Deborah Kerr
At the time the film was made, Kerr was already a star in England, but was not yet the Hollywood legend she would become. Sister Clodagh would not be the last time Kerr played a nun on screen and, indeed, even when she wasn’t actually cast as a nun, her characters were invariably prim, proper and virtuous. As such, it was something of a scandal when she was cast against type as the slutty military wife with whom Burt Lancaster’s Sgt. Warden has an affair in From Here to Eternity. The scene of Kerr and Lancaster embraced in a kiss while waves wash over their body remains one of the most iconic scenes in film history.
David Farrar
Like Kerr, Farrar was already a very familiar face to British audiences. He was most identified with the Sherlockian detective Sexton Blake, having portrayed the character in three films before being cast in Black Narcissus. Unlike Kerr, however, Farrar was not able to translate that casting into Hollywood success. Nevertheless, he remained a popular actor in British films for the next fifteen years.
Kathleen Byron
One of the most inexplicable things in the history of the movies is how Kathleen Byron managed to avoid becoming an enormous Hollywood star following her performance in Black Narcissus. She steals the movie out from under everyone else—including—Kerr and the image of her appearing in the doorway looking more like a 1980’s goth rock fan than any nun should ever look is one of the most memorable shots of all time. The suggestion is that she was so convincing as the personification of repressed carnality exploding to the surface that she had to sacrifice stardom to avoid being typecast as a loony. Instead, Byron merely went on to enjoy the second longest career of any of the major players. One of her last appearances on screen was in Steven Spielberg’s 1998 war drama, Saving Private Ryan.
Jean Simmons
The cast member who did enjoy a longer career than Byron was the young actress who plays the Indian girl of a lower caste with whom the young prince falls in love. Simmons would, of course, go on to become not just a star, but a legendary figure in Hollywood not just her acting, but for a notorious contractual legal battle with Howard Hughes and her off-screen role as a global human rights activist. She made her final film in 2009, less than a year before her death.
Sabu
Sabu became an international sensation with his back to back roles as the title character in The Thief of Baghdad (co-directed by Michael Powell) and as Mowgli in The Jungle Book. Unfortunately, he did succumb to stereotyping and the only truly impressive film on his resume after his first two successes is Black Narcissus. Tragically, Sabu died after a suffering a heart attack when he just thirty-nine years old.
