The King and I (1956 film) O'Hara, who had a pleasant soprano voice, was originally cast, but Richard Rodgers did not agree to the casting. It was Yul Brynner who pressed for Deborah Kerr to play the role. Marni Nixon provided Kerr's singing for the film. Nixon and Kerr worked side-by-side in the recording studio for songs which combined speaking and singing. Nixon would also dub Kerr's singing the following year, for the film "An Affair to Remember". Donald Bogle's biography of Dorothy Dandridge claims that Dandridge was offered the role of Tuptim in partial fulfillment of her three-picture contract with 20th Century-Fox, but that Dandridge
Louis T. Leonowens was estranged from his mother for 19 years. In 1881, at the age of 25, he returned to Siam and was granted a commission of Captain in the Royal Cavalry, by King Chulalongkorn. Leonowens in 1884 left the military and entered the teak trade. He went on in 1905 to found the Louis Thomas Leonowens Company in Siam, which became Louis T. Leonowens Ltd, an international trading company. This company remains a leading exporter of Malayan hardwoods and an importer of building materials and general merchandise. He became less involved in the operations of the company after 1906 and left