Editing Deborah Kerr (section)

== Early life ==
Deborah Jane Trimmer<ref name="auto">{{cite news| url=https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/13300950.the-king-and-i-actress-deborah-kerr-is-glasgows-star-and-there-is-a-birth-certificate-to-prove-it/| title=The King and I actress Deborah Kerr is Glasgow's star - and there is a birth certificate to prove it| newspaper=[[Glasgow Times]]| first=Russell| last=Leadbetter| date=20 January 2015| access-date=20 June 2020}}</ref> was born on 30 September 1921 in [[Hillhead, Glasgow]],<ref name="herald">{{cite web| url=http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1771494.0.0.php |title=Deborah Kerr profile |access-date=19 October 2007 |newspaper=[[The Herald (Glasgow)|The Herald]] |location=Glasgow |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021045411/http://theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1771494.0.0.php |archive-date=21 October 2007 }}</ref> the only daughter of Kathleen Rose ([[née]] Smale) and Capt. Arthur Charles Kerr Trimmer, a World War I veteran and pilot who lost a leg at the [[Battle of the Somme]] and later became a [[naval architect]] and [[civil engineer]]. Trimmer and Smale married, both aged 28, on 21 August 1919 in Smale's hometown of [[Lydney]], [[Gloucestershire]].<ref name=OUP>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nbGcAQAAQBAJ&q=Deborah+Kerr| title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005-2008| last=Goldman| first=Lawrence| date=7 March 2013| publisher=Oxford Univ Press| location=Oxford| isbn=978-0199671540| page=642}}</ref>

Young Deborah spent the first three years of her life in the Scottish west coast town of [[Helensburgh]], where her parents lived with Deborah's grandparents in a house on West King Street. Kerr had a younger brother, Edmund Charles (born 31 May 1926), who became a journalist. He died, aged 78, in a [[road rage]] incident in 2004.<ref>{{cite news |title='Road rage' killer's appeal win |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4861328.stm |work=BBC News |date=30 March 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Killer's term cut |url=http://archive.worcesternews.co.uk/2006/4/5/408116.html |newspaper=[[Worcester News]] |date=5 April 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090722210505/http://archive.worcesternews.co.uk/2006/4/5/408116.html |archive-date=22 July 2009}}</ref>

Kerr was educated at the independent Northumberland House School, [[Henleaze]] in [[Bristol, England]], and at Rossholme School, [[Weston-super-Mare]]. Kerr originally trained as a ballet dancer, first appearing on stage at [[Sadler's Wells Theatre|Sadler's Wells]] in 1938. After changing careers, she soon found success as an actress. Her first acting teacher was her aunt, Phyllis Smale, who worked at a drama school in Bristol run by Lally Cuthbert Hicks.<ref name="Telegraph"/><ref>{{cite news |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5212/is_2000/ai_n19128627 |title=Deborah Kerr |year=2000 |work=International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers |publisher=St. James Press |location=Detroit |first1=Richard |last1=Sater |first2=Robert |last2=Pardi |isbn=978-1558624498 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071020185730/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5212/is_2000/ai_n19128627 |archive-date=20 October 2007}}</ref> She adopted the name Deborah Kerr on becoming a film actress ("Kerr" was a family name going back to the maternal grandmother of her grandfather Arthur Kerr Trimmer).<ref name="Deborah">Braun, Eric. ''Deborah Kerr''. St. Martin's Press, 1978. {{ISBN|0-312-18895-1}}.</ref>