Career Highlights: Mr. Emmanuel, Cavalcade, The Dam Busters
First Major Screen Credit: The Passing of Mr. Quin (1928)
Biography
Actress Ursula Jeans was born in India to British parents. She was a stage actress from her mid-teens, and a movie starlet from 1922. Maturing into a versatile leading lady in the talkie era, Jean's best-known screen role of the 1930s was Fanny Bridges in the Oscar-winning Cavalcade (1933). She remained a popular character lead into the 1960s in films like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and The Dam Busters (1955). Frequently on television, Jeans could be seen in such American productions as the 1963 video staging of Hedda Gabler, which starred Hedda Gabler. Previously married to actor Robert Irvine, Ursula Jeans' second husband was another highly-regarded fixture of British films, actor Roger Livesey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Ms. Jeans was born in Simla, India, to British parents, and raised and educated in London. She was the sister of Desmond Jeans, a boxer and actor, and Isabel Jeans, also a stage actor. She made her stage debut in London in 1925, and in New York in 1933.
Her second marriage was to the actor Roger Livesey from 1937 until her death. (Livesey's sister Maggie was already married to Desmond Jeans.) She appeared in one film with her husband, 1943's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. She entertained troops with ENSA during World War II, sometimes working with her husband. After the war she continued acting, including a stage tour in Australia and New Zealand in 1956–1958.
She continued to act into the 1970s, and died of cancer in 1973, about 18 months after her diagnosis.