Jean Simmons

Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929 in Crouch End, London.

As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944), and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions as Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), Great Expectations (1946) (as the spoiled, Selfish Estella), Black Narcissus (1947) (as a sultry native beauty), Hamlet (1948) (playing Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's great Dane and earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950), among others.

Received her first on-screen kiss from Tony Wager in Great Expectations (1946).

Her Hamlet (1948) co-star Laurence Olivier urged the young actress to perfect her craft on the stage; instead, she decided to follow her future husband Stewart Granger to Hollywood.

She was one of Cecil B. DeMille's favorite actresses and he wanted to cast her in the role of Delilah in Samson and Delilah (1949), but she was too busy making films in England and the role went to Hedy Lamarr. Simmons later narrated the TV episode Mysteries of the Bible: Samson and Delilah (1998).

In 1950, she married actor Stewart Granger, and that same year, starred in the Frank Sinatra/Marlon Brando musical Guys and Dolls (1955); she used her own singing voice and earned her first Golden Globe Award.

Was William Wyler's first choice for the role of Princess Ann in Roman Holiday (1953), but Howard Hughes, who owned her contract, would not loan her out to Paramount to do the film.

She and Marlon Brando were originally supposed to lip-sync their songs in the musical film Guys and Dolls (1955). Samuel Goldwyn heard them during rehearsal and decided the untrained stars should do their own singing for authenticity.

Gave birth to her 1st child at age 27, a daughter Tracy Stewart Granger, aka Tracy Granger, on September 10, 1956. Child's father is her 1st ex-husband, Stewart Granger.

In 1958, she accepted the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role on behalf of Alec Guinness, who was not present at the awards ceremony.

Simmons divorced Granger in 1960 and almost immediately married writer-director Richard Brooks, who cast her as Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960), a memorable adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel.

That same year, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and played a would-be homewrecker opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960).

Off the screen for a few years, Jean captivated moviegoers with a brilliant performance as the mother in All the Way Home (1963), a literate, tasteful adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family".

However, after that, she found quality projects somewhat harder to come by, and took work in Life at the Top (1965), Mister Buddwing (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), The Happy Ending (1969) (a Richard Brooks film for which she was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Actress).

Director Richard Brooks claimed that he wrote The Happy Ending (1969), the filmed story of an alcoholic wife (played by Simmons) as a way to tell his wife that she herself had a problem. The marriage eventually broke up due to Simmons' drinking and Brooks' workaholic tendencies.

Jean continued making films well into the 1970s.

In the 1980s, she appeared mainly in television miniseries, such as North and South, Book I (1985) and The Thorn Birds (1983).

She was the only guest star on the television series Murder, She Wrote (1984) to receive an Emmy Award nomination (1989).

Becoming depressed at the lack of quality parts being offered her, Jean became addicted to alcohol. In 1986, she sought professional treatment.

Turned down the role of Jean Pargetter on the British television series As Time Goes By (1992), which went to Judi Dench.

She made a comeback to films in 1995 in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) co-starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, and most recently played the elderly Sophie in the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She now resided in Santa Monica, California, with her dog, Mr. Gates, and her two cats, Adisson and Megan.

She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours List for her services to drama.

Quit smoking while filming Shadows in the Sun (2009).

A memorial service was held for her at St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden on 29th June 2010.

As of 2013, she is one of six women who has received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for a performance directed by her spouse, namely for The Happy Ending (1969) directed by Richard Brooks. The other five are Elisabeth Bergner for Escape Me Never (1935) (directed by Paul Czinner), Joanne Woodward for Rachel, Rachel (1968) (directed by Paul Newman), Gena Rowlands for A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980) (both directed by John Cassavetes), Julie Andrews for Victor Victoria (1982) (directed by Blake Edwards), and Frances McDormand for Fargo (1996) (directed by Joel Coen). Jules Dassin also directed his future wife Melina Mercouri in a Best Actress Oscar nominated performance (Never on Sunday (1960)), but they were not married yet at the time of the nomination.