The King and I Fifty years after its premiere, Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest summed up the musical: The King and I The King and I is the fifth musical by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel, "Anna and the King of Siam" (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical's plot relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. The relationship between
Louis T. Leonowens Siam for the last time in 1913. Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens was married to: Leonowens died in 1919 during the global influenza pandemic. He is buried, with his second wife, in Brompton Cemetery, London. The young Louis Leonowens has been portrayed by numerous actors and as being from at least three different countries, including the United States, England and Wales: Louis T. Leonowens Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens (25 October 1856 – 17 February 1919) was a British subject who was the basis of a major character in the 1944 novel "Anna and the King of Siam", as well as other