Word: estella
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...think she's very pretty," says poor young Pip of the slightly older Estella. "I think she's very proud." Extraordinarily pretty and proudly defiant: that was the indelible first impression the 17-year-old Jean Simmons made on moviegoers in David Lean's Great Expectations in 1946, at the beginning of a long, full career that lasted from her early teens to her death on Jan. 22 at 80, in Santa Monica, Calif., of lung cancer. The actress's screen impact in her early flush of stardom could also be defined by another pair of clashing adjectives that...
...beauty: a triangular face dominated by large eyes and high cheekbones leading to a small, voluptuous mouth that could be sullen or amused. Her attitude promised a challenge to any man who would seek to love or tame her. That's clear in the 1946 Great Expectations, where her Estella calls Pip a "coarse little monster" at one moment and says, "You may kiss me if you like" the next. She steals Pip's heart, and breaks it, with the same cool smile...
...Havana with Brando's Sky Masterson (he's made a $1,000 bet he can take her there), she's the innocent blossoming into sexual joy. That emotional unbuttoning is something the actress had rarely been allowed to portray in her early roles, except for The Blue Lagoon. As Estella, for example, she is selfishly pleased with the shattering impact of first love on Pip; here a Simmons character gets to experience the sunburst of that poignant rapture on herself. She sings, dances (with much more abandon and expertise than in Black Narcissus) and gets in a fight with...