Post by teleadm on Oct 1, 2021 11:20:17 GMT
From Black Narcissus to that beach scene, we raise a glass to one of Scotland's most beguiling Hollywood stars. Since this year we celebrate 100 years since her birth in Glasgow.
Deborah Kerr (1921–2007)
She had a background in ballet and theater before she entered the movies, not always in the most suitable roles but at the end the day she was nominated six times for an Oscar but never managed to convert any of them into winning the golden statuette. She had to settle for an honorary award in 1994, when she was hailed as “an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance”.
She made her movie debut in Contraband 1940, but we never got to see it since her scenes were deleted, her small part was as a "Cigarette girl". 45 years later she made her last movie role in The Assam Garden 1985. In between are the movies that made her into one of the big and beloved movie stars.
Now a trip down memory lane, this time this OP has combined two different "essentials" lists to get a bigger perspective, hopefully.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943, is were she really attracted attention playing three different roles.
Perfect Strangers aka Vacation from Marriage 1945, which sees Kerr and Robert Donat embark upon voyages of self-discovery when he joins the Royal Navy and she volunteers for the Women’s Royal Naval Service.
I See a Dark Stranger aka The Adventuress 1946, an espionage saga that sees her detour to the Isle of Man to retrieve details of the D-Day landings, while debating whether her loyalties lie with a persuasive quisling or a charming British intelligence officer.
Black Narcissus 1947, as a missionary in charge of a Himalayan medical outpost, whose vocation is tested by her inexperience and her emotions. In that role she also succeeded in avoided being upstaged by Kathleen Byron’s wild-eyed intensity as Sister Ruth.
From Here to Eternity 1953. Cast against type and dying her hair blonde she had what it took to play a lustful wanton by quipping: "I feel naked without my tiara".
Scene #106 still ranks among the most iconic in screen history, although the censors at the Breen Office were unhappy that Kerr was depicted atop Burt Lancaster in the Hawaiian surf.
The King and I 1956, Kerr gives one of her most enduringly popular performances. She was personally selected to play Anna Leonowens by Yul Brynner, who had essayed King Mongkut I on stage. Most of her singing is expertly dubbed by Marni Nixon, but Kerr can be heard on "I Whistle a Happy Tune" and she polkas with brio to "Shall We Dance".
Tea and Sympathy 1956, were her role tries to build a connection with a troubled young man in prep school, often inviting him alone to tea, and eventually falls in love with him, in part because of his many similarities to her first husband, who was killed in World War II.
Heaven Knows, Mr Allison 1957, alone on a small atoll in the Pacific Ocean, a nun and a marine combine their skills to survive, even when the atoll is overtaken by the Japanese during World War II.
Kerr opposed to co-star with Robert Mitchum, his rumor wasn't the best, but once they met they became friends for life.
An Affair to Remember 1958. Coming between Dream Wife 1953 and The Grass Is Greener 1960, this is the pick of Kerr’s collaborations with Cary Grant. Indeed, Leo McCarey’s CinemaScope and DeLuxe remake of his own 1939 best picture nominee was voted the fifth most romantic screen love story by the American Film Institute.
Separate Tables 1958, here Kerr plays a plain, sheltered spinster, who resides at Bournemouth hotel with her domineering mother, Gladys Cooper. Kerr and David Niven (as a bogus major) convey the kind of shabby gentility that would be swept away with the postwar cobwebs during the 1960's.
The Sundowners 1960. Kerr had forged a friendship with Robert Mitchum and she was delighted, therefore, when William Holden and Gary Cooper passed and Mitchum joined her down under for Fred Zinnemann’s adaptation of Jon Cleary’s novel, "Back of Beyond". Her splendid down-to-earth performance as a sheep drover’s wife trying to persuade her footloose spouse to settle down on a farm, was the last of her Oscar nominations. "All I did was feed her some lines" Mitchum declared "She did the rest. She’s really the one who can act".
Kerr and Mitchum would act together once more, in the TV-movie Reunion at Fairborough 1985.
The Innocents 1961. "No other performance in Kerr’s career captivates in quite the same manner, or raises more questions with repeated viewing, than her interpretation of the governess who convinces herself that her young charges have been corrupted by supernatural evil"
The Night of the Iguana 1964, as a virginal Nantucket artist who arrives at the Costa Verde hotel with her elderly poet grandfather. Kerr invests her role with a savvy serenity that makes the love triangle with Richard Burton’s disgraced Episcopal preacher and Ava Gardner’s bawdy widowed landlady all the more fascinating.
A plaque on the house were she was born, or at least grew up in.
Not all of her movies have been mentioned, the above was just a few memorable highlights.
Thanks for watching!
Opinions of all kinds are very welcome
Deborah Kerr (1921–2007)
She had a background in ballet and theater before she entered the movies, not always in the most suitable roles but at the end the day she was nominated six times for an Oscar but never managed to convert any of them into winning the golden statuette. She had to settle for an honorary award in 1994, when she was hailed as “an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance”.
She made her movie debut in Contraband 1940, but we never got to see it since her scenes were deleted, her small part was as a "Cigarette girl". 45 years later she made her last movie role in The Assam Garden 1985. In between are the movies that made her into one of the big and beloved movie stars.
Now a trip down memory lane, this time this OP has combined two different "essentials" lists to get a bigger perspective, hopefully.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943, is were she really attracted attention playing three different roles.
Perfect Strangers aka Vacation from Marriage 1945, which sees Kerr and Robert Donat embark upon voyages of self-discovery when he joins the Royal Navy and she volunteers for the Women’s Royal Naval Service.
I See a Dark Stranger aka The Adventuress 1946, an espionage saga that sees her detour to the Isle of Man to retrieve details of the D-Day landings, while debating whether her loyalties lie with a persuasive quisling or a charming British intelligence officer.
Black Narcissus 1947, as a missionary in charge of a Himalayan medical outpost, whose vocation is tested by her inexperience and her emotions. In that role she also succeeded in avoided being upstaged by Kathleen Byron’s wild-eyed intensity as Sister Ruth.
From Here to Eternity 1953. Cast against type and dying her hair blonde she had what it took to play a lustful wanton by quipping: "I feel naked without my tiara".
Scene #106 still ranks among the most iconic in screen history, although the censors at the Breen Office were unhappy that Kerr was depicted atop Burt Lancaster in the Hawaiian surf.
The King and I 1956, Kerr gives one of her most enduringly popular performances. She was personally selected to play Anna Leonowens by Yul Brynner, who had essayed King Mongkut I on stage. Most of her singing is expertly dubbed by Marni Nixon, but Kerr can be heard on "I Whistle a Happy Tune" and she polkas with brio to "Shall We Dance".
Tea and Sympathy 1956, were her role tries to build a connection with a troubled young man in prep school, often inviting him alone to tea, and eventually falls in love with him, in part because of his many similarities to her first husband, who was killed in World War II.
Heaven Knows, Mr Allison 1957, alone on a small atoll in the Pacific Ocean, a nun and a marine combine their skills to survive, even when the atoll is overtaken by the Japanese during World War II.
Kerr opposed to co-star with Robert Mitchum, his rumor wasn't the best, but once they met they became friends for life.
An Affair to Remember 1958. Coming between Dream Wife 1953 and The Grass Is Greener 1960, this is the pick of Kerr’s collaborations with Cary Grant. Indeed, Leo McCarey’s CinemaScope and DeLuxe remake of his own 1939 best picture nominee was voted the fifth most romantic screen love story by the American Film Institute.
Separate Tables 1958, here Kerr plays a plain, sheltered spinster, who resides at Bournemouth hotel with her domineering mother, Gladys Cooper. Kerr and David Niven (as a bogus major) convey the kind of shabby gentility that would be swept away with the postwar cobwebs during the 1960's.
The Sundowners 1960. Kerr had forged a friendship with Robert Mitchum and she was delighted, therefore, when William Holden and Gary Cooper passed and Mitchum joined her down under for Fred Zinnemann’s adaptation of Jon Cleary’s novel, "Back of Beyond". Her splendid down-to-earth performance as a sheep drover’s wife trying to persuade her footloose spouse to settle down on a farm, was the last of her Oscar nominations. "All I did was feed her some lines" Mitchum declared "She did the rest. She’s really the one who can act".
Kerr and Mitchum would act together once more, in the TV-movie Reunion at Fairborough 1985.
The Innocents 1961. "No other performance in Kerr’s career captivates in quite the same manner, or raises more questions with repeated viewing, than her interpretation of the governess who convinces herself that her young charges have been corrupted by supernatural evil"
The Night of the Iguana 1964, as a virginal Nantucket artist who arrives at the Costa Verde hotel with her elderly poet grandfather. Kerr invests her role with a savvy serenity that makes the love triangle with Richard Burton’s disgraced Episcopal preacher and Ava Gardner’s bawdy widowed landlady all the more fascinating.
A plaque on the house were she was born, or at least grew up in.
Not all of her movies have been mentioned, the above was just a few memorable highlights.
Thanks for watching!
Opinions of all kinds are very welcome
.
In Spades!!!! 
. She was offered the role played by Jean Marsh in THE EAGLE HAS LANDED - a German spy!!!! Shame she didn't - would have been her first real villainess. 
- and she gave Otto Preminger what for on the set of TRISTESSE over his bullying of Seberg.
