Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010

Subject: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 01:23 AM

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

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 01:29 AM

Classic Simmons.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 03:26 AM

I love Jean Simmons! Interestingly, I always thought that Audrey Hepburn's whole acting style was based on impersonating Jean, and now I've just read that Jean was first choice for the lead in "Roman Holiday" which launced Audrey's career.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Genie
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 04:14 AM

One of my favorite actresses and IMO one of the most stunningly beautiful. I loved her in so many films - Guys & Dolls, Spartacus, The Thorn Birds, etc.

I never thought about it before, Tunesmith, but I can see how Audrey's style could have been based on emulating Jean.

I guess 80 is a ripe old age, but it still seems too soon to see her go.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 06:05 AM

She was elegance personified.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Fiolar
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 07:58 AM

A marvellous actress. I'll never her roles in Hamlet (1948) and in Spartacus (1960) to mention just two. At peace.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 08:23 AM

Such a beautiful woman and an outstanding actress.

I remember her in Great Expectations, playing opposite John Mills and, later on, playing the part of Miss Havisham in the remake. One of my earliest recollections of her was as Diana, in The Robe.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: GUEST,jim moran
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 02:30 PM

Interesting point made by Tunesmith. I've always been convinced that actress Maggie McNamara in the 1954 movie "Three Coins in a Fountain" is doing a "Jean Simmons" impersonation, but in reflection, maybe she was impersonating Audrey Hepburn impersonating Jean Simmons.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 02:34 PM

Jean Simmons was so stunningly, elegantly beautiful. It is hard to imagine her being anything but young. RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 02:52 PM

My favorite Jean Simmons role was as the femme fatal who lures an ought to know better Robert Mitchum to his death, in a chillingly unexpected way in the 1952 Noir, Angel Face. Nearly sixty years on I still remember it well.

None of the obits I've read mention her narration of Biblical passages in the History Channel program, Mysteries of the Bible (or was it the Discovery Channel?).

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Genie
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 12:11 AM

Sinsull, yes, it is hard to imagine Jean Simmons being old. Yet one thing that stood out for me about her beauty was its endurance as she aged.   She did not look young in The Thorn Birds, for example, yet she had such great bone structure that she still looked beautiful without really appearing a lot younger than she was.


And, John, Angel Face was one of the first movies that made a lasting impression on me as a kid. She played the deceptively evil 'anti-heroine' brilliantly.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 02:18 AM

I think I saw that one a long long time ago. I'll have to see if it's in NetFlix.

It is!

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 08:18 AM

A great shame. She was lovely.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: goatfell
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 10:29 AM

rip Jean Simmons

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 11:05 AM

And they all spoke properly then!!

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 03:03 PM

Just a week ago BBC2 ran "The Way to the Stars", filmed in 1945, in which a luminous Jean Simmons, aged 15, appeared briefly, singing "Let him go, let him tarry".

Kitty

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 09:07 AM

Quite simply one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, but with an acting talent to match. RIP.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 25 Jan 10 - 03:27 PM

A life well lived.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 01:31 PM

I agree, Lonesome. A life well-lived.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 03:31 PM

She was really something all right. I'm thinking of her now in "The Big Country".

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 05:30 PM

Glad she did not take Hamlet's advice and got "...thee to a nunnery".   What beauty and what an actress who also did, if I am correct in this, some very good humanitarian work later in life.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 11:29 PM

The "nunnery" he was referring to was a brothel. . . but that wouldn't have been good for her, either. ;-)

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 05:22 AM

Actually, of course, SRS, Hamlet might have meant a brothel - or he might just have meant a nunnery — or either - or both - or as she [& we] might choose to take it. As so often in Shax, it is the very amibiguity of intention whence comes the effectiveness. One of the brilliant things in Jean Simmons' performance was the sense she gave of puzzlement at his utterances, of sort-of perceiving what he was getting at without ever being quite confident that she had it right.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 05:03 PM

I didn't realize Jean Simmons was British; I suppose I know her best from her many American films, in which she did an excellent job of suppressing any accent. She certainly gives no hint of her east-of-the-pond origins in, say, Guys and Dolls!

(Confession: I've never sat through the Olivier Hamlet)

I've always thought that she and Audrey Hepburn shared a fairly close physical/facial resemblance, and that this would have been one major reason that the then-unknown Audrey got the Roman Holiday gig as second choice. The two were very similar (and very classy) "types," so it's no surprise that many folks would perceive their acting styles as similar.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 05:05 PM

Ooops ~ meant to "preview" but instead posted prematurely: missed a "close italics" HTML code...Sorry!

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: Genie
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 09:13 PM

I had never thought of Jean Simmons as British either, Poppa, But I think she, like other good actors such as Meryl Streep, was good at adopting other accents called for by various roles.
I never thought of Vivien Leigh as sounding British either, but that's mainly because I remember her most as Blanche DuBois or Scarlett O'Hara.

One of the best things about the Guys And Dolls movie was the director's decision to have Brando and Simmons do their own singing, in their non-professional-singer voices. They both could carry a tune but sounded pretty much like you'd expect a gangster and a Salvation Army worker to sound.   I loved it.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:26 AM

But don't forget, as has already been mentioned, that one of Jean Simmons' first appearances to attract attention was AS a singer — singing the Irish folksong Fare You Well Cold Winter, aka let Him Go Let Him Tarry, in The Way To The Stars, to the airmen relaxing in the base canteen while waiting to fly their missions. She was not only a British actress but a neighbour of mine — also born in Hampstead, N London, 3 years before me; and attending a stage school, Aida Foster, only a few doors along the Finchley Road from the first school I attended aged 3-5 [not quite simultaneously, obviously!]. I never, to my regret, met her at that stage of our lives, tho many of my then friends did and all reported her as a most friendly, charming and unaffected young person.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jean Simmons, actor, Jan 2010
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 07:54 AM

It's funny, I think of Jean as being so English - even though she spent the major part of her life outside the UK.