, told The Times in an e-mail.

Plucked from a dance class by a talent scout at the age of 14, she had already made several movies before gaining attention for her portrayal of the young Estella in Sir David Lean's film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations."

Follow the thread for the rest.

The beginning paragraph says it all. She was excellent in such diverse films as Elmer Gantry and Guys and Dolls. When she did television, she didn't see it as demeaning, she just kept on doing great work, wherever she landed. I think the last program I saw her in was an Agatha Christie mystery (probably 15 years old now, with Joan Hicks as Miss Marple). And she was still as beautiful and elegant as ever.

You will be missed, Miss Simmons!

SRS