A HOLLYWOOD actress born in rural Kent has died at the age of 91.

Anna Lee, born Joan Boniface Winnifrith, in Ightham in 1913, died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, on Friday.

She started acting at a young age and was known as “the British bombshell” while touring with the London Repertory Theatre. She also worked in British films, including with director Alfred Hitchcock.

In the early 1930s, she moved to California to work in Hollywood. She appeared in more than 60 films, including How Green Was My Valley, Fort Appache, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and The Sound of Music.

For more than 20 years Lee appeared in the US TV drama General Hospital bound to a wheelchair, after she was paralysed in a car accident.

She left the soap last year.

Lee is survived by a sister, Ruth, two sons, two daughters, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.