Her other film appearances include Great Expectations (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Blue Lagoon (1949), So Long at the Fair (1950), Angel Face (1953), Young Bess (1953), The Robe (1953), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), Spartacus (1960), and the 1969 film The Happy Ending, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

[6] Her father, a physical education teacher,[7] taught briefly at Sidcot School, and sometime during this period, Simmons followed her eldest sister onto the village stage and sang popular songs such as "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow".

She was spotted by director Val Guest, who cast her in the Margaret Lockwood-starring vehicle Give Us the Moon (1944) in a large role as Lockwood's sister.

[9] Small roles in several other films followed, including Mr. Emmanuel (1944), Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945), Meet Sexton Blake (1945), and the popular The Way to the Stars (1945), as well as the short Sports Day (1945).

[citation needed] Simmons became a star in Britain when she was cast as the young Estella in David Lean's version of Great Expectations (1946).

[11]Simmons had support roles in Hungry Hill (1947) with Margaret Lockwood and the Powell-Pressburger film Black Narcissus (1947), playing an Indian woman in the latter alongside Sabu.

Neither was particularly successful, but Simmons was then in a huge international hit, playing Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination.

[16] Simmons made two films that were popular at the local box office: So Long at the Fair (1950) with Dirk Bogarde and Trio (1950), where she was one of several stars.

[17] Granger became a Hollywood star in King Solomon's Mines (1950) and was signed to a contract by MGM, so Simmons moved to Los Angeles with him.

"[20] To punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount where director William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday; the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn.

[citation needed] Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature.

Then, Joseph Mankiewicz cast her opposite Brando in the screen adaptation of Guys and Dolls (1955), where she did her own singing in a role turned down by Grace Kelly; it was a big hit.

In the opinion of film critic Philip French, Home Before Dark was "perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoy's psychodrama.

She did Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey, Mister Buddwing (1966) with James Garner, Divorce American Style (1967) with Dick Van Dyke, and Rough Night in Jericho (1967) with George Peppard and Dean Martin.

Simmons did Heidi (1968) for TV, then Brooks wrote and directed The Happy Ending (1969) for her, and she received her second Oscar nomination.

She toured the United States in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, then took the show to London, thus originating the role of Desirée Armfeldt in the West End.

She appeared in North and South (1985–86), again playing the role of the family matriarch as Clarissa Main, and starred in The Dawning (1988) with Anthony Hopkins and Hugh Grant.

In 1989, she starred in a remake of Great Expectations, this time playing the role of Miss Havisham, Estella's adoptive mother.

In 1991, she appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead" as a retired Starfleet admiral and hardened legal investigator who conducts a witch hunt; and as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard/Naomi Collins, in the short-lived revival of the 1960s daytime series Dark Shadows, in roles originally played by Joan Bennett.

In 1995, she appeared in How to Make an American Quilt with Winona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, and Alfre Woodard.

[citation needed] In the 2003 New Year Honours, Simmons was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting.