Biographie

Maureen O'Hara was originally meant to play her role in Le roi et moi (1956), but Yul Brynner specifically asked for Kerr.

Deborah Kerr, her husband Peter Viertel and her biographer Eric Braun all died within the space of five weeks in the fall of 2007. All were aged 86.

Originally when filming began on Dieu seul le sait (1957), her co-star Robert Mitchum worried that Kerr would be like the prim characters she frequently played. However, after she swore at director John Huston during one take, Mitchum, who was in the water, almost drowned laughing. The two stars went on to have an enduring friendship that lasted until Mitchum's death in 1997.

Joan Crawford was originally meant to play her role in Tant qu'il y aura des hommes (1953), but after she insisted on using her own cameraman, the studio balked and decided to cast against type with Kerr, who at that time had begun to tire of her ladylike image, and was anxious to play the adulterous military wife that has an affair with Burt Lancaster (Kerr too in real life). The casting worked and her career thereafter flourished with sexier, more versatile roles.

Received one of the longest standing ovations of all Honorary Oscar recipients when she was awarded an Honorary Oscar for her body of work in 1994.

All the most successful people these days seem to be neurotic. Perhaps we should stop being sorry for them and start being sorry for me--for being so confoundedly normal.

I came over here [Hollywood] to act, but it turned out all I had to do was to be high-minded, long suffering, white-gloved and decorative.

I am really rather like a beautiful Jersey cow, I have the same pathetic droop to the corners of my eyes.

[speaking in 1969] When I was under contract to MGM, with people like poor Robert Taylor and so many others, the cinema's job was solely entertainment. It filled a public need then. Now the cinema serves so many other purposes; it functions as psychiatrist, politician, message-maker, money maker and, incidentally, entertainer. But it's no good regretting that things are different. Times have to change.

When you're young, you just go banging about, but you're more sensitive as you grow older. You have higher standards of what's really good; you're fearful that you wont live up to what's expected of you.