The King and I (1956 film) O'Hara, who had a pleasant soprano voice, was originally cast, but Richard Rodgers did not agree to the casting. It was Yul Brynner who pressed for Deborah Kerr to play the role. Marni Nixon provided Kerr's singing for the film. Nixon and Kerr worked side-by-side in the recording studio for songs which combined speaking and singing. Nixon would also dub Kerr's singing the following year, for the film "An Affair to Remember". Donald Bogle's biography of Dorothy Dandridge claims that Dandridge was offered the role of Tuptim in partial fulfillment of her three-picture contract with 20th Century-Fox, but that Dandridge
Deborah Kerr she played the role of the nurse—played by Elsa Lanchester in the 1957 movie—in "Witness for the Prosecution". Later, Kerr rejoined screen partner Robert Mitchum in "Reunion at Fairborough". She also took on the role of the older Emma Harte, a tycoon, in the adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's "A Woman of Substance". For this performance, Kerr was nominated for an Emmy Award. Kerr's first marriage was to Squadron Leader Anthony Bartley RAF on 29 November 1945. They had two daughters, Melanie Jane (born 27 December 1947) and Francesca Ann (born 20 December 1951 and subsequently married to the actor