Crossword Dictionary

Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr, original name Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer, (born September 30, 1921, Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, Scotland—died October 16, 2007, Suffolk, England), British film and stage actress known for the poise and serenity she exhibited in portraying complex characters.

Kerr trained as a dancer in her aunt’s drama school in Bristol, England. She won a scholarship to Sadler’s Wells ballet school and at age 17 made her professional dancing debut in London in the corps de ballet of Prometheus. Discovering an interest in acting, Kerr began playing bit parts in various Shakespeare productions. 

In 1941 she made her British film debut in a supporting role as a Salvation Army volunteer in the film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara. She developed her acting skills enough to be hired as a leading lady and portrayed the major role of Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus (1947), for which she won her first New York Film Critics’ Circle Award (her subsequent awards were for Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison [1957] and The Sundowners [1960]). 

 After 1947 Kerr established herself in Hollywood, typecast by MGM—in what Kerr referred to as “tiara roles”—as a well-bred young British matron. Director Fred Zinnemann at Columbia, in a risk-taking gesture, cast Kerr (on loan from MGM) against type in the role of a lusty, adulterous army wife in From Here to Eternity (1953), hoping that Kerr’s ladylike poise would provide an interesting contrast to her character’s seamy past. The scene from that film of Kerr and her costar Burt Lancaster making love on the beach as waves crash against them has become a classic Hollywood image and remains one of the steamiest in film history.