Anna Leonowens in Fiction and Film
Margaret Landon's novel Anna and the King of Siam (1944) provides a fictionalised look at Anna Leonowens's years at the royal court, developing the abolitionist theme that resonated with her American readership. In 1946, Talbot Jennings and Sally Benson adapted it into the screenplay for a dramatic film of the same name, starring Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison. In response, Thai authors Seni and Kukrit Pramoj wrote their own account in 1948 and sent it to American politician and diplomat Abbot Low Moffat (1901–1996), who drew on it for his biography Mongkut, the King of Siam (1961). Moffat donated the Pramoj brothers' manuscript to the Library of Congress in 1961.
Landon had, however, created the iconic image of Leonowens, and "in the mid-20th century she came to personify the eccentric Victorian female traveler". The novel was adapted as a hit musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, The King and I (1951), starring Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner, which ran 1,246 performances on Broadway. In 1956, a film version was released, with Deborah Kerr starring in the role of Leonowens and Brynner reprising his role as the king. Revived many times on stage (with Brynner starring in a number of revivals), the musical has remained a favourite of the theatre-going public. However the humorous depiction of Mongkut as a polka-dancing despot, as well as the king's and Anna's apparent romantic feeling for each other, is condemned as disrespectful in Bangkok, where the Rodgers and Hammerstein film was banned by the Thai Government. The 1946, film version of Anna and the King of Siam starring Rex Harrison as Mongkut was allowed to be shown in Thailand, although it was banned in newly independent India as an inaccurate insult by westerners to an Eastern king. (In 1950, the Thai Government did not permit the film to be shown for the second time in Thailand.) The books Romance in the Harem and An English Governess at the Siamese Court were not banned in Thailand either. There were even Thai translation of these books by respected Thai writer "Humorist" (Ob Chaivasu).
During a visit to the United States in 1960, the monarch of Thailand, Bhumibol, a great-grandson of Mongkut, and his entourage explained that from what they could gather from the reviews of the musical, the characterisation of Mongkut seemed "90 percent exaggerated. My great-grandfather was really quite a mild and nice man." Years later however, during her 1985 visit to New York, Queen Sirikit of Thailand went to see the Broadway musical at the invitation of Yul Brynner. The then Ambassador of Thailand to the US gave another reason for Thailand's disapproval of The King and I: its ethno-centric attitude and its barely hidden insult on the whole Siamese nation as childish and inferior to the Westerners.
In 1972, Twentieth Century Fox produced a non-musical American TV series for CBS, Anna and the King, with Samantha Eggar taking the part of Leonowens and Brynner reprising his role as the king. Margaret Landon charged the makers with "inaccurate and mutilated portrayals" of her literary property and sued unsuccessfully for copyright infringement. The series was not a success and was canceled after only 13 episodes. In 1999 an animated version of the musical was released by Warner Bros. Animation. In the same year, Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-fat starred in a new feature-length cinematic remake, also entitled Anna and the King. One Thai critic complained that the film-makers had made Mongkut "appear like a cowboy"; this version was also banned by censors in Thailand.
Leonowens appears as a character in Paul Marlowe's novel Knights of the Sea, in which she travels from Halifax to Baddeck in 1887 to take part in a campaign to promote women's suffrage during a by-election.
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