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Deborah Kerr
Born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer in Helensburgh, Scotland on September 30th 1921, Deborah Kerr attended drama school in Bristol and then Sadler's Wells ballet school. In 1937 Kerr made her stage debut playing Harlequin at the theatre in Weston-super-Mare. Two years later Kerr made her film debut in Michael Powell's "Contraband", though Kerr scenes were deleted from the film's final cut. However this would prove to be the start of a long and distinguished career spanning more than fifty films and garnering six Academy Award nominations for Best Actress
Perhaps Kerr's most famous roles were as the governess getting to know Yul Bryner's monarch in " The King And I" and as the frustrated, adulterous wife in " From Here To Eternity" enjoying an iconic roll in the surf with Burt Lancaster.
Kerr embodied elegant femininity combined with restrained sexuality, and her ability to be at once alluring and aloof meant she was perfectly cast as a nun struggling with temptation in both " Black Narcissus" and " Heaven Knows Mr Allison". The latter film co-starred Robert Mitchum who would be Kerr's screen partner again in " The Grass Is Greener" and " The Sundowners". Kerr's other co-stars included William Holden, David Niven and Gregory Peck.
The theme of sensuality bubbling away beneath a cool exterior became Kerr's signature. In 1961 Kerr starred in the classic psychological horror film " The Innocents", in which Kerr played a governess who may or may not be witness to the possession of her charges by ghosts. That Kerr was slightly too old for the role added to the sense that her character's repression may be the cause of what may be wild imaginings.
In her later years Kerr starred in the television series "A Woman of Substance" for which she was nominated for an Emmy. In 1991 Kerr was awarded a special Bafta and in 1994 she was awaded an honorary Academy Award in recognition of the quality of her film work.
Awarded a CBE in 1998, Kerr was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and died on 18th October 2007.
What members say |
Filmography
Deborah Kerr - what members say
review by roncoach from
Over-rated and bordering on tedious 20 October 2011
review by A customer from Redditch, UK
They don't make 'em like that anymore.... thank goodness! 16 July 2006
review by from devon
Fantastic 2 January 2004
Deborah Kerr - filmography
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Hold The Dream - Barbara Taylor Bradford
on DVD
(1986)
Starring: Stephen Collins, John Mills, Jenny Seagrove
Director: Don Sharp
Certificate: 
The sequel to 'A Woman of Substance', continuing the story of the wealthy Emma Harte, now in her eighties, as she struggles to retain control of her commercial empire. Her intention is to hand the business over to her grand-daughter (Jenny Seagrove, who played Emma in the original mini-series).
 
60%
from 476 members
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The Assam Garden
(1985)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Madhur Jaffrey, Alec McCowen
Director: Mary McMurray
Certificate: 
An embittered, lonely old widow reluctantly tends her late husband's garden and discovers that more than flowers can bloom there when she encounters her East Indian neighbour, a woman with an ailing husband. This touching drama chronicles their friendship. The story opens as the widow returns from ..read more »
65%
from 4 members
Currently unavailable
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Prudence and the Pill
on DVD
(1968)
Starring: David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Edith Evans
Director: Fielder Cook
Certificate:
David Niven and Deborah Kerr star in this British comedy about five couples whose attempts to use a birth-control pill are thwarted by those around them. Banker Gerald Hardcastle (Niven) and his wife Prudence (Kerr) are unhappily married. While Gerald has a mistress, Elizabeth (Irina Demick), ..read more »
37%
from 4 members
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Marriage On The Rocks
on DVD
(1965)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Nancy Sinatra, Dean Martin
Director: Jack Donohue
Certificate: 
Classic comedy drama starring Frank Sinatra. When ad-agency president Dan Edwards (Sinatra) goes to Mexico to celebrate his 19th wedding anniversary, he makes the terrible error of getting divorced. In turn, his wife Valerie (Deborah Kerr) then mistakenly marries Dan's best friend Ernie Brewer (..read more »
54%
from 86 members
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The Innocents - Blu-ray
(1961)
Starring: Michael Redgrave, Megs Jenkins, Deborah Kerr
Director: Jack Clayton
Certificate: 
Deborah Kerr stars in this 1961 adaptation of the psychological horror novella 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James. After coming to live with orphans Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens) in the mansion of their uncle (Michael Redgrave), their new young governess Miss Giddens (Kerr)..read more »
65%
from 489 members
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The Innocents
on DVD
(1961)
Starring: Michael Redgrave, Megs Jenkins, Deborah Kerr
Director: Jack Clayton
Certificate:
Deborah Kerr stars in this 1961 adaptation of the psychological horror novella 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James. After coming to live with orphans Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens) in the mansion of their uncle (Michael Redgrave), their new young governess Miss Giddens (Kerr)..read more »
72%
from 2,525 members
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The Naked Edge
on DVD
(1961)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Hermione Gingold, Eric Portman
Director: Michael Anderson
Certificate:
Murder mystery thriller starring Gary Cooper (in his last ever film role) and Deborah Kerr. Years ago, businessman George Radcliffe (Cooper) was accused - but acquitted - of murder. When his wife Martha (Kerr) opens a letter containing blackmail threats to her husband, she begins to suspect that he ..read more »
62%
from 59 members
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The Sundowners
(1960)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Certificate: 
Garnering an impressive five Oscar nominations and containing a starring role for Robert Mitchum, THE SUNDOWNERS is a drama weaved around the daily lives of the Carmody family. The family members work together as sheep herders and find themselves constantly travelling in order to find further ..read more »
69%
from 36 members
Currently unavailable
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The Grass Is Greener
on DVD
(1960)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant
Director: Stanley Donen
Certificate:
A rousing chorus of Noël Coward's Stately Homes of England is heard as the opening titles of The Grass Is Greener fade into several stock shots of those stately homes. One of these mansions is owned by British earl Victor Rhyall (Cary Grant), who opens his home to American tourists in order to make ..read more »
64%
from 262 members
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Beloved Infidel
(1959)
Starring: Gregory Peck, Deborah Kerr, Eddie Albert
Director: Henry King
Certificate:
Based on the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, an aging Hollywood writer, desperately trying to make enough money to pay for the asylum his wife is in, when another woman suddenly enters his life.
46%
from 8 members
Currently unavailable
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Bonjour Tristesse
on DVD
(1958)
Starring: Walter Chiari, Geoffrey Horne, Deborah Kerr
Director: Otto Preminger
Certificate:
Francoise Sagan's bittersweet novel Bonjour Tristesse is given a sumptuous Riviera-filmed screen treatment. David Niven plays a wealthy playboy, the father of teenaged libertine-in-the-making Jean Seberg. Seberg tolerates most of her father's mistresses, but doesn't know what to make of the prudish ..read more »
60%
from 682 members
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Separate Tables
on DVD
(1958)
Starring: Rita Hayworth, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr
Director: Delbert Mann
Certificate:
A collection of guests gather at an English seaside boarding house. The landlady, Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller), is the lover of failed alcoholic writer John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), whose life is thrown into turmoil by the arrival of his ex-wife, Ann (Rita Hayworth). Other guests include the matronly ..read more »
69%
from 587 members
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An Affair To Remember
on DVD
(1957)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant, Richard Denning
Director: Leo McCarey
Certificate:
An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's scene-for-scene remake of his own 1939 film Love Affair, isn't really an improvement on the original, but it's equally as enjoyable. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, high-profile types both engaged to be married to other people, meet and fall in love during ..read more »
72%
from 4,134 members
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An Affair To Remember - Blu-ray
(1957)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant, Richard Denning
Director: Leo McCarey
Certificate:
An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's scene-for-scene remake of his own 1939 film Love Affair, isn't really an improvement on the original, but it's equally as enjoyable. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, high-profile types both engaged to be married to other people, meet and fall in love during ..read more »
66%
from 5 members
Not available for rental
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Heaven Knows Mr Allison
on DVD
(1957)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr
Director: John Huston
Certificate:
A two-person character study directed by John Huston, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison stars Robert Mitchum as a World War II Marine sergeant and Deborah Kerr as a Roman Catholic nun. Both nun and sergeant are marooned on a South Pacific island, hemmed in by surrounding Japanese troops. Mitchum does his ..read more »
68%
from 358 members
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The King And I
on DVD
(1956)
Starring: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Alan Mowbray
Director: Walter Lang
Certificate:
When nineteenth century English schoolteacher Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) is employed by the King of Siam (Yul Brynner) to educate his many children, she takes her son, Louis (Rex Thompson), along with her. Anna, a strong-willed woman, soon clashes with the king, who is used to having his every ..read more »
68%
from 6,303 members
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The End Of The Affair
on DVD
(1955)
Starring: John Mills, Peter Cushing, Deborah Kerr
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Certificate:
Recently freed from his MGM contract, Van Johnson headed to England to star in a series of pictures, the first of which was The End of the Affair. Adapted by Lenore Coffee from the novel by Graham Greene, the film casts Johnson as Maurice Bendrix, the clandestine lover of married Briton Sarah Miles ..read more »
64%
from 156 members
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Young Bess
(1953)
Starring: Jean Simmons, Stewart Granger, Charles Laughton
Director: George Sidney, george sidney (2)
Certificate:
The mother died under the executioner's axe; the daughter rose to become England's greatest monarch - the brilliant and cunning Queen Elizabeth I. Jean Simmons portrays young Bess in this rich tapestry of a film that traces the tumultuous, danger-fraught years from Elizabeth's birth to her ..read more »
80%
from 5 members
Currently unavailable
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From Here To Eternity
on DVD
(1953)
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden, Deborah Kerr
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Certificate:
The scene is Schofield Army Barracks in Honolulu, in the languid days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, where James Jones' acclaimed war novel From Here to Eternity brought the aspirations and frustrations of several people sharply into focus. Sergeant Milt Warden (Burt Lancaster) enters into an ..read more »
68%
from 4,145 members
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From Here to Eternity - Blu-ray
(1953)
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Certificate:
Fred Zinnemann's classic drama about Pearl Harbor on the eve of the fateful Japanese attack. Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is newly arrived at the military base, and has already fallen foul of his superiors due to his refusal to box on the company team. Given the worst duties as a result, ..read more »
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Currently unavailable
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Quo Vadis
on DVD
(1951)
Starring: Marina Berti, Peter Ustinov, Deborah Kerr
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Certificate:
Star-studded, epic adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel based in Rome during the time of Nero. Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), a commander in the army, returns to the city and falls in love with a Christian girl called Lygia (Deborah Kerr). However, as he is a pagan, she rejects his suit and ..read more »
70%
from 218 members
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Black Narcissus
(1946)
Starring: Kathleen Byron, Jenny Laird, Judith Furse
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Certificate:
British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger once again deliberately courted controversy and censorship with their 1947 adaptation of Rumer Godden's novel. Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron play the head nuns at an Anglican hospital/school high in the Himalayas. The nuns' well-ordered ..read more »
74%
from 2,511 members
Not available for rental
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I See a Dark Stranger
on DVD
(1946)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Trevor Howard, Raymond Huntley
Director: Frank Launder
Certificate:
Determined and independent, Bridie Quilty comes of age in 1944 Ireland believing all Englishmen are devils. Her desire to join the IRA meets no encouragement, but a German spy finds her easy to recruit. Soon she finds herself working in a pub near a British military, reporting from across enemy ..read more »
65%
from 69 members
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The Day Will Dawn
on DVD
(1942)
Starring: Griffith Jones, Hugh Williams, Ralph Richardson
Director: Harold French
Certificate:
Terence Rattigan pens this British wartime drama starring Hugh Williams, Ralph Richardson and Deborah Kerr. British journalist Colin Metcalfe (Williams) becomes foreign correspondent in Norway just as Hitler invades Poland in 1939. On the way to Norway, his boat is attacked by a German U-Boat, but ..read more »
60%
from 50 members
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Love On The Dole
on DVD
(1941)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Joyce Howard, Clifford Evans
Director: John Baxter
Certificate:
Life between the wars in the Salford slums, seen through the eyes of a Lancashire mill-girl (Deborah Kerr) who finds poverty driving her to desperate measures. Forced to bestow favours upon the local bookie, she incurs the wrath of her bullying father and the censure of her gossiping neighbours.
63%
from 307 members
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Major Barbara
on DVD
(1941)
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hiller, Robert Morley
Director: Gabriel Pascal
Certificate:
Social comedy based on the play by George Bernard Shaw. Barbara Undershaft (Wendy Hiller) is the idealistic daughter of a wealthy munitions manufacturer. A Major in the Salvation Army, she is devoted to a crusade against capitalists such as her father, and has little time for the romantic ..read more »
68%
from 157 members
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Deborah Kerr facts
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...hat Montgomery Clift is a poor third when compared to Lancaster and Sinatra.
Deborah Kerr also seems totally miscast-she just is not associated ( quite rightly) with suc...
