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,
The Innocents (1961 film) use of darkness surrounding her suggests that it is possible that the story that follows could be nothing more than in her own mind – isolated and creating its own supernatural world, according to Frayling. Deborah Kerr was cast in the lead role of Miss Giddens at the counsel of the film's studio and distributor, 20th Century Fox, despite the fact that the governess character in James's original work was twenty years old (Kerr was forty at the time). On discussing the part with Clayton, Kerr recalled: "I remember asking Jack what he wanted me to stress in playing the