Isabel Jeans
Encyclopedia
Isabel Jeans was an English stage and film actress known for her roles in several Alfred Hitchcock
films, among others.
appearance was in The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife in January 1915 and as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream
in February 1915. She played Lady Mercia Merivale in the London musical hit Kissing Time
(1919). She appeared in a production of James Elroy Flecker
's Hassan at His Majesty's Theatre
in London in 1923. Incidental music for the play was by Frederick Delius
, and the ballet in the House-of-the-Moving Walls was created by Fokine
. In 1924, she appeared in Ivor Novello
's play The Rat at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in London. The following year, she was in Richard Brinsley Sheridan
's play, The Rivals
at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, together with Claude Rains
.
She appeared in major roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
silent films, Downhill
(1927) and Easy Virtue (1928), before playing a number of grande dames in Hollywood films, such as Hitchcock's Suspicion
(1941), as well as in such films as Banana Ridge
(1942), Gigi
(1958) and A Breath of Scandal
(1960).
Later stage roles included a revival of The Happy Hypocrite
in London in 1936. Later Broadway roles were Crystal Wetherby in The Man in Possession in 1930 and Mrs. Emmeline Lucas in Make Way for Lucia in 1948. English productions included Anton Chekhov
's plays, The Seagull
, (1949 at the Lyric Theatre, London and then St. James's Theatre), Jean Anouilh
's play, "Ardele" (1951 at the Vaudeville Theatre
), Noël Coward
's play, The Vortex
(1952 at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith), T.S. Eliot's play, The Confidential Clerk
(1953 at the Lyric Theatre), and William Congreve
's play, The Double Dealer (1959 at the Old Vic Theatre, and other plays there that season, with Judi Dench
). She also acted in West End
productions of plays by Oscar Wilde
, including Lady Windermere's Fan
(1945 at the Haymarket Theatre
, directed by Sir John Gielgud
; and 1966 at the Phoenix Theatre (London)
), A Woman of No Importance
(1953 at the Savoy Theatre
) and as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest
(1968 at the Haymarket Theatre
).
was an actor and boxer, while her sister Ursula
became a respected character actress and married the actor Roger Livesey
.
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
films, among others.
Career
Jeans began her career on stage in London in 1909 at age 18. An early BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
appearance was in The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife in January 1915 and as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
in February 1915. She played Lady Mercia Merivale in the London musical hit Kissing Time
Kissing Time
thumb|right|[[Leslie Henson]] and [[Phyllis Dare]] Kissing Time, an earlier version of which was titled The Girl Behind the Gun, is a musical comedy with music by Ivan Caryll, book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, and additional lyrics by Clifford Grey...
(1919). She appeared in a production of James Elroy Flecker
James Elroy Flecker
James Elroy Flecker was an English poet, novelist and playwright. As a poet he was most influenced by the Parnassian poets.-Biography:...
's Hassan at His Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
in London in 1923. Incidental music for the play was by Frederick Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
, and the ballet in the House-of-the-Moving Walls was created by Fokine
Michel Fokine
Michel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...
. In 1924, she appeared in Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
's play The Rat at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in London. The following year, she was in Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
's play, The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, together with Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
.
She appeared in major roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
silent films, Downhill
Downhill (film)
Downhill is a 1927 silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the play Down Hill. It is Hitchcock's fifth film as director.-Plot:...
(1927) and Easy Virtue (1928), before playing a number of grande dames in Hollywood films, such as Hitchcock's Suspicion
Suspicion (film)
Suspicion is a romantic psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine as a married couple. It also stars Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, and Leo G...
(1941), as well as in such films as Banana Ridge
Banana Ridge
Banana Ridge is a 1942 British comedy film directed by Walter C. Mycroft and starring Robertson Hare, Alfred Drayton and Isabel Jeans. The film is based on a 1938 stage play of the same name by Ben Travers...
(1942), Gigi
Gigi (1958 film)
Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
(1958) and A Breath of Scandal
A Breath of Scandal
A Breath of Scandal, known as Olympia in Italy, is a 1960 film adapted from Ferenc Molnár's stage play Olympia. It stars Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, John Gavin and Angela Lansbury and was directed by Michael Curtiz. The film is set at the turn of the 20th century and features lush technicolor...
(1960).
Later stage roles included a revival of The Happy Hypocrite
The Happy Hypocrite
The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men is a short story with moral implications, written by Max Beerbohm in 1897. His earliest short story, The Happy Hypocrite first appeared in The Yellow Book in 1897...
in London in 1936. Later Broadway roles were Crystal Wetherby in The Man in Possession in 1930 and Mrs. Emmeline Lucas in Make Way for Lucia in 1948. English productions included Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's plays, The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
, (1949 at the Lyric Theatre, London and then St. James's Theatre), Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
's play, "Ardele" (1951 at the Vaudeville Theatre
Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on The Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous...
), Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's play, The Vortex
The Vortex
The Vortex is a play by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The story focuses on sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. The play was Coward's first great commercial success....
(1952 at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith), T.S. Eliot's play, The Confidential Clerk
The Confidential Clerk
thumb|1st edition cover The Confidential Clerk is a comic verse play by T. S. Eliot.-Synopsis:Sir Claude Mulhammer, a wealthy entrepreneur, decides to smuggle his illegitimate son Colby into the household by employing him as his confidential clerk...
(1953 at the Lyric Theatre), and William Congreve
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
's play, The Double Dealer (1959 at the Old Vic Theatre, and other plays there that season, with Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
). She also acted in West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
productions of plays by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, including Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893...
(1945 at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
, directed by Sir John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
; and 1966 at the Phoenix Theatre (London)
Phoenix Theatre (London)
The Phoenix Theatre is a West End theatre in the London Borough of Camden, located on Charing Cross Road . The entrance is in Phoenix Street....
), A Woman of No Importance
A Woman of No Importance
A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. It is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy...
(1953 at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
) and as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
(1968 at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
).
Family
Jeans' brother DesmondDesmond Jeans
Desmond Jeans was a British film actor. He was the brother of Isabel Jeans and Ursula Jeans.-Selected filmography:* The Blue Danube * Diamond Cut Diamond * The Girl from Maxim's * Colonel Blood...
was an actor and boxer, while her sister Ursula
Ursula Jeans
Ursula Jean McMinn was a British actress on film, stage, and television.Ursula Jeans was born in Shimla, British India, to British parents, and brought up and educated in London. She was the youngest of three siblings...
became a respected character actress and married the actor Roger Livesey
Roger Livesey
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...
.
Personal life
She was twice married, both times to fellow actors:- Claude RainsClaude RainsClaude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
(1913–1915) - Gilbert "Gilley" Wakefield (19??–19??)
Partial filmography
- The Profligate (1917)
- Tilly of BloomsburyTilly of Bloomsbury (1921 film)Tilly of Bloomsbury is a 1921 British silent comedy film directed by Rex Wilson and starring Edna Best, Tom Reynolds, Henry Kendall and Isabel Jeans...
(1921) - The Rat (1925)
- Windsor Castle (1926)
- The Triumph of the RatThe Triumph of the RatThe Triumph of the Rat is a 1926 British silent film drama, directed by Graham Cutts for Gainsborough Pictures and starring Ivor Novello, Isabel Jeans and Nina Vanna.-Background:...
(1926) - Further Adventures of a Flag Officer (1927)
- DownhillDownhill (film)Downhill is a 1927 silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the play Down Hill. It is Hitchcock's fifth film as director.-Plot:...
(1927) - Easy Virtue (1928)
- The Return of the RatThe Return of the RatThe Return of the Rat is a 1929 British silent film drama, directed by Graham Cutts for Gainsborough Pictures and starring Ivor Novello, Isabel Jeans and Mabel Poulton.-Background:...
(1929) - The Crouching BeastThe Crouching BeastThe Crouching Beast is a 1935 British drama film directed by Victor Hanbury and starring Fritz Kortner, Wynne Gibson and Richard Bird.-Plot:...
(1935) - The DictatorThe Dictator (film)The Dictator is a 1935 British historical drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Clive Brook, Madeleine Carroll, Emlyn Williams and Helen Haye...
(1935) - TovarichTovarich (film)Tovarich is a 1937 American comedy film directed by Anatole Litvak, based on the 1935 play by Robert E. Sherwood, which in turn was based on the 1933 French play Tovaritsch by Jacques Deval. It was produced by Litvak through Warner Bros., with Robert Lord as associate producer and Hal B. Wallis...
(1937) - Fools for ScandalFools for ScandalFools for Scandal is a 1938 comedy film starring Carole Lombard, Fernand Gravey, and Ralph Bellamy. It is now best remembered today as one of Lombard's worst films and one that set her on the course for seeking dramatic roles for the next few years.-Plot:...
(1938) - Secrets of an ActressSecrets of an ActressSecrets of an Actress is a 1938 romantic drama film about a love triangle between a stage actress, her financial backer, and his friend.-Cast:*Kay Francis as Fay Carter*George Brent as Dick Orr*Ian Hunter as Peter Snowden*Gloria Dickson as Carla Orr...
(1938) - Man About TownMan About Town (1939 film)Man About Town is a 1939 musical comedy film starring Jack Benny and Dorothy Lamour. A producer tries to get his leading lady take him seriously romantically by pursuing other women.-Cast:*Jack Benny as Bob Temple*Dorothy Lamour as Diana Wilson...
(1939) - SuspicionSuspicion (film)Suspicion is a romantic psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine as a married couple. It also stars Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, and Leo G...
(1941) - Banana RidgeBanana RidgeBanana Ridge is a 1942 British comedy film directed by Walter C. Mycroft and starring Robertson Hare, Alfred Drayton and Isabel Jeans. The film is based on a 1938 stage play of the same name by Ben Travers...
(1942) - Great DayGreat Day (1945 film)Great Day is a 1945 British drama film directed by Lance Comfort and starring Eric Portman, Flora Robson and Sheila Sim. The small English village of Denley is thrown into excitement by the impending visit of Eleanor Roosevelt...
(1945) - Elizabeth of LadymeadElizabeth of LadymeadElizabeth of Ladymead is a 1948 British drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Hugh Williams, Isabel Jeans and Bernard Lee...
(1948) - GigiGigi (1958 film)Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
(1958) - A Breath of ScandalA Breath of ScandalA Breath of Scandal, known as Olympia in Italy, is a 1960 film adapted from Ferenc Molnár's stage play Olympia. It stars Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, John Gavin and Angela Lansbury and was directed by Michael Curtiz. The film is set at the turn of the 20th century and features lush technicolor...
(1960) - Heavens Above!Heavens Above!Heavens Above! is a 1963 British satirical comedy film starring Peter Sellers, directed by John and Roy Boulting, who also co-wrote along with Frank Harvey, from an idea by Malcolm Muggeridge...
(1963) - The Magic ChristianThe Magic Christian (film)The Magic Christian is a 1969 British comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath and starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, with noteworthy appearances by John Cleese, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough and Roman Polanski. It was loosely adapted from the 1959 comic novel of the same...
(1969)
External links
- Isabel Jeans profile and photo at BritishPictures.com
- Isabel Jeans profile and photo at Cyranos
- Photo with Ivor NovelloIvor NovelloDavid Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
- Later photo of Jeans