R.I.P. John Kerr

TV, film and stage actor John Kerr, remembered for his roles in South Pacific and Tea And Sympathy, has died. His son tells the AP Kerr died Saturday of heart failure in a Pasadena, CA hospital. He was 81. Kerr played the role of Lieutenant Joe Cable in the 1958 movie musical South Pacific, but was perhaps best known for his Tony Award-winning performance as Tom Robinson Lee, a sensitive student suspected of being a homosexual in the 1953 Broadway production of Tea And Sympathy. He later reprised the character for the film version in 1956. His other film credits include The Crowded Sky (1960) and Roger Corman’s The Pit And The Pendulum (1961). Kerr’s first TV acting role was in 1954 on NBC’s Justice and he also played a district attorney in Peyton Place in the mid-1960s. He went on to graduate from UCLA Law School and practiced law full time, accepting a few small roles in TV productions over the years. He retired from legal practice in 2000.

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