A Tea Time Quiz - Ten Acting 'T's

Answer: Gene Tierney

Gene Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1920 and starred in her first feature film, 'The Return of Frank James', alongside Henry Fonda in 1940. Her career spanned the 1940s and first half of the 1950s before being curtailed by severe depression, although she was able to make a limited comeback in later years. Tierney received her Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role in the 1945 film 'Leave Her to Heaven', two years after her eldest daughter, Daria, was born severely disabled after Tierney contracted rubella from a fan during her pregnancy.

Answer: Jessica Tandy

Tandy was 80 years old when she stepped up to accept her Oscar at the 62nd Academy Awards ceremony. She won for her role as Daisy Werthen in 1989's 'Driving Miss Daisy'. Her co-stars Morgan Freeman and Dan Aykroyd received nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively. Two years later she went on to receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination for 'Fried Green Tomatoes'.

The previous holder of the title of "Oldest Best Actress Oscar Winner" was Katharine Hepburn, who took her fourth and final win for 'On Golden Pond' at the age of 74 in 1982.

Answer: Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson comes from an acting family (her father, mother and sister all followed the same profession) but she has also become noted for her writing and political activism. In addition to her 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility' (for which she also received a Best Actress nomination), she has written follow-up stories to Beatrix Potter's 'Tales of Peter Rabbit'. Politically she is an outspoken campaigner for women's rights, environmental concerns and human rights.

She won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in the 1992 film 'Howard's End' and was nominated for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress the following year.

Answer: Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron was born in the city of Benoni in north-eastern South Africa in 1975. She moved to the United States to pursue an acting career in the mid-1990s, having lived in Europe for several years while working as a model. Her early films included '2 Days in the Valley', 'The Devil's Advocate' (alongside Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino) and 'The Cider House Rules', but she came to particular prominence with a run of films from 2000 to 2003 that culminated in Oscar success at the 76th Academy Awards ceremony for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in 'Monster'.

The same role also bagged her a Golden Globe Award, a Critic's Choice Movie Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Answer: Jennifer Tilly

The 1994 film 'Bullets Over Broadway' had a total of seven Academy Award nominations. However, it only emerged victorious in the Best Supporting Actress category - the one in which it had two of the nominees, Dianne West and Jennifer Tilly. Tilly's acting career began on TV in the early 1980s, with various guest roles on famous shows such as 'Hill Street Blues', 'Remington Steele' and 'Cheers'. Her film debut came a full ten years before her Oscar nomination in the 1984 comedy-drama 'No Small Affair' that starred Demi Moore. Tilly also had success in her second career as a poker player when she won a World Series of Poker Bracelet in 2005.

Jennifer Tilly's younger sister, Meg Tilly, also received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in the 1985 film 'Agnes of God'.

Answer: Uma Thurman

Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston in 1970 and brought up as a Buddhist; she shares her middle name with a key concept in Buddhism that is generally translated into English as "compassion". Thurman is probably best-known for her roles in films such as 'Pulp Fiction' (1994), 'Batman & Robin' (1997) and the 'Kill Bill' series (2003-04). She also received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her iconic portrayal of the wife of a gangster in 'Pulp Fiction'.

Fall Out Boy released their single 'Uma Thurman', a tribute to the actress and her famous dance with John Travolta in 'Pulp Fiction', as a digital download in 2015. It made it to number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and achieved Platinum certification.

Answer: Lana Turner

Lana Turner's seven husbands were Artie Shaw, Steve Crane (the father of her only daughter, Cheryl), Bob Topping Jr., Lex Barker, Fred May, Robert P. Eaton and Ronald Pellar. Her two separate marriages to Crane resulted from the fact that she had the first one annulled after discovering that he had not yet divorced his first wife. Turner's film career spanned over 40 years, from her first screen appearance in 1937 to her final film 'Witches' Brew', which was released in 1980.

In between she had success with 'Johnny Eager' (1941), 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (also 1941) and 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' (1946).

She received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in 1957's 'Peyton Place'.

Answer: Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor was a British-American actress who was born in London in 1932 to American parents. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2000 New Year's Honours List for "services to acting and charity". Her acting awards included two Best Actress Oscars for 'BUtterfield 8' in 1960 (after three successive years of unsuccessful nominations) and 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' in 1966.

It was on the set of 'Cleopatra' that Taylor met Richard Burton, to whom she was married twice and starred with in a total of 11 films. Overall, Elizabeth Taylor matched Lana Turner's marital record of eight marriages to seven different men.

Answer: Claire Trevor

Claire Trevor's film career began when she played the role of Sally Johnson in 1933's 'Jimmy and Sally' opposite James Dunn. She received her first Oscar nomination (in the Best Supporting Actress category) for 1937's 'Dead End' before winning one for her role in 'Key Largo' (1948).

Her final Oscar nomination came for the 1954 film 'The High and the Mighty', but her final film was the aptly named 'Kiss Me Goodbye' that was first released in 1982. Trevor's personal life was marked by the tragic death of her only son, Charles Dunmore, in an air crash and the loss of her husband of over 30 years, Milton H. Bren, only a year later.

She died in 2000, at the age of 90.

Answer: Marisa Tomei

'My Cousin Vinny' was a romantic comedy first released in 1992, in which Tomei starred as Mona Lisa Vito - the fiancée of Joe Pesci's title character. Her performance won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at the 1993 Academy Awards ceremony, beating actresses such as Vanessa Redgrave and Miranda Richardson in the process. Tomei also received nominations for the same award in 2001 (for 'In the Bedroom') and 2008 (for 'The Wrestler') but was defeated by Jennifer Connelly and Penélope Cruz respectively. Tomei's television credits include 'A Different World' (a spin-off of 'The Cosby Show'), 'Seinfeld' and 'Empire'.