John Kerr

John Grinham Kerr (November 15, 1931February 2, 2013) was an American actor and attorney. He began his professional career on Broadway, earning critical acclaim for his performances in Mary Coyle Chase's Bernardine and Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy, then made a transition into a screen career. He reprised his role in the film version of Tea and Sympathy, which won him the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, and portrayed Lieutenant Joseph Cable in the Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical South Pacific. He appeared in number of television series, including a starring role on Peyton Place. In the 1970s, he largely moved from acting to become a lawyer, making a few small cameos in Canadian-produced films like Plague and The Amateur. He operated a legal practice in Beverly Hills until 2000 when he retired from the profession. Early life Kerr was born November 15, 1931 in New York City to British-born Geoffrey Kerr and American-born June Walker. Both were stage and film actors, and his grandfather was Frederick Kerr, a British trans-Atlantic character actor in the period 1880–1930; Kerr developed an early interest in following in their footsteps.