Jean Kent

Jean Kent (born Joan Mildred Field; 29 June 1921 − 30 November 2013) was an English film and television actress.

Biography Kent was born Joan Mildred Field (sometimes incorrectly cited as Summerfield) in Brixton, London, in 1921, the only child of variety performers Norman Carpenter Summerfield, who used the name "Norman Field", and Mildred Lilian (née Noaks), known as "Nina Norre". She started her theatrical career at age 10 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, from which she was fired by Vivian Van Damm.

The turning point in her career came when she was given a dramatic part in the Gainsborough melodrama film Fanny by Gaslight (1944). She played a part turned down by Margaret Lockwood, that of the childhood friend of the character played by Phyllis Calvert, who becomes the mistress of James Mason's character. The movie, also starring Stewart Granger, was a box-office success in Britain and established Kent as Gainsborough's back up to Margaret Lockwood.

Kent played another sexually aggressive young woman in Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945), another financial success, with Calvert and Granger. Rank borrowed her to support Rex Harrison in The Rake's Progress (1945), after which she returned to Gainsborough, appearing in Waterloo Road (1945) with John Mills and Granger.

Stardom Kent shared top billing with Granger in Caravan (1946), playing a gypsy girl in another melodrama. It was a financial success and Kent was given a new contract. Granger and Kent were reunited in The Magic Bow (1946), with Kent again taking a part originally meant for Margaret Lockwood.

"There was a pecking order at Gainsborough," Kent later recalled. "First Margaret, then Pat, then Phyllis, then me. I was the odds-and-sods girl. I used to mop up the parts that other people didn't want."

After a support role in Carnival (1946) with Michael Wilding, Kent was the female lead in The Man Within (1947), a costume adventure from a novel by Graham Greene. Kent had a good part in The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947), and was given a star role in Good-Time Girl (1948), a melodrama about a girl who goes bad. Kent was top billed as one of several names in Bond Street (1948), and was the female lead in a thriller Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), playing a spy. In 1950, Kent was voted the 9th biggest British star in Britain; the following year she moved up to 8th. Kent starred in the melodrama The Reluctant Widow (1951)m then had a good role as the unfaithful wife in The Browning Version (1951). That year she appeared on a TV play with Michael Craig, who said she "was on the wane after a successful career as a film star. She didn't like slumming it in television at all and was very grand and one scary lady."

In 1954, Kent 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.

In 1981, 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 both appeared. Actor Stewart Granger, a co-star in the picture, was the best man at their wedding. 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 determined that Kent died from accidental injuries received during a fall that may have been caused by cardiac disease.

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. 1950 – 9th 1951 – 8th