Jean Simmons

[fabrisse]

She was an adult actress. She may have started young -- at 14 according to the obituary I read -- but even as Estella in Great Expectations, she was sophisticated in ways many actresses just aren't now.

When my sister was working on the TV series In the Heat of the Night, there was an episode she was really excited about because Lauren Bacall might be on it. Instead, the role was played by "someone I've never heard of" in her words. I threw a fit that she didn't know who Jean Simmons was -- for heaven's sake, she played Ophelia in the Olivier film of Hamlet -- and that Sis hadn't realized how much it would have meant to me to get her autograph.

Spartacus, The Big Country, Elmer Gantry, and Desiree are all ones that I love.

She was a beautiful woman and a great actress.

Comments

[cxw1065.livejournal.com]

RIP Jean Simmons

The Big Country is an outstanding movie, and Jean Simmons and Gregory Peck together were responsible for the most perfect silent declaration of love EVER.........in fact, it was an entire dialogue carried out with looks alone.

For that alone, I'll miss her.

She also guest-starred in two of my fave guilty pleasures (ST:TNG and Murder she Wrote), and brought a welcome gravitas both to her roles and the episodes she was in.

I think we should make some films compulsory watching for the younger gen-- I'm 31 and grew up watching these movies with my dad, but my nieces and nephews are completely ignorant of the oldies, and I despair

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

By the time I was 20, I'd seen hundreds of old movies. With the prevalence of DVD, I'd think the younger generation would be ahead of us, but it turns out those classic movie houses probably did more that DVD to get people to see the films.

My favorite scene of hers is the "we're going to have a baby" scene in Spartacus. Again, much of it is silent, but she conveys so much with her glances.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

Yes, very true. She was gorgeous, charismatic but also a superb actress: I loved her in Black Narcissus as Kanchi - innately sexual in a knowing / innocent way, very playful and capricious. She was so often cast in more demure roles and it is delicious to see her subverting that more sober, decorous type.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Yes, I could never quite see her as demure. A perfect lady -- in the classic definition of "a lady never shows her underwear unintentionally" -- I have no doubt about that, but demure?

I'm sad she's gone.

[snopes-faith.livejournal.com]

A sad loss indeed. I too first remember really noticing her as the 'beggar maid' who captures the heart of the Young General in Powell & Pressburger's Black Narcissus, one of my favourite films. She was stunningly beautiful and astonishingly charismatic in what is a rather underwritten role.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I'm adding Black Narcissus to my Netflix list. I can't believe I've never seen it.