The King and I (1956 film) The King and I (1956 film) The King and I is a 1956 American musical film made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Walter Lang and produced by Charles Brackett and Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is based on the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical "The King and I", based in turn on the novel "Anna and the King of Siam" by Margaret Landon. That novel in turn was based on memoirs written by Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Leonowens' stories were
Anna Leonowens to London, was better known by his stage name of Boris Karloff, making Anna his grand-aunt. Anna Edwards never approved of her sister's marriage, and her self-imposed separation from the family was so complete that, decades later, when a Pratt relative contacted her, she replied by threatening suicide if he persisted. Anna's mother, Mary Edwards, a widow, later married an Irish soldier, Patrick Donohoe of the Royal Engineers. Anna Edwards's relationship with her stepfather Donohoe was not a happy one, and she later accused him of putting pressure on her, like her sister (with whom she also fell out), to