Rodgers and Hammerstein Nellie Forbush, and opera star Ezio Pinza starred as Emile de Becque, the French plantation owner. Also in the cast were Juanita Hall, Myron McCormick and Betta St. John. The 1958 film version, also directed by Logan, starred Mitzi Gaynor, Rossano Brazzi, John Kerr, Ray Walston, and Juanita Hall. Brazzi, Kerr, and Hall had their singing dubbed by others. Based on Margaret Landon's "Anna and the King of Siam"—the story of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s—Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I opened on Broadway on March 29, 1951,
Anna Leonowens which is still trading in Thailand. Anna Leonowens met Chulalongkorn again when he visited London in 1897, thirty years after she had left Siam. During this audience the king took the opportunity to express his thanks in person but he also voiced his dismay at the inaccuracies in Leonowens' books. Anna Leonowens died on 19 January 1915, at 83 years of age. She was interred in Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal. Margaret Landon's novel "Anna and the King of Siam" (1944) provides a fictionalised look at Anna Leonowens's years at the royal court, developing the abolitionist theme that resonated with