Deborah Kerr

She truly was great, and very versatile. She should have won the Oscar for From Here to Eternity, and for The Sundowners.

I read a rumor once that she was sexually harrassed or even attacked by Ambassador Joseph Kennedy in London during the pre-War period.

There is a book being published this month about the life of her mother-in-law Salka Viertel.

At her very best when paired with Robert Mitchum.

They’re an unlikely couple, but their chemistry, sexual and otherwise, works in about any scenario.

Kerr was brilliant, adept at both film a d stage work.

I was lucky to see her onstage in Albee’s “Seascape.” She had an earnestness about her retired wife the resonated with my memories of my mother.

And, perhaps unexpectedly, Kerr was very funny. She owned the first act. (The second was dominated by a self-centered Frank Langella as an equally self-centered lizard. Don’t ask.)

Where did you see “ A Song at Twilight?” I didn’t know it’d been filmed. Did you know that an episode in Somerset Maugham’s life was the inspiration for Noel Coward’s play?

The Innocents is a masterpiece of suspense and horror and it is largely driven by her amazing performance.

R4, some years ago I bought a Noel Coward Cd box from amazon, with great filmed plays, this is one of the best but there are a lot of good ones. I did know about the Maugham inspiration. I actually saw this in London with Vanessa Redgrave in the same role and she was curiously both flat and over the top at thesametime.

By all accounts a consummate professional and down to earth person.

Mitchum once said he would have been a better man if he had married Kerr, but I'm sure she knew better than to get herself entangled with him. But they worked very well together.

And yes, THE INNOCENTS is her most brilliant performance.

She was really fantastic at maximizing her contrast with other performers, for the better of everyone on the screen. There is something sensual about her presence that quietly builds on other actors who are more raw and explicitly sexual, as in Mitchum at r2, or against Ava Gardner in Night of the Iguana.

She is the best part in that film, r8, truly moving.

Tea and Sympathy -- OMG, I cried! I can't believe you DLers haven't mentioned that film. Also Bonjour Tristesse ...

Another vote for Bonjour Tristesse. Also An Affair to Remember and of course The King and I.

I like Tea and Sympathy but I'm always disappointed by the ending when it appears that the sensitive effeminate boy goes on to live a conventional 20th-century closeted life. (Of course, I am assuming that he was gay and I wanted him to find a boyfriend and be out and proud.)

She was like Glennie of the 1950s.

R12 Good point! Yes, Tea and Sympathy would have been so much better if he came out. Now THAT'S a movie that should be remade.

Wonderful in "Night of the Iguana." Perfect as Miss Jelkes, the worldly virgin.

Bonjour Tristesse......mostly because she got to wear beautiful clothes......but the "beauty" of Deborah Kerr escapes me....she is very school-marmish.

She was wonderful in Black Narcissus. A great beauty too.

I think the term ‘slow burn’ describes Deborah Kerr’s screen persona to a tee. There’s always a warmth and sensuality even when playing a seemingly prim character like Miss Jelkes. There’s always something held back, which draws the viewer in even more. She was an adult playing adult roles in movies for adults.

I loved her in all the films cited. I also recommend Perfect Strangers (1945) and The Chalk Garden (1964).

She wasn’t so special.

Black Narcissus is on TCM this afternoon....

Deborah Kerr was signed to MGM so that a rival studio couldn't get to her first and put her in direct competition with their reigning queen, Greer Garson. However, by decade's end, Miss Garson's popularity was waning, and MGM groomed Miss Kerr to be her replacement, eventually inheriting all the refined English lady roles.

Interestingly, Deborah Kerr accepted the leading lady role in Columbia's "From Here to Eternity," hoping to shatter the prim image she had acquired at MGM. The role was earlier vacated by Joan Crawford, who had left MGM a decade earlier after losing parts and her standing to Greer Garson.

Always loved her--she could do British repressed sexuality that leads to hysteria better than anyone (in her youth, she might have made an ideal Adela Quested in A Passage to India). But she played that part so frequently (The Innocents, Separate Tables, and most memorably of all in Black Narcissus) that she became typecast. it's too bad, because she was (as many are saying here) genuinely versatile.

She also had a really wonderful and beautiful speaking voice, especially lovely when yearning for something like describing how "heaven on earth" it was that Cary Grant was waiting atop the Empire State Building in "An Affair to Remember".

She was too consistently good, she was reliable, and she wasn't a volatile mess. So people overlooked her, wonderful as she was.

^ Why is everyone looking at me?

She reminds me of someone like Toni Collette. Someone who is constantly good and consistent in everything that she does to the point where we take her for granted. She was never very showy. I always believed her, though.

Her voice sounded very phony to me. A little too soft and pretentious. BUT she was an excellent actress and made great choices.

I just watched Black Narcissus ...what a strange film. Was there one moment where any of the nuns smiled? And why did Sabu (!) get second billing when he had a relatively small part?

As for Deborah Kerr, I assume her two biggest roles were The King And I, and From Here To Eternity.

Sabu was being groomed to be a BIG star. Probably fucking someone.

Sabu was in a some famous films like "The Jungle Book" and "The Thief of Baghdad", among others.

Deborah Kerr was in quite a number of big films. She's one of the more nominated actresses for Best Actress who, unfortunately, never won a competitive Oscar, though she was finally given an honorary one for her career. Wonderful actress!

What was she doing during the seventies? Her filmography is blank for the entire decade.

It’s too bad she didn’t get any choice roles near the end of her life. Merchant & Ivory couldn’t get something together for her?

My favorite of her films is "The Chalk Garden" (1964), Her battles with Edith Evans are great scenes, though the movie goes on a bit too long. "Your advice is foreseen and rejected." Great line.

R28, I thought it was hilarious how violet-eyed, sex-on-a-stick, David Farrar, walks barechested into a convent full of sexually repressed virgin nuns like it was no big deal. That man was trouble. And poor Sister Ruth could barely contain herself. An odd film, but beautifully shot. The matte paintings and cinematography were exquisite.

He knew exactly what he was doing, dirty little clit-tease

Sister Ruth is the poster child for Sex Madness.

Have there been threads on characters driven insane by sexual desire?