Deborah Kerr

Book excerpt: Blessed with a natural beauty, Scotland-born actress Deborah Kerr (1921-2007) provided the cinema with memorable studies of English gentility. A star in British pictures before she was 21 and a Hollywood fixture from 1946 on, she projected a cool reserve and stoic nobility, often hinting at passion and insecurity beneath the surface. Frequently portraying selfless, sympathetic women, she was brilliant in such roles as Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1956). And in a fascinating departure from her normal range, her portrayal of the sexually frustrated Army wife in From Here to Eternity (1953) resulted in the screen's most famous "clinch"--the beach scene with Burt Lancaster. Though she never won an Academy Award despite six nominations, Deborah Kerr received an honorary Oscar in 1994.