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Biography
Ursula Jeans (5 May 1906 – 21 April 1973) was an English film, stage, and television actress.
Biography
Ursula Jeans was born in Simla, British India, to English parents, and brought up and educated in London. She was the youngest of three siblings. Her brother Desmond Jeans was a boxer and actor, and her elder sister, Isabel, was also an actress. In 1931 she appeared in Edward Knoblock's Grand Hotel at the Adelphi Theatre.
Ursula Jeans made her stage debut in London in 1922, before joining the cast of the London production of The Play's the Thing, an adaptation of Ferenc Molnár's play, The Play at the Castle by P. G. Wodehouse. The cast included Gerald du Maurier, Ralph Nairn, Henry Daniell (before he went to Hollywood), and Henry Forbes-Robertson.
She made her stage debut in New York in 1933. Her first marriage was to actor Robin Irvine (1931–1933). Her second marriage was to 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 of Australia and New Zealand in 1956–1958.
Last years and death
She continued to act into the 1970s and died of cancer in 1973, aged 66, some 18 months after her diagnosis. She shares a memorial plaque with her husband Roger in the actors' church St Paul's, Covent Garden.
