Author Topic: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86  (Read 5250 times)

Scott6373

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Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« on: October 18, 2007, 04:08:28 pm »
She was so lovely and talented.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2007, 06:15:48 pm by Scott »

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Deboarh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2007, 04:14:33 pm »
She was so lovely and talented.

Oh, what a shame! I'm sorry to hear that.  :'(

Lovely and talented and every inch a lady. I'm sorry she's gone.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Toast

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Re: Deborah Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2007, 05:56:37 pm »
Deborah Kerr Is Dead at 86


Columbia Pictures via Associated Press
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the famous beach scene in the 1953 film "From Here To Eternity."

By RICHARD SEVERO - New York Times
Published: October 19, 2007

Deborah Kerr, a versatile actress who long projected the quintessential image of the proper, tea-sipping Englishwoman but who was also indelible in one of the most sexually provocative scenes of the 1950’s, with Burt Lancaster in “From Here to Eternity,” died on Tuesday in Suffolk, England. She was 86.

Her death was announced to The Associated Press by her agent, Anne Hutton. She had Parkinson’s disease.

Miss Kerr was nominated for six Academy awards, without winning any, over more than four decades as a major Hollywood movie star.

She finally received an honorary Oscar for her lifetime of work in 1994. Mostly in retirement since the mid-1980’s, she lived for many years in Switzerland, with her husband, Peter Viertel, the novelist and screenwriter.

The lovemaking on the beach in Hawaii with Mr. Lancaster, viewed with both of them in wet swimsuits as the tide came in, was hardly what anyone expected of Deborah Kerr at that point in her career. Along with Greer Garson and Jean Simmons, she was one of three leading ladies Americans thought of as typically British, and decidedly refined and upper-class. More than once she was referred to by directors, producers and newspapers as the “British virgin.”

Time magazine, in a 1947 feature article, predicted she would be one of the great movie stars because “while she could act like Ingrid Bergman, she was really a kind of converted Greer Garson, womanly enough to show up nicely in those womanly roles.”

Throughout her career, Miss Kerr worked at being unpredictable. She was believable as a steadfast nun in Black Narcissus; as the love-hungry wife of an empty-headed army captain stationed at Pearl Harbor in “From Here to Eternity”; as a headmaster’s spouse who sleeps with an 18-year-old student to prove to him that he is a man in “Tea and Sympathy”; as a spunky schoolmarm not afraid to joust and dance with the King of Siam in “The King and I”; as a Salvation Army lass in “Major Barbara”; and even as Portia, the Roman matron married to Brutus, in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”



Deborah Kerr with Yul Brynner in “The King and I.

She could be virginal, ethereal, gossamer and fragile, or earthy, spicy and suggestive, and sometimes she managed to display all her skills at the same time.

Miss Kerr made “From Here to Eternity” even though Harry Cohn, chief of Columbia Pictures in that era, had wanted Joan Crawford in the part and had to be persuaded to accept Miss Kerr. She regarded the role as the high point in her climb to stardom in the United States, and it yielded her second Academy Award nomination.

Another high point came in 1956, when she was given the film role that Gertrude Lawrence had played on the stage in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I.” She played opposite Yul Brynner, who recreated his stage performance as the strutting king in the film.

Bosley Crowther, reviewing the movie version for The New York Times, praised “her beauty, her spirit and her English style.” Her singing for classics numbers like “Getting to Know You” was dubbed by the offscreen voice of many Hollywood stars of the time, Marni Nixon. But her acting needed no assistance; she was nominated for another Academy Award.



She also received Oscar nominations for “Edward, My Son” (released in 1949), “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” (1957); “Separate Tables” (1958); and “The Sundowners” (1960). Other notable roles came in “Major Barbara” (1941, her first credited film role); “Julius Caesar” (1953); and “Tea and Sympathy” (1956), based on the Robert Anderson play.

Miss Kerr was applauded in the Broadway stage production of the play as well. After Brooks Atkinson of The Times saw the original production, he wrote that Miss Kerr had “the initial advantage of being extremely beautiful, but she adds to her beauty the luminous perception who is aware of everything that is happening all around her and expresses it in effortless style.”



Miss Kerr struggled against being pigeonholed by the public as somehow representing the British upper class, and was said to have instructed friends to tell anyone who asked that she preferred cold roast beef sandwiches and beer to champagne and caviar any day. But she is also quoted in a 1977 biography by Eric Braun as saying that “the camera always seems to find an innate gentility in me.”

Deborah Jane Kerr Trimmer was born in Helensburgh, Scotland, on Sept. 30, 1921, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Kerr Trimmer. Her father, who was called Jack, was an architect and civil engineer who had been wounded in World War I and who died when Deborah was in her early teens.

Her aunt, Phyllis Smale, had a school of drama and insisted that Deobrah and her younger brother take lessons in acting, ballet and singing. Deborah was attracted to the ballet but concluded that she was too tall, at 5 feet 6 inches. She began her acting career by playing small parts with a group that performed Shakespeare’s plays in the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, London.

She got her first movie contract in 1939 after Gabriel Pascal, the producer and director, spotted her in a restaurant.

During the war, she read children’s stories on BBC radio. She made movies, too, among them “Penn of Pennsylvania,” “The Day Will Dawn,” and “The Avengers.”

By 1945, she was much sought after by British filmmakers and was cast opposite Robert Donat in “Perfect Strangers.”

Her career was further enhanced when she appeared as a nun in “Black Narcissus” in 1947. However, after the movie was released in the United States, it was called “an affront to religion and religious life” by the National Legion of Decency.



Miss Kerr was married to Anthony Bartley, an Englishman who had been a decorated fighter pilot during World War II, for 13 years. They were separated in 1959 and their divorce became final the next year. They had two children, Melanie and Francesca. In 1969, she married Peter Viertel, who survives her, along with her daughters and three grandchildren, according to The Associated Press.

NYTimes

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2007, 06:34:13 pm »
Thanks for sharing that, Toast.

Somehow it's making me sadder and sadder to think that "Mrs. Anna" is gone.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2007, 06:58:35 pm »


        She is and will always be one of my very favorite actresses.  She was always wonderful in any part she
played...And her beauty was stunning enough, to show thru even when they put her in dowdy, and plain
costume....I will always miss her..I think I have seen nearly all of her movies.          :'(

         They didnt mention two of my favorites of her...they did put up a picture...the all time sob movie
"An Affair to Remember."  a movie so well liked it was an integral part of another movie.  "Sleepless in Seattle"
And the movie version of a Tennessee Williams play.   "Night of the Iguana."



     Beautiful mind

Offline HerrKaiser

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2007, 12:18:59 pm »
She was one of the best. Actually, the photo above with Cary Grant is from "An Affair To Remember". Wonderful film.

Kerr was the only woman to be nominated for Best Actress six times and not win. No woman was ever nominated so frequently without acheiving a win. As the article pointed out above, the Academy did give her a lifetime acheivement award, which is what they like to do when a clearly notable figure has been denied thorughout the years. Similar thing happend to Barbara Staywyck although Stanwyck was nomoniated only four times without a win.

Deborah Kerr's performance in "From Here to Eternity" was one of the best performances ever, I think. to me it is similar to Ledger's performance as Ennis. Kerr played a bleach-blonde tootsie and was sooooo believable that even her simple gestures such as the way she held her cigarette, the way she cocked her head, the way she combed her hair, etc., were so unlike her own life, yet she displayed the character 100%.

She lost her oscar for this film to Audrey Hepburn, which was tough competition and Ava Gardner was nominated that year as well. VERY good performances, but in my opinion, Kerr's was superior. In hind sight, I would have liked to see Kerr win in '53 and Hepburn win for Breakfast at Tiffany's iin '61.

Also, comparativelty, donna reed did win the supporting acting award for Eternity, but I think Kerr was so much more of a force in the film. Reed seemed stiff and lacked flow.

Deborah Kerr was one of the last of the "great star" era of film. Few remain.

Offline Kelda

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2007, 03:46:34 pm »
Whats interesting is that she isn't actually english - She was born just outside Glasgow - in Helensburgh as it says in the article - she she was no english rose as evryone thinks of her.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2007, 03:59:52 pm »
Whats interesting is that she isn't actually english - She was born just outside Glasgow - in Helensburgh as it says in the article - she she was no english rose as evryone thinks of her.

That's just typical. Most Americans can't tell the difference between an Englishman and a Scot--unless they look under the kilt.  ;)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Kelda

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2007, 04:03:53 pm »
That's just typical. Most Americans can't tell the difference between an Englishman and a Scot--unless they look under the kilt.  ;)

 ;D
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Scott6373

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2007, 04:03:57 pm »
That's just typical. Most Americans can't tell the difference between an Englishman and a Scot--unless they look under the kilt.  ;)

I can...A Scot will have a good time with Scott  :laugh:  An Englishman will throw me a crown.

Offline David In Indy

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Re: Deborahh Kerr: Dead at 86
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2007, 04:09:36 pm »
I'm so sorry to hear about this!  :'(

I loved Deborah Kerr in The King and I. She was a true legend and she will be missed greatly.  :'(
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