The Masters  
The Powell & Pressburger Pages

Dedicated to the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and all the other people, both actors and technicians who helped them make those wonderful films.

A lot of the documents have been sent to me or have come from other web sites. The name of the web site is given where known. If I have unintentionally included an image or document that is copyrighted or that I shouldn't have done then please email me and I'll remove it.

I make no money from this site, it's purely for the love of the films.

[Any comments are by me (Steve Crook) and other members of the email list]

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Jean Simmons: A brief biography
From an item I bought on ebay


Jean Simmons Charming 8 X 10 B&W glossy photo of young actress JEAN SIMMONS. A luminous, blonde beauty, Jean Simmons was a star in her native Britain and in the U.S. who first appeared on screen at age 14 in Give Us the Moon (1944), but did not become a true star until she played Estella in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946). In 1948, she was hand-picked by Laurence Olivier to play the doomed Ophelia in his classic version of Hamlet and won a Best Actress Prize at the Venice Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for her efforts. In the same year she played the Indian girl Kanchi in Powell & Pressburger's Black Narcissus. When Olivier saw her he couldn't believe it was the same person that was playing Ophelia for him.

Simmons travelled to Hollywood in 1950 after marrying Stewart Granger. Their marriage lasted a decade and Simmons then became Mrs. Richard Brooks in 1960, the year he starred her in Elmer Gantry. During the '50s and '60s, Simmons had an extremely busy film career appearing in everything from costume epics to romances to musicals to straight dramas. Simmons received an Oscar nomination in 1969 for The Happy Ending. By the mid -70s, Simmons started working less frequently and divided her time between features and television work. In the late '80s, she had a burst of character roles, but has since made increasingly sporadic forays into acting.

Note: Although Stewart Granger never appeared in any P&P films he was a friend of theirs & it was he who first suggested that they should use Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes.


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