Lee Remick

Remick made her Broadway theatre debut in 1953 with Be Your Age.[8] She began guest starring on episodes of TV anthology series such as Armstrong Circle Theatre, Studio One in Hollywood, Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Theatre and Playhouse 90.[9]

Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). While filming the movie in Arkansas, Remick lived with a local family and practiced baton twirling so that she would be believable as the teenager who wins the attention of Lonesome Rhodes (played by Andy Griffith).

After appearing as Eula Varner, the hot-blooded daughter-in-law of Will Varner (Orson Welles) in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), she appeared in These Thousand Hills (1959) as a dance hall girl, both for 20th Century Fox.

Remick came to prominence as a rape victim whose husband is tried for killing her attacker in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

She made a second film with Kazan, Wild River (1960), which co-starred Montgomery Clift and Jo Van Fleet. That year she played Miranda in a television version of The Tempest with Richard Burton.

Rehearsing with director George Cukor in 1962 for Something's Got to Give

Remick was top billed in Sanctuary (1961) alongside Yves Montand. She did The Farmer's Daughter (1962) on television. She starred opposite Glenn Ford in the Blake Edwards suspense-thriller Experiment in Terror (1962). That same year she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses (1962), also directed by Edwards. Bette Davis, also nominated that year for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, said, "Miss Remick's performance astonished me, and I thought, if I lose the Oscar, it will be to her." They both lost to Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker.

When Marilyn Monroe was fired during the filming of the comedy Something's Got to Give, the studio announced that Remick would be her replacement. Co-star Dean Martin refused to continue, however, saying that while he admired Remick, he had signed onto the picture strictly to be able to work with Monroe. Remick did a thriller, The Running Man (1963), with Laurence Harvey and a comedy, The Wheeler Dealers (also 1963), with James Garner.

Remick next appeared in the 1964 Broadway musical Anyone Can Whistle,[8] with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book and direction by Arthur Laurents, which ran for only a week. Remick's performance is captured on the original cast recording. This began a lifelong friendship between Remick and Sondheim, and she later appeared in the 1985 concert version of his musical Follies.[10]

Remick returned to films with Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), with Steve McQueen from a script by Horton Foote, and The Hallelujah Trail (1965) with Burt Lancaster.

In 1966, she starred in the Broadway play Wait Until Dark under the direction of Arthur Penn and co-starring Robert Duvall.[8] It was a big success and ran for 373 performances; Remick was nominated for a Tony award for Best Actress (Dramatic).[11] It was adapted into a successful film the following year starring Audrey Hepburn.

She performed in Damn Yankees! (1967) for TV and starred in No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) with Rod Steiger and George Segal, The Detective (1968) with Frank Sinatra, and Hard Contract (1969) with James Coburn.

Remick visited the UK to make Loot (1970) and A Severed Head (1971). Back in the US she was in Paul Newman's Sometimes a Great Notion (1971).

She appeared in Hennessy (1975) with Rod Steiger. She co-starred with Gregory Peck in the 1976 horror film The Omen, in which her character's adopted son, Damien, is revealed to be the Antichrist. The film was both a critical and commercial success.

Remick followed it up with leading actress roles in Telefon (1977), with Charles Bronson; The Medusa Touch (1978) with Richard Burton; the television mini-series Wheels (1979) with Rock Hudson; Ike: The War Years (1979) portraying Kay Summersby; and The Europeans (1979) for director James Ivory.[12]

Remick starred in many TV movies beginning with The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972) with Orson Welles. She followed it with Summer and Smoke (1972) for British TV; And No One Could Save Her (1973); Of Men and Women (1973), an unsuccessful pilot; The Blue Knight (1973) with William Holden; A Delicate Balance (1973) with Katharine Hepburn; QB VII (1974); Touch Me Not a.k.a. The Hunted (1974); Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1975), playing the title role, which earned her an Emmy nomination; Hustling (1975) with Jill Clayburgh; A Girl Named Sooner (1975); Breaking Up (1978); and Torn Between Two Lovers (1979) with George Peppard.

Remick played Margaret Sullavan in Haywire (1980). She had the lead in The Women's Room (1980), and supported in The Competition (1980) and Tribute (1980), the latter with Lemmon.

Remick starred in The Letter (1982), The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983) and a TV adaptation of I Do! I Do! (1984). She had a role in the mimiseries Mistral's Daughter (1984), adapted from the novel by Judith Krantz. The reviewer of The New York Times praised Remick for portraying Kate "to fresh-faced clawing perfection".[13]

Remick was in Rearview Mirror (1984), Toughlove (1985), Of Pure Blood (1986), and Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder (1987). She went to Australia to make Emma's War (1987).

Remick's final performances include The Vision (1987) with Dirk Bogarde, Jesse (1988), Bridge to Silence (1989) and playing Sarah Bernhardt in Around the World in 80 Days (1989). Her last performance was the lead in a TV movie Dark Holiday (1989).