Jean Kent

Acting

Jean Kent

Born 1921-06-29 · Brixton, London, England, UK

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.

Acting credits

Bonjour Tristesse poster
6.7

A spoiled teenager spends the summer at the French Riviera with her rich, widower, playboy father, but when his old flame resurfaces, she resolves to keep her frivolous lifestyle at all costs.

Bonjour Tristesse

1958

Shout at the Devil poster
6.0

During World War One an English adventurer, an American elephant poacher and the latter's attractive young daughter, set out to destroy a German battle-cruiser which is awaiting repairs in an inlet just off Zanzibar. The story is based on a novel by Wilbur Smith, which in turn is very loosely based on events involving the light cruiser SMS Königsberg, which was sunk after taking refuge in Rufigi delta in 1915.

Shout at the Devil

1976

The Prince and the Showgirl poster
6.4

An American showgirl becomes entangled in political intrigue when the Prince Regent of a foreign country attempts to seduce her.

The Prince and the Showgirl

1957

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind poster
8.2

This documentary revisits the making of Gone with the Wind via archival footage, screen tests, insightful interviews and rare film footage.

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

1988

K Is for Killing poster
8.0

A husband and wife team are hired to protect an eccentric millionaire from an assassin but a series of murders follows.

K Is for Killing

1974

Web of Evidence poster
4.7

A World War II evacuee returns years later to England and finds his father in prison framed for murder.

Web of Evidence

1959

Trottie True poster
7.0

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.

Trottie True

1949

The Browning Version poster
7.6

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.

The Browning Version

1951

The Wicked Lady poster
6.3

A married woman finds new thrills as a masked robber on the highways.

The Wicked Lady

1945

Fanny by Gaslight poster
5.5

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.

Fanny by Gaslight

1944

The Woman in Question poster
6.3

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.

The Woman in Question

1950

Soldier, Sailor poster
7.0

Life aboard merchant ships with the Maritime Regiment of the Royal Artillery.

Soldier, Sailor

1944

Madonna of the Seven Moons poster
6.3

In the early part of this century, Maddelena a teenage Italian girl, is attacked whilst walking in the woods. The attack leaves her mentally scarred and our story flashes forward to the 1940s where Maddelena is still troubled. She disappears one day and her daughter vows to find her.

Madonna of the Seven Moons

1945

Good-Time Girl poster
6.4

Sent to a home for "problem" girls, incipient juvenile delinquent 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.

Good-Time Girl

1948

The Magic Bow poster
5.8

Biography of the famous Italian violinist Nicola Paganini which focuses as much on the musician's romances as it does on his craft. Phyllis Calvert plays Jeanne de Vermond, the aristocratic French woman who captures Paganini's heart, and real-life violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin supplies the breathtaking Paganini solos.

The Magic Bow

1946

The Man Within poster
6.8

A man goes on the run from hardened smugglers.

The Man Within

1947

Waterloo Road poster
6.0

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.

Waterloo Road

1945

Two Thousand Women poster
6.9

During the Second World War, three downed English airmen hide out with women's internment camp in France.

Two Thousand Women

1944

Caravan poster
6.7

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.

Caravan

1946

Bond Street poster
6.9

Charts the events occurring during a typical 24-hour period on London’s thoroughfare Bond Street. Linking the four stories together is the impending wedding of society girl Hazel Court and Robert Flemyng.

Bond Street

1948

Bees in Paradise poster
6.1

Four pilots become stranded on a tropical island inhabited by beautiful women.

Bees in Paradise

1944

Please Turn Over poster
6.3

The orderly suburban life of a 1950's English town is turned on its head when the teenaged daughter of one of the residents writes a steamy bestseller featuring characters obviously based on the local population.

Please Turn Over

1959

Grip of the Strangler poster
6.0

A researcher investigating a notorious serial killer who was hanged 20 years earlier seemingly becomes possessed by the long dead strangler.

Grip of the Strangler

1958

Her Favourite Husband poster
6.0

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.

Her Favourite Husband

1950