Short Biography

Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of Margaret Patricia (née Waldo), an actress, and Francis Edwin "Frank" Remick, who owned a department store. She attended the Swaboda School of Dance and studied acting at Barnard College and the Actors Studio, making her Broadway theatre debut in 1953 with Be Your Age. Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazan`s A Face in the Crowd (1957). When they were filming the movie in Arkansas, Remick lived with a local family and practiced baton twirling so that she would be believable as the teenager who wins the heart of Lonesome Rhodes (played by Andy Griffith).

After appearing as Eula Varner, the hot-blooded daughter-in-law of Will Varner (Orson Welles) in 1958`s The Long, Hot Summer, she appeared in These Thousand Hills (1959) as a dance hall girl. Remick came to prominence as a rape victim whose husband is tried for killing her attacker in Otto Preminger`s Anatomy of a Murder (1959). In 1962, she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses. When Marilyn Monroe was fired during the filming of the comedy Something`s Got to Give, the studio announced that Remick would be her replacement. But co-star Dean Martin refused to continue, saying that while he admired Remick, he had signed on to do the picture strictly to work with Monroe.

Remick appeared in the 1964 Broadway musical Anyone Can Whistle, written by Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents, a highly unconventional show that ran for only a week. Remick`s performance is captured on the original cast recording. This began a lifelong friendship between Remick and Sondheim, and she later appeared in the landmark 1985 concert version of his musical Follies. Remick received a Tony Award nomination in 1966 for her role as a blind woman terrorized by drug smugglers in the thriller Wait Until Dark (the character played by Audrey Hepburn in the film version). She co-starred with Gregory Peck in the 1976 horror film The Omen, in which her adopted son turns out to be the Anti-Christ. Remick later appeared in several made-for-TV movies or miniseries (for which she earned seven Emmy nominations). Most were of a historical nature, including two noted miniseries in which she portrayed Kay Summersby, alongside Robert Duvall as General Dwight Eisenhower, as well as her compelling portrayal of Margaret Sullavan in Haywire (1980).

Remick`s first husband was Bill Colleran, an American television producer, with whom she had a son and daughter. Her second husband was British film producer Kip Gowans. She died in 1991 at age 55 in Los Angeles of kidney and liver cancer. Remick has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6104 Hollywood Boulevard. Remick was the subject of The Go-Betweens` first single, Lee Remick (1978), as well as Hefner`s 1998 single of the same title (the two songs are unrelated).

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