Tan Kim Ching who happened to be Anna Leonowens, a young widow, looking for work to support herself and her two children. The story of the schoolteacher and the King of Siam has been made popular through the films "The King And I" (Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr) and "Anna and the King" (Chow, Yun Fatt and Jodie Foster). When the King and Queen of Siam landed in Singapore in 1890 they stayed at Tan Kim Ching's house, "Siam house", in North Bridge Road. It was reported that The King, who was expected to arrive in Singapore at Tanjong Pagar Wharf on board
Anna Leonowens and was cancelled after only 13 episodes. In 1999 an animated film using the songs of the musical was released by Warner Bros. Animation. In the same year, Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-fat starred in a new feature-length cinematic adaptation of Leonowens' books, also titled "Anna and the King". One Thai critic complained that the filmmakers had made Mongkut "appear like a cowboy"; this version was also banned by censors in Thailand. Leonowens appears as a character in Paul Marlowe's novel "Knights of the Sea", in which she travels from Halifax to Baddeck in 1887 to take part in a