Isabel Jeans
| Isabel Jeans | |
|---|---|
.jpg)
from the trailer for the film Gigi (1958)
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| Born |
16 September 1891 London, England, UK |
| Died | 4 September 1985 (aged 93) London, England, UK |
| Years active | 1917–1972 |
| Spouse(s) | Gilbert Wakefield (1920–1963) his death Claude Rains (1913–1915) (divorced) |
Isabel Jeans (16 September 1891 – 4 September 1985) was an English stage and film actress known for her roles in several Alfred Hitchcock films and her portrayal of Aunt Alicia in the 1958 musical film Gigi, among others.
Born in London, Jeans was the daughter of an art critic.
She planned to become a singer but began her career on the London stage in 1908 at age 15, at the invitation of Herbert Beerbohm Tree. An early Broadway 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, his ex-wife Marie Hemingway, and his then-current wife, Beatrix Thomson.
She appeared in major roles in two Alfred Hitchcock silent films, Downhill (1927) and Easy Virtue (1928) and various other British films, before playing a number of grande dames in Hollywood films starting in 1937, such as Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941), as well as in such films as Banana Ridge (1942), Gigi (1958) and A Breath of Scandal (1960).
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