Scottish-born actress Deborah Kerr dies aged 86

LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish-born actress Deborah Kerr, the graceful star who romped in the surf with Burt Lancaster in "From Here to Eternity" and danced with Yul Brynner in "The King and I," has died at age 86.

Her agent Anne Hutton said she died on Tuesday in Suffolk, eastern England.

"Her family was with her at the time. She had suffered from Parkinson's disease for some time and had just had her 86th birthday and so was an elderly lady. She just slipped away," Hutton said on Thursday.

Kerr's beauty, regal bearing and image as an English rose made her a darling of Hollywood, and she starred in more than 40 films spanning nearly 50 years in cinema, playing opposite some of the greatest leading men of her era.

"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," the Daily Telegraph wrote in its obituary.

Born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer on September 30, 1921, in Helensburgh, Scotland, she trained in ballet before moving on to theater, then film.

The actress landed her breakthrough screen role as a frightened Salvation Army worker in the all-star adaptation of the satire, "Major Barbara."

However, it was her work in three separate parts in the 1943 Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger production "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," as the various women in the hero's life, that brought her wider recognition.

In 1947, Kerr moved to Hollywood to co-star with Clark Gable in the advertising satire "The Hucksters." Six years later, she shattered her prim image by playing an adulterous Army wife who has an affair with another military man played by Lancaster in "From Here to Eternity."

Their famous embrace on the beach, lapped by the waves, is one of the most enduring moments in cinema, and the role earned Kerr her second Academy Award nomination for best actress, following that for "Edward, My Son" four years earlier.

Ever conscious of her image, Kerr joked while shooting bathing suit tests for the scene: "I feel naked without my tiara."

Her third Oscar nomination came for the 1956 picture "The King and I," in which she played an English governess opposite Yul Brynner's willful Siamese monarch. Kerr's singing, however, was dubbed by Marni Nixon. She went on to garner three more best actress nominations, none of which she won.

Those were for roles as a nun shipwrecked on an island with a soldier played by Robert Mitchum in "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison," a loveless spinster in "Separate Tables" and the wife of a restless Australian sheep herder, again opposite Mitchum, in "The Sundowners."

She also won high praise for her 1956 portrayal of the older woman who helps a student prove his masculinity in "Tea and Sympathy," recreating the stage role that marked her Broadway debut three years earlier.

She starred with Cary Grant in the 1957 romance "An Affair to Remember" and appeared with Richard Burton and Ava Gardner in John Huston's 1964 version of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana."

She was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 1994 "in appreciation for a full career's worth of elegant and beautifully crafted performances

In 1945 Kerr married Anthony Bartley, an RAF hero of the Battle of Britain. They had two daughters and divorced in the late 1950s. She married writer Peter Viertel in 1960.

She is survived by Viertel, two daughters and three grandsons.