Career Highlights: Anatomy of a Murder, Days of Wine and Roses, The Long, Hot Summer
First Major Screen Credit: A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Biography
An elegant, blonde beauty once considered the American equivalent to Bridgit Bardot, Lee Remick was a star of stage, screen, and television. Before launching her acting career on-stage and in television in the 1950s, Remick was a professional dancer. She made quite a splash as a sexy young drum majorette in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). Early in her career, Remick excelled in playing saucy flirts; she eventually matured into a versatile actress noted for the subtle depth she gave her characterizations and specialized in playing manipulators in films such as The Long Hot Summer (1957) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). She also did well as a victim in films like Days of Wine and Roses (1962). When not busy in films, Remick was building her reputation on stage and television. On Broadway, Remick was most closely associated with Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark, a role that won her a Tony nomination. During the '70s, Remick became a familiar face in numerous television movies and miniseries, the phase of her career for which she is perhaps best remembered. She specialized in real-life dramas. Highlights of her television career include A Delicate Balance (1973), A Girl Named Sooner (1975), and The Women's Room (1980). Her feature-film career however became more sporadic. With James Garner and Peter Duchow, Remick formed a production company in 1988. For much of her career, Remick had battled cancer. She finally succumbed to it in 1991 at the age of 55. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
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).
Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd. 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. Lee made a second film with Elia Kazan called Wild River (1960), co-starring with Montgomery Clift and Jo Van Fleet, where she gives an understated yet effective performance.
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, a highly unconventional show that 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 (the character played by Audrey Hepburn in the film version).
She co-starred with Gregory Peck in the 1976 horror film The Omen, in which her adopted son turns out 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, Haywire where she compellingly portrayed Margaret Sullavan and Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill where she portrayed the title character, Winston Churchill's American mother.
Personal life
Remick's first husband was Bill Colleran, an American television producer, with whom she had a son Matthew and daughter Kate. Her second husband was British film producer Kip Gowans. She died on July 2, 1991 at age 55 at her home in Los Angeles of kidney and liver cancer.
Remick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6104 Hollywood Boulevard.
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).