10 Degrees of Jennifer Jones Trivia Quiz

Answer: Robert Walker

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Walker's boyish handsomeness hid the demon of alcoholism. Some time after the movie Jones divorced Walker; they had two sons; one, Robert Jr., followed his dad into acting. Walker also starred with Judy Garland in Minelli's "The Clock" (Jones would have the lead in Minelli's "Madame Bovary"). In 1951, Walker got the role of his lifetime playing psychopath Bruno Anthony in the Hitchcock classic "Strangers On A Train" (1951). His Bruno was not only one of the greatest villains in Hitchcock, but in all filmdom, as he lured an unsuspecting Farley Granger into his "criss-cross" murder plot.

Sadly, it would be Walker's last complete role; soon after "Strangers" and as he was doing Leo McCarey's "My Son John", he was given a sedative after a booze binge and it interacted with the booze, killing him. "My Son John" was released the following year, completed with outtakes from "Strangers".

Answer: David O. Selznick

Selznick, of course, brought "Gone With The Wind" to movie screens in 1939, but before then was known for his lavish adaptations of such classics as "David Copperfield" for MGM; in the mid-30s he became an independent producer, although MGM distributed "Wind". For the rest of his life Selznick tried to equal the success of "Wind".

He married Jones in 1949. (The "O" stood for Oliver, but Selznick adopted the initial to give himself class!)

Answer: Gregory Peck

The last half of the 1940s saw a long decline in Selznick's fortunes as he desperately tried to duplicate the success of "Gone With The Wind". He produced the overblown film of Niven Busch's "Duel In The Sun" for his future wife. Jones is Pearl Chavez who goes to live with the McCanles family in 1870s
Texas after her father is hanged for killing her adulterous mother. In one of his early roles Peck plays spoiled Lewt McCanles, who only thinks of women in terms of sex. Because of his lust, not love, for Pearl, he eventually picks up a murder charge, and finally he and Pearl unite after they fatally shoot each other!

Peck only played one other villainous role, as Joseph Mengele, in 1978's "The Boys From Brazil". For Peck at his best in a Western, see him as Ringo in Henry King's 1950 classic "The Gunfighter" (a far better film, to me, than "High Noon"!)

In 1956's "The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit", Peck would be Jones' husband, an exec who had an affair with Italian girl Pier Angeli and had an son with her. Jones was enraged on finding out this, but later Peck repented and reconciled with his wife.

Answer: Joseph Cotten

Cotten, a Virginian, debuted opposite Welles in "Citizen Kane". His Uncle Charlie in "Shadow of a Doubt" would be the template for future Hitchcock villains, including Walker's Bruno. Yet poor Cotten rarely got the girl in his films! For instance, at the end of "The Third Man", Valli, mistress of Welles' Harry Lime, walks right past Cotten's Holly Martins! In "Duel" Cotten's Jesse sees Pearl in Lewt's arms and dumps her! But Pearl was struggling against Lewt. Later, when Jesse is about to marry another girl and Pearl is fleeing Lewt and seeks refuge with Jesse, Lewt finds them and cold-bloodedly guns down Jesse, though Jesse survives. (In Busch's novel, Pearl just kills Lewt and marries Jesse.)

Later Cotten and Jones re-teamed for Selznick's film of the Robert Nathan fantasy "Portrait of Jennie" where Cotton paints Jones' portrait and learns she died (!) in a wrecked ship years before!

Answer: Marilyn Monroe

In Henry Hathaway's 1953 melodrama "Niagara" Monroe was Rose Loomis, who plotted the death of hubby Cotten with her lover. But Cotten turned the tables by killing the lover and then, in a memorable scene, murdered Monroe in a bell tower. After being locked in there, Cotten sees Monroe's lipstick and other valuables and goes up to her corpse, saying "I loved you, Rose, you know that!"

What more can you say about Monroe? After a string of minor roles in the late 40s, she hit big with parts in Huston's "Asphalt Jungle" and Mankewicz's "All About Eve". By the time of Hawk's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", she was THE sex goddess of the 50s. Jayne Mansfield was the only one who ever approached Monroe's level of success with her two Frank Tashlin films, "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?"

Answer: Robert Mitchum

Hargitay was married to Mansfield (their daughter is actress Mariska Hargitay)!

In the only western directed by Otto Preminger ("Laura"), "River of No Return", Monroe is a saloon singer whose lover, Rory Calhoun, is the film's villain; after he dumps her and steals Mitchum's horse, she joins Mitchum and his little son on a wild raft ride down a Northwestern river with Indians after them. After Calhoun is killed by the son, Mitchum and Monroe are re-united.

Monroe had a bit part as a chorus girl in 1950's "A Ticket to Tomahawk", a Western spoof, and her last role would be in John Huston's modern western "The Misfits", written by her ex-husband, Arthur Miller. It would also be the final film for Monroe's co-star Clark Gable.

Answer: Cary Grant

Again, what more can you say about Cary Grant? His films for Hawks and Hitchcock are legendary. "The Philadelphia Story", "Gunga Din", "Charade", "Operation Petticoat"...he had a string of hits and masterpieces!

In Hawks' "Monkey Business", he's a research scientist who discovers a drug that can seemingly restore a person's youth. Married to Ginger Rogers, he has a brief fling with Monroe's bubble-headed secretary, who can't even type! As her boss, played by Charles Coburn ("Piggy" in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes") says, "Anyone can type!"

Olivier co-starred with and directed Monroe in "The Prince and The Showgirl".

Answer: Deborah Kerr

Kerr is best known for co-starring with Yul Brynner in "The King and I", but also had a steamy (for that time) swim on a Honolulu beach with Burt Lancaster in "From Here To Eternity". Simmons was an Indian girl to Kerr's Sister Clodagh in the Powell-Pressburger masterpiece "Black Narcissus" (she had an affair with Powell and shared the same birthday with him). She also played a nun opposite Mitchum in Huston's "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" and would be his wife, Ida Carmody, in the Down Under tale "The Sundowners". They would co-star one last time in the TV movie "Reunion in Fairborough". (Mitchum and Simmons also starred in the Preminger noir drama "Angel Face")

Grant and Kerr starred in "An Affair to Remember", Leo McCarey's 1957 remake of his own "Love Affair"; not only did he co-write the script with Delmer Daves, but he co-wrote the title song with Adamson and Warren! The soaper inspired "Sleepless in Seattle".

Answer: David Farrar

David Farrar was the British agent Mr. Dean to Kerr's Clodagh in "Narcissus". He wore shorts almost the whole film through! Kathleen Bryan played Sister Ruth, one of Kerr's fellow nuns, who becomes jealous of Farrar's attention to Kerr. At the film's climax, she tries to murder Kerr by pushing her off a steep cliff! But it's Kerr who lives.

In "The Small Back Room" Bryan is Farrar's girlfriend; he's a crippled WW2 bomb expert who take refuge in drink.

Answer: Jennifer Jones

This Powell-Pressburger adaptation of the Mary Webb novel came about from a joint effort by Selznick and his English counterpart, Alexander Korda. As I said before, Selznick was trying to repeat the success of "Gone With The Wind". Jones played Hazel Woodus, a part-Gypsy girl who marries pastor Cyril Cusack, but whose deeply superstitious nature impels her into the arms of Farrar. But when her pet fox is endangered by the fox-hunting squire she dumps him for her husband! At the end she tries to save her fox from Farrar's hounds but ends up falling to her death in an abandoned mine shaft.

After Selznick's death, Jones married art dealer Norman Simon. Her last role before retiring was opposite Fred Astaire in 1974's "The Towering Inferno".

Hope you liked the quiz!