Father on Film Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hugh Griffith

Hugh or Huw Griffith (he was either one or the other in film and stage credits) was born in Wales in 1912 and died in England in 1980. He was a brilliant actor who had a successful stage and film career on both sides of the Atlantic. He began acting just before the onset of World War II and set aside his ambitions to serve with the British army in India and Burma. At the end of the war, he returned to England and resumed his acting career. In 1959 he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Sheik Iderim in 'Ben Hur'. He is an absolute delight as the roguish Charles Bonnet, father to Nicole (Audrey Hepburn). If you've never seen this clever comedy, I urge you to rent it.

Eli Wallach plays the man Audrey Hepburn ditches for Peter O'Toole (nothing against Eli, but can you blame her?) and Charles Boyer is also in the film as the director of a museum. Stanley Holloway played Audrey's dad, Alfie Doolittle, in the film version of 'My Fair Lady' and also created that role in the stage version opposite Julie Andrews, who created the role of Eliza.

Answer: Colin Firth

'Nanny McPhee' is an engaging fantasy with wonderfully over-the-top performances by Firth, Emma Thompson (in the title role), and Angela Lansbury. The supporting cast includes Thomas Sangster (who also appears with Thompson and Firth in 'Love Actually') as the oldest of the seven little demons tamed by Nanny McPhee. This seems to be one of the few films in which Colin Firth does not fall into a body of water, an event which never ceases to set his female fans sighing!

Liam Neeson played Thomas Sangster's stepfather in 'Love Actually', Greg Wyse is the husband of Emma Thomson and the father of their daughter Gaia (he played the despicable Willoughby in 'Sense and Sensibility'), and Daniel Craig is the 21st century James Bond, who is hardly a father figure!

Answer: Jude Law

Jude Law plays the widower father of Sophie and Olivia in 'The Holiday', which also stars Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslett and Jack Black. In the movie, Diaz and Winslett, both seeking escape from unhappy love affairs, exchange homes for the Christmas holidays. Winslett goes to Diaz' luxurious home in Los Angeles, where she meets Jack Black, and Diaz ends up in Winslett's somewhat inconvenient cottage in Kent, and meets the aforesaid widower, dad of Sophie and Olivia. Eli Wallach co-stars as an aged screenwriter who lives next door in Los Angeles - a beautiful performance that is worth the price of the rental!

Hugh Grant does not appear in 'The Holiday', and has ventured on fatherhood on film in the not-so-hot 'Nine Months' in which he co-starred with Julianne Moore. Both stars 'phoned-in their parts.

Answer: Gregory Peck

The two films are 'The Yearling' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and Gregory Peck is the actor who depicts dad in both of them. Frederic March won best actor in the year that Peck was nominated for 'The Yearling', but Peck won the coveted statuette for his portrayal of Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. Both films are classics and well worth viewing over and over again.

Burl Ives played Big Daddy in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof', Alan Ladd's best-remembered role was that of 'Shane' in which he played a father-figure but not a father, and William Holden played a dad in 'Rachel and the Stranger' .

Answer: Henry Fonda

'On Golden Pond' was Henry Fonda's last film. His daughter Jane bought the rights to Ernest Thompson's 1979 Broadway play because she felt that the relationship of Norman Thayer and his daughter Chelsea closely mirrored that of her father and herself. The film won best picture Oscar, Katharine Hepburn (who played Norman's wife and Chelsea's mother Ethel) won the best actress Oscar (her fourth!) and Henry Fonda won the best actor Oscar, his first Oscar in a long and distinguished career. At the time of the awards, Henry Fonda was too ill to attend the ceremony and Jane, who was nominated for best supporting actress for her work in 'On Golden Pond', accepted the award on his behalf. In her acceptance speech she informed the audience that her father's reaction would probably be, "Well, ain't I lucky!" Henry Fonda died shortly thereafter.

Trivia note: The battered old hat worn by Norman throughout 'On Golden Pond' originally belonged to Spencer Tracy and was given to Henry Fonda by Katharine Hepburn.

Kirk Douglas has no daughters with whom to share the screen, and Martin Sheen has never made a movie with his daughter Renee. Ryan O'Neal played opposite his real-life daughter Tatum in 'Paper Moon'. The audience never knows whether Ryan O'Neal's character, con man Mose Pray, is the father of little Addie Loggins or not.

Answer: Leon Ames

Leon Ames (1903-1993) started his film career as a matinee idol type, but in 1949 he was cast as Alonzo Smith, the patriarch of the family at the centre of the action in 'Meet Me in St. Louis' and began a whole new career, playing fathers. Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien were two of his daughters in 'Meet Me in St. Louis'. Ames played Father March in the version of 'Little Women' that starred Janet Leigh, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and Margaret O'Brien in the title roles, and he was Paul Newman's father in 'From the Terrace'. He played Doris Day's dad twice - in 'On Moonlight Bay' and its sequel 'By the Light of the Silvery Moon'. He also played dad Stanley Banks in the TV series 'Father of the Bride'. The series was based on the 1950 movie starring Spencer Tracy as dad. The movie was re-made in 1991 with Steve Martin as Stanley, but, like most re-makes, it wasn't as good as the original.

Burl Ives played Paul Newman's father in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and Chuck Connors' father in 'The Big Country'. Arthur O'Connell played Sandra Dee's father in 'Gidget'. Lee J. Cobb played Cameron Mitchell's father in 'Death of a Salesman'.

Answer: Walter Hampden

Walter Hampden (1879-1955) was primarily a stage actor, a major star on Broadway, although he made several movies. He was classically trained and his portrayals of Macbeth, Othello and Cyrano de Bergerac were hailed as brilliant.

Francis X. Bushman (star of the silent screen and the original 'Ben Hur') played Tyson, the business tycoon father of David Larabee's fiancee in the original film version of 'Sabrina' (1954), John Williams played Thomas Fairchild, father to Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina, and David Warner played Thomas in the 1995 re-make of the movie. In the 1995 re-make Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear acquit themselves well in the roles of Linus and David respectively, but Julia Ormond is sadly miscast as Sabrina, with none of Audrey Hepburn's wistfulness prior to her Sabrina's sojourn in Paris and not a vestige of the sophistication and elegance with which Hepburn imbues the character of Sabrina on her return to Long Island.

Answer: Tom Skerritt

Tom Skerritt (b.1933) is probably best-known for his role as Sheriff Jimmy Brock in the off-beat TV series 'Picket Fences', but since 1962 this veteran actor has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 TV shows.

The other three choices also appeared in 'Steel Magnolias'. Norman Fletcher played the father of Jackson Latcherie, Julia Roberts' screen husband, played by Dylan McDermott. Robert Adams portrayed Dr. Judd, and Sam Shepard was memorable as Spud Jones, the easygoing husband of the vivacious hairdresser Turvy (Dolly Parton).

Answer: James Earl Jones

One of the most recognizable voices on the planet is that of the brilliant actor James Earl Jones (b.1931). Believe it or not, a severe stammer rendered the young Jones functionally mute until a high school teacher named Donald Crouch took him in hand in high school and helped him to overcome his disability. Thank heaven for Donald Crouch, whom Jones credits with helping him to achieve success in theatre and film.

Jones originally had his sights set on being a physician but medicine's loss was acting's gain when Jones signed on with a regional Michigan theatre company in 1953. He started out as a stage carpenter but by the 1956-57 season he'd graduated to stage management and acting, and it was all uphill from there.

His first film role was as the B-52 bombardier Lt. Zogg in 'Dr. Strangelove' but his big break came when he starred as boxer Jack Jefferson in 'The Great White Hope', a role which earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor. He didn't win that Oscar, but he has several Tony awards for his work on Broadway.

One of my favourite Jones roles is that of Mufasa in Disney's 'The Lion King'.

Answer: Nehemiah Persoff

Nehemiah Persoff (b.1919) was born in Jerusalem and emigrated to the US in 1929 with his parents. He served in the US army during World War II and after leaving the service he enrolled in The Actor's Studio to pursue his dream of acting. A versatile, talented actor, Persoff shows equal brilliance in both tragedy and comedy, playing heavies and good guys, appearing in movies set in the wild west and in urban landscapes, and had a successful career in both film and on stage. In retirement he has taken up painting, specializing in watercolours.

Topol played Tevye, father of five daughters, in the screen version of 'Fiddler on the Roof', the role created on Broadway by the late, great Zero Mostel. Walter Matthau excelled as father to Jacob (Kevin Pollak) in 'Grumpy Old Men'.