Wouldn't Maureen O'Hara have been just perfect for the leading lady role. She had the looks, the killer red hair, a natural British (well, ok, Irish) accent, was the right age, and could SING! I understand that she was actually Mr. Zanuck's first choice for the role, but Richard Rodgers stepped in to intervene and we ended up with Deborah Kerr. Kerr is not bad, but O'Hara would have been even better. What do you think?
shareThis is from IMDb trivia for " The King & I ". Darryl Zanuck first cast Maureen O'Hara as "Anna" because she was not only gorgeous, but had a fine soprano voice and would not have to be dubbed. When Zanuck told her the news she immediately sent sample recordings of her voice. Rodgers agreed that O'Hara had a great voice but reportedly said, "No pirate queen is going to play my Anna!"
It probably would have given Maureen her only Oscar nomination.
Now this I never knew, but abslutely she would have been a great Anna Leonowens
and maybe might have gotten an Oscar nomination.
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Later, Richard Rodgers asked O'Hara to play Anna in a stage revival of The King and I and she angrily refused. Rise Stevens (from Going My Way) did it instead, with Darren McGavin (!) as the King.
“Is it... atomic?!” “Yes sir, very atomic!”
Given how Rodgers snubbed her for the film version, I can't imagine why she turned him down :-)
sharei'm very happy with Ms. Kerr as Anna. she's my favorite actress in the world =)
...but why is the rum gone?
I like Maureen O'Hara, but I'm glad Deborah Kerr ended up doing, dubbed singing voice or n ot.
shareDon't get me wrong...I too like the movie just as it is (indeed, the film soundtrack is my favorite recording of the score), but I feel it might have worked even better with Maureen, who is one of my favorite actresses, and one of the most beautiful to ever grace the screen.
"Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?"
Regarding the Rise Stevens/Darren McGavin revival, I checked out the RCA cast album LP from my university library. It's not bad at all, pretty good actually. Rise Stevens is, as expected, slightly more operatic as Anna then we're used to but still does a lovely job. Darren McGavin is serviceable as the King, but he's certainly no Yul Brynner. The rest of it is beautifully cast and sung. This revival cast album, which has not appeared on CD (and probably won't, because RCA also controls the album rights to the more well known 1977 Yul Brynner/Constance Towers revival), also boasts the first appearance on records of the Uncle Thomas ballet. The Uncle Thomas ballet would not appear on records again until (correct me if I'm wrong) the expanded movie soundtrack was released in 2001.
"Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?"
I recall Risë Stevens scooping a lot on that recording ("getting to kn-n-o-o-OW you"), making her sound a little woozy, as if she had a bottle of gin in her fist. Nevertheless, she still sounds better than Gertrude Lawrence ever did.
The ballet is cut down a little for that recording, isn't it? Still, I'm glad they included it. As to the next recording of the ballet, that would have been the cast recording of Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989. The 1994 2-CD recording from Jay Records with Christopher Lee and Valerie Masterson claimed at the time to contain the only complete recording of the ballet (16 minutes and 25 seconds).
“Is it... atomic?!” “Yes sir, very atomic!”
The Risë Stevens recording has quickly become one of my favorite recordings of the score next to the movie soundtrack... good thing I recorded it to a CD for myself, lol!
"Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?"
I have the Rise STevens/Darren Mcgavin version on 8 track, heaven help us...got it in my teens....I had seen the movie before but this was the first version of the soundtrack I owned ( i aqauired the broadway and movie cast album laters...one of the things some friends of mine and I were always going to do if we owned a movie theatre was throw a Marnie Nixon film festival)
Maureen Ohara would have been a very interesting casting as Anna...she certainly knew her way around strong willed leading men
It is not our abilities that make us who we are...it is our choices
What exactly does the "Pirate Queen" remark reference? Thanks.
sharePamactress writes, "What exactly does the "Pirate Queen" remark reference? Thanks."
If you look at Maureen O'Hara's film credits in the 1940s and 1950s (see http://imdb.com/nam e/nm0000058/), you'll notice she played the female lead in many period action movies (for instance, Against All Flags with Errol Flynn, in which she played pirate captain "Spitfire" Stevens), and apparently that was an image that Richard Rodgers felt she would carry with her if she played Anna in the movie.
"The back of my neck told me. The part that I talk out of."
This is the first I have ever heard of this. I never knew anyone else was even considered for the role of Anna. I also didn't know Maureen O'Hara could sing, but if she could, I must agree with the concensus of posters who say that she would have been a great Anna. She has that fire in her that Anna must possess in order to square off against the King. Yes, if she could sing, Maureen O'Hara would have been an amazing Anna.
shareOh yes, Maureen O'Hara can definately sing. She has a lovely soprano voice. She does a little singing briefly in THE PARENT TRAP but was never in a movie musical that I know of. Such a shame too!
"Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?"
Maureen actually did a bit of singing in her films. She sang a bit in "How Green Was My Valley", "The Quiet Man" and also sang a hymn in "Spencer's Mountain".
She starred in the stage musical flop "Christine" in 1960 which many critics deemed a poor man's rip-off of "The King and I". The show played 12 performances, but they still recorded the album. It was released on CD several years ago. Apparently she also appeared on TV shows showcasing her musical talent.
She goes into further details on the matter in her autobiography "'Tis Herself"
One can listen to CHRISTINE and realize that, pleasant as Ms. O'Hara's voice is, it wasn't only her "pirate queen" image that got in Richard Rodgers' way. As for the ballet, an excellent complete recording of it also appears on the 2000 London cast CD with Elaine Paige.
share"One can listen to CHRISTINE and realize that, pleasant as Ms. O'Hara's voice is, it wasn't only her "pirate queen" image that got in Richard Rodgers' way."
What do you think was wrong with her voice?
At another point in the Trivia section here it is said that it was Yul Brynner who pushed hardest for Deborah Kerr to be given the role.
On the Jeanetter MacDonald page Trivia it is said that she coveted the role of Anna in the film, which she played on stage in summer stock. She was considered too old. That would have been another interesting one.
Anna Leonowens didn't have red hair. But I agree with everything else.
I Attended the Tale 6/1/08
I first heard about Maureen O'Hara's being considered to play Anna when I read her autobiography. Although I love the film as it is with Deborah Kerr, there is still something intriguing about what it would have been like with Maureen O'Hara. I don't think it would necessarily have been a "better" film, but it certainly would not have been worse. At the very least she wouldn't have been dubbed. Speaking of dubbing, I think the Marni Nixon/Deborah Kerr dubbing is one of the best dubbing jobs in the history of film musicals. Nixon was able to actually make her voice like what Deborah Kerr's singing might actually have sounded like. You notice this especially in the cut number, "Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You?"
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Wasn't O'Hara also considered for Mary Poppins? She was eager to play it but I think Walt Disney tried to dupe her out of something.
That's the under-rated genius of Marni Nixon...she actually sounded like the actress singing the song in her own voice (if the actress could have been able to sing). It's really amazing.
I hate dubbing. I don't understand why, with all of the talented singers/actresses who could have played the part, they chose Deborah Kerr for this role. O'Hara would have been wonderful, as I'm sure many others would have been.
I'm not a Kerr hater. She's absolute perfection in Night of the Iguana and other movies. I just hate non-singers in singing roles.
In "West Side Story" and in "My Fair Lady" it very obviously is Marni Nixon singing and not Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn respectively. I think "The King And I" is her best dubbing job.
shareWell I don't agree at all. She sounds like both Ms. Wood and especially like Ms. Hepburn would sound if they could sing.
I'd've been intrigued to see O'Hara in the role, but Kerr is the better actress.
shareI think the whole point of casting Kerr is that she's the poster girl for repressed sexuality.
shareIt isn't even that O'Hara wouldn't have given us those remarkable subtleties that Kerr provides with her performance, although I suspect that there would have been fewer of those moments, but Kerr seemed to have a better understanding of the role than perhaps any other actress I've seen play Anna, and that includes Irene Dunne and Jodi Foster.
Kerr provides remarkable balance between the strong-willed heroine and the patient, gentle-hearted school teacher. I think O'Hara would have dominated in the former, but may have been found somewhat lacking in the latter. Not that she wouldn't project warmth, but I suspect her performance would have been TOO fiery.
There would have been less balance, perhaps less self restraint than was provided by Kerr, who clearly holds back her energy and fire out of her sense of duty to the children and her son, as well as in keeping with her British upbringing (of course, the real Anna apparently had the mouth of a sailor and was raised far away from the confines of strict, British society, but the musical makes it clear that THIS Anna was brought up to be a proper English lady).
I also even doubt that O'Hara could have sung with her own voice. Even if you were a perfectly capable singer, you would have ended up getting dubbed in those days, unless you were marketed as a "movie musical star" like Kathryn Grayson, Doris Day, or Jeannette MacDonald. The DVD commentary suggests that Dorothy Dandridge could have used her own voice had she played Tuptim, but I somehow doubt it, especially since she had been dubbed by Marilyn Horne in CARMEN JONES. O'Hara probably would have been dubbed by Marni Nixon, anyway, and Nixon would probably have done a comparably good job.
Either way, both fabulosly classy actresses spent most of their careers getting criminally overlooked. I don't know what's worse - getting nominated for six Oscars without winning once, or never getting nominated for an Oscar at all.
There's a youtube video of Maureen O'Hara singing "The Heather On The Hill" on the Andy Williams show in 1966. If there's any doubt as to O'Hara's singing ability, I suggest you go and see it. She was 41 when she did it and her voice is strong, clear and perfectly pitched.
Richard Rodgers was a musical genius, but when it came to casting roles, there was something lacking. He suffered temporary insanity in the mid 1950s when he allowed two great singers to do the film versions of "Oklahoma" and "Carousel", but he got back on track when he cast a non-singer as Emile in "South Pacific" and Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound Of Music".
Soy 'un hijo de la playa'