Word: mongkut
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Anna has a long and somewhat troubled pedigree. The story originated with the experiences of a then unknown schoolteacher, Anna Leonowens who was hired by King Mongkut of Siam (now Thailand) to teach English to his children. Leonowens chronicled in detail her supposed experiences in Siam, and the memoirs written by this self-titled "governess" served as the basis for a novel by Margaret Landon entitled Anna and the King of Siam. In these memoirs, she claimed -- it turned out later, falsely -- that she developed a deep relationship with the King, and this is the central focus of the upcoming...
...patient angel who tamed an irascible king while teaching many of his 82 children? Anna Leonowens, the fabled Welsh widow whose problems with Siam's King Mongkut in the 1860s were written into a bestseller of the 1940s, Anna and the King of Siam, was no such heroine. Never mind the book or the stage and screen versions, says Ian Grimble, a Scottish historian. He startled BBC listeners by describing Anna as a bigot, "one of those awful little English governesses, a sex-starved widow." Grimble says he bases his ungallant appraisal on a study of Anna...
Thailand has no landlord problem, and having never been conquered by Europeans, no bitter memories of colonialism. Some 85% of the farmers own their own small but fertile plots. Young King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 33, whose passion is jazz, not politics, is the great-grandson of King Mongkut of The King and I fame and heir to a throne that dates back 700 years...
Almost all of them had read and discussed the book. Leading Siamese critics and historians had taken pains to point out that it was more than 75% inaccurate (refined King Mongkut, for example, had certainly never burned a wife). The criticisms only made the movie more of a treat, because most Siamese had expected the royal family to ban it altogether, or censor it beyond recognition. But the President of the Regency, faithful to Anna Leonowen's precepts, had decided after careful consideration to leave it alone. "The people want to see the film in its entirety," he said...
...movie began, the Bangkok radio took the air to announce that death, after hovering long near his hilltop suburban home, had come at last to scholarly, slim, 84-year-old Prince Naris (pronounced Nar-ritt), 62nd child and last surviving son of the movie's hero, King Mongkut...