Jean Kent
Born: 1921-06-29 in Brixton, London, England, UK
Died: 2013-11-30
Known For: Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jean Kent (29 June 1921 - 30 November 2013) was a British film actress. She signed to Gainsborough Pictures during the Second World War. Kent's first good role in Two Thousand Women (1944), playing a stripper who is interned by the Germans. She was a Pacific Islander in Bees in Paradise (1944) with Arthur Askey and was the ingenue in a Tommy Trinder musical Champagne Charlie (1944). The turning point in her career came when she was given a dramatic part in the Gainsborough melodrama film Fanny by Gaslight (1944). The movie established Kent as Gainsborough's backup to Margaret Lockwood. Kent played another sexually aggressive girl in Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) with Calvert and Granger. It was a big hit. Rank borrowed her to support Rex Harrison in The Rake's Progress (1945). Kent continued to have success in films. Her favorite film was musical Trottie True (1949) where she played the lead. Kent's film appearances grew less frequent from the mid 1950s onward. She had support roles in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and a good part in the horror film The Haunted Strangler (1959). She was in the comedy Please Turn Over (1959) and the thriller Beyond This Place (1959). She was one of several female stars in Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons (1960) with George Sanders. Kent was married to Austrian actor Josef Ramart from 1946 until his death in 1989, aged 70. They met on the set of Caravan. Actor Stewart Granger was the best man at their wedding. They appeared together in the films Caravan and Trottie True. Kent made her last public appearance in June 2011, when she was honoured by the British Film Institute on her 90th birthday. Kent died in the West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St. Edmunds on 30 November 2013, following a fall at her home in Westhorpe. The coroner recorded a narrative verdict that Kent died from accidental injuries and that cardiac disease may have contributed to a fall. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jean Kent, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography
1990
- Missing Persons as Phillida Meadowhite
1989
1988
- After Henry as Mrs Judd-Skeffington
- The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind as Self (archive footage)
1986
- Lovejoy as Madelene Gilbert
- Fifties Features - The Women behind the Pictures
1985
- Lytton's Diary as Margot Shelley
1978
- Tycoon as Mary Clark
1976
- Shout at the Devil as Mrs. Smythe
1974
- K Is for Killing as Mrs. Garrick
1973
- Thriller as Mrs. Garrick
1969
- Up Pompeii! as Aphrodite
1967
- ITV Playhouse as Beatrice
1965
- Public Eye as Mrs Podmore
- United!
1961
- Sir Francis Drake as Queen Elizabeth I
1960
- Bluebeard's 10 Honeymoons as Julienne
1959
- No Hiding Place
- Web of Evidence as Louise Burt
- Please Turn Over as Janet Halliday
1958
- Bonjour Tristesse as Mrs. Helen Lombard
- Grip of the Strangler as Cora Seth
1957
- The Prince and the Showgirl as Maisie Springfield
1955
- Before I Wake as Florence Haddon
1952
- The Big Frame as Louise Parker
1951
- The Browning Version as Millie Crocker-Harris
1950
- The Woman in Question as Agnes / Madame Astra / Parrot (voice)
- Her Favourite Husband as Dorothy Pellegrini
- The Reluctant Widow as Elinor Cheviot
1949
- Trottie True as Trottie True
1948
- Sleeping Car to Trieste as Valya
- Good-Time Girl as Gwen Rawlings
- Bond Street as Ricki Merritt
1947
- The Man Within as Lucy
- The Loves of Joanna Godden as Ellen Godden
1946
- Caravan as Rosal
- Carnival as Irene Dale
- The Magic Bow as Bianchi
1945
- The Wicked Lady as Jackson's Doxy
- Waterloo Road as Toni
- Madonna of the Seven Moons as Vittoria
- The Rake's Progress as Jill Duncan
1944
- Champagne Charlie as Dolly Bellwood
- Two Thousand Women as Bridie Johnson
- Fanny by Gaslight as Lucy Beckett
- Bees in Paradise as Jani
- Soldier, Sailor as Cigarette Girl
1943
- Miss London Ltd. as The Encyclopedia Girl
- Warn That Man as Frances Lane
- It's That Man Again as Kitty