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Yesteryear queen 
With her beauty and sophistication, Deborah Kerr took on Hollywood by storm. Ervell E. Menezes on the British actress who died recently 

When Deborah Kerr died recently at 86 not many of this generation was aware that she was one of Hollywood’s legends and in the 1950s she co-starred with the leading men of her time — Stewart Granger, Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster, Richard Burton and Yul Brynner. She easily found her way into the Hollywood biggies like King Solomon’s Mines, An Affair to Remember, The King and I and The Night of the Iguana.

The British-born actress who took Hollywood by storm was beautiful and yet sophisticated at a time when beauty was in and everyday faces like Carrie Snodgress and Jill Clayburg were yet to appear on the realism horizon.

It was a time of our youth when we were yet to be initiated into the finer points of cinema and films like King Solomon’s Mines and From Here to Eternity were virtual cult cinema. Seeing this pretty woman in the wilds of Africa alongside the graying sideburns hero Stewart Granger is very much etched in memory. And what about The King and I with the original baldy Brynner in the remake of Anna and the King of Siam where she has the lines Shall We Dance (thrice) which decades later Hollywood regurgitated into the film of the same name starring  Richard Gere.

Born in Helensburg, near Glasgow in Scotland she made her appearance on the stage and a number of British films like Contraband and Hatter’s Castle before leaving British shores in 1947. Britain’s loss was Hollywood’s gain and the rest was, as they say, is now history. She was six times nominated for the Best Actress Oscar but never won it but in1994 she was awarded the Special Lifetime Achievement Oscar which was among the clips the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired on her death along with some of her best films and the till then most passionate kiss with Burt Lancaster in that war epic From Here to Eternity.

"The scene atop the Empire State Building with Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember is another classic, another Hollywood remake which they churn out with assembly line precision, immortalising both the Big Apple and the famed landmark. Even as late as 1964 she was cast opposite Richard Burton as the defrocked Catholic priest with the vivacious Ava Gardener in that Tennessee Williams drama The Night of the Iguana a bold enough subject then because it dealt with gigolos even though they were then known as beach boys.

The anecdotes are many, there was The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) with Granger again and James Mason and other memorable movies like Separate Tables, The Sundowners and The Grass is Greener, all before 1960. You name any film and Ms Kerr was sure to be in it, she was a virtual Hollywood trademark. And did she do justice to her roles? That probably went without saying.

Among her latter films is Gypsy Moths (1969) made by another Hollywood great John Frankenheimer and is about sky-diving. Apart from some outstanding aerial camerawork it captures Frankenheimer’s experimentation with cinema as he delves into the psyche of these daring men (the other was Gene Hackman) and how they found life and death on a small town tour. He did the same with Formula One race drivers in Grand Prix with Yves Montand, James Garner and Eva Marie Saint doing the honours. But Gypsy Moths is also known for another first, her first nude scene. Guess in 1969 nudity was being brought into Hollywood from the front door. But that surely won’t be the best reason for which Deborah Kerr will be remembered.

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