Jean Kent was an English film and television actress.
Biography
Born Joan Mildred Summerfield in Brixton, London, the only child of variety performers Norman Field and Nina Norre, she started her theatrical career in 1931 as a dancer. She used the stage name Jean Carr when she appeared as a chorus girl in the Windmill Theatre in London. She was sacked from the theatre.
She signed to Gainsborough Pictures during the Second World War. Kent had small roles in It's That Man Again, Miss London Ltd. and Warn That Man. Kent had a good role in Two Thousand Women, playing a stripper who is interned by the Germans. She was a Pacific Islander in Bees in Paradise with Arthur Askey and was the ingenue in a Tommy Trinder musical Champagne Charlie. The turning point in her career came when she was given a dramatic part in the Gainsborough melodrama filmFanny by Gaslight. She played a part turned down by Margaret Lockwood – the childhood friend of Phyllis Calvert who becomes the mistress of James Mason. The movie, also starring Stewart Granger, was popular in Britain and established Kent as Gainsborough's back up to Margaret Lockwood. Kent played another sexually aggressive girl in Madonna of the Seven Moons with Calvert and Granger. It was a big hit. Rank borrowed her to support Rex Harrison in The Rake's Progress then back at Gainsborough she was in Waterloo Road with John Mills and Granger.
Stardom
Kent shared top billing with Granger in Caravan, playing a gypsy girl in another melodrama. It was a big hit and Kent was given a new contract. Granger and Kent were reunited in The Magic Bow, with Kent again taking a part originally meant for Margaret Lockwood. After a support role in Carnival with Michael Wilding, Kent was the female lead in The Man Within, a costume adventure from a novel by Graham Greene. Kent had a good part in The Loves of Joanna Godden and was given a star role in Good-Time Girl, a melodrama about a girl who goes off the rails. Kent was top billed as one of several names in Bond Street and was the female lead in a thriller Sleeping Car to Trieste, playing a spy. Kent had her best chance yet playing the lead in a musical Trottie True which became her favourite film. She made a comedy in Italy, Her Favourite Husband and appeared opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Woman in Question. She starred in the melodrama The Reluctant Widow then had a good role as the wife in The Browning Version. In 1950 she was voted the 9th biggest British star in Britain. The following year she was 8th. Kent was in a thriller The Lost Hours with American actorMark Stevens and Before I Wake. In 1953 she was in a play Uncertain Joy. In 1954 she fell ill while touring in a stage production of The Deep Blue Sea in South Africa.
Later career
Kent's film appearances grew less frequent from the mid 1950s onward. She had support roles in The Prince and the Showgirl and Bonjour Tristesse and a good part in the horror film The Haunted Strangler. She was in the comedy Please Turn Over and the thriller Beyond This Place. She was one of several female stars in Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons with George Sanders. She played Queen Elizabeth I in the historical TV adventure series Sir Francis Drake filmed in 1961–62. In 1982, she played Jennifer Lamont in the soap opera Crossroads.
Personal life
Kent was married to Austrian actor Josef Ramart from 1946 until his death in 1989, aged 70. They met on the set of Caravan, in which he also appeared. Actor Stewart Granger, a co-star from this film, was the best man at their wedding. Kent and Ramart also both had roles in the film Trottie True. She was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1974 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Strand Theatre. Kent made her last public appearance in June 2011, when she was honoured by the British Film Institute on her 90th birthday. She was a guest at a screening of Caravan at the BFI Southbank.
Death
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.
Filmography
Film
Television
Box office ranking
For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted her among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.
