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In Remembrance: Deborah Kerr
Although nominated six times for an Academy Award, Kerr would only receive an honorary Oscar in 1994 for being an “artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance.” Even without the recognition of an Academy Award, Kerr’s multiple roles of strong women helped pushed the boundaries of Hollywood’s depiction of sex in the 1950s.
Born September 30, 1921 in Helensburgh, Scotland, Kerr moved with her parents to England when she was five. She studied dance at a school run by her aunt, eventually winning a scholarship to Saler’s Wells Ballet School in London. At 17 she made her stage debut as a member of the corps de ballet in Prometheus. Kerr soon switched her career ambitions from dancing to drama. She began taking parts in repertory theater productions around London until the outbreak of World War II forced their closure in 1939.
Kerr made her film debut a year later in the British film Contraband. Although her role as a hatcheck girl had just two lines, they wound up on the cutting room floor. She was more successful with her next role in the film Major Barbara. An adaptation of the play by George Bernard Shaw, the film saw Kerr playing a Salvation Army worker by the name of Jenny, a role she had previously played on the stage. She continued to act in larger roles to greater critical notice, culminating with her performance in 1943’s The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp, in which she played three different women who meet the titular character at various stages of his life. She also received rave reviews for her work in The Adventuress (1946, aka I See A Dark Stranger) and Black Narcissus (1947).
Following the completion of Black Narcissus, Kerr headed to Hollywood to star in The Hucksters (1947) opposite Clark Gable. She followed it up with roles in a number of films including King Solomon’s Mines (1950), Quo Vadis (1951), The Prisoner Of Zenda (1952) and Julius Caesar (1953).
For From Here To Eternity, Kerr starred as an unhappily married naval officer’s wife whose affair with the strapping Lancaster culminates in a kiss on a Hawaiian beach. The scene became an instant classic, not the least because of the metaphorical waves crashing over the kissing couple. The role also marked a change from the reserved, lady-like characters she had been playing, opening the door for a wide range of parts for the actress.
Her Academy Award nomination for From Here To Eternity was not her first Oscar nomination. She had previously been nominated for her work in 1949’s Edward, My Son. She would also be nominated for The King And I (1956), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Separate Tables (1958) and The Sundowners (1960).
Kerr also had other notable performances in such films as An Affair To Remember (1957) opposite Cary Grant, Beloved Infidel (1959) and The Night Of The Iguana (1964) with Richard Burton.
In 1968, following the completion of the films The Gypsy Moths and The Arrangement (both released in 1969), Kerr decided to take what she called a “leave of absence” from acting, feeling that none of the parts being offered suited her. She returned to stage acting, appearing in productions on both Broadway and in Los Angeles.
Although she made a few television appearances in the early 1980s, Kerr’s final film role was in the 1985 drama The Assam Garden. |
Deborah Kerr, who shared a famous steamy kiss with Burt Lancaster in
the 1953 wartime drama From Here To Eternity, has passed away
on October 16, 2007 in Suffolk, England. She was 86.