Biography
Isabel Jeans was an English stage and film actress. She began her career on the London stage around 1908 at the invitation of Herbert Beerbohm Tree and appeared in early Broadway productions including A Midsummer Night's Dream.
She played leading roles in two Alfred Hitchcock silent films, Downhill (1927) and Easy Virtue (1928). Later work included Mrs. Newsham in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) and Aunt Alicia in Gigi (1958). On stage she played Lady Bracknell in a 1968 production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Jeans' siblings included the actress Ursula Jeans. She was married first to the actor Claude Rains and later to the playwright Gilbert Wakefield.
