Oscar Profile #639: Deborah Kerr Revisited

Born September 30, 1921, Deborah Kerr was a ballet trained dancer turned actress who made a stunning screen debut in 1941’s Major Barbara in support of Wendy Hiller and Rex Harrison. Her performance caused such a sensation that she was immediately cast in the lead in the same year’s Love on the Dole. Her career gained further momentum with A.J. Cronin’s Hatter’s Castle in 1942 and The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp, in which she played three characters, in 1943.

Kerr was a sensation in 1945’s Vacation from Marriage opposite the legendary Robert Donat which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. With the dual success of Black Narcissus and I See a Dark Stranger (aka The Adventuress) for which she won the New York Film Critics award as Best Actress of 1947, it was inevitable that she would be brought to Hollywood where her first starring role was opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters.

Hollywood directors continued to cast her in high profile lady-like roles including 1949’s Edward, My Son opposite Spencer Tracy for which she received her first Oscar nomination. In 1953, Fred Zinnemann cast her against type as the colonel’s nymphomaniac wife in From Here to Eternity for which she received her second Oscar nomination in the year’s Best Picture winner. 1955’s The End of the Affair brought her first BAFTA nomination. The following year she was nominated for her second for Tea and Sympathy. That same year, she earned her third Oscar nomination for The King and I.

Firmly established as one of the screen’s great actresses, Kerr won her second New York Film Critics award for 1957’s Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison which earned her a fourth Oscar nomination. It was her other 1957 film, An Affair to Remember, however, that has had a more enduring popularity.

1958’s Separate Tables brought Kerr a fifth Oscar nomination. 1960’s The Sundowners saw her become the first performer to win a third New York Film Critics award. It also earned her a third BAFTA nomination as well as a sixth Oscar nomination, setting a new record for the performer with the most Oscar nominations without a win. 1964’s The Chalk Garden earned her a fourth BAFTA nomination.

A series of less than stellar films in the late 1960s hastened the end of her once brilliant career. In later years she appeared occasionally on TV, most notably in Elsa Lanchester’s role in the 1982 remake of The Witness for the Prosecution opposite Ralph Richardson, and the 1984 miniseries, A Woman of Substance in which she played the older version of Jenny Seagrove’s title character, a kitchen maid who rises to head of a corporate empire.

Deborah Kerr was awarded a career achievement BAFTA at the 1990 awards. She was accorded the same at the 1993 Oscars presented by Glenn close who now ironically holds the record for the actress with the most Oscar nominations without a win at 8. At the time, Kerr still held that record with 6, which she would retain until her death in 2007 two weeks after her 86th birthday.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

BLACK NARCISSUS (1947), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Still considered the most beautifully photographed film ever made in a studio, the background matte painting of the Himalayas is so breathtakingly real that anyone seeing the film without knowing its background would swear it was shot on location. The entire film is brilliant from start to finish, but it’s Kerr’s portrayal of Sister Clodagh, the conflicted Anglican nun, that grabs your attention and refuses to let go. She won the new York Film Critics Award jointly for this performance and the one in the same year’s I See a Dark Stranger (aka The Adventuress) in which she is almost as good.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953), directed by Fred Zinnemann

James Jones’ blistering best-seller about the days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was toned down considerably to conform to the guidelines within the Hollywood Production Code. What remains is still quite strong, with Kerr’s sizzling roll in the sand with Burt Lancaster one of the most talked about scenes in the history of film. Her portrayal of the nymphomaniac wife of a shady Colonel may be borderline supporting, but she makes every moment count. The performances of Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Kerr, Frank Sinatra, and Donna Reed made up 5 of the film’s 13 Oscar nominations and 2 of its 8 wins for Sinatra and Reed.

TEA AND SYMPATHY (1956), directed by Vincente Minnelli

Reprising her Broadway triumph as the housemaster’s wife in Tea and Sympathy, Kerr was at her most radiant. Although her Oscar nomination that year was for her splendid Mrs. Anna in The King and I, this is one she should have been nominated for. She is heartbreaking as the woman who must stand by and watch as her husband (Leif Erickson) and the boarding school students mercilessly tease sensitive boarder John Kerr, finally taking it upon herself to offer him more than a little tea and sympathy. No one who has seen has ever forgotten her immortal last line , “when you talk about this…and you will…be kind.”

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957), directed by Leo McCarey

For the second year in a row Kerr was nominated for an Oscar for the wrong film. As good as she was as the nun in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison opposite Robert Mitchum, she was even better as the nightclub singer who has a shipboard romance with Cary Grant in Leo McCarey’s remake of his own Love Affair. McCarey’s remake has both more humor and more pathos. Of all the actresses who remade Irene Dunne originals, none was superior to Dunne except Kerr in both this and the prior year’s The King and I, the musical remake of 1946’s Anna and the King of Siam.

THE CHALK GARDEN (1964), directed by Ronald Neame

1964 was another year in which Kerr excelled in two legendary roles. John Huston’s film of Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana paired her with Richard Burton and Ava Gardner while The Chalk Garden paired her with Edith Evans and Hayley Mills. She was a spinster in both, the granddaughter of an aged poet in the former, and a governess with a shady past in the latter. It was for the latter that Kerr received her fourth BAFTA nomination, the last awards recognition of her career despite her having been overshadowed by Evans who was Oscar nominated for her portrayal of Mills’ grandmother.