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Secrets of
a Life On Stage -
and Off
Stanley (Augustus) Holloway
Actor and Singer
Born London, England, October 1st, 1890
Died Littlehampton, Sussex, England, January 30th, 1982
Cathleen Nesbitt
Actress
Born Liskeard, Cheshire, England, November 24th, 1888
Died London, England, August 2nd. 1982
David Niven
British Actor
Born Kirriemuir, Scotland, March 1st, 1910
Died Chateau d'Oex, Switzerland,
July 29th, 1983
Deborah Kerr, like Ingrid bergman before her, won a place
in the hearts of the public as a ladylike, regal human being who would never in the world violate an Emily Post dictate, let
alone one of the commandments.
This star won this place by virtue of the movie roles which were given to her
- nuns, society matrons, teachers. She always seemed above reproch - in the movies. And the public accepted this image of
the woman.
There is growing disillusionment with Deborah, who is actually an attractive,
statuesque, lady-like actress who has recently found herself bogged down in a marital scandal that, considering the real personalities
of those involved, was forseeable by those close to Deborah.
Many have compared the Case of Deborah Kerr with the Case of Ingrid Bergman.
The similarity between the two women in many respects is striking: each is beautiful, cultured, well-educated, possesses good
manners, was born in a country where women are regarded by outsiders as sexually cold, is a devoted mother and - perhaps most
significantly - each has portrayed a nun on the screen so convincingly that the public attributed nun-like qualities of viryue
and chastity to them that spilled over into their real lives.
In her "nun movies," Deborah played a nun so convincingly in "Heaven Knows,
Mr. Allison," that not even movie reprobate Bob Mitchum could bring himself to seduce her even though they were on a desert
island and Miss Kerr's nun did fidget for Mitchum beneath her habit - but her virtue saved the day.
A veteran producer stated the case very simply when he said, "A nun just can't
get caught fooling around." Obviously, Deborah is not a nun, nor has she ever pretended to be one, except on screen. Still,
she is a lady and has always behaved like one. How then did she get into her present mess?
Deborah was born in Scotland in 1921. Her parents wwell-to-do, proper folks
and they raised her with due regard for the morals and manners then in vogue. She attended ballet school, intending to be
a dancer but soon joined a repertory theater which she decided was "more fun and besides I didn't want my legs to bulge with
muscles." Her face and stage presence didn't elude the movie scouts who quickly signed her for a part in Shaw's :Major
Barbara." After three more films she played a nun in "Black Narcissus" and was a star in America as well as England.
In her private life, her fiance, RAF officer Anthony Bartley returned home
from the war and after a short "second courtship" they were married in November of 1945. Bartley, high in Britsh society,
was the perfect husband for Deborah, who at that precise moment in her career was just a promising newcomer. Tony, however,
knew that one day his wife would become a star. With his social and political contacts he had no difficulty finding a spot
in Britain's government-owned TV industry, which was then just a glimmer in the eye of the BBC. He worked long and hard at
BBC whil Deborah made several more films and had their first child, Melanie.
At that point in her career she received her first Hollywood offer. She took
it, knowing it would separate her from her husband. And it was at this point that her marriage began to slowly disintegrate.
Her husband was unwilling to tag after her and become Mr. Deborah Kerr - he insisted on staying at his job to support his
family. Their marriage became a part-time affair.
A second child was born and Deborah was voted one of the top box office draws
in the world. Her earnings skyrocketed and as they did Tony Bartley's hope of ever being the big earner in the family faded.
"I tried to get Deborah to stay in London," says Tony, "hoping we could all
be together more, but she was getting more and more location assignments and I couldn't back up and follow her and she
felt she couldn't turn them down. It was inevitable that our marriage would disintegrate. It didn't explode. It just fell
to pieces."
Bartley grew moody and more sullen with each separation. Rumors of discreet
"little affairs" began to drift back to him. Column items linking Deborah Kerr with Yul Brynner, John Huston and others began
popping up. Finally, yearly in 1958 when Deborah's name appeared with that international playboy Peter Viertel, Bartley called
it quits and in desperation filed divorce proceeding accusing Viertel of "enticing" his wife.
Viertel immediately denied Bartley's charges. He aserted that he was a married
man and that his relationship with Deborah was "only professional." This statement was greeted uproariously by Viertel's friends
who knew that his "professional relationships" have been with several of Hollywood's most publicly amoral women, including
Ava Gardner.
Deborah, as the storm of public condemnation grew stronger, went into seclusion.
She refused to see anyone or discuss Viertel. Viertel, meanwhile popped up all over the continent with a succession of beauties
but finally admitted his intention of marrying Deborah.
The only certain thing that emerges from what little knowledge that we have
of the Kerr, Bartley, Viertel triangle is that all during their married lives Deborah and her husband lived their private
lives discreetly out of the public gaze, but since her infatuation with Viertel the public has been admitted into the private
marital chamber.
Obviously, her new fiance, Peter Viertel, is one of those people who relishes
seeing his name smeared across the pages of the morning tabloids so, for Deborah, the nun image, the royalty image, has been
smashed forever. She has now been pushed into the muddy and turbulent cesspool of scandal, where she is likely to remain as
long as she finds herself attracted to international playboy and ladykiller Peter Viertel.
END
John Phillip
Law
September 7th, 1937 - May 13th, 2008
Harvey
Korman
February 15th, 1927 - May 29th, 2008
Dom DeLuise
August 1st, 1933 - May 4th, 2009
Dick Martin
January 30th, 1922 - May 24th, 2008
Sydney Pollack
July 1st, 1934 - May 26th, 2008
Deborah Kerr
Friday,
September 30th, 1921 - Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
Frith Banbury
May 4th, 1912 - May 14th, 2008
Barbara Bel Geddes
October 31st, 1922 - August 8th, 2005
Jon-Erik Hexum
1957 - 1984
Natasha Richardson
1963 - 2009
Dinah Shore
1917 - 1999
Joseph Cotten
1905 - 1999
Van Johnson
1916 - 2008
Shirley Booth
1898 - 1992
Sir Anthony Hope
1863 - 1933
Humphrey Bogart
1899 - 1957
James Broderick
1927 - 1982
James
Mason
1909 - 1984
Leo Genn
1905 - 1978
Dan Dailey
1917 - 1978
Montgomery Clift
1920 - 1966
Stewart Granger
1913 - 1993
Rita Hayworth
1918 - 1987
Susan Hayward
1919 - 1975
Jerry Orbach
1935 - 2004
Donna Reed
1921 - 1986
Peter Lawford
1923 - 1984
Robert Taylor
1911 - 1969
Alan Ladd
1913 - 1964
Arthur Miller
1915 - 2005
Harold Pinter
1930 - 2008
Eartha Kitt
1927 - 2008
James Whale
1886 - 1957
Charlton Heston
1924 - 2008
Clark Gable
1901 - 1960
James Coco
1929 - 1987
Paul Lynde
1926 - 1982
Cesar Romero
1907 -
1994
Erhard Ulbrich
Beverly Garland
1926 - 2008
Paul Scofield
1922 - 2008
Patricia Nixon
1912 - 1993
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
1929 - 1994
Anthony Perkins
1932 - 1992
Brad Davis
1949 - 1991
Sal Mineo
1939 - 1976
Randolph Scott
1898 - 1987
Roy Rogers
1911 - 1998
Eric Portman
1901 - 1969
Martita Hunt
1896 - 1969
Cary Grant
1904 - 1986
Gladys Cooper
1889 -1971
William Haines
1900 - 1973
David Lewis
1903 - 1987
Liberace
1919 - 1987
Dan Blocker
1928 - 1972
Ruth Warrick
1915 - 2005
Virginia Mayo
1920 - 2003
Frances Farmer
1913 - 1970
Cecil Kellaway
1893 - 1973
Larry Oliver
1879 - 1973
Arthur Shields
1896 - 1970
Stephen Boyd
1931 - 1977
Lex Barker
1919 -1973
Dame Anna Neagle
1904 - 1986
John F. Kennedy Jr.
1960 - 1999
Prince Rainier III of Monaco
1923 - 2005
Bob Fosse
1927 - 1987
Mary Astor
1906 -1987
Burt
Lancaster
1913 - 1994
Cyd
Charisse
1921 - 2008
Deborah Kerr
1921 - 2007
Mamie Eisenhower
1896 - 1979
Orson Welles
1915 - 1985
Elso Lanchester
1902 -1986
Ed Sullivan
1901 - 1974
Maurice Chevalier
1888 - 1972
Ethel Waters
1896 - 1977
Peggy Wood
1892 - 1978
Leo G. Carroll
1892 - 1972
Buster Crabbe
1907 - 1983
Queen Elizabeth
the Queen Mother
Grande Dame of the
British Royal Family
August 4, 1900 - March 30, 2002
Died in her sleep at the age of 101
Martita Hunt
1900 - 1969
Beulah Bondi
1888 - 1981
Ruth Roman
1923 - 1999
John Raitt
1917 - 2005
Dandra Dee
1942 - 2005
Robert Ryan
1913 - 1994
Frank Sinatra
1915 - 1998
Yul Brynner
1920 - 1985
Ossie Davis
1917 - 2005
Fredric March
1897 - 1975
Ilka Chase
1905 - 1978
Robert Coote
"The Prisoner of Zenda"
"Prudence and the Pill"
1909 - 1982
VIP Passings
Beverly Garland
American Actress:
October 17th, 1926 - December 5th, 2008
Robert Anderson, Playwright:
April 28th, 1917 - February 9th, 2009
Tennessee Williams
Playwright:
Born Columbus, Mississippi, USA, March 26th, 1911
Died New York, New York, USA, February 25th, 1983
Arthur Godfrey
Radio and Television Personality:
Born New York, New York, USA, August 31st, 1903
Died New York, New York, USA, March 16th, 1983
Sir Ralph Richardson
British Actor:
Born Cheltenham, England, December 19th, 1902
Died London, October 11th, 1983
Robert Anderson, 91, Playwright,
Dies;
Made Name With "Tea
and Sympathy"
He had six plays on Broadway between 1953 and
1971, beginning with "Tea and Sympathy," the story of a sensitive, artistic boy who is ostracized by his prep school classmates
as a supposed homosexual but who is befriended - and ultimately sexually initiated - by the housemaster's wife.
"Tea and Sympathy," directed by Elia Kazan, starred Deborah Kerr in her Broadway
debut, fresh from her steamy role as an adultress in "From Here to Eternity." The play, which later became a film, ends with
a scene considered salacious at the time and a famous final line. The housemaster's wife, after leaving her husband, draws
the student into her arms and says, "Years from now when you speak of this - and you will - be kind."
"Tea and Sympathy" ran for nearly two years and made a name for Mr. Anderson
as a writer who tackled serious subjects with sensitivity and accessibility, qualities that, as the years went by, drew both
praise and scorn.
"Tea and Sympathy," Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times, "restores our
theater to an art again with a fine play put on the stage with great skill and beauty."
Mr. Anderson followed "Tea and Sympathy" with a series of works that were also
emotionally high-pitched but nowhere near as successful.
Jeffrey Hunter
1926 - 1969
Andrew Newell Wyeth III
"Christina's World" painting
1917 - 2009
John Phillip
Law
1937 - 2008
Ray Walston
1914 - 2001
Charles Bronson
1921 - 2003
Peter Miles
1938 - 2002
Aaron Spelling
1923 - 2006
Ingrid Bergman
1915 - 1982
Richard Burton
1925 - 1984
Jack Palance
1919 - 2006
Hermione Gingold
1897 - 1987
Helen Hayes
1900 - 1993
Ava Gardner
1922 - 1990
Paul
Newman
1925 - 2008
Edmund Purdom
1924 - 2009
Private Lives
and Goodbyes
The following is a selected list of prominent
men and women who have passed away
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'ETERNITY'
MEETS AN END
In Academy Award
annals, aside from "Midnight Cowboy," "All About Eve" and "Mutiny on the Bounty," one other best picture winner received multiple
lead acting bids that apparently canceled each other out - 1953s "From Here to Eternity." Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift
both fell to William Holden ("Starlag 17").
"THE 1970s USHERED IN A NEW WAVE OF SUCCESSFUL ACTORS..."
Jane Fonda
Venessa Redgrave
Eva Marie Saint
Meryl Streep
Sally Field
Rod Steiger
Sidney Poitier
Jon Voight
Robert Redford
and John Travolta
". . .WHAT SET THEM APART WAS THEIR ABILITY
TO TRANSCEND PUBLIC PERSONA BY PLAYING DEEP, REAL-LIFE CHARACTERS."
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Sir John Gielgud:
BORN: April 14th, 1904
DIED: May 21st, 2000
Louis Calhern:
BORN: February 16th, 1895
DIED: May 12th, 1956
E. G. Marshall:
BORN: June 8th, 1910
DIED: August 24th, 1998
Mervyn Johns:
BORN: February 18th, 1899
DIED: 1992
Sir Ralph Richardson:
BORN: December 19th, 1902
DIED: October 10th, 1983
Charles Laughton:
BORN: July 1st, 1899
DIED: December 15th, 1962
Richard Burton:
BORN: November 10th, 1925
DIED: August 5th, 1984
Sydney Greenstreet:
BORN: December 27th, 1879
DIED: January 18th, 1954
Sir Peter Ustinov:
BORN: April 16th, 1921
DIED:
David Niven:
BORN: March 1st, 1910
DIED: July 29th, 1983
Sir Michael Redgrave:
BORN: March 20th, 1908
DIED: March 21st, 1985
Montgomery Clift:
BORN: October 7th, 1920
DIED: July 23rd, 1966
Burt Lancaster:
BORN: November 2nd, 1913
DIED: October 20th, 1994
Robert Newton:
BORN: June 1st, 1905
DIED: March 25th, 1956
Rex Harrison:
BORN: March 5th, 1908
DIED: June 2nd, 1990
James Mason:
BORN: May 15th, 1909
DIED July 27th, 1984
Kitty Carlisle Hart:
BORN: September 3rd, 1910
DIED: April 17th, 2007 in her
Manhattan apartment of
pneumonia at age 96.
Gordon Scott:
BORN: August 3rd, 1926
DIED: April 30th, 2007
in Baltimore of post-heart
surgery complications.
Jeff Richards:
BORN: November 1st, 1922
DIED: July 28th, 1989
Fernandel: (1903-1971)
French comedian and character actor, noted for his expressive, flexible face, his
good-natured, dry humor, and his flair for pantomine. Born on May 8th, 1903, he died in Paris on February 26th, 1971.
Barry Fitzgerald: (1888-1961)
Irish actor who was often cast in quarrelsome but lovable roles. He won the 1945
Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance in "Going My Way" (1944). He was born in Dublin, on March 10th,
1888, he died in Dublin on January 4th, 1961.
Anthony Bartley died
in Cork, Ireland on Friday, April 6th, 2001 at the age of 82. He was the first husband of actress Deborah Kerr and the father
of their two daughters, Melanie Jane and Francesca Ann. They divorced in 1959 and Mr. Bartley remarried in 1965 to Victoria
Mann and had two more children, both girls. Miss Kerr remarried in 1960 to novelist and screenwriter Peter Viertel in
Klosters, Switzerland, and they raised Peter's daughter - from another marriage - Christine.
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f l a u
n t
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The Education and Essential
Journey of a Wandering
Bundle from Britain
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
( The Deborah Kerr Fellowship League
- A Foundation for the Performing Arts )
SCREEN FAN: Magazine, June, 1954
Deborah Kerr "
I Had To Stick My Neck Out"
Movie
Mirror: Magazine, July, 1965
with (5 b/w pix)
Deborah Kerr
"How to satisfy your husband"
B L A S T
from the
past
stuff
His professional connection enabled Aylmer to send likely candidates ro read for movie roles, and during the early summer
of 1950, Audrey was costumed and screen-tested for the Hollywood religious epic Quo
Vadis. "For three months, we tested hundreds of girls," said director
Mervyn LeRoy, recalling the casting of Lygia, a Christian heroine in the story. "In London, I thought I had found her when
we tested a young actress named Audrey Hepburn. I thought she was sensational, but the studio [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer] took one
look at the test and turned her down. Eventually, we decided we couldn't use an unknown after all."
The role went
to Deborah Kerr.
Whit The Nun's Story, Audrey wished to
be involved in every aspect of the film's creation, and so in late September, she met Fred Zinnemann and Robert Anderson
in Rome for research.
Returning to california, she rented the home of Deborah Kerr (who was then working
on a film in England), at 685 Elkins Road, in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, high in the hills above Sunset Boulevard.
From there she made frequent visits to Kate and Lou, asking them questions and learning about wardrobe, rituals and gestures
- how to walk, kneel and bow, and what were the proper aspects of convent deportment. But the camaraderie between her and
the two older women did not come easily. "She didn't really want to meet me at first," according to Lou. "She felt the story
was too much of my private life. She just sat there and looked at me and didn't ask any questions." She and Kate put Audrey
at ease, asking questions about her life and career and talking about Belgium. Soon, Audrey relaxed, and the three women shared
a warmth and familiarity their friends referred to as the 3-H Club.
Her extreme thinness was evident even beneath the neck-to-knee
costumes prepared for her next picture. In that, she was to wear a simple shirtwaist dress, a suit and a wool sheath - none
of them amplifying or flattering her reed-thin figure. These outfits, completely deglamorizing her as has Sister Luke's habit,
were designed for her first black-and-white movie in five years: a film of Lillian Hellman's first play, The Children's Hour.
And so, by late March, the Ferrers were back in Hollywood, again staying
at the home of Deborah Kerr on Kemridge Road, in the mountains above Beverly Hills. (Deborah was making several films back
to back in England and was pleased to have her friends in residence.) John Michael Hayes, whose many worthy credits included
four superb scripts for Alfred Hitchcock, gave William Wyler the finished screenplay for The Children's Hour on May 15th,
and a week later, rehearsals began at the Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood.
"Reunion at Fairborough" 1985
Most notable for the fourth pairing of Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr,
this tevee movie, filmed in England, is a bittersweet romance about an American flyer who returns to Britain 40 years after
World War II and rediscovers his old love. Robert not only finds that he has a daughter, who is now dead, but also an anto-American,
anto-nuke granddaughter - Judi Trott. As the film was made in the mid-eighties, much is made of the anti-Cruise missile protests
of the time and this conflict reflects the stormy relationship between grandfather and graddaughter. The film, though watchable,
is verbose, though, and lacks much of the spark that Bob and Deborah shared in their heyday in such films as "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison."
DREAM WIFE (M-G-M) 1953
After making this dreary comody, Grant retired
from film-making. Here he played an American businessman who became interested in an Wastern princess, Betta St. John, who
believed in satisfying the every whim of her man, but found there was more to be said for the American career girl, Deborah
Kerr, who is chaperoning the princess on her American goodwill tour.
BALLERINA SUES 20th
FOR 'KING & I' SLIGHT
Ballerina Gemze De Lappe filed suit in New York Supreme
Court last week against 20th-Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, Charles Brackett, and the Roxy Theatre charging that she did not receive
proper credit in "The King and I."
Through her attorney, Barry S. Cohen, the dancer alleges
that the producers "negligently, willfully and maliciously" refrained from giving her "the proper and appropriate credit due
her by virtue of her having created and performed the role of King Simon of Legree" in "The King and I." Instead Miss De Lappe
claims, they credited the role to a dancer who did not perform it. In the picture, the ballerina recreated the role she originated
in the Broadway production.
from VARIETY page 2
Wednesday, December 5th, 1956
UPDATED
Wednesday, June
10th, 2009
Deborah Kerr
BY
Robert Mitchum
In September of 1956, I arrived in Tobago, an island in the Southern Caribbean,
to begin filming Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, directed by John Huston. Upon meeting Miss Kerr, I was impressed by her chaste
and genteel demeanor, an attitude eminently suited to the saintly character she portrayed. made touchingly mortal by a few
freckles.
The ensuing period of our association revealed many more delightful aspects
of this splendid lady, and began the rapid development of an admiration and friendship for her that I shall treasure always.
She is warmly human and sympathetic, and possessed of a humor that ranged
from the subtle to the downright wicked.
When some Hollywood organization, charged with monitoring morality, became
belatedly alarmed at the perils of pairing a nun and a marine on a desert island and sent a representative to check on our
image of propriety, Mr. Huston planned a little surprise.
We contrived a scene wherein Sister Angela overcomes the suppression of
her base animal urges and, panting and clutching, throws herself on Mr. Allison in a lustful frenzy. With no film in the camera,
we "shot" the scene for our guest, who stood agape and immobilized in shock as John quietly said, "Cut."
Huston then turned to the stunned Mr. Grizzard and said, "You should have
seen it before we cleaned it up."
There was a small Catholic church on the island and the Sisters attached
to it were invited to see the rushes when they were shown. Deborah, always mindful of their presence, strived to maintain
an on-camera deportment that would earn their approval. However, in one scene, in which she was paddling the rubber raft,
her composure cracked.
Using a palm frond as a paddle, she was stroking away furiously, with
Mr. Huston's voice from the camera boat urging her on to even greater effort. "Even harder, honey," he was saying, "Paddle
even harder." With one desperate surge of energy, the paddle snapped in two. Holding up her bloodied hands, she looked straight
into the camera and said, "That'll show you how effing hard I'm paddling, John!"
The Deborah Kerr Curtain Call Playhouse
A Fellowship League Foundation
For the Performing Arts
Her Legend Her Life and Motion Picture Career
of the Woman all Women want to be - the charming
Deborah Kerr
To
Your Health!
Never Underestimate
Your Need for
Water
The Forgotten Nutrient
Water is so abundant, available and inexpensive
yet it's often taken for granted. It is the forgotten nutrient although it ranks in importance right up there along with vitamins,
minerals, protein, carbohydrate and fat. Just by living, breathing, perspiring and going to the bathroom you can lose between
two and three quarts of water daily, which need to be repaced. Each day drink six to eight glasses of fluids like tap or bottled
water, milk and juice.
Also eat foods with a high water content, such as fruits and vegetables.
Fluid intake is especially important for older adults - you better listen to me. If you lose too much water without replacing
it, you can become dehydrated.
You might faint or feel dizzy.
Here are some ways
water works in
your body:
* Carries
nutrients to cells and carries waste products away. Water is the body's transportation system.
* Surrounds and protects joint and organs
such as kidneys from shock or injury.
* Keeps the digestive tract working and the urine clear.
* Helps maintain body temperature.
Drink
Before
You're Thirsty!
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