#cinea

On September 30th 1921 Hollywood film star Deborah Kerr was born in Glasgow.

She spent the first three years of her life in the nearby town of Helensburgh, where her parents lived with Deborah’s grandparents in a house on West King Street. The town hail her as one of their own. Kerr had a younger brother, Edmund (“Teddy”), who became a journalist. He was killed in a road rage incident in 2004.

Deborah was a ballet dancer, appearing at Sadler’s Wells no less, before switching to acting when she became too tall. The theatre would become her first love, despite her enormous movie success, and she returned to it time and again.

Despite numerous nominations Kerr was to spend her career with only one major honour (a Golden Globe) from the various ceremonies she attended, 6 Academy Award Nominations, 4 BAFTA Award Nominations, and 1 Primetime Emmy Award Nomination, her credits would include some fantastic films including, from here to Eternity, King Solomon’s Mines, Separate Tables and Julius Caesar, her costars read like a who’s who of Hollywood greats, Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, James Grainger, Hayley Mills and Cary Grant amongst many others.

For me there are two films that stand out for Deborah, the first, From here to Eternity and THAT beach scene with Burt Lancaster, where they were said to have had an affair, and one of my mums favourite films, The King and I, it’s a pity she didn’t have the voice to sing in the film, they were dubbed over, but the chemistry between Kerr and Yul Bymer was a joy to watch, he won best actor, Kerr had to make do with a Golden Globe, her only award in her career.

Deborah Kerr has been described as “an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance.” and in 1994, having already received honorary awards from the Cannes Film Festival and BAFTA she would finally get her hands on a coveted Oscar, albeit an honorary one.