Deborah Kerr Biography

Deborah Jane Kerr CBE (born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer, 30 September 1921 " 16 October 2007) was a Scottish-born internationally known film, theatre and television actress. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago stage performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She was also the recipient of honorary Academy, BAFTA and Cannes Film Festival awards.

She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress but never won. In 1994, however, she was awarded the Academy Honorary Award, cited by the Academy as "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance". Her films include The King and I, An Affair to Remember, From Here to Eternity, Quo Vadis, The Innocents, Black Narcissus, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Separate Tables.

Early life

Kerr was born in a private nursing home (hospital) in Glasgow, the only daughter of Kathleen Rose (née Smale) and Capt. Arthur Charles Kerr-Trimmer, a World War I veteran who lost a leg at the Somme and later became a naval architect and civil engineer. She spent the first three years of her life in the nearby town of Helensburgh, where her parents lived with Deborah's grandparents in a house on West King Street. Kerr had a younger brother, Edmund (a.k.a. Teddy), who became a journalist and died in a "road rage" incident in 2004.

Kerr was educated at the independent Northumberland House School in the Henleaze area of Bristol in England (the school was demolished in 1937, when Kerr was 16 years old), and at Rossholme School in Weston-super-Mare. Kerr 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. Her first acting teacher was her aunt, Phyllis Smale, who ran the Hicks-Smale Drama School in Bristol. She adopted the name Deborah Kerr on becoming a film actress "? "Kerr" was a family name going back to the maternal grandmother of her grandfather Arthur Kerr-Trimmer.

Career

Theatre

Deborah Kerr's first stage appearance was at Weston-super-Mare in 1937, as "Harlequin" in the mime play Harlequin and Columbine. She then went to the Sadler's Wells ballet school and in 1938 made her début in the corps de ballet in Prometheus. After walking on in various Shakespeare productions at the Open-Air Theatre, Regent's Park, she joined the Oxford Playhouse repertory company in 1940 playing, inter alia, "Margaret" in Dear Brutus and "Patty Moss" in The Two Bouquets.

Kerr first appeared in the West End in a revival of Heartbreak House (Cambridge Theatre, 1943) and stole attention as "Ellie Dunn" from stalwarts such as Edith Evans and Isabel Jeans although she was still only 21. "She has the rare gift," wrote the critic Beverley Baxter, "of thinking her lines, not merely remembering them. The process of development from a romantic, silly girl to a hard, disillusioned woman in three hours was moving and convincing".

It was to be 29 years before Deborah Kerr returned to the London stage, and then in such unremarkable and occasional productions as an old-fashioned weepie, The Day After the Fair (Lyric, 1972), a Peter Ustinov comedy, Overheard (Haymarket, 1981) and a revival of Emlyn Williams's The Corn is Green.

After her first London success in 1943, she toured England and Scotland in Heartbreak House. Near the end of the Second World War she also toured Holland, France and Belgium for Ensa as "Mrs Manningham" in Angel Street, and Britain (with Stewart Granger) in Gaslight.

Having established herself as a film actress in the meantime, she made her Broadway debut in 1953, appearing 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. After her Broadway début in 1953, she toured the United States with Tea and Sympathy. In 1975, she returned to Broadway, creating the role of Nancy in Edward Albee's Pulitzer-winning play Seascape.

The theatre, despite her success in films, was always to remain Kerr's first love, even though going on stage filled her with trepidation:

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Films

Kerr's first film role was in the British film Contraband in 1940 but her scenes were left on the cutting room floor. With her next two British films "? Major Barbara and Love on the Dole (both 1941) "? her screen future seemed assured and her performance, said James Agate of Love on the Dole, "is not within a mile of Wendy Hiller's in the theatre, but it is a charming piece of work by a very pretty and promising beginner, so pretty and so promising that there is the usual yapping about a new star". She went on to make Hatter's Castle (1942), in which she starred opposite Robert Newton and James Mason, and then played a Norwegian resistance fighter in The Day Will Dawn (1942). She was an immediate hit with the public: British exhibitors voted her the most popular local female star at the box office.

In 1943 she played three women in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. During the filming, according to Powell's autobiography, she and Powell became lovers: "I realised that Deborah was both the ideal and the flesh-and-blood woman whom I had been searching for". Kerr made clear that her surname should be pronounced the same as "car". To avoid confusion over pronunciation, Louis B. Mayer of MGM billed her as "Kerr rhymes with Star!"

Although Winston Churchill thought Colonel Blimp would ruin wartime morale, and the British Army refused to extend cooperation with the producers, the film confounded critics by proving to be an artistic and commercial success. Powell had hoped to reunite Kerr and Roger Livesey, who had played the title character, in his next film, A Canterbury Tale (1944), but her agent had sold her contract to MGM. According to Powell, his affair with Kerr ended when she made it clear to him that she would accept an offer to go to Hollywood if one were made.

Her role as a troubled nun in Black Narcissus in 1947 brought her to the attention of Hollywood producers. The film was a hit in the US as well as the UK, and Kerr won the New York Film Critics' Award as Actress of the Year, also seeing British exhibitors vote her the 8th most popular local star at the box office. In Hollywood, her British accent and manners led to a succession of roles portraying a refined, reserved and proper English lady. Nevertheless, Kerr used any opportunity to discard her cool exterior. She starred in the 1950 adventure film, King Solomon's Mines, shot on location in Africa with Stewart Granger and Richard Carlson. This was immediately followed by her appearance in the religious epic Quo Vadis? (1951), shot at Cinecittà in Rome, in which she played the indomitable "Lygia", a first-century Christian. She then played the very royal "Princess Flavia" in a remake of The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), again working with James Mason and Stewart Granger.

In 1953, Kerr "showed her theatrical mettle" as "Portia" in Joseph Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar (1953). She then departed from typecasting with a performance that brought out her sensuality, as "Karen Holmes", the embittered military wife in Fred Zinnemann's 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 romped illicitly and passionately amidst crashing waves on an Hawaii beach. The organisation ranked it twentieth in its list of the 100 most romantic films of all time.

From then on, Kerr's career choices would make her known in Hollywood for her versatility as an actress. She played the repressed wife in The End of the Affair (1955), with Van Johnson; a nun in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) opposite her long-time friend Robert Mitchum; a mama's girl in Separate Tables (1956) opposite David Niven; and a governess in both The Chalk Garden and The Innocents (1961). She also portrayed an earthy Australian sheep-herder's wife in The Sundowners and appeared as lustful and beautiful screen enchantresses in both Beloved Infidel and Bonjour Tristesse. She made two comedies: The Grass is Greener and Marriage on the Rocks.

Among her most famous roles were Anna Leonowens in the film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I (1956); and opposite Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember (1957). In 1966, the producers of Carry On Screaming! offered her a fee comparable to that paid to the rest of the cast combined, but she turned it down in favour of appearing in an aborted stage version of Flowers for Algernon. In 1967, at the age of 46, she starred in Casino Royale, achieving the distinction of being the oldest 'Bond Girl' in any James Bond film.

In 1969, pressure of competition from younger, upcoming actresses made her agree to appear nude in John Frankenheimer's The Gypsy Moths, 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 1960s in favour of television and theatre work.

Television

Deborah Kerr experienced a career resurgence in the early 1980s on television, when she played the role of the nurse (played by Elsa Lanchester in the 1957 film version) in Witness for the Prosecution. Later, Kerr re-teamed with 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

Kerr's first marriage was to Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Anthony Bartley on 29 November 1945. They had two daughters, Melanie Jane (born 27 December 1947) and Francesca Ann (born 20 December 1951), who married the actor John Shrapnel. The Kerr-Bartley marriage was troubled, owing to Bartley's jealousy of his wife's fame and financial success, and because her career often took her away from home. Kerr and Bartley divorced in 1959. Her second marriage was to author Peter Viertel on 23 July 1960. In marrying Viertel, she acquired a stepdaughter, Christine Viertel. Although she long resided in Klosters, Switzerland and Marbella, Spain, she moved back to Britain to be closer to her own children as her health began to deteriorate. Her husband, however, continued to live in Marbella.

Some of Kerr's leading men have stated in their autobiographies that they had an affair or romantic fling with her. Actor Stewart Granger claimed that Kerr seduced him in the back of his chauffeur-driven car at the time he was making Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Likewise Burt Lancaster claimed that he was romantically involved with her during the filming of From Here to Eternity (1953). There is no independent corroboration of either actor's claims.

Death

Deborah Kerr died from the effects of Parkinson's disease on 16 October 2007 at the age of 86 in the English village of Botesdale, Suffolk. Peter Viertel died of cancer on 4 November 2007, less than three weeks later. At the time of Viertel's death, director Michael Scheingraber was filming the documentary Peter Viertel: Between the Lines, which Scheingraber says will include reminiscences about events concerning Kerr and the American Academy Awards. The film is as yet unreleased.

Honours

Deborah Kerr was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1998, but was unable to accept the honour in person because of ill health. She was also honoured in Hollywood where, for her contributions to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1709 Vine Street.

Deborah Kerr won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy" for The King and I in 1957, and a Henrietta Award for "World Film Favorite " Female". She was the first performer to win the New York Film Critics Circle Award for "Best Actress" three times (1947, 1957 and 1960).

Although she never won a BAFTA, Oscar or Cannes Film Festival award in a competitive category, all three organizations gave her honorary awards: in 1984, she was awarded a Cannes Film Festival Tribute, in 1991, she received a BAFTA Special Award and in 1994, she received the Academy Honorary Award in recognition of "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance".

Kerr has also never been honored with an in-depth biography or filmography that critically examines her unique artistry or her quiet, but fascinating life. Besides the biography by Eric Braun, there is only one other by entertainment journalist Michelangelo Capua, published in 2010, entitled simply: Deborah Kerr: A Biography. However, the British Film Institute's Josephine Botting curated a "Deborah Kerr Season," which included almost 20 of her feature films as well as an exhibition of posters, other cinemabilia, and personal items on loan from Deborah Kerr's family, which took place in September and October 2010.

Award nominations

Deborah Kerr was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress: Edward, My Son (1949), From Here to Eternity (1953), The King and I (1956), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Separate Tables (1958) and The Sundowners (1960).

She was also nominated four times for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress: The End of the Affair (1955), Tea and Sympathy (1956), The Sundowners (1961) and The Chalk Garden (1964).

She received one Emmy Award nomination in 1985 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for A Woman of Substance. She was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama for Edward, My Son (1949), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) and Separate Tables (1958).

Filmography

Year 1945	Film	Role	Notes
1940	Contraband	Bit (scenes deleted)	UK release
1941	Major Barbara	Jenny Hill	UK release
	Love on the Dole	Sally	UK release
1942	Penn of Pennsylvania	Gulielma Maria Springett	U.S. title: Courageous Mr. Penn
	Hatter's Castle	Mary Brodie
	The Day Will Dawn	Kari Alstad	U.S. title: The Avengers
	A Battle for a Bottle	Linda	Voice"animated short
1943	The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp	Edith Hunter/Barbara Wynne/Johnny Cannon	UK release
1945	Perfect Strangers	Catherine Wilson	U.S. title: Vacation From Marriage
1946	I See a Dark Stranger	Bridie Quilty	U.S. Title: The Adventuress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (and Black Narcissus)
1947	Black Narcissus	Sister Clodagh	UK release New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (and I See a Dark Stranger)
	The Hucksters	Kay Dorrance
	If Winter Comes	Nona Tybar
1949	Edward, My Son	Evelyn Boult	Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Golden Globe Award " Best Actress Drama
1950	Please Believe Me	Alison Kirbe
	King Solomon's Mines	Elizabeth Curtis
1951	Quo Vadis	Lygia
1952	The Prisoner of Zenda	Princess Flavia
	Thunder in the East	Joan Willoughby
1953	Young Bess	Catherine Parr
	Julius Caesar	Portia
	Dream Wife	Effie
	From Here to Eternity	Karen Holmes	Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress
1955	The End of the Affair	Sarah Miles	Nominated"?BAFTA Award " Best British Actress
1956	The Proud and Profane	Lee Ashley
	The King and I	Anna Leonowens	singing voice dubbed by Marni Nixon Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress
	Tea and Sympathy	Laura Reynolds	Nominated"?BAFTA Award " Best British Actress
1957	Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison	Sister Angela	Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Golden Globe Award " Best Actress Drama New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
	An Affair to Remember	Terry McKay
	Kiss Them for Me	Gwinneth Livingston	Unbilled, dubbed voice of Suzy Parker in a few scenes
1958	Bonjour Tristesse	Anne Larsen
	Separate Tables	Sibyl Railton-Bell	Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Golden Globe Award " Best Actress Drama
1959	The Journey	Diana Ashmore
	Count Your Blessings	Grace Allingham
	Beloved Infidel	Sheilah Graham
1960	The Sundowners	Ida Carmody	Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated"?BAFTA Award " Best British Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
	The Grass Is Greener	Lady Hilary Rhyall
1961	The Naked Edge	Martha Radcliffe	UK release
	The Innocents	Miss Giddens	UK release
1964	On the Trail of the Iguana	Herself	UK promotional short subject
	The Chalk Garden	Miss Madrigal	Nominated"?BAFTA Award " Best British Actress
	The Night of the Iguana	Hannah Jelkes
1965	Marriage on the Rocks	Valerie Edwards	UK release
1967	Casino Royale	Agent Mimi / Lady Fiona McTarry
	Eye of the Devil	Catherine de Montfaucon	UK release
1968	Prudence and the Pill	Prudence Hardcastle	UK release
1969	The Gypsy Moths	Elizabeth Brandon	US release
	The Arrangement	Florence Anderson	US release
1982	BBC2 Playhouse	Carlotta Gray	TV episode: "A Song at Twilight"
	Witness for the Prosecution	Nurse Plimsoll
1984	A Woman of Substance	Emma Harte	UK TV mini-series Nominated Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special
1985	The Assam Garden	Helen	UK release
	Reunion at Farnborough	Sally Wells Grant	UK television film
1986	Hold the Dream	Emma Harte	UK TV mini-series