Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr, CBE (born 30 September, 1921) is a Scottish actress and a recipient of an Academy Honorary Award for a motion picture career that has always represented perfection, discipline and elegance.

Career

Youth

She was born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer in Helensburgh, by the Firth of Clyde, and originally trained as a ballet dancer, first appearing on stage at Sadler's Wells in 1938. After changing careers, she soon found success as an actress.

Films

Her debut in the British film Contraband in 1940 was left on the cutting room floor. But that was followed by a series of other films, including the triple role of the hero's loves in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. It was her role as a troubled nun in Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus in 1947 which brought her to the attention of Hollywood producers.

Her British accent and manner led to a succession of roles portraying a refined, reserved, and proper English lady. Nevertheless, Kerr frequently used any opportunity to discard her cool exterior. In the 1950 jungle adventure film King Solomon's Mines, shot on location in Africa with Stewart Granger and Richard Carlson, she impressed audiences with a sexuality and an emotional vulnerability that brought new dimensions to a male-oriented action film. Kerr also departed from typecasting with her performance as Karen in From Here to Eternity (1953) for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The American Film Institute acknowledged the iconic status of the scene from that film in which she and Burt Lancaster make love on a Hawaii beach amidst the crashing waves. The organization named it one of "AFI's top 100 Most Romantic Films" of all time.

From then on Kerr's career choices afforded her one of the most versatile screen personas in Hollywood, ranging from nuns (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison) and mama's girls (Separate Tables) to an earthy sheepherder's wife (The Sundowners) to lustful and beautiful screen enchantresses (Beloved Infidel, Bonjour tristesse) and delicious comedy (The Grass is Greener).

Kerr's most famous roles are probably as Anna Leonowens in the film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I and opposite Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember. At the age of 46, she achieved the distinction of appearing as a Bond Girl in Casino Royale.

In 1969, pressure of competition from younger, upcoming actresses made her agree to appear nude in John Frankenheimer's The Gypsy Moths. This would be the only nude scene in Kerr's career.

Concern about the parts being offered to her, as well as the increasing amount of nudity in films in general, led her to abandon film work at the end of the Sixties in favour of television and theatre work.

Theatre

As a stage actress, Deborah Kerr made her Broadway debut in 1953 in Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy, for which she received a Tony award nomination. Kerr repeated her role along with her stage partner John Kerr (no relation) in Vincente Minnelli's film adaptation of the drama. In 1955, Kerr won the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance in Chicago during a national tour of the play. In 1975, she returned to Broadway, originating the role of Nancy in Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prizewinning play, Seascape.

Television

She experienced a career resurgence in the early 1980s on television, when she played the role originally brought to life on film by Elsa Lanchester, in Witness for The Prosecution. Later, Kerr re-teamed with multiple screen partner Robert Mitchum in Reunion at Fairborough. This period also saw Kerr take on the role as the older version of the female tycoon, Emma Harte, in the adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance. For this performance, Kerr was nominated for an Emmy award.

Personal Life

Deborah Kerr has been married twice. First, on 28 November 1945, she married Squadron Leader Anthony Bartley. They had two daughters, Melanie Jane, born on 27 December 1947 and Francesca Ann. She and Bartley divorced in 1959. On 23 July, 1960, she married writer Peter Viertel.

Deborah Kerr suffers from Parkinson's disease. Although she long resided in Switzerland and Spain, she has since moved back to England to be closer to her children.

Academy Award Nominations

Deborah Kerr was nominated six times in the category of Best Actress:

• 1949 - Edward, My Son
• 1953 - From Here to Eternity
• 1956 - The King and I
• 1957 - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
• 1958 - Separate Tables
• 1960 - The Sundowners

She has equalled Thelma Ritter for the distinction of receiving the most nominations for an actress for an acting Academy Award, without actually winning. It should be noted that her nominations were all for Best Actress, while Ritter's were all for Best Supporting Actress.

Honours

• In 1998, The Queen appointed Deborah Kerr a CBE, after an intensive lobbying effort and letter writing campaign by screenwriter, Michael Russnow. He and other writers petitioned the British government to bestow upon her the title of "Dame," (the feminine equivalent of "Sir,") but her then-expatriate status counted against her. Although there have been repeated subsequent attempts to gain this for Kerr, including Letters to the Editor and articles in the major British dailies ^[1], she has not yet received that higher honour.

• For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Deborah Kerr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1709 Vine Street.

• Deborah Kerr was awarded an Honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards for the year 1993 in recognition of the "perfection, discipline and elegance" of her screen work.

Filmography

Television Credits

• A Song at Twilight (1973)
• Witness for the Prosecution (1982)
• A Woman of Substance (1983)
• Reunion at Fairborough (1985)
• Hold the Dream (1986)

References

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