Thursday, August 18, 2011

Lee Remick

































Lee Ann Remick (December 14, 1935 – July 2, 1991) was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), and The Omen (1976).

Early life

Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of Margaret Patricia (née Waldo), an actress, and Francis Edwin "Frank" Remick, who owned a department store. She attended the Swaboda School of Dance, The Hewitt School and studied acting at Barnard College and the Actors Studio, making her Broadway theatre debut in 1953 with Be Your Age.

Career

Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). While filming the movie in Arkansas, Remick lived with a local family and practiced baton twirling so that she would be believable as the teenager who wins the heart of Lonesome Rhodes (played by Andy Griffith).
After appearing as Eula Varner, the hot-blooded daughter-in-law of Will Varner (Orson Welles) in 1958's The Long, Hot Summer, she appeared in These Thousand Hills as a dance hall girl. Remick came to prominence as a rape victim whose husband is tried for killing her attacker in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder. She made a second film with Elia Kazan called Wild River (1960), co-starring with Montgomery Clift and Jo Van Fleet.
In 1962, she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses.
When Marilyn Monroe was fired during the filming of the comedy Something's Got to Give, the studio announced that Remick would be her replacement. However, co-star Dean Martin refused to continue, saying that while he admired Remick, he had signed on to do the picture strictly to work with Monroe.
Remick appeared in the 1964 Broadway musical Anyone Can Whistle, written by Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents, which ran for only a week. Remick's performance is captured on the original cast recording. This began a lifelong friendship between Remick and Sondheim, and she later appeared in the landmark 1985 concert version of his musical Follies.
Remick received a Tony Award nomination in 1966 for her role as a blind woman terrorized by drug smugglers in the thriller Wait Until Dark.
She co-starred with Gregory Peck in the 1976 horror film The Omen, in which her adopted son, Damien, is revealed to be the Anti-Christ.
Remick later appeared in several made-for-TV movies or miniseries (for which she earned seven Emmy nominations). Most were of a historical nature, including two noted miniseries: Ike, in which she portrayed Kay Summersby, alongside Robert Duvall as General Dwight Eisenhower, and Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill where she portrayed Winston Churchill's mother.
In 1990, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. Remick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6104 Hollywood Boulevard.

Death

Remick died on July 2, 1991 at age 55 at her home in Los Angeles of kidney and liver cancer.

Personal life

Remick married producer Bill Colleran in 1957. They had two children, Katherine and Matthew. Remick and Colleran divorced in 1968. She married British producer William Rory 'Kip' Gowans in 1970. She moved with Gowans to England and remained married to him until her death.

Popular culture

Remick was the subject of The Go-Betweens' first single, "Lee Remick", as well as Hefner's 1998 single of the same title (the two songs are unrelated).







Filmography

A Face in the Crowd (1957)
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
These Thousand Hills (1959)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Wild River (1960)
Sanctuary (1961)
Experiment in Terror (1962)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
The Running Man (1963)
The Wheeler Dealers (1963)
Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965)
The Hallelujah Trail (1965)
No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)
The Detective (1968)
Hard Contract (1969)
Loot (1970)
A Severed Head (1970 in film)
Sometimes a Great Notion (1971 in film)
A Delicate Balance (1973)
Touch Me Not (1974)
Hennessy (1975)
The Omen (1976)
Telefon (1977)
The Medusa Touch (1978)
The Europeans (1979)
The Competition (1980)
Tribute (1980)
Emma's War (1986)
Faerie Tale Theatre (The Snow Queen) (1987)


Television

The Tempest (1960)
The Farmer's Daughter (1962) (pilot for series)
Damn Yankees (1967)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1972)
And No One Could Save Her (1973)
The Blue Knight (1973)
QB VII (1974) (miniseries)
Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1974) (miniseries)
Hustling (1975)
A Girl Named Sooner (1975)
The Ambassadors (1977)(miniseries)
Ike: The War Years (1978)
Breaking Up (1978)
Wheels (1978) (miniseries)
Torn Between Two Lovers (1979)
Ike (1979) (miniseries)
Haywire (1980)
The Women's Room (1980)
I Do! I Do! (1982)
The Letter (1982)
The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983)
Mistral's Daughter (1984) (miniseries)
A Good Sport (1984)
Rearview Mirror (1984)
Toughlove (1985)
Eleanor: In Her Own Words (1986)
Follies in Concert (1986)
Of Pure Blood (1986)
Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder (1987) (miniseries)
The Vision (1988)
Jesse (1988)
Bridge to Silence (1989)
Around the World in 80 Days (1989) (miniseries)
Dark Holiday (1989)

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