The original Broadway production of "The King and I" opened at the St. James Theater on March 29, 1951, ran for 1246 performances and won the 1952 Tony Award (New York City) for the Best Musical. Yul Brynner won a Tony Award for Best Actor and an Academy Award for Best Actor portraying the King of Siam in the musical version of this story.
Despite good production values and a star of Yul Brynner's character, the show did badly in the ratings with many critics finding the concept just didn't work as a 24 minute television show (excluding adverts), with patronizing and slight stories. The series was canceled midway through production and hasn't been re-run since the 1970s so it has been largely forgotten about now. It was the failure of this series that prompted Brynner to invest his own money into obtaining the theatrical rights. He realized that the audience loved the original film so by using his own name to headline it, he could take it back to Broadway. This proved a smart move as the live show was very successful both at home and abroad.
One of the reasons the series got a lot of criticism is that it changed Anna Leonowens nationality from English to American. The real Anna was English (and played as such in the 1956 film by Deborah Kerr) and curiously Samantha Eggar who plays the character in this show is also English, so changing the nationality appeared to be nothing more than a cynical attempt to appeal to advertisers. (The surname of the character was also simplified to "Owens"). Interestingly the original Anna Leonowens was also the aunt of British movie star Boris Karloff,
It has been estimated that Yul Brynner played "The King" some 4,625 times in various stage productions of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II The King and I (1956).
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