For sale..the legacy of a lost love between Hollywood's Scots goddess and RAF ace; DEBORAH KERR'S ENGAGEMENT RING COULD SELL FOR pounds 25,000 AT AUCTION.

Byline: By STEVE HENDRY

SHE was the flame-haired Scots girl who conquered Hollywood and he was the dashing RAF fighter ace whose daring exploits helped win her hand in marriage.

But while the 1945 wedding of film legend Deborah Kerr and Squadron Leader Tony Bartley sounds like the romantic climax of a big screen classic there was to be no happy ending for the couple.

Although they had two daughters and she enjoyed some of the highlights of a glittering career during their union - including the iconic, and at the time shocking, kiss with Burt Lancaster on a beach amid crashing waves in From Here To Eternity - the marriage ended in acrimony in 1958. But while their love may have hit the rocks 50 years ago, those on which it was built go under the hammer on Thursday.

The distinctive three-stone diamond engagement ring with which she accepted Bartley's proposal is up for sale at London auctioneer Bonhams and is expected to fetch up to pounds 25,000.

Other items up for sale include a cultured pearl, emerald and diamond bracelet, which is expected to raise between pounds 4000 and pounds 6000, a 19th-century gold and turquoise snake-like chain, worth pounds 2500 - which Kerr often wore round her wrist, and a collar of oval-cut amethysts.

The jewellery has been in a vault since the actress's death in 2007 but has now been put up for sale by her family.

It seems an inglorious end to such a romantic story.

Deborah Kerr was born on the banks of the Clyde in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire in 1921, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr-Trimmer and his wife Kathleen.

She spent her early childhood in the town but her cut-glass and very English accent, which saw her stereotyped as an English Rose for much of her career, came from attending boarding school in Bristol.

Having trained as a ballet dancer, she moved into acting and performed for the British Army entertainment service.

She appeared in a number of wartime films including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, one of three she made with directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - grandfather of Trainspotting producer Andrew MacDonald and his Oscar-winning brother Kevin, director of Touching The Void and The Last King of Scotland. TONY BARTLEY, meanwhile, was a Spitfire pilot - fighting Nazis in the skies over Britain, France and North Africa.

He badly damaged his spine in a crash landing in 1943 but flew 365 missions and was credited with downing at least 15 enemy aircraft. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his exploits during the war.

Bartley became friends with Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh when the actor served as a wireless operator with the Fleet Air Arm. He furthered his film links when he performed the flying acrobatics for the 1942 film, The First of the Few, starring Leslie Howard and he also met Clark Gable when he served as liaison officer for the United States Ninth Airforce in 1944.

Rubbing shoulders with the film set introduced him to his wife-to-be. The couple married in London on November 28, 1945,. Their first daughter, Melanie, was born in 1947 with Francesca following in 1951.

Hollywood had already called. Kerr's performance as a nun in 1947 film Black Narcissus had already caught the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the big boys of 1940s Hollywood, who had snapped up her contract.

In her first American film, The Hucksters, she starred with her husband's old pal and then the most famous actor in the world, Clark Gable.

Studio head Louis B Mayer coined the phrase "Kerr rhymes with Star!" - so everyone would pronounce it the American way - and it proved prophetic as her Hollywood career took her to dizzying heights.

She starred with Spencer Tracy in Edward, My Son - which brought a first Oscar nomination - opposite Stewart Granger in King Solomon's Mines and The Prisoner of Zenda, and with Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar.

But despite her success, she later reflected: "I wore a halo of decorum and was just about as exciting as any oyster."

All that was about to change with the 1953 blockbuster, From Here To Eternity, about life on an army barracks in Hawaii just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. It brought her superstardom and rid her of her reputation as a prim and proper English lady.

She played Karen Holmes, the wife of an army officer, whose affair with a tough sergeant (Burt Lancaster) is consummated amid the rolling Hawaiian surf.

The steamy scene is one of the most iconic cinema kisses of all time and helped garner her second Oscar-nomination.

She said at the time: "I studied voice for three months to get rid of my English accent. I changed my hair to blonde. I knew I could be sexy if I had to."

She later quipped: "I don't think anyone knew I could act until I put on a bathing suit."

There were rumours the kiss was more than play acting and she admitted there was a definite something between her and Lancaster, saying there was "a chemistry that happened between us".

She joked: "We rolled and rolled in those waves for hours and had a dickens of a time keeping the sand out of our suits. We never won that battle." SHE went on to star in The King and I with Yul Brynner and An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant. But success doomed her marriage.

While her husband was building a career as a writer and producer they spent more and more time apart. It was said Bartley found it difficult to cope with his wife's fame and fortune and had trouble finding himself after his heroic wartime exploits.

In 1958 he issued a writ for enticement - when someone persuades another man's wife to leave him - against screenwriter, Peter Viertel and reportedly pocketed a EUR300,000 pay-off.

She once said: "If a women hasn't met the right man by the time she's 24, she may be lucky." She had just turned 25 when she wed Bartley.

She married Viertel in 1960, and remained so until her death last year. She was in frail health after suffering from Parkinson's Disease.

Bartley also remarried and died in 2001.

Kerr retired from Hollywood in 1969 but continued to work in theatre and TV. Her last film was The Assam Garden in 1985.

She was nominated six times for an Oscar for best actress and got four BAFTA nominations, but never won. However, in 1994, she given an honorary Oscar in recognition of her career and received a standing ovation as she collected the award.

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CAPTION(S):

Happy family: Kerr and husband Bartley with daughter Melanie in 1952; Love token: Kerr's three-stone diamond engagement ring; Beach scene: The "shocking" kiss with Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity. It was rumoured it was more than acting; Screen idol: Helensburgh-born Deborah Kerr was one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood; Sparkling: Ring may raise pounds 25,000; Jewels: Pearl bracelet and amethysts; Sale: Gold and turquoise chain