Guest Author - Sandy Mullins

Now when you mention class, you have to think of Deborah Kerr. She was known for her class and not causing problems, except when it came to the pronouncing of her last name. It is pronounced “car.”

was born in Helensburgh, Scotland on September 30, 1921 the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr-Trimmer. She followed her radio star aunt into stage work as a teenager, and was cast in her first film Major Barbara (1941) and then Love on the Dole (1941). In 1943, she played three roles in her next movie, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and a nun in Black Narcissus in 1947. It was 1947 when Kerr came to the United States and MGM, where she continued her successful roles. Tired of playing prim and proper English ladies, her next role in 1953 was as an adulteress who romped on the beach with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity. Kerr also worked on Broadway and went onto star in one of her best-known roles as Anna in The King and I (1957). She went onto star in two other classics in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) and in An Affair to Remember (1957) in which the classic idea of meeting at the top of the Empire State Building was used and used in Sleepless in Seattle. She continued acting in movies till 1968 when she disagreed with the sex and violence that was being portrayed in movies. She did a little stage and TV in the 70s and 80s until she retired all together.

Kerr was nominated six times for Oscars and never won, but was awarded a special Oscar in 1994. Tune into Deborah Kerr’s movies on Thursday Nights on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

Turner Classic Movies -TCM (offsite link)