Actors and Their Roles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson played the housekeeper Mary Kay in 'Remains of the Day' (1993), FBI agent Sadie Hawkins in 'Judas Kiss' (1998), Queen Katherine in 'Henry V' (1989), writer Karen Eiffel in 'Stranger than Fiction' (2006), and Nanny McPhee in 'Nanny McPhee' (2005).

Thompson is the daughter of the late Eric Thompson, a stage director and Phyllida Law, an actress, and sister to actress Sophie Thompson. She has been married twice - first to actor/director Kenneth Branagh (they divorced in 1995) and second to actor Greg Wise (who played the despicable John Willoughby in 'Sense and Sensibility' in which Thompson not only starred as Eleanor Dashwood, but for which she also wrote the screenplay). Wise and Thompson have a daughter Gaia. Thompson read English Literature at Cambridge, where she was also a member of the Footlights Group, along with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Other Footlights luminaries - who predated Thompson by a few years - are the Monty Python troupe: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Answer: Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant came to the attention of North American moviegoers in 'Four Weddings and A Funeral' in 1994, which was the same year he played a topographer in the whimsical comedy 'The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain'. He played a clergyman in 'Sense and Sensibility' (1995), an art auctioneer in 'Mickey Blue Eyes' (1999), and won the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival for his role as a conflicted homosexual in 'Maurice'(1987).

Grant, who makes acting look so easy, started his acting career in television in 1983. In 1986 he starred in a truly awful TV film called 'The Lady and the Highwayman' - he played the highwayman - which was based on a Barbara Cartland novel. The cast - which included such notables as Emma Samms, Michael York, John Mills, Claire Bloom, Oliver Reed, Bernard Miles and Robert Morley (I surmise that all of them must have needed the money!) - was brilliant, but the script was dreadful, as was the premise of the plot!

Had fate decreed otherwise, Dr. Hugh Grant would be teaching art history somewhere or doing a Sister Wendy act on PBS, but he failed to get a first class degree at Oxford which precluded his ability to go on to doctoral studies in art history. The art world's loss is the film world's gain!

Trivia note: Grant studied piano as a child (yes, he did his own playing in 'Music and Lyrics') and his teacher was the mother of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Answer: Dirk Bogarde

Like Hugh Grant and Cary Grant, Dirk Bogarde always made acting look so easy. His landmark role in 'Victim!' (1961) as Melville Farr, a closeted homosexual barrister (that's what the Brits call lawyers who serve in the courts) who is being blackmailed made such an impact that it was instrumental in changing the law in Britain decriminalizing homosexuality. In 1954/55/57/63, Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in a 'Doctor in the House', 'Doctor at Sea' (which introduced Brigitte Bardot to English-speaking audiences), 'Doctor at Large' and 'Doctor in Distress' respectively, films that displayed his comedic talents. His portrayal of Hugo Barrett, the manipulative valet in 'The Servant'(1963) was chillingly brilliant, as was his performance as Max, the former Nazi SS officer in 'The Night Porter' (1974). His favourite role was that of German composer Gustav von Aschenbach in 'Death in Venice' (1971).

Bogarde played another composer - Franz Liszt - in a horribly Hollywoodized film biography of the Hungarian composer. He hated his one and only experience of making a movie in Hollywood and would have agreed with Gertrude Stein who, when asked what it was like there (in Hollywood), responded with "There is no there there!"

In addition to being a brilliant actor, Bogarde was also an accomplished author and artist (some of his paintings hang in the British War Museum), and an activist in the cause of euthanasia. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1992 for his services to acting. He died in 1999.

Answer: Audrey Hepburn

After a brief career in British films, Audrey Hepburn was chosen to play Princess Ann opposite Gregory Peck in 'Roman Holiday' and became an instant international star. (She also won the Oscar for her role.) That was back in 1953. In 1954 she played the chauffeur's daughter who trains as a chef at the Cordon-Bleu in Paris in 'Sabrina', with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, a bookstore clerk who becomes a fashion model in 'Funny Face' (1957) with Fred Astaire, a translator in 'Charade' (1963) with Cary Grant, and the daughter of an art forger in the very funny 'How to Steal a Million' (1966), with Peter O'Toole (this latter film contains one of my favourite movie in-jokes, when O'Toole, in persuading Hepburn to disguise herself as a museum cleaning woman, says: "You can give Givenchy a rest for one night." It was well-known that Hepburn's elegant clothes for film and real life were designed by Hubert de Givenchy, her great friend).

Hepburn, daughter of a Dutch baroness and a British insurance executive, was born in Brussels in 1929, and the family (Audrey had two half-brothers, Alex and Ian, from her mother's first marriage), divided their time between Belgium, England and The Netherlands. In 1935 her parents divorced and her father, a Nazi sympathizer, disappeared from Hepburn's life. Years later, with the aid of the Red Cross, she traced him to Dublin, and supported him financially for the rest of his life. In 1939, her mother took her three children to live in their grandfather's home in Arnhem in the Netherlands, so Hepburn spent her later childhood living under the Nazi regime, which was particularly repressive and punitive in The Netherlands. She trained as a ballet dancer, and would have made a career in ballet except that Marie Rambert, of the Ballet Rambert in London felt that at 5'7" Audrey was too tall, and that the severe effects of malnutrition and wartime famine had so impaired her body and bones that they would not stand up to the rigours of life as a ballerina.

In her later life she became the UN Ambassador for UNICEF and her own experiences of wartime oppression and hunger made her particularly suited to working with children in war-torn countries like Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea and the like.

In 1992. President George Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour the U.S. can bestow. She also won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her humanitarian work (the latter was a posthumous award).

Audrey Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer in January 1993 at the age of 63.

Trivia note: Audrey Hepburn is one of the first 12 people to receive the Grand Slam of American entertainment awards: An Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy and a Tony.

Answer: Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart always claimed he owed his movie career to his great friend British actor Leslie Howard. When Warner Brothers bought the rights to the Broadway play 'The Petrified Forest', they wanted Leslie Howard to reprise his leading role as Alan Squier with Edward G. Robinson playing Duke Mantee, the cold-blooded killer role Bogart had played on Broadway. Howard refused to sign his contract until Warner's relented and gave in to his demands that Bogart be cast as Mantee. The 1935 film set Bogart's feet on the road to stardom, although he played a lot of schlock roles (mostly heavies) as a Warner's contract player. When Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall had a daughter, they named her Leslie Howard Bogart, after Leslie Howard who had been killed during World War II.

The other roles mentioned in the question are Rick Blaine, the nightclub owner in 'Casablanca' (1942), Fred C. Dobbs, a gold prospector with questionable ethics in 'The Treasure of Sierra Madre' (1948), Linus Larrabee, the titan of industry in 'Sabrina' (1954), and Captain Queeg, the paranoid ship's captain in 'The Caine Mutiny' (1954).

In 1945, after three disastrous marriages, Bogart met Lauren Bacall on the set of 'To Have and To Have Not' in 1944 and they were married in 1945. With the birth of his son, Stephen, Bogart became a first-time father at age 49.

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for 'Casablanca' and 'The Caine Mutiny', and won the award for his role as Charlie Alnut in the 1951 film 'The African Queen'.

Answer: Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor was born Elizabeth Rosamund Mary Taylor in London on February 27, 1932 to American ex-pat parents Francis and Sarah Taylor. When war threatened in 1939, the family moved to Los Angeles. A friend suggested that the strikingly beautiful little Elizabeth should have a screen test - and the rest is history. The much-married (eight times - which includes two marriages to Richard Burton) Ms Taylor was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire (the female equivalent of a knighthood) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999. She has won two Oscars (for 'BUtterfield 8' in 1960 and for 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' in 1966). After the death of her dear friend Rock Hudson in 1985, Dame Elizabeth set up a foundation to combat AIDS and has raised millions of dollars in the cause.

She played Susanna Drake, the southern belle in 'Raintree County' (1957); Maggie the Cat, the spurned wife in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' (1958); Catherine Holly, the young woman who is on the verge of insanity in 'Suddenly, Last Summer' (1959); Gloria Wandrous, the promiscuous model (the original character in John O'Hara's book was a call girl, but Hollywood censors reigned supreme back then!) in 'Butterfield 8' (1960); and the title role of the Queen of Egypt in 'Cleopatra' (1964).

Answer: Laurence Olivier

English playwright Charles Bennett once said that Laurence Olivier "spoke Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were actually thinking them." Small wonder, then, that Olivier (1907-1989) was recognized as one of the world's leading Shakespearean actors. The son of a High Anglican priest, Olivier trained at the Central School of Drama and Speech. In 1939 he became a big box office star with his portrayal of the anguished Heathcliff in the film 'Wuthering Heights' playing opposite Merle Oberon. In 1948, Olivier won the Oscar for best Actor for his self-directed role as Hamlet (his film 'Hamlet' also won the Oscar for best film). In 1947, he was knighted and became Sir Laurence Olivier, and in 1970 he was created baron (Lord) Olivier of Brighton, a life peerage. Olivier was married three times: to actress Jill Esmond (1930-1940), with whom he had a son, Tarquin; to actress Vivien Leigh (1940-1960); and to actress Joan Plowright (1961 until his death in 1989), with whom he had three children, a son, Richard, and two daughters, Tamsin and Julie Kate.

The roles cited in the question are: Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain's great naval hero in 'That Hamilton Woman' (1941); washed-up comedian Archie Rice in 'The Entertainer' (1960); the sadistic former Nazi dentist Dr. Christian Szell in 'Marathon Man' (1976); the Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman in 'The Boys from Brazil' (1978); and General Douglas MacArthur in 'Inchon' (1981).

Answer: Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) was born in Hartford, Connecticut where her father was a successful urologist. Her mother was a suffragette and instilled in Katharine her life-long belief in the equality of the sexes. Although largely home-schooled, Katharine attended and graduated from Bryn Mawr with an arts degree and set her sights on an acting career. After some successes on Broadway, Hollywood beckoned and Hepburn became an instant star with her first movie 'A Bill of Divorcement' (1932) playing opposite stage and screen veteran John Barrymore. However, Hollywood moguls were more than a little taken aback by the forthright Ms Hepburn, who wore pants (before it was fashionable for women to wear trousers) and no make-up most of the time and refused to give interviews or do publicity appearances (in those days, movie stars were fashion plates who did what the bosses told them to do!) She earned a reputation as Box Office Poison, despite two Oscar nominations for Best Actress and one win in that category, so she shrugged off Hollywood to return to Broadway where she had a smash hit playing socialite Tracy Lord in 'The Philadelphia Story'. She was smart enough to buy the rights to the hit play before Hollywood did, and negotiated her own contract to bring it to the screen in 1940. She won her third Oscar nomination for her starring role as the prudish socialite. In 1942, she made 'Woman of the Year' starring with Spencer Tracy. The two starred in eight more films together over the next 25 years and embarked on a love affair that lasted until Tracy's death in 1967, despite the fact that Tracy, a staunch Roman Catholic, never divorced Louise Treadwell, whom he had married in 1923. Hepburn ended her own (and only) six-year marriage to socialite businessman Ludlow Ogden Smith in 1934. Hepburn was romantically involved with movie mogul/aviation businessman Howard Hughes until 1938 (but don't believe everything you learned about their relationship as it was depicted in the movie 'The Aviator'!) Over the course of her career in film Hepburn garnered 12 Academy Awards Best Actress nominations and won four Best Actress Oscars (for 'Morning Glory' (1933), 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), 'The Lion in Winter' (1968), and 'On Golden Pond' (1981).

The other roles mentioned in the question are: lawyer Amanda Bonner in 'Adam's Rib' (1949); missionary Rose Sayer in 'The African Queen' (1951); professional golfer Pat Pemberton in 'Pat and Mike' (1962); and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in 'The Lion in Winter' (1968).

Answer: Johnny Depp

A Hollywood rebel in the style of Robert Mitchum/James Dean/Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp's first film was 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' in 1984, but he really shot to stardom in the TV series '21 Jump Street', playing undercover cop Tom Hanson (1987-1990).

Depp was born in Kentucky in 1963 and has starred in many critically-acclaimed films, including four of Tim Burton's: 'Edward Scissorhands' (1990), 'Sleepy Hollow' (1999), 'The Corpse Bride' (2005), and 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' (2005).

Depp is best known for his role as the dashing pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

Depp's outrageous off-screen antics, which include trashing a New York hotel suite and battling paparazzi wherever he finds them (or they find him), have been minimized of late. Maybe fatherhood has calmed him down somewhat. He has a daughter (Lily-Rose, born 1999) and a son Jack (born 2002) with French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis.

The other roles mentioned in the question: the title role as the renegade FBI agent in 'Donnie Brasco' (1997); journalist Raoul Duke in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' (1998); the gypsy leader Roux in 'Chocolat' (2000); and playwright James M. Barrie in 'Finding Neverland' (2004).

Answer: Doris Day

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 3, 1924) started her show business career as a singer with big band leader Les Brown and His Band of Renown. Her first Hollywood role was that of Miss Georgia Garrett in 'Romance on the High Seas' in 1948. Her perky personality, bright smile and blonde all-American girl good looks won over audiences everywhere. Although she had never taken acting lessons, her innate sense of timing never let her down, and she essayed comedy and drama with equal aplomb. Married four times, Ms Day had one son from her first marriage to musician Al Jordan, record producer Terry Melcher (he took his stepfather Marty Melcher's name). Following her retirement from the screens large and small (her credits include a successful TV series) Ms Day devoted her time and money to the Doris Day Animal League from her home in Carmel, California. The League works to better the lot of domestic animals.

About those roles: Day played wild west heroine Martha Jane Canary in 'Calamity Jane' (1954); torch singer Ruth Etting in 'Love Me or Leave Me' (1955); union shop steward Babe Williams in 'The Pajama Game' (1957); interior designer Jan Morrow in 'Pillow Talk' (1959); and Kitty Wonder, the circus owner's daughter in Billy Rose's 'Jumbo' (1962).