Tribute: Jean Simmons
Posted on January 24, 2010 at 3:59 pm
The sensitive and elegant Jean Simmons died this week at age 80. The Washington Post’s Adam Bernstein wrote a graceful tribute calling her “a beguiling actress of quiet emotional power.” She was exquisite as a teenager in the great David Lean production of “Great Expectations,” playing Estella, the marred beauty who was raised to be incapable of love. Later, she would return to that story to play Estella’s guardian, the disheveled Miss Havisham, in a 1989 miniseries.
In between she appeared in a remarkable wide-ranging collection of classic films, the quiet slave consort to Kirk Douglas in Spartacus
I recommend her appearance as an increasingly paranoid Starfleet investigator in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Drumhead.”
Great recommendation, Toby!
To follow up on what Toby said, I read that Jean Simmons was a huge Trekkie, so she was apparently thrilled to make a guest appearance on Star Trek: TNG.
I loved Jean Simmons, especially in “Spartacus” and “Elmer Gantry.” She could also be pretty scary, as she was at the climax of “Spartacus” when she “told it like it was” to Olivier’s villain, Crassus.