Getting to Know You (song) Getting to Know You (song) "Getting to Know You" is a show tune from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "The King and I". It was first sung by Gertrude Lawrence in the original Broadway production and later by Marni Nixon who dubbed for Deborah Kerr in the 1956 film adaptation. In the show, Anna, a British schoolteacher who has been hired as a governess, sings the song as she strikes up a warm and affectionate relationship with the children and the wives of the King of Siam. This song is one of the cases during the Rodgers and Hammerstein
Utopia, Limited and eventually her homeland. Two decades earlier, in 1870, Anna Leonowens first wrote about her six-year stint as governess to the children of the king of Siam (Thailand) in "The English Governess at the Siamese Court". The two ladies and their stories are likely to have influenced the characters of Princess Zara and Lady Sophy, respectively. Another impetus for Gilbert in the genesis of the work was his disdain for England's Limited Liability Act of 1862, which he had begun to explore in the previous opera with Sullivan, "The Gondoliers". By using an imaginary setting, Gilbert was emboldened to level