Born in Scotland in 1921, Deborah Jane Kerr Trimmer studied drama and acting at her aunt's school in Bristol, England, and won a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells Ballet, in whose corps she made her London debut at seventeen. She soon became more interested in the theater, however, and after several supporting roles in various classical stage productions she was noticed by film studios; her first screen appearance was as a Salvation Army lass in Shaw's MAJOR BARBARA (1941). Kerr's impressive portrait of a devout but haunted English nun in BLACK NARCISSUS (1946) won the New York Film Critics Award and brought her wider acclaim. Before long she was in Hollywood, where she at once caused a stir of adoration and emulation -- especially for her portrait of Spencer Tracy's emotionally battered wife in EDWARD, MY SON (1949). That role earned her the first of six Academy Award nominations for best performance by an actress.

During the next four years, she was in constant demand. Kerr's pellucid skin, liquid voice, auburn hair and aristocratic carriage graced KING SOLOMON'S MINES, QUO VADIS?, THE PRISONER OF ZENDA and JULIUS CAESAR. But her refinement never typecast her. On the contrary, her portrayal of an eager adultress in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) further confirmed her range and depth, for the incoming tide could neither detach her from the arms of Burt Lancaster nor interrupt their languorous lovemaking on the beach -- a scene that has become a virtual icon and that, entirely because of the actors, is credible in spite of itself.

Throughout the next decade, she continued to create an album of astonishingly varied women: the patient but insistent governess in THE KING AND I (1956), in which she taught Yul Brynner to waltz; another savvy nun in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON (1957), this time shipwrecked on a desert island yet capable of retaining both her humor and virginity despite the presence of a boozy nonbeliever (played by Robert Mitchum); a neurotic spinster in SEPARATE TABLES (1958), mother-dominated until she meets a man as marginal as she is and begins to recognize her own squandered emotions; then two more governesses -- the first perhaps selfless (but just as likely demented) in THE INNOCENTS (1961), the second enigmatic, vulnerable, but finally heroic in THE CHALK GARDEN (1964); and a saintly artist dispensing herb tea and spiritual counsel to a defrocked and dipsomaniacal cleric (Richard Burton) in THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (1964). To each of these roles she brought a supple gravity, her equanimity and inner discernment implying depths beyond the obvious glamour she wore so unself-consciously.

But Deborah Kerr's talents were not limited to films; she was equally impressive on the stage. In 1953 she departed Hollywood for Broadway, where she created the role of the neglected, lonely and compassionate Laura Reynolds in Robert Anderson's drama TEA AND SYMPATHY (her performance is preserved in the 1956 film). Offering herself to an anxious young man, Kerr delivered one of the immortal curtain lines in theater history: "Years from now, when you talk about this -- and you will -- be kind." In other stage roles, Kerr conveyed fully rounded characters, whether speaking the densely poetic diction of Edward Albee in SEASCAPE or the tense monologues in Eugene O'Neill's LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.

While working in Hollywood, she lived in Pacific Palisades, in western Los Angelos overlooking the ocean. There, she raised her two daughters (by her first husband, Anthony Bartley), entertained friends and colleagues, studied roles meticulously, read widely, played piano and tended the gardens surrounding her Mediterranean-style house -- a place considered quite grand by later standards, although it was built in the 1930s as a guest house for an even larger mansion. "It had never been used," Kerr recalls, "and when the large estate was sold, a fence divided my house from others on the property. I planted rambler roses along that fence, and red and white camellias, all of which flourished in the acid soil of the eucalyptus trees. They had obviously been planted years ago, and their roots held the cliff edge very safely. It was a lovely spot, and I was sad when I had to sell the house and return to Europe." Now she lives in retirement in Switzerland with her second husband, writer Peter Viertel.