Biography
Kent was born Joan Mildred Field (sometimes incorrectly cited as Summerfield) in Brixton, London, in 1921,[2] the only child of variety performers Norman Carpenter Summerfield, who used the name "Norman Field", and Mildred Lilian (née Noaks), known as "Nina Norre".[3] She started her theatrical career at age 10 in 1931 as a dancer.[4] She used the stage name Jean Carr when she appeared as a chorus girl in the Windmill Theatre in London, from which she was fired by Vivian Van Damm.[5]
Gainsborough Pictures
Kent signed to Gainsborough Pictures during the Second World War.[6] She had small roles in It's That Man Again (1943), Miss London Ltd. (1943) and Warn That Man (1944). Kent appeared in Two Thousand Women (1944), playing a stripper who is interned by the Germans.[6][7] She portrayed a Pacific Islander in Bees in Paradise (1944) with Arthur Askey and the ingenue in a Tommy Trinder musical Champagne Charlie (1944).[8][9]
The turning point in her career came when she was given a dramatic part in the Gainsborough melodrama film Fanny by Gaslight (1944).[6][10] She played a part turned down by Margaret Lockwood, that of the childhood friend of the character played by Phyllis Calvert, who becomes the mistress of James Mason's character.[11] The movie, also starring Stewart Granger, was a box-office success in Britain and established Kent as Gainsborough's back up to Margaret Lockwood.[12][13]
Kent played another sexually aggressive young woman in Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945), another financial success, with Calvert and Granger.[14] Rank borrowed her to support Rex Harrison in The Rake's Progress (1945), after which she returned to Gainsborough, appearing in Waterloo Road (1945) with John Mills and Granger.[7]
Stardom
Kent shared top billing with Granger in Caravan (1946), playing a gypsy girl in another melodrama.[15] It was a financial success and Kent was given a new contract.[16] Granger and Kent were reunited in The Magic Bow (1946), with Kent again taking a part originally meant for Margaret Lockwood.[17]
"There was a pecking order at Gainsborough," Kent later recalled. "First Margaret, then Pat, then Phyllis, then me. I was the odds-and-sods girl. I used to mop up the parts that other people didn't want."[18]
After a support role in Carnival (1946) with Michael Wilding, Kent was the female lead in The Man Within (1947), a costume adventure from a novel by Graham Greene. Kent had a good part in The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947), and was given a star role in Good-Time Girl (1948), a melodrama about a girl who goes bad.[7][19] Kent was top billed as one of several names in Bond Street (1948), and was the female lead in a thriller Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), playing a spy.[6]
Kent appeared as the lead in a musical Trottie True (1949), which became her favourite film.[6] She made a comedy in Italy, Her Favourite Husband (1950), and appeared opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Woman in Question (1950).[5] In 1950, Kent was voted the 9th biggest British star in Britain;[20] the following year she moved up to 8th.[21] Kent starred in the melodrama The Reluctant Widow (1951)m then had a good role as the unfaithful wife in The Browning Version (1951).[6]
Kent was in a thriller The Lost Hours (1952) with American actor Mark Stevens
and Before I Wake (1955). She appeared in Arthur Watkyn's historical play The Moonraker in 1952, and in 1953 was in a play Uncertain Joy.[22] That year she appeared on a TV play with Michael Craig, who said she "was on the wane after a successful career as a film star. She didn't like slumming it in television at all and was very grand and one scary lady."[23]
In 1954, Kent fell ill while touring in a stage production of The Deep Blue Sea in South Africa.[24]
