Special Guest Blogger: Deborah Kerr

I started out playing prim and proper school teachers, nuns, and princesses but i longed for roles that would allow me to let my hair down which is how i found myself dressed only in a bikini and cavorting in the waves with a hunky Burt Lancaster getting sand in places where sand really doesn't belong.
I was so shy as a teenager that it ruined my initial career choice as a ballet dancer as i was unable to dance in front of a crowd so when my Aunt suggested acting as a way to overcome it i was skeptical but turned out using someone else's words and movements was far easier and i got pretty good and got spotted by an agent who got me a small role in the spy film Contraband although it was so small that it got cut from the final edit.
My next opportunity was an adaptation of the stage play Love on the Dole and i quickly followed that with a series of other British films which got me taken on by MGM Studio's and a role in Black Narcissus and then things really took off and i made the role of the uptight, reserved British woman my own which was nice but i wanted to be sexy, not prim and proper so i applied for the role in From Here to Eternity.
The producers weren't convinced that i was right for the part and went for Joan Crawford but the egomaniac demanded that she would only work with her own cameraman so they had another rethink about me and took a chance and offered me the role.
In the original script, in that famous beach scene with Burt Lancaster, we were standing up but we decided to take the scene horizontal and rolling around in the waves and getting sand in all the wrong places but it did get me a best actress nomination from the Academy as well as a nasty rash from the damp sand.
Next up was a film remake of the King and I musical but the problem was i had Van Gogh's ear for music and sang like a donkey wearing a bucket over it's head so they dubbed my voice with a professional singer.
With sex scene's and musical ticked off my list, i next went for Bond Girl and despite being 45, i was cast in Casino Royale but by the late 60s,  the film industry was moving towards roles which demanded actresses running around with their clothes off so i only made one more movie, The Gypsy Moth with my wave romper, Burt Lancaster, and then retired.
I did some TV and stage work up until my diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease but i am happy that i am partly responsible for inspiring all those buttock shapes in the sand on the shoreline in the morning.