|
|
|
Deborah Kerr BiographyA gifted, sensitive Scottish-born leading actress, Deborah Kerr trained as a dancer in her aunt's drama and ballet school in Bristol, England. She won a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells Theatre School and at age 17 made her professional dancing debut in London in the corps de ballet of Prometheus. She moved into stage acting and gained some experience in British repertory theater before segueing to films. Kerr landed her breakthrough screen role in 1940 as a frightened Salvation Army worker in the fine, all-star adaptation of the potent Shavian satire, Major Barbara. Although the shy, quiet side would often remain in Kerr's later star persona, she, like Greer Garson, gradually acquired a stiff-upper-lip attitude as her native land's and later Hollywood's postwar personification of the delicate yet strong, often impassioned English rose. Kerr moved into leads in an adaptation of the controversial novel which was England's equivalent of The Grapes of Wrath, the touching study of Depression-era poverty, Love on the Dole (1940). Although she did well in films, including the grim Hatter's Castle (1941), it was really Kerr's lovely work in three roles in the splendid Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger time-spanning saga The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), as the various women in the hero's life, that really set her on top. She followed up with several excellent performances in fine films: the mousy wife whose marriage is revitalized when she enters wartime service in Perfect Strangers (1945); the Irish spy in the gripping I See a Dark Stranger (1946); and especially, a marvelous, award-winning performance as the determined yet fallible Sister Superior who attempts to establish a school and hospital in a remote Himalayan castle in Powell and Pressburger's uniquely unsettling Black Narcissus (1947). With a string of performances like these, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood (Louis B. Mayer and MGM) beckoned the graceful star, and Kerr was soon co-starring opposite Clark Gable in the enjoyable satire of advertising, The Hucksters (1947). In many ways, she filled the void Irene Dunne would soon create by leaving films. Gracious, ladylike and smart, Kerr would in fact recreate two Dunne roles: the proper Englishwoman who becomes governess to a potentate's brood in the musicalized version of Anna and the King of Siam, The King and I (1956; with her singing dubbed by Marni Nixon); and the heroine prevented from making a crucial rendezvous with her lover in An Affair to Remember (1957; based on Dunne's better Love Affair). The actress' regal quality suited her for period adventures including Quo Vadis? (1951) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), and she also ventured into comedy in Dream Wife (1953) and The Grass Is Greener (1961). Perhaps the key difference between Kerr and earlier classy, genteel heroines such as Joan Fontaine was that the passions sparking Kerr's characters were often of a more overtly sexual nature. As questions of sex and censorship manifested themselves in the 1950s, her persona, prim only on the surface, proved ideal (as did Grace Kelly's) for suggesting the torrid side of romantic love. One of the most famous images of Kerr's career was that of her straying wife in From Here to Eternity (1953) making love on the beach with military officer Burt Lancaster. The Proud and Profane (1956) was such a similar film (and role) that it suffered by comparison, but there are similar dimensions in other Kerr roles such as the wife who helps an effeminate college youth "prove" his masculinity in Tea and Sympathy (1956) and even her nun, trapped on an island with a swarthy soldier, in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957). One of her finest films came at the end of the decade when she made The Sundowners with director Fred Zinnemann. Her role as a sheep farmer's wife was performed without makeup, and her natural beauty was both affecting and illuminating. She received her final Academy Award nomination, and the film is considered one of her finest achievements. Even if her mother-dominated spinster in Separate Tables (1958) was rather overdone, Kerr was a radiant, sincere and reliable actress, and since her appeal did not really depend upon youthful beauty, she continued impressively, if less prolifically, into 1960s films. Her work as governesses who encounter ghost-possessed charges in The Innocents (1961), an excellent adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, and free-spirited ones in The Chalk Garden (1964) was well crafted, and she had fine moments as a gentle tourist caring for her aging grandfather in The Night of the Iguana (1964) and as a matron who encounters liberated mores in the belabored but amusing sex farce, Prudence and the Pill (1968). Kerr subsequently returned primarily to stage work, keeping very busy in plays ranging from Candida to Long Day's Journey Into Night (both 1977), and enjoying considerable success in London and a worldwide tour in The Day After the Fair (1972-73, 1979). Variable health and problems remembering her lines interfered with some of her work, but her presence was always cherished, and she made a successful one-shot return to films as a repressed widow in The Assam Garden (1985). She is tied with Thelma Ritter for the most nominations for an actress for an acting Oscar without winning (six times - (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). Kerr was presented with an honorary Oscar at the 1994 ceremonies in recognition of the "perfection, discipline and elegance" of her screen work. In 2001, it was confirmed that she was suffering with Parkinson's disease and had been confined to a wheelchair. Deborah lived on a large estate with two trout ponds in the Alpine resort of Klosters, Switzerland with her husband Peter Viertel, a novelist-screenwriter. She also had a villa in Marbella, Spain. Because of illness, she was no longer able to sign autographs at the end of her career. Deborah Kerr passed away October 16, 2007 in Suffolk in eastern England. She is survived by Viertel, two daughters and three grandchildren. CLICK HERE to read her obituary(ies).
Family Significant Others Education Milestones Trivia Birth name - Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer Height - 5' 7" (1.70 m) Trademark - Playing classic English ladies Deborah displayed a penchant for dramatics at a very early age. She often staged presentations for her family. Her co-star in these productions was usually her baby brother, Teddy, whom she costumed in dresses. In school, she was active in singing, dancing, painting and piano. When she was a young girl, she had a strict Victorian grandmother who made her lie on her back on the floor for long periods of time in order to straighten her back and ensure good posture. Appeared in Shakespearian plays at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, London, and at one of these performances, Robert Atkins, a film director, and John Gliddon, a talent scout, were impressed with Deborah's elegance, beauty and acting abilities. They offered her a five year film contract which she signed on November 1, 1939. Performed with the Oxford Repertory Company 1939-40. Her first appearance on the West End stage was as Ellie Dunn in Heartbreak House at the Cambridge Theatre in 1943. She performed in France, Belgium and Holland with ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association, or Every Night Something Awful) - The British Army entertainment service. Had a bit part in Contraband, but her part was eventually cut from the film. Deborah joined the Salvation Army as a volunteer so that she could gain insight into her character in Major Barbara. Although the Scottish pronunciation of her surname is straightforward, when she was being promoted as a Hollywood actress by MGM, her last name was pronounced the same as "car." In order to avoid confusion over pronunciation, the slogan "Deborah Kerr - Her Name Rhymes with Star!" was used. After 1947, Kerr established herself in Hollywood, typecast by MGM—in what Kerr referred to as “tiara roles’—as a well-bred young British matron. Played Laura Reynolds in the Robert Anderson play Tea and Sympathy. Deborah's performance was praised by the critics and public, and she won the Sarah Siddons Award for Best Actress. She would reprise the role for the film version two years later. Yul Brynner, who played the King on Broadway for four years, personally chose Kerr for the film version of The King and I. Kerr's wardrobe for Bonjour Tristesse was designed by Givenchy. She was awarded a BFI Fellowship (1986). She was awarded a Special British Academy Award in 1990. Awarded a CBE (Commander of the order of the British Empire) in the 1997/8 New Year's Honors List. Joan Crawford was originally meant to play her role in From Here to Eternity (1953). Maureen O'Hara was originally meant to play her role in The King and I (1956). For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Deborah Kerr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1709 Vine Street. Quotes "In my dressing room, I think, I must be mad to do this!" "I respect anyone who has to fight and howl for his decency." "Personally, I think if a woman hasn't met the right man by the time she's 24, she may be lucky." "All the most successful people these seem to be neurotic. Perhaps we should stop being sorry for them and start being sorry for me - for being so confounded normal." [speaking in 1969] "When I was under contract to MGM, with people like poor Robert Taylor and so many others, the cinema's job was solely entertainment. It filled a public need then. Now the cinema serves so many other purposes; it functions as psychiatrist, politician, message-maker, money maker and, incidentally, entertainer. But it's no good regretting that things are different. Times have to change." "When you're young, you just go banging about, but you're more sensitive as you grow older. You have higher standards of what's really good; you're fearful that you won't live up to what's expected of you." "He's a warm, kind-hearted, loving, generous, intellectual genius." [On John Wayne] "I suppose the part nearest me is Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy. Of course playright Bob Anderson didn't know that, but he wrote Laura Reynolds, and Laura Reynolds happened to be me. It was the coming together of a part and an actress - the same attitude to life, a certain shyness in life, a deep compassion for people who are being persecuted for anything." (Quoted from an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, 10/17/78) "I came over here (Hollywood) to act, but it turned out all I had to do was to be high-minded, long suffering, white-gloved and decorative." "[Autobiographies] are all the same -- it's always rags-to-riches, or I-slept-with-so-and-so. Damned if I'm going to say that." "I am really rather like a beautiful Jersey cow, I have the same pathetic droop to the corners of my eyes." "I adore not being me. I'm not very good at being me. That's why I adore acting so much." "Fred Zinnemann, on From Here To Eternity and The Sundowners, really brings out of me, in a completely different way, an awful lot that perhaps I'd never have the courage to lay bare, to open up. He just knows how to get you to do it, to bring out some inner quality." (Quoted from an interview with The Times, 9/2/72) "For Karen Holmes (in From Here to Eternity), I studied voice for three months to get rid of my English accent. I changed my hair to blonde. I knew I could be sexy if I had to." (Quoted from an interview with The New York Daily Mirror, 11/8/53) "There's nothin' belligerent about it. It's entirely a question of which side I'm neutral on." --as Bridie Quilty in The Adventuress (1946). "Years from now, when you talk about this, and you will, be kind." --as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy (1956) "Do you think it will ever take the place of night baseball?" --as Terry McKay in An Affair to Remember (1957) "I am not a promiscuous trollop! It never happened before." --as Hilary Rhyall in The Grass Is Greener (1960). "I should think as one grows older, dying would seem more natural." --as Miss Madrigal in The Chalk Garden (1964). "Love is the most important word in any language. From love comes happiness." --as Miss Madrigal in The Chalk Garden (1964). "At our last meeting, I died. It alters the appearance." --as Miss Madrigal in The Chalk Garden (1964). Deborah Kerr by Eric Braun This is a truly fantastic book. I finished it in less than three days, because I just couldn't put it down. It gives you insight into the actress' life, career choices and character, without being too explicit and vulgar. After you read it, you really feel like you KNOW Deborah Kerr... And wish you had.
Please sign the registry by clicking here. . --|-- INDEX --|-- BIOGRAPHY --|-- DOWNLOADS --|-- FILMOGRAPHY --|-- IMAGES --|-- LINKS --|-- This site is not officially endorsed or authorized by Deborah Kerr's estate. |
Also Credited As: