[citation needed], She made two films at MGM: The Journey (1959) reunited her with Brynner; Count Your Blessings (1959), was a comedy. After Cohn hung up on Kerrs agent, he wanted to share the joke with the From Here to Eternity director and writer. Closer Weekly is part of the a360media Entertainment Group.Copyright a360media 2023. Kerr's first film for MGM in Hollywood was a mature satire of the burgeoning advertising industry, The Hucksters (1947) with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. Starring: Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Peter O'Toole, Geraldine . Travel Ideas. Arthur Charles Kerr Trimmer, a World War I veteran and pilot who lost a leg at the Battle of the Somme and later became a naval architect and civil engineer. Personal Life. "She has the rare gift", wrote critic Beverley Baxter, "of thinking her lines, not merely remembering them. Thanks for your help! [citation needed], Pressure of competition from younger, upcoming actresses made her agree to appear nude in John Frankenheimer's The Gypsy Moths (1969), the only nude scene in her career. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Hed previously abandoned his first wifewho was pregnant at the timefor a French fashion model. , died Tuesday in Suffolk, England. It was likely that Kerrs boyfriend was angry that Kerr was now under contract with MGM. Deborah Kerr (19212007) was a British actress who holds the record - six - for most Best Actress Oscar nominations without a win. She said Kerrs wonderful performance is not quite as intensely delivered in the TV version and described its portrayal of Sister Ruth as too girlish, lacking the maturity and acidity of its predecessor. She replaced Kim Novak in Eye of the Devil (1966) with Niven, and was reteamed with Niven in the comedy Casino Royale (1967), achieving the distinction of being, at 45, the oldest "Bond Girl" in any James Bond film, until Monica Bellucci, at the age of 50, in Spectre (2015). Unfortunately for Nixon, the film producers wanted to keep this a secret. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? People always think Im the epitome of the English gentlewoman, which just goes to show that things are never quite what they seem, said Deborah, who took a huge chance by breaking her contract to pursue the role of Karen, a disillusioned U.S. Army wife engaged in a torrid affair in From Here to Eternity. [10], Kerr's first stage appearance was at Weston-super-Mare in 1937, as "Harlequin" in the mime play Harlequin and Columbine. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIIIs rejected queenbut few people know her even darker history. Alexander Korda cast her opposite Robert Donat in Perfect Strangers (1945). Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. The American Film Institute acknowledged the iconic status of the scene from that film in which Burt Lancaster and she romped illicitly and passionately amidst crashing waves on a Hawaiian beach. Her second marriage was to author Peter Viertel on 23 July 1960. Directed by Alexander Korda, it's one of the great makeover movies, serving as an almost on-the-nose encapsulation of those contrary impulses: Kerr plays a dowdy housewife whose dull marriage is revitalized when both she and her husband (Robert Donat) find new avenues of fulfilment within the war effort, develop passions for other people, and, But did her morals? Lying on the ground was nothing compared to the physical trials Kerr endured throughout her first career: ballet. [10], Kerr returned to the London stage in many productions including the old-fashioned, 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. She lived in LA, far away from the prowling paparazzi that was tailing her father day in and day out for several years. Deborah Kerr and her two daughters T Tumblr 435k followers More information Deborah Kerr and her two daughters Find this Pin and more on Deborah by Christy Gardner. The two married in 1945, and later, welcomed two daughters: Melanie Jane and Francesca Ann. It ushered in the peak years of her career: She played Anna, the governess in The King and I, an Australian shepherds wife in The Sundowners, and a woman who falls for Cary Grants charms on a transatlantic voyage in An Affair to Remember. [1][13] She played the repressed wife in The End of the Affair (1955), shot in England with Van Johnson. Divorced from her first husband in 1959, Deborah married author Peter Viertel in 1960. [8][9] 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). Clinton Sundberg (delightful as photographer Michael Michaelson) receives dignified but insolvent war-widow socialite Mrs. Dorrance (Deborah Kerr), savvy Vic (Clark Gable) from the ad agency, who got her the lucrative photo gig, and stiff Miss Kennedy (Kathryn Card), representing the demanding sponsor, in The Hucksters, 1947. 1959) Peter Viertel ( m. 1960) . Hed already immortalized the role of the King on Broadway, and really wanted Kerr playing opposite him. Playing Karen, an Army wife consumed by an extramarital affair, was a big departure for the actress. [citation needed]. In 1953, Kerr "showed her theatrical mettle" as Portia in Joseph Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar. See 'Magnum P.I.' Each new Bond is assigned a specific role. In 1975, she returned to Broadway, creating the role of Nancy in Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Seascape. They were so heavy and cumbersome that during the filmmaking of the Shall We Dance sequence, something horrible happened. Kerr performed the same role in Vincente Minnelli's film adaptation released in 1956; her stage partner John Kerr (no relation) also appeared. The logistics of shooting the scene may have been a nightmare, but cavorting with Lancaster ended up being a dream come true. Although the British Army refused to co-operate with the producers and Winston Churchill thought the film would ruin wartime morale Colonel Blimp confounded critics when it proved to be an artistic and commercial success. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. While performing in a play for British. As she danced around the room, her dressbruised her legs. She was actually quite shy and a rather private person, says her daughter. It has become the breakout TV hit of Christmas with the usual staples of festive specials replaced by eerie palaces perched on Himalayan mountains, nuns on a mission and simmering sexual tension. Suspenseful drama in which arrogant and high level Soviet military man (Yul Brynner) detains a group of tourists and travellers in the political powder keg of Hungary in the Fifties. Bristol University professor of Film, Sarah Street who penned the study Deborah Kerr, published by the British Film Institute, and Black Narcissus, A British Film Guide said the actor had just landed a Hollywood contract with MGM and had to get special permission to shoot the movie in the UK with Powell and Pressburger. She was another governess in The Chalk Garden (1964) and worked with John Huston again in The Night of the Iguana (1964). She also did A Song at Twilight (1982). Down the road, however, that sad reviewand the name Wendy Hillerwould come around to haunt her. Stewart Granger claimed in his autobiography that in 1945 she had approached him romantically in the back of his chauffeur-driven car at the time he was making Caesar and Cleopatra. Godden grew up in England and India and lived in Moniaive, Dumfries & Galloway, for 25 years until her death in 1998 aged 90. When they were casting The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had someone in mind to play the multi-character female lead, and it wasnt Kerr. The heat was so intense that Kerr lost a whopping 12 pounds. So, the production team for The King and I quietly contacted soprano-for-hire Marni Nixon to sing for Kerr. Her wardrobe consisted of classic pieces such as tailored suits, sheath dresses, high-waisted trousers, and trench coats. [11], Kerr played three women in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). One of which was Major Barbara. Her other films include The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), Black Narcissus (1947), From Here to Eternity (1953), Tea and Sympathy (1956), An Affair to Remember (1957), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Separate Tables (1958), The Sundowners (1960), The Innocents (1961), The Grass is Greener (1960), and The Night of the Iguana (1964). This was immediately followed by her appearance in the religious epic Quo Vadis (1951), shot at Cinecitt in Rome, in which she played the indomitable Lygia, a first-century Christian. Deborah Jane Trimmer [1] was born on 30 September 1921 in Hillhead, Glasgow, [3] the only daughter of Kathleen Rose ( ne Smale) and Capt. Kerr's first film for MGM in Hollywood was a mature satire of the burgeoning advertising industry, The Hucksters (1947) with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. British exhibitors voted her the eighth-most popular local star at the box-office in 1947. In this film, she played Jenny Hill, who was a devout member of the Salvation Army church. The organisation ranked it 20th in its list of the 100 most romantic films of all time. Kerr originally trained as a ballet dancer, first appearing on stage at Sadler's Wells in 1938. Shirley Jones opens up in eye-opening new memoir. After various walk-on parts in Shakespeare productions at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London, she joined the Oxford Playhouse repertory company in 1940, playing, inter alia, "Margaret" in Dear Brutus and "Patty Moss" in The Two Bouquets. 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. At this time, Kerr was living in Switzerland with husband Viertel, but their life lacked one important thing: a place to swim. The best revenge might be living well, but that doesn't mean we can always turn the other cheek. Kerr arrived in Hollywood and literally hit the ground running. Deborah Jane Trimmer was born on 30 September 1921 in Hillhead, Glasgow, the only daughter of Kathleen Rose (ne Smale) and Capt. Kerr died aged 86 on 16 October 2007 at Botesdale, a village in the county of Suffolk, England, from the effects of Parkinson's disease. Deborah Kerr, Star of 'From Here to Eternity,' Dies at 86 Associated Press LONDON - Deborah Kerr, who shared one of Hollywood's most famous kisses while portraying an Army officer's unhappy. 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Kerr wanted to do quality work, but the film-going public set the bar quite low. Hollywoods turn toward films showing explicit violence and nudity didnt appeal to the actress, so she began spending more time in Switzerland and occasionally resurfaced for roles on Broadway or in Londons West End. The marriage was troubled, owing to Bartley's envy of his wife's fame and financial success,[10] and because her career often took her away from home. It has a lot of shots that look very similar. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. By 1953, movie fans had grown used to seeing Deborah in largely virtuous roles. When it came to this famous duo, rumors aboundedand some say that they took their canoodling from the beach to the bedroom, where there was hopefully a little less sand. The older you get, the easier it should be but it isn't. Sally Hardcastle (Deborah Kerr) and her brother Harry (Geoffrey Hibbert) attempt to overcome the hard times that have befallen their family, but in the process become deeply estranged from. But first, she had to risk it all. Yikes. 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. Deborah Joy Winans was born on September 6, 1983, to Carvin Winans and Deborah Kerr Winans. These warm feelings for Nixon led Kerr to do something very un-Hollywood. She made Young Bess (1953) with Granger and Jean Simmons, then appeared alongside Cary Grant in Dream Wife (1953), a flop comedy. [17], 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. She arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s and had only good experiences at MGM Studios, likening it to belonging to a rather exclusive club., She enjoyed working but never courted fame. During the filming, she dubbed herself the melting Miss Kerr. Sounds like an idea for a new fad diet. British exhibitors voted her the eighth-most popular local star at the box-office in 1947. Mrs Shrapnel, who sadly lost her actor husband John, 77, to cancer on Valentines Day, added: My mother was certainly very proud of her Scottish birth and ancestry and I was always encouraged to think of myself as an honorary Celt! She made The Arrangement (1969) with Elia Kazan, her director from the stage production of Tea and Sympathy. In the meantime, however, Kerrs agent did something that destroyed this dream: Hed sold her contract to MGM studios in the US. At the time, the hottest film project in the works was From Here to Eternity. Its understood she had been hoping to visit Helensburgh during her visit but time ran out. She was a widow in love with William Holden in The Proud and Profane (1956), directed by George Seaton. The Glasgow, Scotland-born beauty spent her formative years studying ballet, but switched to drama when she grew too tall to become a prima ballerina. But the dangers of research were nothing compared to the near-fatal disaster that went down during her next project. One of the most-cited performers never to win a competitive Oscar, Miss Kerr (pronounced "car") was . She was an immediate hit with the public: An American film trade paper reported in 1942 that she was the most popular British actress with Americans. DEBORAH KERR OBITUARY. In 1993s hit Sleepless in Seattle, a romance-starved woman played by Meg Ryan weeps nosily while watching Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember. Arthur Charles Kerr Trimmer, a World War I veteran and pilot who lost a leg at the Battle of the Somme and later became a naval architect and civil engineer. Gertrude Lawrence, who the musical was originally written for, had already solidified the role on Broadway, and she was supposed to bring it to the big screen. King Solomon's Mines (1950) was shot on location in Africa with Stewart Granger and Richard Carlson. It's an unbelievable terror, a kind of masochistic madness. The scene kept getting shorter and shorter as projectionists across the country repeatedly snipped out frames for repeated viewing. She played a nun in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) opposite her long-time friend Robert Mitchum, directed by John Huston. But once she was free from MGM, how would she forge a new career? Born Deborah Jane Trimmer on September 30, 1921, in a private nursing home in Glasgow, she took the. The stage was set. [2], Deborah Jane Trimmer[1] was born on 30 September 1921 in Hillhead, Glasgow,[3] the only daughter of Kathleen Rose (ne Smale) and Capt. Which accent hasn't she done? Deborah Kerr, whose remarkable body of work brought her six Academy Award nominations for best actress but no Oscar wins, has died. In 1967, director Charles K. Feldman came to Kerr with a special offer. She landed a role in 1947s Black Narcissus directed by none other than her ex-boyfriend, Powell. Kerr had successfully made the transition from prim and proper to lewd and lasciviousbut could she go back again? Her definitive role was as the Governess Anna Leonowens duelling with Yul Brynner in the King and I (1956). 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). Ive abdicated.. The gowns she wore, designed by Irene Sharaff, scaled in at around 15 kg (33 lbs). 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