Jean Kent was a British film star of the 1940s and 1950s. Her real name was Joan Mildred Hurst. Her parents were variety performers Norman Field and Nina Norre of Brixton, London, who developed her into a performer. Joan learned to dance as a child and appeared in early films and stage performers under other stage names. She eventually signed with a British film company that groomed her for stardom.
Kent appeared in approximated 30 films, co-starring with Michael Redgrave, James Mason, Stewart Granger and Laurence Olivier. In her prime years, she played femme fatales. She worked mostly on television, however, appearing in her first television series as early as 1947. As she grew older, she played royalty and more sophisticated matriarchs. A few of these popular British television shows were Up Pompeii!, Crossroads and Lovejoy.
She rarely gave interviews.
On November 28, 2013, Jean Kent, who was 92-years-old, fell in her bedroom at her home in Westhorpe, near Stowmarket, in Britain. Her housekeeper found her collapsed on the floor and called authorities.
She was taken to the West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds, where she died on November 30. Although the coroner reported that her cause of death was from a “blunt force chest injury,” an inquest into her fatal injury concluded that it was not suspicious.
She was cremated in December 2013. Approximately 70 people attended her funeral.
