Ursula Jeans | |
|---|---|
 Jeans in 1933 | |
| Born | Ursula Jean McMinn 5 May 1906 |
| Died | 21 April 1973 (aged 66) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1922–1968 |
| Spouse(s) | |
Ursula Jean McMinn (5 May 1906 – 21 April 1973), better known as Ursula Jeans, was an English film, stage, and television actress. [1] [2]
Jeans was born in Simla, British India, to English parents, and brought up and educated in London. [3] She was the youngest of three siblings. Her brother Desmond Jeans was a boxer and actor, and her elder sister, Isabel, was also an actress. [4] In 1931 she appeared in Edward Knoblock's Grand Hotel at the Adelphi Theatre.
Jeans made her stage debut in London in 1922, [5] before joining the cast of the London production of The Play's the Thing , an adaptation of Ferenc Molnár's play, The Play at the Castle by P. G. Wodehouse. [6] The cast included Gerald du Maurier, Ralph Nairn, Henry Daniell (before he went to Hollywood), and Henry Forbes-Robertson. [7]
She made her stage debut in New York in 1933. [8] Her first marriage was to actor Robin Irvine (1931–1933, his death). Her second marriage was to actor Roger Livesey from 1937 until her death. [9] (Livesey's sister Maggie was already married to Desmond Jeans.) She appeared in one film with Livesey, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). [10] She entertained troops with ENSA during World War II, sometimes working with her husband. After the war, she continued acting, including starring as Mrs. Tarlton, in one of the eight episodes of the BBC's 'H M Tennant's Globe Theatre', in 1956; and, in a stage tour of Australia and New Zealand, between 1956–1958.
Jeans made one appearance each in Dixon of Dock Green , in 1967, as Mrs. Regan; in Theatre 625 , as Mother Denis, in 1968; and as Ursula Benton, in The Root of All Evil? , also in 1968. She continued to act into the 1970s.
Jeans died of cancer in 1973, aged 66, some 18 months after her diagnosis. [9] She shares a memorial plaque with her second husband, Roger Livesey, in the actors' church St Paul's, Covent Garden.
Marie Josephine Hull was an American stage and film actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Harvey (1950), a role she originally played on the Broadway stage. She was sometimes credited as Josephine Sherwood.
Roger Livesey was a British stage and film actor. He is most often remembered for the three Powell & Pressburger films in which he starred: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going! and A Matter of Life and Death. Tall and broad with a mop of chestnut hair, Livesey used his highly distinctive husky voice, gentle manner and athletic physique to create many notable roles in his theatre and film work.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a 1943 British romantic drama war film written, produced and directed by the British film making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook. The title derives from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David Low, but the story itself is original. Some regard the film as the greatest British movie ever made and it is renowned for its sophistication and directorial brilliance as well as for its script, the performances of its large cast and for its pioneering Technicolor cinematography. Among its distinguished company of actors, particular praise has been reserved for Livesey, Walbrook and Kerr.
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