Legacy Matters"An artist of impeccable grace and beauty" read the citation for Deborah Kerr's honorary Oscar in 1994 awarded after she was nominated six times as Best Actress, never winning one.
She died at 86 after suffering many years with Parkinson's disease.
Heaven Knows Mr. Allison with Robert Mitchum
London Telegraph obituary
Kerr was the unfadingly ladylike and prototypical English rose whose red-haired, angular beauty and self-possessed femininity distinguished more than 50 films in four decades of cinema.
She made serenity dramatic; and though her poise might be ruffled at critical moments in scenes of passion (most famously exemplified by her encounter on the beach with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity in 1953), her well-bred airs and social graces made her a model of British womanhood in Hollywood.
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......her type of refined sensuality proved refreshingly attractive, since it hinted at hidden desires and forbidden feelings, giving her acting an extra edge and interest.
You can see a clip of the famous kiss on the beach on YouTube.
Ann Althouse quotes from a New York Times piece that has since disappeared in the best summary of all.
She could be virginal, ethereal, gossamer and fragile, or earthy, spicy and suggestive, and sometimes she managed to display all her skills at the same time.