Deborah Kerr, one of the greatest beauties ever to grace the silver screen, and whose reputation as a graceful, intelligent actress stems from starring in some of the finest movies in both British (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) and American (From Here to Eternity) cinema, died on October 16 in Suffolk, England. She had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for some years. She was 86.

She was born on September 30, 1921 in Helensburgh, Scotland. Her father was a civil engineer, and through his employment he relocated his family to Alford, England when Deborah was five. She studied dance from a very young age and eventually earned a scholarship to study ballet in London. She developed an interest in drama and she worked in repertory theater in 1939 and did some radio work for the BBC before she made her film debut in a bit part in Contraband (1940). Yet due to her radiant beauty, complete with flashing eyes, sensuous mouth and flaming red hair, it didn't take her long to move through the ranks of film stardom in the United Kingdom.

She first struck gold as Jenny, the young Salvation Army worker Jenny, in an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara (1940); received glowing critical praise for her portrayal of three women in Michael Powell's romance classic The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943); was utterly convincing as a woman who matures and changes during the war in the lush romantic drama opposite Robert Donat Perfect Strangers (1945); gave a superb performance as an Irish lass who gets involved with Nazi spies in the fast paced thriller I See a Dark Stranger (1946); and was unforgettable for Michael Powell again as the complex Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus (1947).

She arrived in Hollywood in late 1946, and was signed by MGM to star opposite Clark Gable in the Hucksters (1947). Her stint at MGM had her cast in various period dramas where shetended to be a lady of regal bearing: Edward, My Son (1949, her first Oscar® nomination), Quo Vadis? (1951), The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), and Julius Caesar (1953). Her career changed for the positive when she left MGM and played Karen Holmes, the lonely, emotionally needy wife of an army officer who has an affair with Burt Lancaster in Fred Zinnemann's award laden From Here to Eternity (1953). That film, which contains the memorable scene of Lancaster and Kerr making love on a beach with the waves encircling them (and a faultless American accent by Kerr) earned her her second Oscar® nomination.

The roles and her performances became stronger and more mature from there: as Anna Leonowens, the schoolteacher who journeys to Siam and develops a relationship with the king (Yul Brynner) in the popular musical The King and I (1956, her third Oscar® nomination); the sympathetic schoolteacher who befriends a young student (John Kerr) who is taunted by his peers for his unmasculine character in the then controversial drama Tea and Sympathy (1956), a dutiful nun who has all she can handle with a roguish gentleman (Robert Mitchum) in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957, Oscar® nomination); making wonderful chemistry with Cary Grant in the sentimental, but fondly remembered sudser An Affair to Remember (1957); a lonely spinster in Delbert Mann's Separate Tables (1958, Oscar® nomination) a woman who is at odds with her lover's daughter (Jean Seberg) in Otto Preminger's vastly underrated coming of age drama Bonjour Tristesse (1958); the matriarch of the family adjusting to life in the Australian outback for Zimmemann again in The Sundowners (1960, her final Oscar® nomination as Best Actress); a taut, unnerving turn as Miss Giddens, the governess haunted by ghostly images in the brilliant gothic thriller The Innocents (1961); and as Hannah Jelkes in a fine adaptation of Tennesse Williams' The Night of the Iguana (1964).

Sadly, good roles for strong, middle aged actresses were not plentiful in the '60s, and after an appearance in the sex comedy Prudence and the Pill (1968), John Frankhammer's action drama The Gypsy Moths; and a part in Elia Kazan's The Arrangement (both 1969), she took, in her own words, a leave of absence from acting, and was seldom seen, save for a few excellent appearances in some well produced telefilms: Witness for the Prosecution (1982), A Woman of Substance (1984), Reunion at Fairborough (1985), and her final production, Hold the Dream (1986).

In 1994, Kerr, who never won an Oscar® despite six nominations for Best Actress, was given an honorary award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her brilliant career as an "artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance." She is survived by her husband of 47 years, the writer Peter Viertel; two daughters from a previous marriage to Anthony Bartley; and three grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole