Deborah Kerr Deborah Kerr Deborah Jane Trimmer CBE (; 30 September 192116 October 2007), known professionally as Deborah Kerr, was a Scottish film, theatre and television actress. During her career, she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance as Anna Leonowens in the musical film "The King and I" (1956) and a Sarah Siddons Award for her performance as Laura Reynolds in the play "Tea and Sympathy" (a role she originated on Broadway). She was also a three-time winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Kerr was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best
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