A Cinematic *ScrapBook* on Deborah Kerr
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EVEN THE MOST DARING STORIES
can be told and even brought to films when done
with courage, honesty and good taste.
FLASHBACKS ~ RECOLLECTIONS ~ and REMEMBRANCES . . . !
"Count Your Blessings" - one and all - Deborah Kerr is RETIRED AND RESTING with family and friends . . . and with this her faithful fans and industry wish her well . . . !
Once known as one of the screen's "Perfect Ladies," an honor she shared with the likes of Irene Dunne, Grace Kelly, Myrna Loy and Greer Garson, Deborah for a while threatened to become one of the screen's "perfect headliner." But now that the clouds have disapeared and the sun is slowly emerging, it is apparent that Deborah's ladylike qualities have always been there, and have doubtless sustained her through some humiliating and heartrendering personal publicity.
Her two daughters have been a chief concern during this trying time, and both she and their father have wished to spare them as much as possible. Despite all this, Deborah has had her light moments in a number of motion pictures here and abroad with the likes of . . . LOVE ON THE DOLE ~ THE ADVENTURESS ~ PLEASE BELIEVE ME ~ DREAM WIFE ~ COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS ~ THE KING AND I ~ THE GRASS IS GREENER ~ PRUDENCE AND THE PILL ~ MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS ~ etc., etc., etc.
The fans who love Deborah and the special distinction she lends to every part she played on-screen, still think of her as "gentle and womanly and good," to cop a phrase from one of her most die-hart fans! But falks, we're betting that her admirers, loyal fans and friends feel that this grande dame has at last reached a "quiet place" in her life, and wish her the better health, happiness and peace of mind!
A new DAY WILL DAWN . . . HAVE A GOOD LIFE . . . from now through ETERNITY!
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BS - Flint, Michigan
SOME SYMPATHETIC TEA
Hollywood has dared to bring to the screen Robert Anderson's highly controversial play, Tea and Sympathy, which deals with people who seem to be different. Its delicate theme is done with deep understanding and characterization - not with sneers and snickers. Deborah Kerr is excellent as the sympathetic housemother and John Kerr is equally outstanding as the young man with a sensitive nature who dares to be a non-conformist. To those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who don't, the movie is worth seeing at least twice - and the reading of 'the letter' at its end will shatter your sheltered mind.
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"Hollywood moviemakers concluded I wasn't a woman but a lady; prissy and fragil ~ I yearned to sink my teeth into some roles I could chew on."
Louis B. Mayer created an image of me . . . "The high-minded long suffering, white gloved decorative lady," says Deborah
"I'm such a dreadful ham, but as wholesome to take as milk."
"She is the sort of creature who could be photographed ambling, disheaveled, out of a place of assignation, or doing the hully-gully, naked, on the Golden Gate bridge, and draw no more comment from the public than 'Lovely girl.'"
"I know people don't think of me as humorous. I don't think they do. People think of me as a rather staid person ~~ which I'm not at all!"
"Men like the excitement of the chase. they wish to be the hunter, so, if a woman is out to capture her man, she had better make him believe that he is getting her. Keep him pleased with himself. Don't boss him. Men love to complain that they're henpecked, they can't call their souls their own, and so on, but no woman ever got anywhere if she tried to dominate the household. If a girl really wants something, she must let him think it was all his idea . . . and how clever of him!"
"David Niven and I are like a circus together. The awful trouble is, we breake each other up laughing so hard. We shouldn't be allowed to work together anymore because we have too much fun. We've done all kinds of vaudeville bits and awful private jokes. Nobody else can understand them and I couldn't explain them. But it leaves us in tears. I've known David since I was 17 and I don't think that he has changed not an iota."
"I hat unkindness. I know one shouldn't tolerate fools. And I've done it often. That's one of my biggest failing ~ I'm too kind. But there's just too much unkindness in the world so how can I be unkind? I can be shocked. But to come out in print and attack somebody? Whatever for, unless I'm going to be some horrible creature and earn my living doing it. Then I'd feel I'd touched rock bottom. I'd rather wait on tables somewhere."
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Produced and Directed by FRED ZINNEMANN
Deborah Kerr + Robert Mitchum, with
Peter Ustinov - Glynis Johns - Michael Anderson Jr. - Dina Merrill - Chips Rafferty and Lola Brooks, Wylie Watson, Mervyn Johns.
Available on WARNER HOME VIDEO
Director Fred Zinnemann was riding a crest in the 1950s with movies like HIGH NOON, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, OKLAHOMA, and his success continues in this western-style drama set in Australia in the 1920s. Ida Carmody (Deborah Kerr) is married to Paddy (Robert Mitchum), a sheep drover whose normadic existence makes him blissfully content. neither Ida nor their son Sean share his love for roaming, in fact, Ida convinces her husband to take on a job as a sheep-shearer so they can finally have enough to get a mortgage on a farm. At first Paddy agrees but obviously does not know his own mind because in no time at all, he rebels - though that is not the end of it. Peter Ustinov is also featured as Venneker, a bachelor who comes to stay with the family, and Glynnis Johns plays a hotelkeeper out to change Venneker's non-marital status.
"the S U N D O W N E R S" is
Honestly Engrossing !
AWARDS:
Deborah Kerr: 1960 Academy Nominee, Best Actress
Isobel Lennart: 1960 Academy Nominee, Best Adapted Screenplay
Fred Zinnemann: 1960 Academy Nominee, Best Director
1960 Academy Nominee, Best Picture
1960 National Board of Review of Motion Pict Nominee, Best Actor
Fred Zinnemann: 1960 New York Film Critics Circle Award Nominee, Best Direction
Deborah Kerr: 1960 New York Film Critics Circle Award Winner, Best Actress
1960 National Board of Review of Motion Picture nominee, 10 Best Films
Glynis Johns: 1960 Academy Nominee, Best Supporting Actress
Fred Zinnemann: 1961 British Academy Awards Nominee, Best British Film
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RETIRED AND RESTING
Please believe me, Mr. Allison, I count my blessings for EDWARD, MY SON - FROM HERE TO ETERNITY - THE KING AND I - HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON - SEPARATE TABLES - THE SUNDOWNERS - and all the goodness that was there for me to work with inbetween; remembering Cary Grant in AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER - what a dear man. The calm and loyal Clark Gable in THE HUCKSTERS, David Niven - my dear friend for many years - in SEPARATE TABLES, Burt Lancaster and I rolled and rolled in those waves for hours and had a dickens of a time keeping the sands out of our suits - we never won that battle - in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. There were other films, many that I still remember, and those wonderful people I worked with all those years.
And now ~~ so many years later ~~ I have the joy of my family and dear Hollywood friends. My life has always been a great rewarding journey from my very first begining with Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller in MAJOR BARBARA - through to that well-remembered 'ETERNITY' role, right up to the present and even my TV work! Many thanks to you the readers and loving fans - and my HOLLYWOOD family . . . well do I remember Spencer Tracy, Mr. Gable, Stewart Granger, Yul Brynner, Richard Burton, Mr. Sinatra, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Robert Taylor, Bill Holden, Robert Donat, Alan Ladd, Rossano Brazzi, David Niven, Trevor Howard, Roger Livasy, David Farrar, and certainly Mr. Allison ~ my bestest buddy ~ Bob Mitchum!
Most of my Hollywood friends are gone and I miss them dearly . . .
It's difficult to single out a favorite actor because honestly, it wouldn't be fair. I've learned so much from all of them and had fascinating experiences with them all.
Very sincerely with best wishes to everyone for my memories . . .
"A Woman of Substantial Charm!" Six Dozen Red Roses From Her Co-Star . . . Plain, and Soft-Spoken Deborah Kerr Dislikes Her Image As a 'L a d y' taged on by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio boss - Louis B. Mayer - back in the mid 1940s.
'A SPIRITUAL FACE OF A LOVELY VIRGIN' . . . Should she be good or should she be bad? The long debated question of SAINT vs. SINNER regarding the pulsing Miss Deborah Kerr first raised its head when two conflicting stories about her discovery were told. One account of her first meeting with director~producer Gabriel Pascal, who first put her before the cinema audience in the United Artists classic "MAJOR BARBARA," has him saying, "you have a spiritual face ~~ like a lovely virgin!" The other has him exclaiming, "that hairdo! you look like a fallen woman!" But a succession of sweet-and-pure parts - on both sides of the Atlantic - soon settled the matter for her growing public. She was, they decided, a saint. Then a day of revelation for the "sinner" advocates (and that included Deborah herself) struck when her necking scene in the Columbia Academy Award-winning production of "FROM HERE TO ETERNITY" had a head-on collision with the censors. "This is marvelous," she gleefully chortled. "At last they realize I've got sex!" The racy scenes notwithstanding, there are those who persist to this very day in thinking that in real life Ms. Kerr is even more unaware of sin than the nun she plays in the 20th Century-fox production of "HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON."
She sounds no more a sinner than the next person ~~ and no more a saint. The preeminent English gentlewoman, Deborah Kerr performed with a ladylike spiritedness and wholesome sincerity that proved equally popular in Great Britain and America.
DAVID NIVEN: March 1st,1910 - July 29th,1983 Five pairing films with Deborah Kerr . . . This time I won't help you - you guess . . . !
* * * * * *
in Deborah Kerr's HOLLYWOOD
During the LIFE and TIMES of the
Deborah Kerr Film Career . . .
for Deborah Kerr
Complete and (in part)
"She is the most no problem star I've ever worked with," says William Holden. "A wonderfully generous person," says director Walter Lang. Robert Mitchum says: ~~ "She dignifies everyone with whom she works. John Kerr expressed himself this way: ~~ "I've never known anyone like her. She never makes a fuss over anything." But as far as Deborah is concerned, the "ETERNITY" thing and her "TEA AND SYMPATHY" (M-G-M) role, a woman who puts compassion before virtue, blew the lid off the saint myth for all time. Thrilled at the long-awaited chance to be human, she has taken to being photographed in bathing suits and has dispensed with her former shyness and begun to talk more freely about herself and her problems. "Since people finally realize I'm not really the aloof, ice-water type, they're much warmer and friendlier toward me. It's wonderful! I'm convinced that many other woman who now are thought to be cold and unresponsive would find themselves a lot happier - and surely more desirable - if they let loose a bit and acted more warmly toward people."
How she loves it now that she is asked her opinions of sex appeal, just as if she were queen of a wicked underworld. And she happily answers, "Certainly not the popular conception ~~ a bosomy wench in a tight dress, with a leer, a wiggle and a wet mouth and little else. That's phony. True faminine appeal means just letting out one's human desires and feekings, preparing to love and be loved, learning how to give affection and respond fully to true affection when it's given."
A stage actress in her late teens, Deborah graduated from a small role in Major Barbara that led to three skillfully varied roles in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and an authoritative nun in Black Narcissus; afterward, MGM brought her to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters.
A decorative period - King Solomon's Mines and others - did not take advantage of her surprising intensity, but her self-possession and well-bred personality worked to advantage in these popular films.
for Deborah Kerr
1940s - 1950s
Deborah Kerr in character with Jenny Hill for "MAJOR BARBARA" - 1940
SYDNEY GREENSTREET: December 27th,1879 - January 18th,1954 Remember him from "THE HUCKSTERS" with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Keenan Wynn, and Deborah Kerr in 1947 released by MGM
MARK STEVENS: February 13th,1920 - September 15th,1994 He worked with Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, Spring Byington, and Deborah Kerr in "PLEASE BELIEVE ME" 1950 for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
LEO GENN: August 9th,1905 - January 26th,1978 In 1951 MGM released a masterpiece with stars such as Robert Taylor + Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov with Mr. Genn in one of his finest performances - can you recall this colorful arena film ?
ROBERT MORLEY: May 25th,1908 - June 3rd,1992 Among his films are "MAJOR BARBARA" and "THE JOURNEY" with Jason Robards Jrn., Yul Brynner + Deborah Kerr for this MGM release in 1959
MARIE AULT: Born - 1869 Died - 1951 British character actress and
comedienne is best remembered for her fingernail-on-the-charlkboard
portrayal of Rummy Mitchens in 1941s MAJOR BARBARA. In addition to appearing in feature films, she also worked
and played on the British stage.
She was born . . . Mary Cragg
TORIN THATCHER: January 15th,1905 - March 4th,1981
Born in India to British parents . . . he worked with Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller in MAJOR BARBARA, and with Trevor Howard + Deborah Kerr in I SEE A DARK STRANGER, and as the evil sorcerer Sokurah in the 1957 fantasy flick SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD
SYBIL THORNDIKE: October 24th,1882 - June 9th,1976
STANLEY HOLLOWAY: October 1st,1890 - January 30th,1982
DONALD CALTHROP: April 11th,1888 - July 15th,1940
ROBERT NEWTON: June 1st,1905 - March 25th,1956
Professionally, British actor (greatly talented) in such classics as HATTER'S CASTLE, OLIVER TWIST, and TREASURE ISLAND as Blackbeard the Pirate
[] END *[dkfrs]*
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