Early life and career

Simmons was born in Lower Holloway, London, to Charles Simmons, a bronze medalist in gymnastics at the 1912 Summer Olympics, and his wife, Winifred (née Loveland) Simmons. Jean was the youngest of four children with siblings Edna, Harold and Lorna. She began acting at the age of 14. During the Second World War, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe, Somerset. Her father, a physical education teacher, taught briefly at Sidcot School, and some time during this period Simmons followed her elder sister on to the village stage and sang songs such as "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow". Returning to London and just enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance, Simmons was spotted by the director Val Guest, who cast her in the Margaret Lockwood vehicle Give Us the Moon.

Small roles in several other films followed including the high profile Caesar and Cleopatra, produced by Gabriel Pascal. Pascal saw potential in Simmons and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract. Prior to moving to Hollywood, she played the young Estella in David Lean's version of Great Expectations (1946) and Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. She played an Indian girl in the Powell-Pressburger film Black Narcissus (1947).

It was the experience of working on Great Expectations that caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously:

I thought acting was just a lark, meeting all those exciting movie stars, and getting £5 a day which was lovely because we needed the money. But I figured I'd just go off and get married and have children like my mother. It was working with David Lean that convinced me to go on.

Playing Ophelia to Olivier's Hamlet made her a star while still in her teens, although she was already well known for her work in other British films, including her first starring role in the film adaptation of Uncle Silas, and Black Narcissus (both 1947). Olivier offered her the chance to work and study at the Bristol Old Vic, advising her to play anything they threw at her to get experience; she was under contract to the Rank Organisation who vetoed the idea. In 1949 Simmons starred with Stewart Granger in Adam and Evelyne. In 1950 she was voted the fourth most popular star in Britain. In 1951 Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned the RKO Pictures.

In 1950 she married Stewart Granger, with whom she appeared in several films, and the transition to an American career began. She made four films for Hughes, including Angel Face, directed by Otto Preminger. According to David Thomson "if she had made only one film - Angel Face - she might now be spoken of with the awe given to Louise Brooks." A court case freed her from the contract with Hughes in 1952.

In 1953 she starred alongside Spencer Tracy in The Actress, a film that was one of her personal favourites. Among the many films she appeared in during this period were The Robe (1953), Young Bess (1953), Désirée (1954), The Egyptian (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), (directed by her second husband, Richard Brooks), Spartacus (1960), All the Way Home (1963) and The Happy Ending (1969), for which she received her second Oscar nomination. In the opinion of film critic Philip French, Home Before Dark (1958) saw her give '"perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoy's psychodrama".

By the 1970s Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, then took the show to London, and thus originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End. Performing in the show for three years, she said she never tired of Sondheim's music; "No matter how tired or off you felt, the music would just pick you up."

She portrayed Fiona "Fee" Cleary, the Cleary family matriarch, in the 1983 mini-series, The Thorn Birds; she won an Emmy Award for her role. In 1985-86 she appeared in North and South, again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main. In 1988 she starred in The Dawning with Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant, and in 1989 she appeared in a remake of Great Expectations, in which she played the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother.

She made a late career appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead" (1991) as a retired Starfleet admiral and hardened legal investigator who conducts a witch-hunt. In 1991 she appeared in the short-lived revival of the 1960s daytime series Dark Shadows, in roles originally played by Joan Bennett. From 1994 until 1998 Simmons narrated the A&E documentary television series, Mysteries of the Bible. In 2004 Simmons voiced the lead role of Sophie in the English dub of Howl's Moving Castle.

Personal life

Simmons was married and divorced twice. She married Stewart Granger in Tucson, Arizona, on 20 December 1950. In 1956 she and Granger became U.S. citizens; they divorced in 1960.

On 1 November 1960, she married director Richard Brooks; they divorced in 1980. Although both men were significantly older than Simmons, she denied she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just 16 but she said: "They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, softly-spoken man. My husbands were much noisier and much more opinionated ... it's really nothing to do with age ... it's to do with what's there - the twinkle and sense of humour." And in a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film Yellow Pages, she elaborated slightly on her marriages, stating,

It may be simplistic, but you could sum up my two marriages by saying that, when I wanted to be a wife, Jimmy (Stewart Granger) would say: "I just want you to be pretty." And when I wanted to cook, Richard would say: "Forget the cooking. You've been trained to act - so act!" Most people thought I was helpless - a clinger and a butterfly - during my first marriage. It was Richard Brooks who saw what was wrong and tried to make me stand on my own two feet. I'd whine: 'I'm afraid.' And he'd say: 'Never be afraid to fail. Every time you get up in the morning, you are ahead.'

She had two daughters, Tracy Granger and Kate Brooks, one by each marriage - their names bearing witness to Simmons' friendship with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Simmons moved to the East Coast in the late 1970s, briefly owning a home in New Milford, Connecticut. Later she returned to California, settling in Santa Monica, where she lived until her death.

Death

She died from lung cancer at her home on 22 January 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday, surrounded by her family.

Release

Throughout her life Simmons spoke out publicly about her struggle with addiction, and in 2003 became the patron of the British drugs and human rights charity Release. She was an active supporter of their campaigns for just, humane and effective drug policies, recognising that many of those with drug problems cannot afford the luxurious facilities available to celebrities. In 2005 she signed a petition to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him not to upgrade cannabis from a class C drug to a class B.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1944	Sports Day	Peggy
	Give Us the Moon	Heidi
	Mr. Emmanuel	Sally Cooper	Billed as Jean Simmonds
1945	Kiss the Bride Goodbye	Molly Dodd
	Meet Sexton Blake	Eva Watkins
	The Way to the Stars	A singer
	Caesar and Cleopatra	harpist
1946	Great Expectations	Estella as a girl
1947	The Woman in the Hall	Jay
	Uncle Silas	Caroline Ruthyn
	Black Narcissus	Kanchi
	Hungry Hill	Jane Brodrick
1948	Hamlet	Ophelia	Volpi Cup Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1949	The Blue Lagoon	Emmeline Foster
	Adam and Evelyne	Evelyne Kirby
1950	So Long at the Fair	Vicky Barton	Bambi Award for Best Actress - International (2nd place)
	Cage of Gold	Judith Moray
	Trio: "Sanatorium"	Evie Bishop	Bambi Award for Best Actress - International (2nd place)
1951	The Clouded Yellow	Sophie Malraux
1952	Angel Face	Diane Tremayne
	Androcles and the Lion	Lavinia
1953	Young Bess	Princess Elizabeth	National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
	Affair with a Stranger	Carolyn Parker
	The Robe	Diana	National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
	The Actress	Ruth Gordon Jones	National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
1954	She Couldn't Say No (AKA Beautiful but Dangerous )	Corby Lane
	Demetrius and the Gladiators	Diana	Appeared in a clip from The Robe
	The Egyptian	Meryt
	A Bullet Is Waiting	Cally Canham
	Désirée	Désirée Clary
1955	Footsteps in the Fog	Lily Watkins
	Guys and Dolls	Sergeant Sarah Brown	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated-BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress
1956	Hilda Crane	Hilda Crane
1957	This Could Be the Night	Anne Leeds	Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
	Until They Sail	Barbara Leslie Forbes
1958	The Big Country	Julie Maragon
	Home Before Dark	Charlotte Bronn	Laurel Award for Top Female Dramatic Performance (4th place) Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1959	This Earth Is Mine	Elizabeth Rambeau
1960	Elmer Gantry	Sharon Falconer	Laurel Award for Top Female Dramatic Performance (3rd place) Nominated-BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
	Spartacus	Varinia
	The Grass Is Greener	Hattie Durant	Laurel Award for Top Female Comedy Performance (5th place)
1963	All the Way Home	Mary Follett
1965	Life at the Top	Susan Lampton
1966	Mister Buddwing	The Blonde
1967	Divorce American Style	Nancy Downes
	Rough Night in Jericho	Molly Lang
1968	Heidi	Fräulein Rottenmeier
1969	The Happy Ending	Mary Spencer	Nominated-Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1971	Say Hello to Yesterday	Woman
1975	Mr. Sycamore	Estelle Benbow
	The Easter Promise (TV)	Constance Payne
1978	The Dain Curse (TV)	Aaronia Haldorn
	Dominique	Dominique Ballard
1979	Beggarman, Thief (TV)	Gretchen Jordache Burke
1981	A Small Killing (TV)	Margaret Lawrence
1983	The Thorn Birds (TV)	Fee Cleary	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film
1984	December Flower (TV)	Etta Marsh
1985	Midas Valley (TV)	Molly Hammond
	North and South	Clarissa Gault Main
1986	North and South Book II	Clarissa Gault Main
1987	Perry Mason: The Case of the Lost Love	Laura Robertson
1988	Inherit the Wind (TV)	Lucy Brady
	Yellow Pages	Maxine de la Hunt
	The Dawning	Aunt Mary
1989	Great Expectations	Miss Havisham
	Murder She Wrote Episode: "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall"		Nominated-Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
1991	Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode: "The Drumhead"	Rear Admiral Norah Satie
	Dark Shadows	Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins
	They Do It with Mirrors	Carrie-Louise Serrocold
1994	In The Heat of the Night (1994 TV Series) Episode:"Chez and the Grand Lady"	Miss Cordelia
1995	How to Make an American Quilt	Em Reed	Nominated-Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
	Daisies in December	Katherine Palmer
2001	Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within	Council Member 2 (voice)
2003	Winter Solstice	Countess Lucinda Rhives	Released in Germany as Wintersonne
2004	Jean Simmons: Rose of England	Herself
	Howl's Moving Castle	Grandma Sophie (voice)
2005	Thru the Moebius Strip	Shepway (voice)
2009	Shadows in the Sun	Hannah

Box office ranking

For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted her among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.

• 1949 - 4th (9th most popular over all)
• 1950 - 2nd (4th most popular over all)
• 1951 - 3rd

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
1949	Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Hamlet	Nominated
1953	National Board of Review	Best Actress	The Actress	Won
1953	National Board of Review	Best Actress	The Robe	Won
1953	National Board of Review	Best Actress	Young Bess	Won
1956	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Guys and Dolls	Won
1957	BAFTA Awards	Best Foreign Actress	Guys and Dolls	Nominated
1958	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	This Could Be the Night	Nominated
1959	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama	Home Before Dark	Nominated
1961	BAFTA Awards	Best Foreign Actress	Elmer Gantry	Nominated
1961	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama	Elmer Gantry	Nominated
1970	Academy Awards	Best Actress	The Happy Ending	Nominated
1970	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama	The Happy Ending	Nominated
1983	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie	The Thorn Birds	Won
1984	Golden Globe Awards	Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television	The Thorn Birds	Nominated
1989	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series	Murder, She Wrote	Nominated
1996	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture	How to Make an American Quilt	Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]