Lee Remick

Elia Kazan's Directing Baton

Lee Remick was not the typical icy blonde of the 1950s, although her looks suggested otherwise. Elia Kazan discovered her in a television episode and decided she would be the majorette twirling the baton in A Face in the Crowd. The year was 1957. During that shoot, she showed that her gaze hid a strange mix of innocence and danger.

And the gamble paid off.

Kazan was not the only one who saw something different in her. In 1959, she worked under Otto Preminger to make Anatomy of a Murder. She played Laura Manion, a woman who reports a rape and puts the morality of a provincial courtroom on trial. James Stewart was the film's top-billed star, but she stole the spotlight with those sunglasses and an attitude that defied the period's codes of conduct.

Yet Hollywood always struggled to pigeonhole her. She was not a stock femme fatale, nor the girl next door. She had solid technical training, having studied dance and theater in New York. As a result, her way of moving in front of the camera was far more physical than that of her contemporaries.

Alcohol and Academy recognition

In 1962, she landed the role that would define her international reputation. Blake Edwards cast her to star in Days of Wine and Roses alongside Jack Lemmon. The film addressed alcoholism without the usual studio-era filters. Her performance as Kirsten Arnesen, a woman who sinks into drinking out of love, earned her her only Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

She conveyed the physical deterioration in a way that unsettled the most conservative sectors of the critics.

After that success, she made The Wheeler Dealers in 1963 and Baby the Rain Must Fall in 1965. On the latter, she worked with Steve McQueen under the direction of Robert Mulligan. The film did not perform well at the box office, but Remick's work was praised for its restraint.

The industry never quite knew where to place her.

In the late 1960s, she decided to move to London. She married British producer Kip Gowans and entered a phase in which she prioritized quality of life over the mass stardom of Los Angeles. In the United Kingdom, she took part in European projects and maintained a steady presence on the West End stage.

Balcony Terror and Final Years

In 1976, she won over the general public again with The Omen. Richard Donner directed her in this horror classic, where she played Damien's mother. The balcony scene is one of the production's most memorable moments. She worked alongside Gregory Peck, and the film grossed more than 60 million dollars in the United States alone.

That commercial hit did not bring her back permanently to big-budget films. She preferred to turn to TV miniseries, which offered better roles for women her age. By 1974, she had already won a Golden Globe for the series Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill.

She continued to work steadily through the 1980s in productions such as The Letter, filmed in 1982.

Her last on-screen appearance was in the miniseries Memories of Midnight, filmed in 1991. She died in July of that same year at her Los Angeles home from kidney and liver cancer. She was 55 years old. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled just a few months before her death.