TRIBUTES have been paid to legendary actress Deborah Kerr, who has died at her home in north Suffolk at the age of 86.The Scottish-born actress will forever be associated with her roles in the Hollywood classics The King and I and From Here To Eternity.

By Andrew Clarke

TRIBUTES have been paid to legendary actress Deborah Kerr, who has died at her home in north Suffolk at the age of 86.

The Scottish-born actress will forever be associated with her roles in the Hollywood classics The King and I and From Here To Eternity.

Her daughter Francesca Schrapnel, who lives in north Suffolk with actor husband John, said that she lived for many years in Klosters, Switzerland, with her husband writer Peter Viertel before moving to Suffolk a couple of years ago to be near her family. She battled against Parkinson's Disease for many years before finally succumbing on Tuesday.

“Although she had many great roles over the years, including The King and I and From Here To Eternity, she didn't necessarily have a favourite herself.

“The family, I think, loved her best in The Sundowners opposite Robert Mitchum - a lovely film set in the Australian outback.”

She added that she was extremely proud that her mother held a distinguished acting record in that she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar six times - the most nominated actress without ever winning the award. She was however awarded an honorary Oscar in 1993 in recognition of the "perfection, discipline and elegance" of her screen work.

Kerr was a post-war favourite with movie audiences around the world but didn't often find her roles challenging. She was quoted as saying: “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.”

Among her most popular roles were opposite Spencer Tracy in the George Cukor film Edward My Son (1949), romping in the surf with Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity (1952), Separate Tables (1952) with David Niven, Heaven Knows Mr Allison (1957) with a great friend Robert Mitchum, The Hucksters (1947) opposite Clark Gable, Powell and Pressburger's Technicolor classic Black Narcissus (1947) and An Affair To Remember (1957) with Cary Grant - which gained a new lease of life in 1993 when Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle declared it to be the ultimate romantic movie of all-time.

Legend has it that during shooting of Heaven Knows Mr Allison, Kerr was worried about being typecast as a goody-two show and so swore at director John Huston during one take. Mitchum, who was in the water at the time almost drowned laughing. The two stars went on to have an enduring friendship which lasted until Mitchum's death in 1997.

Kerr was born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer in Helensburgh, Scotland, daughter of World War I veteran Captain Arthur Kerr-Trimmer. She originally trained as a ballet dancer, appearing on stage at Sadler's Wells in 1938 before changing careers, swapping dance for drama and immediately found success as an actress.

She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, London before joining the Oxford Repertory Company from 1939-40. Her first appearance on the West End stage was as Ellie Dunn in Heartbreak House at the Cambridge Theatre in 1943. She performed in France, Belgium and Holland with ENSA - The British Army entertainment service.

In later life she quit the big screen in favour of work on television and the theatre. In 1955, Kerr won the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance in Chicago during a national tour of the play. In 1975, she returned to Broadway, originating the role of Nancy in Edward Albee's Pulitzer-winning play Seascape.

She experienced a career resurgence in the early 1980s on television, when she played the role originally played by Elsa Lanchester, in Witness for The Prosecution. Kerr also took on the role as the older version of the female tycoon, Emma Harte, in the adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance - for which Kerr was nominated for an Emmy award.

Deborah Kerr leaves husband Peter Viertel, two daughters Melanie and Francesca and three grandsons - writer Joe Shrapnel and actors Lex Shrapnel and Tom Shrapnel. She will have a private family funeral.