Jean Kent

She signed to Gainsborough Pictures during the Second World War.[5] Kent had small roles in It's That Man Again (1943), Miss London Ltd. (1943) and Warn That Man (1944). Kent had a good role in Two Thousand Women (1944), playing a stripper who is interned by the Germans.[5][6] 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).[7][8]

The turning point in her career came when she was given a dramatic part in the Gainsborough melodrama film Fanny by Gaslight (1944).[5] She played a part turned down by Margaret Lockwood – the childhood friend of Phyllis Calvert who becomes the mistress of James Mason.[9] The movie, also starring Stewart Granger, was popular in Britain and established Kent as Gainsborough's back up to Margaret Lockwood.[10][11]

Kent played another sexually aggressive girl in Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) with Calvert and Granger.[12] It was a big hit. Rank borrowed her to support Rex Harrison in The Rake's Progress (1945) then back at Gainsborough she was in Waterloo Road (1945) with John Mills and Granger.[6]

Kent shared top billing with Granger in Caravan (1946), playing a gypsy girl in another melodrama.[13] It was a big hit and Kent was given a new contract.[14] Granger and Kent were reunited in The Magic Bow (1946), with Kent again taking a part originally meant for Margaret Lockwood.[15]

"There was a pecking order at Gainsborough," said Kent later. "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."[16]

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 off the rails.[6][17]

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.[5]

Kent had her best chance yet playing the lead in a musical Trottie True (1949) which became her favourite film.[5] She made a comedy in Italy, Her Favourite Husband (1950) and appeared opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Woman in Question (1950).[4]

She starred in the melodrama The Reluctant Widow (1951) then had a good role as the wife in The Browning Version (1951).[5]

In 1950 she was voted the 9th biggest British star in Britain.[18] The following year she was 8th.[19]

Kent was in a thriller The Lost Hours (1952) with American actor Mark Stevens and Before I Wake (1955). In 1953 she was in a play Uncertain Joy.[20] 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."[21]

In 1954 Kent fell ill while touring in a stage production of The Deep Blue Sea in South Africa.[22]

Kent's film appearances grew less frequent from the mid 1950s onward.[23] 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).[6] She was one of several female stars in Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons (1960) with George Sanders.[2]

She played Queen Elizabeth I in the historical TV adventure series Sir Francis Drake filmed in 1961–62.[24]

In 1982, she played Jennifer Lamont in the soap opera Crossroads.[25]