Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE (born 31 January 1929) is an Oscar-nominated English actress. Simmons was named an Officer in the Order of the British Empire in 2003.Born in Crouch Hill, London, England, to Charles Simmons (gymnast) and his wife Winifred nee Loveland - Jean Simmons began acting at the age of 14.In 1950 Britain lost their young star to America - and Rank sold her to Howard Hughes who then owned RKO studios.In 1950, she married the English actor Stewart Granger, with whom she appeared in several films, successfully making the transition to Hollywood. She made four films for Howard Hughes, including Angel Face directed by Otto Preminger. In 1953 she made The Actress, starring alongside Spencer Tracy - a film that is one of her personal favourites. Among her best-known leading roles are The Robe (1953) The Egyptian (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960) (directed by her second husband, Richard Brooks), Spartacus (1960), and The Happy Ending, again directed by Brooks and for which she received her second Oscar nomination.By the 1970s, Simmons turned her focus to stage and television acting. She toured the United States in the well-reviewed A Little Night Music, then took the show to London, and thus originated the role of Desirée Armfeldt on the West End[4] . Doing the show for three years, she said she never tired of Stephen Sondheim's music; ' No matter how tired or 'off ' you felt, the music would just pick you up.' For her appearance in the mini-series The Thorn Birds, she won an Emmy Award. In 1985 and 1986 she appeared in North & South. In 1988 she starred in The Dawning with Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant and in 1989 she again starred in a miniseries, this time a version of Great Expectations, in which she played the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother. Simmons made a late career appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead" as a witch-hunt inspiring investigator named Admiral Nora Satie.She was married twice: in 1950 to Stewart Granger, divorcing in 1960, and in 1960 to director Richard Brooks, divorcing in 1977. Both men were significantly older than Simmons but she has denied she was looking for a father figure. Her father had died when she was just fourteen but she's said: "They were really nothing like my father at all. My father was a gentle, soft-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." [5] And in a 1984 interview, given in Copenhagen at the time she was shooting the film Yellow Pages, she had elaborated slightly on her marriages. "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 has two daughters, Tracy Granger (born 1956) and Kate Brooks, one by each marriage. Simmons moved to the East Coast in the late 1970's, briefly renting a home in the Litchfield County town of New Milford, Connecticut. Simmons sought treatment for alcohol addiction in 1986 and currently lives in Santa Monica, California.
Sports Day (1944)
Give us the Moon (1944)
Mr. Emmanuel (1944)
Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945)
Meet Sexton Blake (1945)
The Way to the Stars (1945)
Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
Great Expectations (1946)
The Woman in the Hall (1947)
Uncle Silas (1947)
Black Narcissus (1947)
Hungry Hill (1947)
Hamlet (1948)
The Blue Lagoon (1949)
Adam and Evelyne (1949)
So Long at the Fair (1950)
Cage of Gold (1950)
Trio (1950)
The Clouded Yellow (1951)
Angel Face (1952)
Androcles and the Lion (1952)
Young Bess (1953)
Affair with a Stranger (1953)
The Robe (1953)
The Actress (1953)
She Couldn't Say No (1954) (AKA Beautiful but Dangerous )
Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
The Egyptian (1954)
A Bullet Is Waiting (1954)
Désirée (1954)
Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
Guys and Dolls (1955)
Hilda Crane (1956)

The Big Country (1958)
Home Before Dark (1958)
This Earth Is Mine (1959)
Elmer Gantry (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
The Grass Is Greener (1960)
All the Way Home (1963)
Life at the Top (1965)
Mister Buddwing (1966)
Divorce American Style (1967)
Rough Night in Jericho (film) (1967)
Heidi (1968)
The Happy Ending (1969)
Say Hello to Yesterday (1971)
Mr. Sycamore (1975)
The Dain Curse (TV) (1978)
Dominique (1978)
A Small Killing (TV) (1981)
The Thorn Birds (TV) (1983)
December Flower (TV) (1984)
Midas Valley (TV) (1985)
Yellow Pages (1985)
North and South (1985)
North and South Book II (1986)
The Dawning (1988)
Great Expectations (1989)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1991)
Dark Shadows (1991)
They Do It with Mirrors (1991)
How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
Daisies in December (TV) (1995)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) (voice)
Jean Simmons: Rose of England (2004) (documentary)
Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004) (voice)
Through the Moebius Strip (2005)
Shadows in the Sun (2008)