Jean Kent

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Jean Kent (born June 29, 1921 in Brixton , London , † November 30, 2013 in Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk , England ) was a British actress .

Life

Kent was born Joan Mildred Summerfield in 1921 in the Brixton borough of South London. She was the only child of Norman Field and Nina Norre. Her parents were variety artists . She began her theater career in 1931, at the age of ten, as a dancer . At the age of thirteen she performed at the Windmill Theater in London's West End . She used the stage name "Jean Carr" for her appearances as a choir girl at the Windmill Theater.

Kent was one of Britain's busiest and best-known movie stars in the 1940s and 1950s. During the Second World War she was signed to the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures . In the years that followed, Kent played mainly in emotional and maudlin melodramas , the so-called Gainsborough melodramas , which were very popular at the time, especially among female cinema audiences. A turning point in her career was her participation in the British costume film Gaslight and Shadow (1945), where she first played a serious dramatic role, directed by Anthony Asquith . Kent played Lucy Beckett, the childhood friend of the female lead; her partners were James Mason and Stewart Granger . In 1946 she played the role of the gypsy Rosal in the British drama Dangerous Journey . In the British musical comedy Die Tingeltangelgräfin (1949) Kent took on the female lead.

Kent acted in a total of over 40 films. In the film drama Conflict of the Heart (1951), based on the play of the same name by Terence Rattigan , she again played a dramatic role, again under the direction of Anthony Asquith, this time even as the female lead that dominated the film. She embodied, alongside Michael Redgrave in the male lead role, Millie Crocker-Harris, the much younger wife of the aging and sick teacher Andrew Crocker-Harris, who no longer loves her husband, has a lover, and is hard and hard on him shows emotionally. In the comedy film The Prince and the Dancer (1957) she was (in the role of Maisie Springfield) partner of Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe . in the feature film Bonjour Tristesse (1958) she had a bigger supporting role than Mrs. Helen Lombard.

Kent also worked for television . She made her television debut in a musical called The Ship In The Bay in the late 1930s ; the show was broadcast live at the time. After the Second World War, she had television appearances in the television series Sir Francis Drake (1961–1962; as Queen Elizabeth I ), Up Pompeii! (1970), Crossroads (1981) and Lovejoy (1991).

In 1974 she was a guest on the British television show This Is Your Life ; she was surprised by presenter Eamonn Andrews at London's Strand Theater . Kent had her last public appearance in 2011, when the British Film Institute honored her on the occasion of her 90th birthday.

Private and death

Kent was married to the Austrian actor Josef Ramart († 1989) from 1946 until his death . Kent and Ramart met during the filming of the film Dangerous Journey (original title: Caravan ). Best man at their wedding was the actor Stewart Granger. Kent and Ramert played together in the films Dangerous Journey (1946) and The Tingeltangelgräfin (1949).

In the 1950s they bought a farm near Sudbury in Suffolk. They lived there for over 20 years; then they moved to Westhorpe .

Kent died in the early hours of November 30, 2013, at the age of 92, of an accident at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds; she had had a bad fall in her home a few days earlier.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1939: A Ship in the Bay (TV musical)
  • 1943: It's That Man Again
  • 1943: Warn That Man
  • 1944: Gaslight and Shadow (Fanny by Gaslight)
  • 1944: Two Thousand Women
  • 1944: Champagne Charlie
  • 1944: Madonna of the Seven Moons
  • 1944: Waterloo Road
  • 1945: The Woman without a Heart (The Wicked Lady)
  • 1945: The last fall (The Rake's Progress)
  • 1946: Dangerous journey ( caravan )
  • 1946: a heart is lost (Carnival)
  • 1947: Pirate Love (The Man Within)
  • 1948: Dance into the Abyss (Good-Time Girl)
  • 1948: sleeper to Trieste (Sleeping Car to Trieste )
  • 1949: The Tingeltangelgräfin (Trotti True)
  • 1950: The Reluctant Widow
  • 1951: Conflict of Heart (The Browning Version)
  • 1957: The Prince and the Showgirl (The Prince and the Showgirl)
  • 1958: Bonjour Tristesse (Bonjour tristesse)
  • 1959: Behind these walls (Beyond This Place)
  • 1961–1962: Sir Francis Drake (TV series)
  • 1963: Maupassant (TV series)
  • 1970: Up Pompeii! (TV series)
  • 1971: Doctor at Large (sitcom)
  • 1976: howler the devil (Shout at the Devil)
  • 1981: Crossroads (TV series)
  • 1990: Missing Persons (TV film)
  • 1991: Lovejoy (TV series)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Jean Kent: Suffolk Gainsborough melodramas actress dies obituary: BBC News dated November 30, 2013
  2. ^ John Walker: Halliwell's Who's Who of the Movies , London: HarperCollins, 1999, p. 229. ISBN 0-00-255905-6
  3. ↑ a b film star Jean Kent dies at 92 . In: Herald Scotland . Herald & Times Group. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  4. ^ Josef Ramart biography in the Internet Movie Database
personal data
SURNAME Kent, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Summerfield, Joan Mildred (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Brixton , London , England , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 2013
Place of death Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk , England , United Kingdom