Deborah Kerr

She was the last Anna Leonowens in Yul Brynner's lifetime who could keep him from totally overshadowing the fact that Anna is the "I" in [italic]The King and I[/italic], and thus the story is told from her perspective.

She was in BLACK NARCISSUS, one of the greatest films ever made. And another great Powell & Pressburger film, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP.

She's also in TEA AND SYMPATHY.

I once read that when she was making HEAVEN KNOWS, MR ALLISON with Robert Mitchum, that he was a little unsure of himself around her because he thought she was this very prim and proper English woman, but during the filming of one scene on a boat, she fell in the water and let out a torrent of curse words. Mitchum couldn't stop laughing anf from that point on they became great friends and made several more films together.

Nothing human disgusts me, Mr. Shannon, unless it's unkind, violent.

She had a very asexual vibe. No on-screen chemistry with men .

Yes-Black Narcissus, she was superb. From Here to Eternity-another stand out. Talk someone who deserved an Oscar (not just an honorary one) and more than paid her dues.

Loved, she never failed to deliver and gave greta performances in a non-showy way, Making it look simple. Great body of work too.

She was ravishing in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, and in the flashback scenes in BLACK NARCISSUS. Stunning.

She had the misfortune of being in her prime during the Mamie Eisenhower hair era.

[quote]She had a very asexual vibe. No on-screen chemistry with men .

Except in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. That passionate beach kiss with Burt Lancaster was/is scorching!

[quote] She wasn't as beautiful as Liz, Marilyn or Rita,

Few women are as beautiful as Rita Moreno.

& one of my favorites BONJOUR TRISTESSE

Another vote for her performance in Bonjour Tristesse......but if you think she was always great, give a look at Beloved Infidel and Dream Wife.

Watch her in" Edward , My Son" with Spencer Tracy. She acts him right off the screen. She was an excellent actress. She never gave a bad performance. She was Julie Andrews before we had a Julie Andrews except that she couldn't sing. And watch her in " Night Of the Iguana"- out the three leads- Burton, Ava, and her- Kerr is the best. And for all the great dance moments there is none finer than in " The King and I" ( and Yul was dancing with one lung!). I also love her in " Bonjour Tristesse " as well. L.B. Mayer brought her over the pond to replace Greer Garson. She is a far better actress than Garson anyday! I love her interactions with Mitchum- they did have chemistry. " The Sundowners" is a excellent example of that. I can't say enough great things about her. But she was the Glen Close of her time. Which only shows you how political and calculated the Oscars really are.

[quote]She was Julie Andrews before we had a Julie Andrews except that she couldn't sing.

She can't sing now, because of a botched throat operation, but Andrews was a renown singer in her prime and into her sixties. Haven't you ever heard of MARY POPPINS or THE SOUND OF MUSIC or VICTOR VICTORIA? Three musicals which earned her an Oscar win and two additional nominations, respectively. In fact, Andrews is the only person whose three nods were for musicals and was the only Oscar winner to win for a musical, until Catherine Zeta-Jones in CHICAGO.

I think the poster was saying Kerr couldn't sing..........

but that misguided rant at r14 was fun to read at least.

R4 I agree, Kerr was resolutely asexual. She always came off as a charming auntie type. I simply couldn't imagine her getting mussed up for sex. Yes, she was a good actress but even Robert Mitchum couldn't get a temp rise out of her. Charisma and chemistry are 9/10's of what make a star. Bonjour Tristesse was an excellent example. She had zero chemistry with Niven while Jean Seberg had loads. Unfortunately, Seberg played his daughter. :-[

"I simply couldn't imagine her getting mussed up for sex."

Personally I think she got lathered up on a regular basis, and didn't care who knew it.

Good timing. I recently bought a nine DVD Kerr collection from Amazon for 40 bucks. Had all her best. Worth every penny.

I disagree that she was completely asexual. She had a hot-cold persona; she could always instill a suspicion that her frigidity only repressed some serious heat. Explicitly in From Here To Eternity; but watch her in Tea and Sympathy, Separate Tables, Night of the Iguana, or King Solomon's Mines, where I love the scene where she's cut and washed her hair on the cataracts. She totally knows what she's doing to Stewart Granger.

The Inocents. Very scary and very upsetting. It makes today's paranormal movies look like sitcoms. And she's terrific in it.

Innocents

She lived in Switzerland near Lausanne and ran with the pack which included depressed Blake Edwards and Julie Andres, anorexic Audrey Hepburn and her gigolo, miserly Yul Brynner and wife Doris. depressed and suicidal Capucine, David Niven and his drunken wife Hjordis, glutonous Peter Ustinov, drunken Richard Burton and a few other Swiss residents in the business.

Those were marvelous days, she said.

I loved her voice . She was great in Tea and Sympathy.

I used to think that Deborah Kerr and John Kerr were brother and sister.

She's also lovely in her American debut in MGM's The Hucksters, holding her own opposite Clark Gable.

She was so "likeable" in everything she did. You just sensed that her characters had a good heart and even if they were "bad girls," you rooted for her. She was a "passionate" actress, if not a sexy one, per se. She inhabited each of her characters NOT in a showy, "actressy" way ( like Greer Garson, that big ham, did) but in a warm, real way. Sometimes she was mannered but it fit the character. Damned fine actress and very much missed today. Thank heavens she left so many wonderful performances on celluloid for us.

He was more wrong than he knew r2, Kerr was Scottish not English.

I thought she was very sexy in a boiling-under-the-cool-exterior kind of way. I got the impression if she ever really let go she would be crazy passionate. Obvious sexiness isn't really that alluring and I think she had that down pat.

Nobody has mentioned Hannah Jelks in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. Great performance.

You are so right, R20. Imagine if she had ever worked with Hitchcock, who would have known exactly what to do with that hot/cold/repressed-but-hot sexuality. Alas, he had such a fetish for blondes. Those who say she couldn't express an erotic nature onscreen have never seen Blind Narcissus or From Here to Eternity. She got typecast in Hollywood far too early. No wonder Brynner risked his fledgling Hollywood career to get her her cast in the King and I. A brilliant performance that was perhaps too subtle for most.

I loved "Black Narcissus." I want to jump off a cliff!

Brynner was the sex.

I agree Kerr was very likable and exquisitely subtle, unlike, as someone said above, the ham fisted Greer Garson. But she always seemed older than her true age, quite staid in that charming British way they have.

And her last name is pronounced as if it was "car," correct?

Her asexual vibe worked well for her in The Innocents, one of the best ghost stories ever filmed.

Speaking of Yul Brynner, didn't he also have his eyes on the guys from time to time?

Yes, R33

[quote]Brynner was the sex.

And he threatened not to do the film if Kerr wasn't cast. He was a Hollywood unknown but risked any further Hollywood career to get her cast. He was lucky Richard Rogers, who had cast approval, agreed with him and refused to approve Maureen O'Hara, the choice of producer Darryl Zanuck. O'Hara, BTW, had a lovely natural soprano and would have been quite good.

And again, yes, R35, Brynner got around.

Richard Rodgers, not Rogers.

Also, see her in Coward's A Song at Twilight, with Paul Scolfield, she's wondwrful in that too.

How many Oscars did she win?

I think that Deborah is my favorite actress, so far. She possessed such quality and beauty, while she was not pretentious, or arrogant in the least.

'Black Narcissus', 'Tea and Sympathy', 'Heaven Knows Mr. Allison', 'The Innocents', 'Separate Tables', 'The Night of the Iguana', and 'The Chalk Garden' are all unforgettable experiences and i think that they wouldn't have worked that perfectly well, without Deborah's light shining on them.

I liked her a lot!

The 50s was her great era, but she worked into the 60s too, but had got rather matronly by the end of the 60s, in Kazan's THE ARRANGEMENT and THE GYPSY MOTHS., She worked well with Grant, Niven, Mitchum, Brynner and did several films with each. Like Jean Simmons and Ingrid Bergman she took to the stage in the 1970s - people wanted to see her and it was the best work going. I saw her in THE DAY AFTER THE FAIR in London in 1972, from a Thomas Hardy story. She is great in SEPARATE TABLES too in 1958. She averaged 2 or 3 films a year then. She and Peck should have been great together in BELOVED INFIDEL but the film is dreadful.

Interesting story on how she met her second husband writer Peter Viertel. Deb was making THE JOURNEY in Vienna, a 1959 film about the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, its a turgid affair reuniting her with Brynner, Deb is the English lady in tweeds and pearls. Director Anatole Litvak called in Viertel to work on the script. He was one of those hollywood real men (friends with John Huston, Hemingway etc) and was romancing Joan Fontaine at the time. Joan was considering him as her next husband and flew to Vienna to surprise him - she got the surprise when they told her he was at a restaurant with Kerr - Joan arrived and saw how close he and Kerr were. Joan had replaced Deborah in the stage production of Tea and Sympathy, but now Kerr had replaced her in real life. Kerr's first husband sued Viertel for enticing Deb away from him, but she and Viertel had a long marriage until their deaths.

She was only 26 when she played Sister Clodagh in BLACK NARCISSUS in 1947 - a decade later she is that lovely nun in HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON - she seemed to be stuck with nuns and governesses for a while, but has great rapport with Mitchum again in THE SUNDOWNERS in 1960 when she also did the amusing THE GRASS IS GREENER for Donen, where she, Grant, Mitchum and Jean Simmons are a great quartet.

The photo with Burt is sexy. I have not seen it before. Very nice.

R42, i guess Joan cringed every time someone mentioned Deborah's name for a long, long time!

:P

She is marvellous as Hannah Jelkes in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA where she and Ava excel, Burton rants as usual. Grayson Hall (?) is terrific too as the lesbian head of the party of tourists ....

She was great in Separate Tables, she should have gotten an Oscar nomination instead of Wendy Hiller, whose part was very small.

Yep...

Cary Grant stops by the 'Young Bess' set and fawns over Deborah Kerr

Kerr's performance in The King and I is really the only one that made good use of Marni Nixon's dubbed singing. Their voices really are perfectly matched and that was due to Kerr being totally on board and cooperative with the idea from the very beginning and working directly with Nixon to insure the synchronicity.

Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady were completely self-deluded and allowed themselves to believe that their own singing voices would be employed, with Nixon only providing some sweetening of the high notes during sound editing.

And, of course, only a deaf person would mistake Nixon's voice for Wood and Hepburn, anyway. She was never a great match for either of them as she was for Kerr.

A true lady.

I got to see The King and I on the big screen last year and it's absolutely breathtaking in a way the small screen can't convey: the "Shall We Dance" number elicited genuine gasps from the audience, it was so stunning on the big screen.

Those who say she didn't have chemistry with her male co-stars need to re-watch The King and I, From Here to Eternity and, most especially, her trilogy with Robert Mitchum, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, The Sundowners and The Grass is Greener. The combo of her reserved Scottish demeanor with the brutish masculinity of Brynner, Lancaster and Mitchum is electrifying.

And The Innocents, of course, is an absolute masterpiece that makes today's horror films look like Nancy Drew mysteries.

A few years ago I received a box of Playbills from a elderly lady. One of them was for a summer stock production of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, starring Kerr. Imagine my gay surprise when flipping through the Playbill, there was Ms. Kerr's autograph! I will always cherish it. Love Kerr.

R36 why was Brynner adamant about casting Kerr? Were they friends? They hadn't worked together before, and THE KING AND I was his second film (and his first leading role).

R49 yeah, Kerr's and Nixon's voices were so similar, it was uncanny. Listen to "Shall I Tell What I Think" (which, unfortunately, was cut from the film) where they go back and forth. To the untrained ear, it sounds like one voice.

R52 why did she give them to you? And how did you know her?

Always loved Deborah Kerr. Presented a dignified surface, but there was always the suspicion she'd crack at any moment, and show us the depths beneath. Nominated many times for Best Actress Oscar (7? 8?), but never won. Received an "honorary" one at one point, long after the trajectory of her career and fallen, and they actually started up the orchestra to shut her up, during her thank you speech.

Back in 1975, I knew the costume designer for the Broadway production of Edward Albee's "Seascape," in which Kerr was appearing. She was wonderful in it, the only time I ever saw this professional do stage work. Later, my friend asked why I hadn't gone backstage to congratulate her. I had always been taught that one just doesn't do that, unless there's a personal connection. He said she would have loved it. I have regretted that missed opportunity ever since.

Great actress. Good person. A rarity in any business. Rest in peace.

A class act. They don't make them like Deborah anymore.

It was a shock and disappointment to see the feeble old woman she had become when she accepted her honorary Oscar some years ago.

She was nominated for an Oscar (trademark AMPAS) six times, but did not win. They gave her an honorary Oscar (trademark AMPAS) in 1994 to make up for it. I should know. I was the one who presented it to her.

Among a lot of marvelous work, THE INNOCENTS is certainly her best performance (I'm pretty sure she even said as much) - her character's absolute certainty about what's happening is terrifying. The performances of the two children are equally brilliant.

[R15] - I worked with Mr. F. V. on quite a few productions, how did you know him?

[quote] [R52] why did she give them to you? And how did you know her?

I used to work at a regional theater and our subscriber base was mostly elderly people. They used to drop of boxes of Playbills to us, just to get rid of stuff, all the time. For some reason they came to my department and there was no room for us to store them. In lieu of tossing them (which would usually happen), I took the box from this lady home. I didn't really know her, we'd only talked on the phone and met once. Some Playbills were really, really old and valuable. A couple were from the out of town tryouts of Anyone Can Whistle and Funny Girl

[R62] - I'd love to know how much you could get for that Anyone Can Whistle!

R62 did you keep them?

R59 perhaps Kerr inadvertently cursed her?

The King and I is a fucking masterpiece from beginning to end.

she was never an a-list actress. Always b-list and famous for being in hit and classic films. She looked lovely in her prime though

R67 how is she B-list if she made a lot of A-list pictures for major studios and was nominated for the Oscar 6 times in inside a decade?

Her husband Peter Viertel died 2 weeks after her. Broken hearted?

[quote]she was never an a-list actress. Always b-list

Whaaat?

R68 also, all her six nominations were for Best Actress. True B-list actors who managed to do quality films and earned a nod were usually relegated to Supporting, because Best Actor/Actress were for the real stars. that's why many actresses like Rosalind Russell (in PICNIC) and Anne Baxter (in ALL ABOUT EVE) refused to be 'downgraded' to Supporting; it ended up costing Russell the nod and Baxter the win, as well as that of Bette Davis in the same film. Baxter already had a Supporting win for THE RAZOR'S EDGE, but by the time of ABE she was maturing into a leading lady, so being campaigned for Supporting would be a setback. At least, that's how people thought of the Oscar categories back then.

[quote]did you keep them?

You bet I did. Still have them in my Playbill collection box.

[quote] I'd love to know how much you could get for that Anyone Can Whistle!

Just checked Ebay, they're going for $150 at the most.

She was a wonderful actress who was the epitome of class. She had a quiet dignity about her and the perfect phrase to express that magical quality is "still waters run deep".

[R72] Well, that ain't chump change! Can you imagine if it was signed?

In my mind Anne Baxter and Greer Garson are in the same category. Huge phonies, the both of them, and I'm convinced quite capable of kicking puppies. As much as I'm not Kerr's biggest fan I always thought she was a genuinely lovely person.

Deborah Kerr not A list? Jesus H. Christ.

She was a true lady-like antidote to the mimsy-wumsy twee persona of that Belgian phony Audrey Hepburn throughout the 1950s-60s.

Why did the Hollywood studios become so lazy about voice-dubbing on WSS and MFL? Surely there were better singing candidates to dub a Puerto Rican teenager and Cockney guttersnipe than Marni Nixon?

The Innocents is up on YouTube. If you can deal with the subtitles.

r78 There were. They just weren't under contract to a major studio.

The funny thing is that Nixon was not even the first choice to dub Kerr in KING AND I. The woman originally hired died suddenly in a car accident and Nixon was a last-minute replacement. But she and Kerr got on well (personally and professionally) and Nixon once again dubbed Kerr the following year for AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER.

I think Anne Baxter was quite good in her films from the 1940s.Then afterwards she became so affected and gimmicky.Miss Kerr is pretty solid throughout her film career.

Rita Moreno is a low-rent dumpster woman. She's nothing more than a common fishwife. Chew on THAT, Moreno.

"I'd love to be remembered as a good actress, but, above all, as a good human being."

There is a reason that Maureen O'Hara did not play Anna in " The King and I"- Dick Rodgers refused to let - in his words- " that pirate queen" appear in his movie. I think that O'Hara would not have related as well with Yul either. She really only had chemistry with John Wayne. She could be harsh and rude when trying to be direct. And Anna is not a hot-blooded Irish woman, and no matter what else can be said of O'Hara she never let that image go. But did she did have a great voice. In "Spencer's Mountain" she sings " In The Garden" so well that I wish they had made a whole record of her singing just hymns.

[quote]but that misguided rant at [R14] was fun to read at least.

Tell me about it. I love Julie Andrews, but quite frankly some of her fans scare me.

The best multi nominated actress to have never won an Oscar.

Ms. Kerr was definitely hot for David Farrar in Black Narcissus-as was I

[quote]Ms. Kerr was definitely hot for David Farrar in Black Narcissus-as was I

Me, too. His hairy legs were intoxicating!

Miss Kerr was exquisitely lovely and perfect for her role in "The Prisoner of Zenda." Stewart Granger was never more handsome. I'm sure he brought a lot of sighs to many audiences.

R86 how come?

"In fact, Andrews is the only person whose three nods were for musicals and was the only Oscar winner to win for a musical, until Catherine Zeta-Jones in CHICAGO."

Yo, R14!!!!!! What about us????

Barbra Streisand

Liza Minnelli

Joel Grey

Her mother-in-law, Sasha Viertel, was rumored to have been one of Garbo's lovers.

David Farrar is shot so lovingly in Black Narcissus....was the director gay? You certainly get why all the nuns were so hot and bothered. What were his other film roles worth checking out?

R94, David Farrar is terrific in The Small Back Room (1949), playing an alcoholic munitions expert during WWII; written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who also made Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and The Red Shoes, and featuring his Black Narcissus co-star Kathleen Byron. A fantastic film.

R79 Thanks for the tip on The Innocents. I know what I'll be doing tonight!

For decades she was one of my favorite actresses. I'd catch her movies whenever they were on TV, and saw her at the Kennedy Center in the 1970s in two plays. From what I read of her, she was a decent kind person. So, I was horrified when Frank Langella dragged her through the mud in his memoir. It's not so much that he had any real 'dirt' on her, it's just that he reveled in exposing her pain. What a horrible man.

Oh, details please, R97. What did Langella say about her?

R98 I can't post links for some reason but The Daily Mail had this article: The bitchiest man in Hollywood: Frank Langella launches a withering attack on the showbiz A-list

By Tom Leonard

Published: 21:08 EST, 23 March 2012 | Updated: 11:09 EST, 24 March 2012

There's a book review at talkingbroadway.com which had this to say: "The author forthrightly puts himself in the wrong in his interactions with the gentle Deborah Kerr"

that should be talkinbroadway.com without the g.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote] The King and I is a fucking masterpiece from beginning to end.

I agree with this. I saw the movie in a repertory theater recently and the crowd was pretty large and racially diverse. They loved it. They even applauded at the end.

R46...she was nominated for Best Actress for Separate Tables. I agree that she's great. I think her performance is a big reason David Niven won. She really elevated his supporting role and helped make it so memorable.

I love that Langella called out Newman as witless and a crashing bore. Pretty much tracks with what my friend, who met him at a racing event in Detroit many years ago, said about him. She also said he was 'super tiny'.

I like her in "The Chalk Garden" with Edith Evans, Hayley Mills and John Mills.

[quote]David Farrar is shot so lovingly in Black Narcissus....was the director gay?

I used to wonder if Michael Powell was gay, because in many of his films you get the impression that he might have been at least bisexual, but I honestly don't think he was. There hasn't really been any suggestion that he was, anyway. One of the most moving scenes in any film, I think, is in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP when Anton Walbrook (gay in real life) talks about the desperation in Germany after the war. Walbrook played Boris Lermontov in Powell & Pressburger's THE RED SHOES. The character was based on Sergei Diaghilev, who was also gay. Powell's films are just very free and open, non-judgmental and so on. I've seen people argue that the bizarre "Glue Man" in A CANTERBURY TALE is a repressed gay man, though I think he's left deliberately open to all kinds of interpretations...

Deborah Kerr had an elemental presence in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, since she was cast as all the women in Blimp's life, an intriguing casting idea not often duplicated. She really had an extensive range, but ended up playing "ice queens" at Metro, leading her to express relief at the time, after being cast as a philandering wife in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. (One of my favorite moments she has in the film is her reaction to Donna Reed's description in the very last scene. Kerr was such an internally subtle actress that you see not only her realization about Reed, but also her decision to say nothing about it. Fascinating work.)

I read a comment from Kerr somewhere, stating she loved her film career in the 50's, with her only regret being that she just couldn't eat very much then. She had to maintain a trim figure, as well as keeping in mind that color film seems to add about 10 lbs. to the physical look people have in movies.

Deborah's film career peaked when she played Frank Sinatra's wife in "Marriage on the Rocks".

Considered "adult entertainment" in 1965 . . .

What did exactly Frank Langella write about Deborah Kerr? In R101's link, i didn't find anything written on Deborah. Thanks for the link though, it was interesting and very spicy...

I haven't seen 'Marriage on the Rocks', despite the fact that i think the world of this Scottish lady. I find the summary of the movie rather shallow and far from witty, or really humorous. Have you seen it? Did you like it? Should i give it a chance?

The first portion of his chapter about Deborah Kerr isn't too bad, in which he admits that the behaved rudely toward her when they were appearing onstage in Edward Albee's 'Seascape'. He mentions her kindness and beauty and professionalism.

"At each stop on the road, expensive gifts arrived from Saks or Neiman Marcus with sweet handwritten notes and when I was nominated for a Tony, an exquisite pearl-handled cane awaited me in my dressing room with a bottle of champagne and a note: "Bravo, darling." I didn't respond.

On our opening night in Washington, a party was given for the cast and crew. It dwindled down rather quickly and there was just a handful of us standing about in a huge reception room at the Eisenhower Theater. Deborah was drunk. Very drunk."

"Come dance with me, darling." she said. She took my hand and instructed the pianist to play "Shall We Dance" from 'The King and I", one of her many hugely successful films, and round and round we went, faster and faster, her laughter rising to an uncharacteristic, almost uncontrollable pitch, and then suddenly her eyes welling with tears, she shouted: "Six fucking nominations, and I never won."

Thanks a lot for taking the time to post what you read, R111.

Is Langella to be trusted, though? Do you believe him? I hope that Deborah didn't really feel this way. I thought she was too intelligent to care about Oscars.

On the other hand, when you are in that circle, it's almost impossible not to get affected by the way your fellow actors and actresses think...

If that really happened, i want to believe that it was just a moment of weakness for Deborah and that she was not really obsessed about winning a fucking Oscar.

Well, look at Kate and Leo: they're both well-liked in the industry and pretty savvy to the way it works, but they both were insane to win Oscars.

And who really knows the complete context in which she (might have) said that? Maybe as they danced, Frank had been complimenting her on several of her screen performances first? And so what if she was a bit drunk and replied in completely self-deprecating humor? Hardly makes her a monster or pathetic.

Right observation, R114.

THE INNOCENTS is one of my favorite movies, you can watch it repeatedly and see something new every time. Kerr is amazing in it as the sexually repressed (and probably insane) governess.

Everything about the movie is great. They don't make movies like that anymore.

[quote]I think her performance is a big reason David Niven won. She really elevated his supporting role and helped make it so memorable.

I agree, she was a great actress, very versatile too.

What I like about her is her lack of mannerisms and she was never just playing a variation of herself. She was fresh and different in every role. Always playing a little bit of themselves and mannerisms is a huge problem for today's actresses.

R111, does he explain why he was so rude to her?

After reading R-111's post, I dug out my copy of Langella's book and reread the chapter on Deborah Kerr. He admits that around the time he was on Broadway with her in Albee's play Seascape, he was pretty much a total prick. He had insisted on billing above the title along with Kerr and Barry Nelson and at first that was denied, but Kerr intervened and he got his billing. Langella has high praise for Kerr's looks, behavior and performance in the play, but she comes across in the book as an insecure woman with a possible problem with alcohol. Years later, he tried to arrange a meeting with Kerr in London, through a mutual acquaintance, to apologize for his past boorish behavior, but the meeting never transpired and Kerr died about a year later.

Among Langella's other revelations in the book are an affair with Dinah Shore after her break with Burt Reynolds and a flirtation with Jackie after Onassis died. He admits they never had sex, but did fall asleep together in a gazebo. His chapter on Anne Bancroft was surprisingly cruel, in my opinion, revealing that even though they were friends, she made that difficult with her neediness and self-absorption.

R120 what did he say about Whoopi, whom he dated for 5 years (1996-2001).

He never mentions Whoopi in the book.

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Some of the best four minutes in film you'll ever watch. Perfect from start to finish.

R124, her dress is one of the great costumes. Thanks for the clip.

That clip is amazing. That dress!! Didn't see the last King and I...only the Tony awards clip. But watching Deborah Kerr makes Kelli O'Hara seem like a some high school drama student. And the dress sucked. They tried to copy it. But, wasn't nearly as elegantly flouncy and the color didn't pop. Maybe it did in the production.

The dress makes her look like she's floating. I guess that's probably exactly what they had in mind LOL.

I was most surprised about Langella's opinions about Bancroft as she seemed to be an earthy, humorous and confident woman, a beloved star of stage and screen for many decades. I can't remember ever hearing another word against her. Did I miss something?

What was it about Dinah Shore? She certainly scored some hunky men during her lifetime.

If you want to get a good sense of the Swiss/Hollywood crowd she ran with when she was married to Peter Viertel, read the Michael Shnayerson biography of Irwin Shaw, who was Viertel's best friend. One of the things that made Viertel unusual was that he managed to avoid alcoholism, while many of those around him succumbed to it (even, eventually his wife, at least according to Langella).

I had to look him up but Frank was fucking hot when he was young.

We thank you a lot for your interesting info, R120.

For not being that attractive Dinah sure got some prime cock.

Yes, especially her first husband, hunky George Montgomery.

George had just ended a longtime affair with Hedy Lamarr when Dinah nabbed him.

To go from one of the most beautiful women in the world to Dinah Shore . . . wow!

R133 maybe he liked her personality.

Maybe she gave him anal.

Men and women fell for me. I could be perky and pretty. I had a steamy lesbian affair with Maureen. I was important as a lover.

That pussy must have been tight. Not bad for a colored girl.

R134

Never heard that one before

r130, that isn't even Frank at the height of his beauty. Look him up about 10-15 years earlier in Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Deborah Kerr with her daughter Melanie Jane.

I'm going to watch THE KING & I later. And I'm about to start my periodic re-watching of all Powell & Pressburger films, so I'm especially looking forward to seeing THE LIFE & DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP and BLACK NARCISSUS again...

Sweet Deborah Kerr with her furry companion.

I don't think that i have to clarify it, but for those who did not understand that i was only joking. There was no lesbian affair between Maureen O 'Hara and Dinah Shore. I just liked the photo and thought that they could have made a nice couple. Dinah Shore was not ugly, i don't get why some of you are surprised that she managed to date some hunks back then. It's all about availability and energy, after all.

Deborah with Rita and Burt.

I never understood why he pulled his head away from her in such an abrupt way at the end of that scene.

Someone/something distracted him, obviously.

Six Time Oscar Losers Glenn Close and Deborah Kerr Appearing Together

Glenn Close presenting an Honorary Oscar® to actress Deborah Kerr ('The King and I," "From Here to Eternity," "The Sundowners") in appreciation of a full career's worth of elegant and beautifully crafted performances at the 66th Academy Awards® in 1994.

Quite fitting for one six-time Oscar loser to be presenting an Honorary Oscar® to the other six-time Oscar loser.

Wonder if they discussed that backstage?

I'm glad Kerr received her Honorary Oscar on the Oscar telecast in front of millions of viewers worldwide. I felt so bad for Lauren Bacall and Angela Lansbury, recently. They deserved such an honor, too.

I don't understand why the Academy cut the Honorary Oscars/Irving Thalberg/Jean Hersholt awards from the telecast. It's not like it made the telecast shorter, since they filled those spots with musical numbers and montages that have nothing to do with the films being honored that year. There are currently 24 categories, including the long/short films, so if you gave each category 2 minutes of speech time, that's 48 minutes. Plus, 10-minute opening monolog, 15 minutes for the nominated song (3 minutes each), 3 minutes for the In Memoriam tribute. That still leaves 45 minutes for a tw-hour show. Half of that will be commercials, which leaves 15 minutes for the honorary awards with time to spare. They could do the damn show in 2 hours or 2 1/2 if it goes over. Even though they cut the honorary awards, they still run over 3 hours. It's ridiculous!

Bacall died, but Angela Lansbury is still around.

They should give Doris Day an honorary award too.

R149 Doris refuses to show up for it or even appear on video to accept. That is unacceptable to the Academy

R150 Bacall and Lansbury already got Honorary Oscars, in 2009 and 2014, respectively. However, unlike Kerr, theirs were given in November at the Governor's Ball, not during the actual Oscar telecast. When Bacall was honored, it was the first year that they cut the segment from the Oscars. That's why I felt bad for Bacall and Lansbury. They also deserved to be honored during the telecast in front of millions of viewers.

Myrna Loy accepted her honorary Oscar on video from her NYC apartment around the same time that Kerr was given her award.

Dinah between George Montgomery and JFK . . . note the Band-Aid above JFK's left eye.

Mary Pickford also accepted her Honorary Oscar from her Pickfair home in 1976.

Just for the record, Bacall did attend the actual Oscar ceremony that year and was recognized from the stage and waved from her seat, having been given her Oscar months prior.

R155 but that was even more insulting, since it was basically saying "You're not worthy enough to be up here on this stage."

From the famous From Here to Eternity scene we can conclude she was a top. Very unusual for a straight female

When the Oscar nominations are as tedious and uninspiring as they have been these last few years they could do with reinstating the honorary Oscar into the actual ceremony to bring a bit of class back into proceedings. Maybe doing so would show up the current contenders for the mediocrity they are, though...

Deborah Kerr perfectly communicated the frustrations and obsessions of repressed sexuality. She routinely (and wisely for her talents, I think) chose school-marm type rolls, where she's the decent, proper woman who has resigned to an asexual noble life, only to find herself fanning off persistent desire. She could expertly communicate that tension with a mere eye flash.

There were plenty of actresses who played ladies and society dames well but Kerr really communicated the moral battles going on inside someone who really took all of those social rules seriously and struggled with the inevitable temptation that accompanies a straight-laced life.

Twice I tried to watch Black Narcissus, once the videotape was damaged (yes it was that long ago) and once Netflix sent me the wrong DVD. I'm not in a hurry, I'll see it one of these days. I kind of like the idea that there's a Powell and Pressburger film I've yet to see. It's like the last Christmas present under the tree.

"From the famous From Here to Eternity scene we can conclude she was a top. Very unusual for a straight female"

Please remember that Kerr's role was originally intended for Joan Crawford, who was a top.

Norma Shearer begot Greer Garson who begot Deborah Kerr...Kerr was the best of the three at expressing repressed sexuality. Garson in particular was quite explicitly sensual in spite of the roles she was given.

Of the 3 women, Bacall was the least deserving of an Honorary Oscar, if at all

For what? Being Bogart's wife? Can anyone name me any of her performances that deserved a real Oscar?

Kerr and Lansbury were true actresses, with their own acting nominations as well as long years of splendid talent.

I think it was Burt Lancaster's idea to film the kissing scene laying down in the surf, initially they just had to kiss standing up.

r163 I don't disagree that Bacall was not in the same league as Kerr and Lansbury as an actress, but as a star and an icon of film history she is pretty much held in the highest regard. Granted it's almost entirely to those first few roles in Hawks pictures, but what she created there deserves all the praise she received and for that alone she's as entitled to an honorary Oscar as anyone, in my view.

R163 Bacall was an Oscar-nominee, too. Also, she was a Broadway actress who won two Tonys for Best Actress in a Musical, one of them against the great Kate Hepburn.

I think Bacall is funny in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Especially when Wendy Hiller is insulting her.

In Harper Bacall shows she could have been a great Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. As John Wayne's landlady in The Shootist she was quite moving. She was the best thing about The Mirror Has Two Faces. Her performances with Bogart are iconic. Warner Brothers messed up her career momentum with lousy movies. The feud with Sinatra further derailed her in Hollywood. She deserved that honorary Oscar.

Bacall is utterly glamourous and delightful in 2 classic Hollywood comedies: How to Marry a Millionaire and Designing Woman.

She was the prototype of the sultry sex-kitten. A true original, there was no one like her when she first appeared.

She deserved her honorary Oscar.

In the clip of Shall We Dance, without even taking a stitch of clothing off, and keeping it G rated, the sexual tension is palpable.

R170 THE KING AND I is not G-rated. In fact, it's not rated at all. The rating system was not implemented until 1968, 12 years after TK&I.

I was talking about the scene. Using a phrase common to today to describe something that isn't overtly sexual in nature or offensive. Sort of like "I flirted with a guy on the train today. Oh don't worry nothing came of it. It was strictly G rated." Calling you a cunt would bring it up to about an R. Cunt.

The King and I is indeed rated G -- check IMDb. It must've been re-released after 1968.

R173 you're probably thinking of this version:

Nope, I'm thinking of this one:

Oh tell more about the Sinatra-Bacall feud, kind poster.

I'm not that poster but Bacall dated Sinatra after Bogart died. Sinatra worhsiped Bogart and all that was his including his beautiful young widow. Bacall at first tried to push him off but he was relentless until she succumbed but then she blabbed to the press that they would be marrying. Sinatra dropped her cold never to speak to her again.

Thanks, Hedda!

Actually, it was Swifty Lazar who blabbed to the press that Sinatra and Bacall would be wed, though Bacall took the heat from Sinatra when the story broke.

Years later, Bacall admitted that the marriage would not have been a success if it had happened.

Sinatra was irate that Bacall wrote of their romance in her autobiography "By Myself" . . . but it was an autobiography.

I don't believe Bacall had a problem with accepting her honorary Oscar at the less stressful Governor's Ball than on the actual Oscar broadcast.

Always a nervous woman by nature, I'm sure she welcomed the fact that the presentation would be made in a more casual setting with her children present.

If you watch her awkward Oscar presentation in 2006 at the link, you can see that she was literally shaking and had problems with the teleprompter.

I'm sure she would not have wanted a repeat performance.

I don't know why Shearer and Garson get a bad rap.

They both gave some pretty wonderful performances.

So what if they were phonies?

They weren't being paid to be real.

It's why it's called acting.

Now phonies like Oprah and Hillary on the other hand...

I was buried in this dress. Minus the hoops of course.

R58 -- so so sorry that she shocked and disappointed you by growing old. Wow. Just wow.

Loved Deborah Kerr, but she wasn't always staid and prim. In the late 60's she became the only Golden Age Hollywood actress I can think of to actually do a couple of nude scenes, in "The Gypsy Moths" and in "The Arrangement". Very discreet and non-graphic nude scenes, mind you, but the fact that it was Deborah Kerr was just a bit shocking.

R182 however did Irene Sharaff win an Oscar for THE KING AND I? No doubt the costumes were wonderful, but as illustrated by R182's photo, she merely rehashed her designs from the Broadway production. At least Cecil Beaton created brand-new costumes for the film version of MY FAIR LADY.

Kerr was heartbreaking in "Edward, My Son" and most definitely should have gotten the Oscar for "The Sundowners" instead of Liz for "Butterfield 8".

[R185] I have no problems with Sharaff's King and I Oscar. I mean, if it ain't broke, why fix it? She certainly had to make some changes/alterations for them to be as effective on film as they were on stage. Two different mediums, two different requirements. Also, two different budgets.

R124 Thank you- everything about that scene works down to its core. Such a great film moment. Films don't have those kind of moments anymore. Pity. It shows the art of the visual to its greatest extent.

- P.S. When I was a kid every nun I knew loved this film.

R173/R175 this is the G-rated KING AND i. R174 is right.

I was hoping the whole thing would be up on YouTube...here's the trailer for Edward My Song. Fanfuckingtastic movie

r188, of course the nuns loved her; she excelled at representing them!

I can't decide which nun I like best, Sister Clodagh from Black Narcissus or Sister Angela from Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.

Bonus: both nuns were both in dangerous proximity to scorching hot men.

Clearly, at some point, the 1956 King and I was re-issued after the MPAA ratings came into being, because look:

If nothing else, Irene Sharaff can be credited with creating Yul Brynner.

She was the one who told the balding actor to shave his head and get on with it. And if you want a comparison of what the King might have looked like without Sharaff's expertise, just check out Rex Harrison as the same character in Anna and the King of Siam. Deborah Kerr clearly had no problem wearing the same iconic designs (not just the lavender ball gown but all of the frocks) as Gertrude Lawrence on Broadway.

Yul was street trade before he became famous.

Sharaff was a fucking genius so she can have an Oscar for every costume she ever designed for a film as far as I'm concerned.

I also love the fact that when Babs was bitching about something Sharaff was like 'What is your problem? You've got everything in the world and all you do is bitch!'

She also was family.

Didn't Crawford have Yul fly from NYC to Los Angeles for a fuck session back in the 1950's?

[quote]Sharaff was a fucking genius so she can have an Oscar for every costume she ever designed for a film as far as I'm concerned.

Well, since songs of stage musicals can't be nominated for Oscars, because they were not specifically written for the film adaptation, which is why they often write new ones, I don't think it's fair to award someone who just recycled the same costume designs she'd used on Broadway.

Yes watch the film of King and I and call those costumes recycled.

Ok.

Yeah, R197, that's how logical the Oscars are.

r197, according to your logic Yul Brynner, Rex Harrison, Joel Grey, Judy Holliday and Shirley Booth would all have ineligible for their Oscars. And I'm probably forgetting a few others.

Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke.

With Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong , Bob Hope and...Tallulah Bankhead!

Snapshot with original signature,1950's

R198 they are recycled, because they are the same exact designs used in the original Broadway production.

R200/R201 now you're clutching at straws. Acting for the stage is a lot different than acting on film, so they did not give the exact carbon-copy performance. Plus, no performance is truly the same, even someone's performance can deviate during a show's run or from night to night.

But the point is that Sharaff did have to re-design the costumes, if ever so slightly, for the requirements of a different medium.

Kerr was charming onstage in Albee's "Seascape".

Wonderfully bitchy in "A Song At Twilight".

[R206] - Oh, just let it go. [R204] is just going to remain steadfast in their erroneous belief that they're the "same exact" costumes. They obviously have never been involved in the costuming profession and have no idea whatsover of the processes involved.

"The camera goes right through the skin. The camera brings out what you are, and in her case, there was always a kind of a humanity that she had in all of the things that she played . . . I think she made movies that have never worn off their splendor." (Peter Viertel)

"She acts with her eyes more than anyone else I've worked with." (Robert Surtees)

Thia thread is marvelous. A+. An island of dreams in a sea of bitchiness.

R209 I'm not saying that they just reused the same exact costumes that Gertrude Lawrence et al. wore in the original production. They obviously made new ones for the film, but they just used the old designs.

[quote]They obviously made new ones for the film, but they just used the old designs.

She used the original concept, but re-designed the dress for film. The stripe is narrower on the film dress. Kerr's white collar is smaller, and the bow around her neck is smaller and plain black and remains tucked under the collar, where Lawrence's neck bow had dots on it and stands out from the collar. Lawrence's dress has sleeves that puff out on the lower arm, the sleeves on Kerr's dress don't.

Here is Lawrence's dress:

And here is Kerr's - similar but different.

"It makes me sick, Mummy. It makes me sick, itmakesmesickitmakesmesickitmakesmesickITMAKESMESICK!"

Another side of Deborah.

I always mix her up with Greer Garson. Probably because I have never seen movies featuring either of them, and then they come up on DL and I think oh maybe I should watch one of their films...

When I was growing up my sisters and I would push all the living furniture into the dining room so that we could dance along to "Shall We Dance" whenever "The King and I" was shown on TV. We also cried at the end EVERY time.

Now that's gay!

Adorable, aussi. :)

cute, R218

Yes and that is why one dress was right for the stage of The James(ha!) and the other for the wide screen.

Sharaff knew her stuff.

She gets to keep her Oscar.

You play that Shall We Dance? just once and you're humming that song for a week.

The point is that Irene Sharaff's costumes were so famous and iconic for, not only The King and I, but also Funny Girl and West Side Story that Hollywood producers and directors understood that her original Broadway designs were an irreplaceable element in recreating those beloved musicals on film and never thought for a moment that they should be redesigned or rethought.

But did Rivera wear that lavender fringed dress on Broadway? I genuinely don't know but you may be right.

In fact weren't most of the girls' dresses in WSS completely rethought for the film?

I can't seem to tell from the Broadway production photos.

[R225] - Google Images is your friend.

Ray Aghayan copied Anita's lavender dress for Bacall in the gay bar scene in APPLAUSE.

Ray Aghayan's costumes for Applause were sensational.

That black beaded dress for the nude woman at the party is one of my all time favorite costumes.

Though the gay bar dress was similar I don't think you could say it was a copy.

Fringe was a very big thing in 1970.

[R228] - You're right, similar but not an exact copy. Jeez, Bacall's legs don't look all that great in this photo.

The only Kerr movies I've seen all the way through are Black Narcissus and The Innocents (loved them both)...but after reading this thread I've got to see more! I've always wanted to see Night of the Iguana, maybe I'll start with that.

Miss Bacall was not known for her legs and definitely not known for her huge feet.

I recently saw Heaven Knows, Mr. Alison for the first time and I loved it. Kerr and Mitchum had fantastic chemistry. If you don't know the film she's a nun and he's a marine, and they are stranded on an island in the South Pacific during WWII. She was nominated but lost to Joanne Woodward for The Three Faces of Eve. Legend has it that Mitchum thought she was going to be a boring prude, but after she screamed and swore at John Huston, they become friends and were close until he died in 1997.

I also revisited Separate Tables for the first time in years. I'm not as crazy about her in that, even if I do like her performance. The film as a whole is a little bit underwhelming.

How do you actually pronounce her name correctly?

Rhymes with star, r233.

And you always have to say her name as if you were one aristocrat talking to another. If you don't it just doesn't sound right. That include her first name. DEBraw CARRrrr

[quote]I think her performance is a big reason David Niven won. She really elevated his supporting role and helped make it so memorable.

He had quite a few scenes with Wendy Hiller and was great in those as well. Kerr, Niven and Hiller were all amazing in Separate Tables. The British cast blew Lancaster and Hayworth off the screen literally.

r236, literally?

R230, also watch THE SUNDOWNERS (also with Mitchum), AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER,and, of course, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.

THE END OF THE AFFAIR would have been much better with a different leading man (Van Johnson just doesn't cut it - the remake with Feinnes and Moore is much better).

yes

From Here To Eternity is one of the most overrated movies ever. Even that beach scene, apart from the waves crashing over them, was stupid. Who starts a fight with a women about marital infidelity right after a the first passionate kiss.

If you want to see a great movie With Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster watch Separate Tables!

Has anyone seen her sex tape?

[quote]Has anyone seen her sex tape?

LOL, and nobody ever will!

I'm now reminded what a great thread this was!

Love all the talk of Sharaff's costumes for stage and screen. Has she ever had her own thread? She deserves it!!

I always thought Kerr would make a wonderful Madame Arkadina in THE SEAGULL. It's too bad Sidney Lumet didn't cast her in his 1968 film instead of the inappropriate Simone Signoret (the lone French actor in cast of Brits and one American). And Kerr was certainly more attractive even then than Signoret was by that time.

Reportedly, David Farrar had had a foot amputated, which was why he wasn't in the armed services during the war years. Michael Powell has been quoted as saying Farrar could have been a far more popular film star, had he but wanted to. But apparently he had no such interest.

Another aspect to recall about both films THE KING AND I and THE INNOCENTS is that both were filmed in widescreen, something virtually lost on TV screens nowadays, no matter how large. It's an exhilarating experience to sit in a crowded theatre, and see these films, with their magnificent cinematography. And there is no color today like the color in THE KING AND I, and no black and white like that in THE INNOCENTS.

(BTW: The only scene in THE KING AND I actually filmed outdoors has Kerr and her character's son slowly walking to the gateway to the King's palace. If you look carefully, you may notice they pass the pylons of the Aton Temple from 1954's THE EGYPTIAN, but now draped with Thai-looking banners. Fun fact.)

She was such an amazingly fine actress!

I like her but her spinster in Separate Tables was atrocious. Her spinster in Night of the Iguana I was better.

I though she was amazing in Separate Tables, difficult to perform such a timid and shy character and she did it masterfully.

She really was terrific, a very skilled actress who made everything she did look absolutely effortless. She was also beautiful, but her beauty was subtle and elegant, and leaves you thinking you're the only one who notices how beautiful she is. I wish she'd done more acting later in life, but I suppose she had better things to do.

If they ever need anyone to play her in a movie, Emily Blunt looks a lot like her. Just put a ight red wig on her and bingo!