Elizabeth I Trivia Quiz

Answer: Margot Robbie

In "Mary Queen of Scots" (2018), Saoirse Ronan is Mary, but Margot Robbie steals the show as her cousin Elizabeth I, in this film about the conflict between Scotland and England in 1559. As Elizabeth survives the pox and employs the strategy of denying her womanhood to keep her throne at a time when women were assumed to be unfit to rule, her skin becomes whiter and whiter with makeup, her hair a more unnatural red (and eventually is replaced with a wig), her clothing more exaggerated, until she becomes an spectacular, almost superhuman figure. When Mary, having been forced to abdicate, asks her for an army, and tries to appeal to "sisterhood", Elizabeth refuses: "I am more man than woman now". In the end, she weeps for Mary, whom she has had to execute for her plotting.

The two queens never met in real life. (Note that there is no comma after "Mary" in the 2018 title.)

Australian actress Margot Robbie (b. 1990) played controversial figure skater Tonya Harding in "I, Tonya" (2017) and supervillainness Dr. Harleen Quinzel / Harley Quinn in "Suicide Squad" (2016).

Answer: Bette Davis

As its name suggests, "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939) is a romantic tale of the fictional relationship between an aging Queen Elizabeth I and a young Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, played by the dashing Errol Flynn. The Lady Penelope Grey (Olivia de Havilland), who also loves Essex, intercepts letters between the two to make trouble between them. Essex eventually tries to seize the the throne for himself, and Elizabeth must have him executed.

The movie was based on the Broadway play, "Elizabeth the Queen" (1930) by Maxwell Anderson.

The career of the amazing American movie queen Bette Davis (1908-1989) spanned over 60 years, and she made a name for herself playing powerful, sometimes unsympathetic characters. She was the first woman president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.

Answer: Cate Blanchett

Geoffrey Rush, Chistropher Eccleston, and Richard Attenborough appear with Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth" (1998), which focuses on the early years of Elizabeth I's reign, during which she faces numerous plots and threats to depose her. But she proves the adage that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and she eventually commands respect. "Elizabeth" was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and won Best Makeup; it also won the 1998 BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

Australian actress and theater director Cate Blanchett (b. 1969) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in "Elizabeth" and in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (2007), as well as for her roles in "Notes on a Scandal" (2006),"I'm Not There" (2007) and "Carol" (2015). Blanchett is the first actress in the history of the Oscars to be nominated twice for portraying the same role in two films.

Answer: Glenda Jackson

"Mary, Queen of Scots" (1971) featured an all-star cast, including Vanessa Redgrave as the title character and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth I. It also starred Trevor Howard as Elizabeth's advisor Sir William Cecil. As with other depictions, this one has the two queens meeting, when in fact they never did in real life, but they were historically accurate about Mary's unhappy fate at Elizabeth's hands (as were the other films; that's one point that never varies). Although many critics disliked the film at the time, Roger Ebert praised Glenda Jackson as "a perfectly shrewish, wise Elizabeth."

Glenda Jackson (b. 1936) had just played Elizabeth I in the BBC mini-series "Elizbeth R", which aired in 1971. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the 1950s and spent four years as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s. In 1992 she became a Member of Parliament (MP), until her retirement in 2015.

Answer: Bette Davis

Filmed in DeLuxe Color and CinemaScope, "The Virgin Queen" (1950) dramatizes the relationship between Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) and Sir Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd). The film also stars Joan Collins as Elizabeth Throckmorton, Raleigh's wife and Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber to the Queen. Elizabeth's former favorite, Sir Christopher Hatton (Robert Douglas), frets and connives when Raleigh becomes her new favorite. Ultimately, the Queen sentences Raleigh and Throckmorton to death, but then she pardons them as they flee to the New World.

"The Virgin Queen" was not as successful for Bette Davis as her earlier appearance as Elizabeth I in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939). Following her divorce from William Sherry, Davis' career was in decline in the 1950s, though she would find renewed success in the 1960s.

Answer: Judi Dench

"Shakespeare in Love" (1998) is a light period drama that depicts a fictional romance between playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) while Shakespeare was writing "Romeo and Juliet". Within the movie, Viola, pretending to be a boy, plays the role of Juliet on stage. When it seems the company will be arrested for obscenity (women couldn't appear on stage in those days), Her Majesty the Queen (Judi Dench) reveals herself to have been in the audience. In an act of mercy, Elizabeth proclaims that the actor playing Juliet is a boy, but also insists that Viola, when they "find" her, must leave Shakespeare and marry Lord Wessex, so the ending is not altogether happy.

Dame Judith Olivia Dench (b. 1934) began working professionally as an actress with the Old Vic Company in 1957, and she appeared in many Shakespearean plays. The role of M in several "James Bond" films vaulted her to international film stardom. For her role as the wise old Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love", Dench won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Answer: Quentin Crisp

In this gender-bender of a picture show, the author and raconteur Quentin Crisp plays an elderly Elizabeth I, while actress Tilda Swinton plays a young nobleman named Orlando. On her deathbed, the Queen bequeaths the androgynous aristocrat a castle, lands, and great wealth, on condition he obey this command: "Do not grow old." And so he complies, living for hundreds of years (with yet another plot twist in the latter part of the film).

Based on "Orlando: A Biography" by Virginia Woolf, this film marked Britain's first major period drama in which Elizabeth I was played by a man. Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) was a performer, writer, and tutor who was famous for being famous. Interviewers sought him for his opinions on style and manners and for his iconoclastic views of current events, and he would happily provide provocative soundbites for use in the evening news and weekend magazine shows.

Answer: Jean Simmons

This Technicolor biopic from MGM focuses on the girlhood of Elizabeth, just after her mother's execution, and follows her to the eve of her coronation. Along with Jean Simmons as the title role, "Young Bess" stars Stewart Granger as Thomas Seymour, Deborah Kerr as Catherine Parr, and Charles Laughton as Henry VIII, a role he reprised from "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933). In this movie, Elizabeth neither executes anyone nor reprieves them from arrest or death, but unfortunately her lover is arrested and executed for plotting against her younger half-brother, King Edward VI.

Jean Simmons (1929-2010) was known for her roles in "Hamlet" (1948), "Elmer Gantry" (1960), and "Spartacus" (1960), to name a few. Howard Hughes had tried to sabotage Simmons' career when she refused to star in the film "Angel Face" (1953), and when he gained control of her contract, he placed her in bad films and instructed directors to abuse her. In one such incident, Otto Preminger kept ordering Robert Mitchum to slap Simmons harder and harder, until Mitchum finally knocked Preminger out of his chair and asked him if that was hard enough. Not a punching bag herself, Simmons took Hughes to court and won release from her contract.

Answer: Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush reprise their roles (as Elizabeth and Francis Walsingham) in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (2007), which rather takes up where "Elizabeth" (1998) left off. Much pressure is put on Protestant Elizabeth to marry, lest her cousin, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, inherit the throne. Elizabeth is manipulated by Jesuits into executing Mary so that King Philip of Spain may freely wage war on Protestant England for beheading its last Catholic heir. The subplot of the love triangle between Sir Walter Raleigh, Bess Throckmorton, and the Queen ends with Elizabeth blessing Raleigh's child by Bess and resigning herself to being the Virgin Queen.

Although Blanchett did not win an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth in either film, she did win one for Best Supporting Actress as Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator" (2004), and for Best Actress as a troubled divorcée in "Jasmine" (2013). (Interestingly, she joined Jessica Lange and Meryl Streep as the third performer who won Best Actress only after having won Best Supporting Actress.) The Australian government awarded Blanchett the Centenary Medal and made her a companion of the Order of Australia in 2017.

Answer: Flora Robson

"Fire Over England" (1937) centers on England's defeat of the Spanish Armada. Raymond Massey plays King Philip II of Spain. Besides routing Spain, Elizabeth I manages to survive plots against her person, gives her army a pep talk at Tilbury, and gets to bless a marriage, too. The film is better known for being the first film to star Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh together. In fact, it is because of this film that David O. Selznick decided to cast Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind" (1939).

English actress Flora Robson (1902-1984) frequently played roles that required emotional intensity, including a gloomy nun in "Black Narcissus" (1947), the mad Queen of Hearts in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1972), and a ready murderess in "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945). She reprised her role as Queen Bess in "The Sea Hawk" (1940), less a historical drama than a swashbuckling adventure featuring Errol Flynn. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1960.