Veteran actress Jean Kent entertains in Wymondham

Veteran actress Jean Kent, a doyenne of British cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, entertained a capacity audience in the old Wymondham Regal, now part of the local Ex-Services Club last Sunday.

Veteran actress Jean Kent, a doyenne of British cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, entertained a capacity audience in the old Wymondham Regal, now part of the local Ex-Services Club last Sunday.

Miss Kent was appearing at the screening of her 1949 movie Trottie True, the first in this year's series of classic film shows staged by the Regal Experience Group.

Now 87, she enthralled the audience with reminiscences of the golden age of cinema when she starred opposite the likes of Dirk Bogarde, Stewart Granger, Michael Redgrave and Robert Beatty. Of all the actors with whom she had worked, James Mason was her favourite.

Jean had worked with Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and she remarked that while Marilyn was magnetic on screen, off-set she seemed rather insignificant. She enjoyed working with horror movie legend Boris Karloff in The Strangler (1958).