Deborah Kerr

<p> Blessed with a natural beauty Scotland-born actress Deborah Kerr (1921-2007) provided the cinema with memorable studies of English gentility. A star in British pictures before she was 21 and a Hollywood fixture from 1946 on she projected a cool reserve and stoic nobility often hinting at passion and insecurity beneath the surface. Frequently portraying selfless sympathetic women she was brilliant in such roles as Anna Leonowens in <I>The King and I</I> (1956). And in a fascinating departure from her normal range her portrayal of the sexually frustrated Army wife in <I>From Here to Eternity</I> (1953) resulted in the screen's most famous clinch--the beach scene with Burt Lancaster. Though she never won an Academy Award despite six nominations Deborah Kerr received an honorary Oscar in 1994.</p>