JOHN KERR: A SCHOLAR WHO ALSO ACTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000300360029-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 1998
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: March 7, 1954
• Content Type: NSPR

Nhw Yu" MAR r 1
i-1ERAI_I? TRIBLTNB
--- Sanitized -Approved Release : C
John- Kerr: A Scholar Who Also Acts
Young Star Pursue
High Degrees
By DON ROSS
schoolboy in "Tea and Sym-
pathy," met the girl he later
married in a Serbo-Croatian
class at Harvard. She was a
Radcliffe undergraduate.
The meeting place is charac-
teristic of Mr Kerr, who was
voted last year in the annual
"Variety" poll the most promis-
ing new young actor on Broad-
way. Other men have met their
future wives at cocktail parties,
picnics or movies. But Mr. Kerr,
who is twenty-two, is an in-
tensely serious man. It is doubt-
ful that he goes to cocktail
parties, picnics or movies.
He no longer goes to Serbo-
Croatian classes. Instead he goes
to classes in Old Russian litera-
ture, nineteenth-century Rus-
sian literature, political insti-
tutions of the Soviet Union, the
Soviet Union in international
affairs and Soviet history. In
addition to his work in "Tea
and Sympathy", in which he
plays opposite Deborah Kerr
no relation), Mr. Kerr is a full-
the Russian In- ?-.~c~hn Ker and Dick York, who plays his roonnuate, in
time
tudent i
s
n
stitute at Columbia University. "Tea and Sympathy," the hit play at
Having acquired a Harvard more Theater.
A. B., he is now working for an I
M. A. in Slavic language and who don't know enough get up; In one of his short stories a
literature. and yell. Well, if I'm going to dolprizefighter in his middle twen-
Mrs. Kerr, an attractive young any yelling I'd rather know ties has a psychological problem.
woman whose name was Pris what I'm yelling about." He's insecure but because he
cilla Smith when John met her At Harvard, from which he, wins his fights, this doesn't
t Harvard, is now a Russian- was graduated in 1952, Mr. Kerr! bother him too much. He loses a
nglish translator for "The did work at the Russian Re fight, however, and this is a
urrent Digest of the Soviet search Center. On_ e jobs` shattering experience. The story,
;Press," a private publication was to do some coding on ques- Mr. Kerr said, has a pathetic
in keeping inforn/d about Rus-
sia.
F
displaced persons in Europe. "What does the fighter do?"
Mr. Kerr, who comes from R. Mr. Kerr was asked.
theatrical family, made a hit "Nothing," he said.
last season in "Bernardino," the', Another story is about afour-
onl
oth
r B
d
h
'
y
e
roa
way s
ow he
or four months in the fall of
has appeared in. That success) year-old boy who lives with his
' domineering, chauvinistiegrand-
1952, Mrs. Kerr worked in Cen- and his
resent o
h
d
p
ne
ave ma
e
tral Intelligence Agency in mother. He has a recurrent
it pretty obvious that he is
Washington. In December of headed for a distinguished act-' dream in which he imagines that
that year she and John were ing career. His mother is Junel his father is alive and everything
married and she quit her job. Walker, who recently appearedi is pleasant. The little boy goes
What she did for C. I. A. is a; here in "Ladies of the Corridor,"' out to play one day with some
secret shared only by Mrs Kerr i and his father Geoffrey Kerr,' older children. They are play-
and the C. I. A. She won't even the English actor and writer. ing war and he is chosen as the
tell John. enemy. He gets into a hole while
. I Wants To Be a Writer Ilthey throw rocks and tin cans at
"I don't want people to get
Uh,e impression from this inter-
est in Russia that I'm a radical,"
Mr. Kerr said in an interview
the other night. "I started
studying about Russia at Har-
vard right after the Korean War
began in 1950. I had the idea
that you should know your
enemy. A lot of misunderstand-
ing arises because some people
ticular need of mine," said Mr.
Kerr. His love is writing and
he made it clear he will stop
being an actor as soon as he can
make a living as a writer.
Mr. Kerr keeps plugging away
at his writing in his Greenwich
Village apartment. It's fiction
and, Mr. Kerr said "not particu-
larly commercial."
him. The little boy raises his
head. A rock hits him, but
doesn't hurt him seriously. The
little boy lies down and the re-
current dream comes over him.
When he attended Exeter Mr.
Kerr felt that acting was to be
his career. Summers, he was an
apprentice at the Cape Play-
house at Dennis, Mass., and ap-
peared there with the late Ger-
trude Lawrence in "0 Mistress
Mine" and "September Tide."
At Harvard he played in the
Brattle Theater productions of
Melville's "Billy Budd" and
Christopher Fry's "A Sleep of
Prisoners." It was the latter play
that brought him to the atten-
timz of Guthrie McClintic, the
producer, then looking for some
one to play the role of Air
Force Cadet Arthur Beaumont
in "Bernardino."
Acted for Money
"When did it occur to you that
you no longer wanted to be an
actor?" Mr. Kerr was asked.
"At Harvard in my freshman
year," he said. "Harvard opened
up a whole new world to me of
books and culture. I appeared in
plays at Harvard simply because
there was money in it."
Mr. Kerr is a fairly familiar
face on television, having acted
in such shows as "You Al.,
There," "Suspense," "The Web"
and "Danger." But he doesn't
accept all the television engage-
ments offered to him.
The other day he was invited
to play the part of a Mexican
Indian bullfighter in a playlet
by Budd Schuiberg on "Omni-1
bus." Mr. Kerr turned it down.
"Do I look like a Mexican,1
Indian?" Mr. Kerr asked, rather;
unnecessarily.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000300360029-5
the Ethel Barry-