In 1957 Mr. Kerr appeared in the film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” playing Lt. Joseph Cable, whose racial prejudice keeps him from marrying the girl he loves.

Mr. Kerr had stage, film and television roles throughout the 1950s. He played opposite Leslie Caron in “Gaby” (1956), a movie about a doomed love affair in London during World War II, and appeared on television series like “The Alcoa Hour” and “Playhouse 90.”

He was offered the Lindbergh role in 1956 for the Warner Brothers film “The Spirit of St. Louis,” about Lindbergh’s historic trans-Atlantic flight. His decision to turn it down was widely publicized.

Mr. Kerr won the Tony in 1954 for his role in the Broadway production of Robert Anderson’s Tea and Sympathy. He played a sensitive teenager whose prep school classmates torment him because they assume he is gay. When he starred in the 1956 film version, MGM avoided mention of homosexuality by having his tormentors harass him for being a sissified “sister boy.”

Source: The New York Times