Deborah Kerr, star of 'From Here to Eternity,' dies at 86

By Associated Press
Oct 18, 2007

LONDON (AP) - Deborah Kerr, who shared one of Hollywood's most famous kisses and made her mark with such roles as the correct widow in "The King and I" and the unhappy officer's wife in "From Here to Eternity," has died. She was 86.

Kerr, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died Tuesday in Suffolk in eastern England, her agent, Anne Hutton, said Thursday.

For many she will be remembered best for her kiss with Burt Lancaster as waves crashed over them on a Hawaiian beach in the wartime drama "From Here to Eternity."

Kerr's roles as forceful, sometimes frustrated women pushed the limits of Hollywood's treatment of sex on the screen during the censor-bound 1950s.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Kerr a six times for best actress, but never gave her an Academy Award until it presented an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her distinguished 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 had the reputation of a "no problem" actress.

http://www.katu.com/news/entertainment/10639412.html

I remember her best for "An Affair to Remember," the movie that inspired the Empire State Building meeting in "Sleepless in Seattle."

Oh my goodness, I loved her work! She was exquisite.

I especially loved her and Yul in The King and I. Out of the three versions made, I think theirs showed the "desire that cannot be" the best.