The King and I (1956 film) autobiographical, although various elements of them have been called into question. The film stars Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. The film was a critical and commercial success, and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning five, including Best Actor for Brynner. Another film adaptation of the same musical, the animated film "The King and I", was released in 1999. Strong-willed, widowed schoolteacher Anna Leonowens arrives in Bangkok from Wales with her young son Louis after being summoned to tutor the many children of King Mongkut. The two are introduced to the intimidating Kralahome, King Mongkut's confidant and Siam's prime minister.
The King and I Western ways. In 1861, Mongkut wrote to his Singapore agent, Tan Kim Ching, asking him to find a British lady to be governess to the royal children. At the time, the British community in Singapore was small, and the choice fell on a recent arrival there, Anna Leonowens (1831–1915), who was running a small nursery school in the colony. Leonowens was the Anglo-Indian daughter of an Indian Army soldier and the widow of Thomas Owens, a clerk and hotel keeper. She had arrived in Singapore two years previously, claiming to be the genteel widow of an officer and explaining her