Biography

Lee Remick

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Born
December 14, 1935 · Quincy, Massachusetts, USA
Died
July 2, 1991 · Los Angeles, California, USA (kidney, lung and liver cancer)
Birth name
Lee Ann Remick
Height
5′ 7″ (1.70 m)

Lee Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to Gertrude Margaret (Waldo), an actress, and Francis Edwin Remick, a department store owner. She had Irish and English ancestry. Remick was educated at Barnard College, studied dance and worked on stage and TV, before making her film debut as a sexy Southern majorette in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). Her next role was also southern: Eula Varner in The Long, Hot Summer (1958). She emerged as a real star in the role of an apparent rape victim in Anatomy of a Murder (1959). And she won an Academy Award nomination for her role as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses (1962). After more work in TV and movies, she moved to England in 1970, making more movies there. In 1988 she formed a production company with partners James Garner and Peter K. Duchow.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Jack Lemmon, who played her husband in Days of Wine and Roses (1962), was her favorite co-star.
A very weak, almost unrecognizable Lee made one of her last public appearances on April 29, 1991, to receive her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the last stages of her kidney cancer, her face was extremely bloated by the chemo treatments she was receiving. Jack Lemmon, her Days of Wine and Roses (1962) co-star, was at the ceremony to lend love and support. She passed away two months later on July 2nd.
Her role in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) was intended for Lana Turner, who got fired when she insisted that her off-the-rack costumes, (suitable for the role of an Army wife), be designed by splashy Jean Louis. Later, Remick was announced to replace Marilyn Monroe in the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962), but loyal co-star Dean Martin demanded that the studio reinstate the fired Monroe.
Discovered she had tumors on her kidneys and lungs while filming in France in 1989. She had a remission in 1990 before the cancer returned again.
She was cremated at Westwood Memorial Park and services held at a later date. Elizabeth Taylor attended and eulogies were delivered by good friends Jack Lemmon and Gregory Peck. Her children, Kate and Matt Colleran, sang the title song from one of her Broadway musical shows "Anyone Can Whistle".

I make movies for grownups. When Hollywood starts making them again, I'll start acting in them again.
Many times as an actress I feel crazy, yet the truth is that I would feel far more crazy if I were not an actress.
Breasts and bottoms look boringly alike.
[on Laurence Harvey] The tales I can tell of working with him (in [The Running Man (1963)]) are too horrendous to repeat.
I find it terribly depressing that 54 million people watch The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) - just about the same number who didn't take the trouble to vote in the Presidential election.

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