ANNA

ANNA, THE KING AND I

Rose Zgodzinski says it's time to honour the heroine of The King and I for improving the lives of nineteenth-century Canadians.

On a crisp morning in September 1971, I found myself rushing through Halifax. I was late for registration day at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) and was somewhat disoriented. Once inside, I asked the first breathing entity I could find for directions to the Anna Leonowens Gallery, where registration was in full swing.

"That's Anna 'Le-a-NOO-anz," the young man interrupted, correcting my mangled attempt to pronounce the name of the gallery. "She's Anna, of Anna and the King of Siam," he added. His confusing reference immediately conjured up that grand fluffy film. Of course, I was familiar with Anna, or rather, Deborah Kerr's fictionalized version of her in the 1956 film The King and I. But what was the heroine of a romantic musical comedy doing in my art school? Leonowens curious introduction took me decades to sort out.

The role with which Leonowens is always associated - the proper English governess who influenced an exotic royal court — is a part she scripted herself. As a young widow, Leonowens wrote to support herself and her two children. She wrote a series of magazine articles for the Boston-based Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1870, based on her nearly six year posting as an English language teacher in Siam (Thailand). Leonowens understood that her vantage point as a modern woman in an ancient royal court was unique. Her articles, which were well received, expanded into two books of memoirs and a series of very popular touring lectures. Leonowens' version of her adventure in Siam had turned her into a celebrity.

The Beaver/Canadian History Magazine, January 2009 Photo credit: McCord Museum Archives