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
Deborah Kerr Hollywood producers. The film was a hit in the US, as well as the UK, and Kerr won the New York Film Critics' Award as Actress of the Year. British exhibitors voted her the eighth-most popular local star at the box office. Soon she received the first of her Academy Award nominations for "Edward, My Son", a 1949 drama set in England that co-starred Spencer Tracy. In Hollywood, Kerr's British accent and manner led to a succession of roles portraying refined, reserved, and "proper" English ladies. Kerr, nevertheless, used any opportunity to discard her cool exterior. She starred in the