• Deborah Kerr dead at 86
• Deborah Kerr dies

Deborah Kerr was born on 30 September 1921 in Helensburgh, near Glasgow, Scotland and died on 16 October 2007. She was a Golden Globe Award-winning Scottish actress who also received honorary Academy and BAFTA awards.

Kerr was nominated for a best actress Oscar six times, including for her performances as the correct widow in The King and I (1956) with Yul Brynner and as the unhappy officer's wife in the wartime From Here to Eternity (1953). She also starred with Cary Grant in 1957's An Affair To Remember.

It was her passionate kiss with Burt Lancaster as waves crashed over them on a Hawaiian beach in From Here to Eternity that many will remember her best. Kerr’s roles as forceful, sometimes frustrated women pushed the boundaries of 1950s Hollywood.

She was born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer on September 30, 1921, in Helensburgh, Scotland, UK. She trained as a dancer, but took up acting and made her film debut in Contraband (1940).

Successes in British films The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and Black Narcissus (1947) brought her a Hollywood contract. Invariably cast in well-bred, lady-like roles, she played numerous governesses and nuns. All that changed with 1953’s From Here to Eternity.

Kerr retired from the screen in 1969, returning to the theatre in the 1970s, and to the cinema in The Assam Garden (1985). She received a BAFTA special award in 1991.

In 1994, Kerr finally got an Oscar, receiving an honorary Academy Award for her distinguished career as an "artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance."

Kerr married to Anthony Charles Bartley, a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, in 1946. They had two daughters and were divorced in 1959. A year later, she married novelist-screenwriter Peter Viertel.

Credits by Biography.Com

Filmography

• Hold the Dream (1986)
• The Assam Garden (1985)
• Reunion at Fairborough (1985)
• "A Woman of Substance" (1984)
• Witness for the Prosecution (1982)
• "BBC2 Playhouse" (1 episode, 1982)
• The Arrangement (1969)
• The Gypsy Moths (1969)
• Prudence and the Pill (1968)
• Casino Royale (1967)
• Eye of the Devil (1966)
• Marriage on the Rocks (1965)
• The Night of the Iguana (1964)
• The Chalk Garden (1964)
• The Innocents (1961)
• The Naked Edge (1961)
• The Grass Is Greener (1960)
• The Sundowners (1960)
• Beloved Infidel (1959)
• Count Your Blessings (1959)
• The Journey (1959)
• Separate Tables (1958)
• Bonjour tristesse (1958)
• Kiss Them for Me (1957)
• An Affair to Remember (1957)
• Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)
• Tea and Sympathy (1956)
• The King and I (1956)
• The Proud and Profane (1956)
• The End of the Affair (1955)
• From Here to Eternity (1953)
• Dream Wife (1953)
• Julius Caesar (1953)
• Young Bess (1953)
• Thunder in the East (1952)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)
• Quo Vadis (1951)
• King Solomon's Mines (1950)
• Please Believe Me (1950)
• Edward, My Son (1949)
• If Winter Comes (1947)
• The Hucksters (1947)
• Black Narcissus (1947)
• I See a Dark Stranger (1946)
• Perfect Strangers (1945)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
• The Day Will Dawn (1942)
• Hatter's Castle (1942)
• Penn of Pennsylvania (1942)
• Love on the Dole (1941)
• Major Barbara (1941)
• Contraband (1940)

Awards

• Honorary Oscar 1993
• New York Film Critics Circle Award Best Actress "The Sundowners" 1960
• Golden Globe Award World Film Favorite-Female 1958
• New York Film Critics Circle Award Best Actress "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" 1957
• Golden Globe Award Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) "The King and I" 1956
• New York Film Critics Circle Award Best Actress "Black Narcissus" and "The Adventuress" 1947