Jean Kent
Birthday: 1921-06-29
Place of Birth: London, England, UK
Synopsis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jean Kent (born 29 June 1921) is 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.
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Acting
Grip of the Strangler
as Cora Seth
A researcher investigating a notorious serial killer who was hanged 20 years earlier seemingly becomes possessed by the long dead strangler.
Bonjour Tristesse
as Mrs. Helen Lombard
Cecile is a decadent young girl who lives with her rich playboy father, Raymond. When Anne, Raymond's old love interest, comes to Raymond's villa, Cecile is afraid for her way of life.
The Prince and the Showgirl
as Maisie Springfield
An American showgirl becomes entangled in political intrigue when the Prince Regent of a foreign country attempts to seduce her.
Before I Wake
as Florence Haddon
A woman travels to England to attend her parents' funeral. She is told by officials that they died of natural causes together, but she doesn't buy it. She comes to suspect that the nurse who took care of her parents was involved in their deaths, but since the nurse is well thought of in the town, no one believes her. What she doesn't know is that her parents' killer has selected her as the next victim
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The Big Frame
as Louise Parker
An ex-GI wakes up with blood on his clothes in a strange hotel room. He can't remember the night before but he later finds out that a man he got into a fight with earlier in the night was murdered.
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The Woman in Question
as Agnes / Madame Astra / Parrot (voice)
Agnes "Astra" Huston, a fortune teller at a run-down fair, is found strangled in her bedroom. As the police question five suspects, their interactions with her are shown in flashbacks from their point of view.
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The Browning Version
as Millie Crocker-Harris
Andrew Crocker-Harris has been forced from his position as the classics master at an English public school due to poor health. As he winds up his final term, he discovers not only that his wife, Millie, has been unfaithful to him with one of his fellow schoolmasters, but that the school's students and faculty have long disdained him. However, an unexpected act of kindness causes Crocker-Harris to re-evaluate his life's work.
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Her Favourite Husband
as Dorothy Pellegrini
While casing a bank he intends to rob, gangster Leo discovers one of the clerks, Antonio, is his exact double. He kidnaps Antonio and robs the bank, posing as Antonio. But Leo hadn't accounted for the involvement of Antonio's wife, Dorothy.
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Caravan
as Rosal
During the last half of the 19th century writer Richard Darrell saves Don Carlos from two robbers, and is entrusted by Don Carlos to take a valuable necklace to Spain. Richard leaves his fiancé, Oriana, and starts the trip. He meets Wycroft, a henchman for Sir Francis Castteldow, an aristocrat out to steal Oriana from Richard. The latter is assaulted, robbed and nearly killed and, as a result, loses his memory. He marries a gypsy girl, Rosal, while Oriana, thinking him dead marries the dastardly Sir Francis. Everybody will meet again. Complications will arise.
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Trottie True
as Trottie True
Tottie True is a gay-90s British music-hall performer who has her sights set on moving from rags to riches, who loses her heart to the pure-and-true blue balloonist, Sid Skinner, but continues her upward search on improving her social status. She finally settles for Lord Landon Digby who has lots of assets and a very-stiff upper lip. She gets a lot of the latter and very little of the former, and decides Sid might have been a better choice.
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Good-Time Girl
as Gwen Rawlings
Good Time Girl stars Jean Kent as incipient juvenile delinquent Gwen Rawlings. Sent to a home for "problem" girls, Gwen receives a crash course in petty crime. Back on the outside, she falls in with the usual bad crowd, and suffers spectacularly as a result.
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Carnival
as Irene Dale
A melodrama about a 19th-century ballet dancer who makes an unfortunate career move by marrying a taciturn Cornish farmer. She soon longs for the bright lights of the big city and for the arms of her artist lover. Unfortunately, her husband is all too aware of this.
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The Wicked Lady
as Jackson's Doxy
A married woman finds new thrills as a masked robber on the highways.
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Waterloo Road
as Toni
During WW2 a former railway employee who had been drafted, goes AWOL to hunt down the spiv and draft dodger who is having an affair with his wife.
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Two Thousand Women
as Bridie Johnson
During the Second World War, three downed English airmen hide out with women's internment camp in France.
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Fanny by Gaslight
as Lucy Beckett
Returning to 1870s London after finishing at boarding school, Fanny winesses the death of her father in a fight with Lord Manderstoke. She then finds that her family has for many years been running a bordello next door to their home. When her mother dies shortly after, she next discovers that her real father is in fact a well-respected politician. Meeting him and then falling in love with his young advisor Harry Somerford leads to a life of ups and downs and conflict between the classes. Periodically the scoundrel of a Lord crosses her path, always to tragic effect.
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Warn That Man
as Frances Lane
At the height of World War II, the Germans discover that a certain British personage is to stay at the country house of Lord Buckley. They devise a plan whereby they will kidnap the real Lord Buckley, and send to England an actor who will masquerade, lie in wait for the visitor with a number of gunmen, and take him back to Germany.
