Getting to Know You (song) Getting to Know You (song) "Getting to Know You" is a show tune from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "The King and I". It was first sung by Gertrude Lawrence in the original Broadway production and later by Marni Nixon who dubbed for Deborah Kerr in the 1956 film adaptation. In the show, Anna, a British schoolteacher who has been hired as a governess, sings the song as she strikes up a warm and affectionate relationship with the children and the wives of the King of Siam. This song is one of the cases during the Rodgers and Hammerstein
Dan Beach Bradley setting. The boarding schools, while unsuccessful, showed the emphasis put on education in Siam during this period. Bradley advised the royal court to pursue education until his death. As an advocate of education, Bradley had high regard for Anna Leonowens, the teacher of Mongkut's children. Bradley admired the perseverance of Leonowens even though she was not treated with respect from the Siamese. Bradley did admit, however, that Leonowens did not have a significant impact on Siam, an opinion at odds with hers which she recorded in her two volumes of memoirs beginning with "The English Governess at the Siamese Court"