Biography

Deborah Kerr

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Overview

Born
September 30, 1921 · Hillhead, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Died
October 16, 2007 · Botesdale, Suffolk, England, UK (complications from Parkinson's disease)
Birth name
Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer
Nickname
- The English Rose
Height
5′ 7″ (1.70 m)

Mini bio

Born Deborah Jane Trimmer in Glasgow, Scotland in 1921, she was the daughter of a soldier who had been gassed in World War I. A shy, insecure child, she found an outlet for expressing her feelings in acting. Her aunt, a radio star, got her some stage work when she was a teenager, and she came to the attention of British film producer Gabriel Pascal, who cast her in his film version of George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara" (Major Barbara (1941)) and Love on the Dole (1941). She quickly became a star of the British cinema, playing such diverse roles as the three women in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and the nun in Black Narcissus (1947).

In 1947, she "crossed the pond" to Hollywood and came to MGM, where she found success in films like The Hucksters (1947), Edward, My Son (1949) and Quo Vadis (1951). After a while, however, she tired of playing prim-and-proper English ladies, so she made the most of the role of the adulteress who romps on the beach with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity (1953). The film was a success, and Kerr received her second Oscar nomination. She also achieved success on the Broadway stage in "Tea and Sympathy", reprising her role in the 1956 film version of the same name. (Tea and Sympathy (1956)). That same year she played one of her best-remembered screen roles, "Mrs. Anna" in The King and I (1956). More success followed in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), An Affair to Remember (1957), Separate Tables (1958), The Sundowners (1960), The Innocents (1961) and The Night of the Iguana (1964).

In 1968, she quit movies, appalled by the explicit sex and violence of the day. After some stage and TV work in the 1970s and 1980s and swan song performances in The Assam Garden (1985) and Hold the Dream (1986), she retired from acting altogether. Kerr holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations for Best Actress without a win (six), but that was made up for in 1994, when she was given an Honorary Oscar for her screen achievements.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tommy Peter

Family

Spouses
Parents
Relatives

Trademarks

Playing 'classic' English ladies
Delicately pretty looks
Refined and repressed characters who go through harrowing emotional experiences
Red hair.

Trivia

Maureen O'Hara was originally meant to play her role in The King and I (1956), but Yul Brynner specifically asked for Kerr.
Originally when filming began on Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), her co-star Robert Mitchum worried that Kerr would be like the prim characters she frequently played. However, after she swore at director John Huston during one take, Mitchum, who was in the water, almost drowned laughing. The two stars went on to have an enduring friendship that lasted until Mitchum's death in 1997.
Deborah Kerr, her husband Peter Viertel and her biographer Eric Braun all died within the space of five weeks in the fall of 2007. All were aged 86.
Suffered from Parkinson's disease in her final years.
Received one of the longest standing ovations of all Honorary Oscar recipients when she was awarded an Honorary Oscar for her body of work in 1994.

Quotes

All the most successful people these days seem to be neurotic. Perhaps we should stop being sorry for them and start being sorry for me--for being so confoundedly normal.
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.
I am really rather like a beautiful Jersey cow, I have the same pathetic droop to the corners of my eyes.
[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 wont live up to what's expected of you.