Jean Kent

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.