Match the Best Actress Oscar Winners - 1980s Quiz

Answer: Sissy Spacek

On her second Academy Award nomination, Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress award for her portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynn in "Coal Miner's Daughter". She had previously been nominated in the same category for "Carrie". The biopic "Coal Miner's Daughter" followed Lynn from her backwoods childhood to her marriage at age fifteen to Doolittle Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) to her eventual stardom. Spacek was selected for the role by Loretta Lynn herself despite Spacek's initial reluctance.

The other nominees for the Best Actress Oscar were Ellen Burstyn ("Resurrection"), Goldie Hawn ("Private Benjamin"), Mary Tyler Moore ("Ordinary People"), and Gena Rowlands ("Gloria").

Answer: Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn won her fourth and final Best Actress Oscar for her role as Ethel Thayer in "On Golden Pond". It was her twelfth nomination - all in the Best Actress category ("Morning Glory", "Alice Adams", "The Philadelphia Story", "Woman of the Year", "The African Queen", "Summertime", "The Rainmaker", "Suddenly, Last Summer", "Long Day's Journey into Night", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", and "The Lion in Winter").

She had prior wins for "Morning Glory", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", and "The Lion in Winter".

As with her other Oscar wins, Hepburn didn't appear at the ceremony to collect her award. Her only appearance at an Academy Awards ceremony was in 1974 when she presented the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer Lawrence Weingarten, and after acknowledging the standing ovation she received, she quipped that she was glad that she "didn't hear anyone call out 'It's about time'!" The film "On Golden Pond" took place over a summer vacation in New England where an elderly couple (Hepburn and Henry Fonda) reconnected with their only child (Jane Fonda).

It was the only film on which Hepburn and Henry Fonda worked together, and it turned out to be his last film and his only Oscar-winning role. The other contenders for the Best Actress award were Diane Keaton ("Reds"), Marsha Mason ("Only When I Laugh"), Susan Sarandon ("Atlantic City"), and Meryl Streep ("The French Lieutenant's Woman").

Answer: Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep picked up her second Best Actress Oscar for her role as concentration camp survivor Sophie Zawistowski in "Sophie's Choice". She had previously won for "Kramer vs. Kramer", and she had a prior Best Actress nomination for "The French Lieutenant's Woman" and a Supporting Actress nomination for "The Deer Hunter".

In "Sophie's Choice", Zawistowski was a Polish immigrant living in New York who had been in a Nazi concentration camp for resistance movement activities. Flashback sequences revealed the horrors she experienced including the choice she had to make that continued to haunt her.

The other nominees in the Best Actress category were Julie Andrews ("Victor/Victoria"), Jessica Lange ("Frances"), Sissy Spacek ("Missing"), and Debra Winger ("An Officer and a Gentleman").

Answer: Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine won her first Academy Award for her role as Aurora Greenway in "Terms of Endearment". She had four prior nominations, all in the Best Actress category, for "Some Came Running", "The Apartment", "Irma la Douce", and "The Turning Point", and she also had a nomination for Best Documentary in 1976 for "The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir". "Terms of Endearment" followed the contentious relationship between Greenway and her somewhat estranged daughter (Debra Winger) and Greenway's relationship with a retired astronaut (Jack Nicholson).

The other contenders for the Best Actress Oscar were Jane Alexander ("Testament"), Meryl Streep ("Silkwood"), Julie Walters ("Educating Rita"), and Debra Winger ("Terms of Endearment").

Answer: Sally Field

Sally Field won her second Best Actress Oscar for her role as Edna Spalding in "Places in the Heart". She had been nominated twice in the category and had previously won for "Norma Rae". It was during her acceptance speech for "Places in the Heart" that Field made her frequently mocked, "You like me - right now, you like me" comment, often misquoted as "you like me - you really like me".

In "Places in the Heart", Spalding was a widow who was trying to make ends meet during the depression and who finally accepted the help of a drifter (Danny Glover) to save her farm.

The other Best Actress nominees were Judy Davis ("A Passage to India"), Jessica Lange ("Country"), Vanessa Redgrave ("The Bostonians"), and Sissy Spacek ("The River").

Answer: Geraldine Page

On her eighth Academy Award nomination, Geraldine Page finally took home the Oscar for her role as the determined Carrie Watts in "The Trip to Bountiful". She had three prior Best Actress nominations ("Summer and Smoke", "Sweet Bird of Youth", and "Interiors") and four Best Supporting Actress nominations ("Hondo", "You're a Big Boy Now", "Pete 'n' Tillie", and "The Pope of Greenwich Village").

The Bountiful in the title of the film was a fictional town in Texas where Watts had grown up and to where she embarked on a journey against the wishes of her family.

The other nominees in the category were Anne Bancroft ("Agnes of God"), Whoopi Goldberg ("The Color Purple"), Jessica Lange ("Sweet Dreams"), and Meryl Streep ("Out of Africa").

Answer: Marlee Matlin

Marlee Matlin picked up the Best Actress Academy Award on her first nomination for her role as deaf student Sarah Norman in "Children of a Lesser God". It was Matlin's film debut, and at age 21, she was the youngest woman to win the Best Actress Oscar and the only deaf Academy Award winner at that point in time.

In the film, Norman was an abrasive young woman who was isolated from everyone until she began a relationship with a teacher (William Hurt) at her school. The other Best Actress nominees were Jane Fonda ("The Morning After"), Sissy Spacek ("Crimes of the Heart"), Kathleen Turner ("Peggy Sue Got Married"), and Sigourney Weaver ("Aliens").

Answer: Cher

With her second Academy Award nomination, Cher received the Best Actress Oscar for portraying Italian-American Loretta Castorini in "Moonstruck". She had previously been nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for "Silkwood". In "Moonstruck", the widowed and nearing forty Castorini became engaged, but when her fiance (Danny Aiello) asked her to invite his bitter younger brother (Nicolas Cage) to their wedding, she ended up falling for the brother.

The other contenders for the Best Actress award were Glenn Close ("Fatal Attraction"), Holly Hunter ("Broadcast News"), Sally Kirkland ("Anna"), and Meryl Streep ("Ironweed").

Answer: Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster won her first Academy Award for her role as rape victim Sarah Tobias in "The Accused". She had previously received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for "Taxi Driver". Loosely based on a true story, in "The Accused", Tobias was distraught after the men who gang-raped her in a bar were given light sentences that didn't even acknowledge the rape, so the district attorney (Kelly McGillis) then decided to pursue charges against the bystanders who cheered on the rapists.

The other nominees in the category were Glenn Close ("Dangerous Liaisons"), Melanie Griffith ("Working Girl"), Meryl Streep ("A Cry in the Dark"), and Sigourney Weaver ("Gorillas in the Mist").

Answer: Jessica Tandy

At the age of 89, Jessica Tandy received her first Academy Award nomination and won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as an elderly Jewish woman, Daisy Werthan in "Driving Miss Daisy". At the time of her win, she was the oldest actress to win the Best Actress award.

In the film, Werthan's son (Dan Aykroyd) hired Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) to serve as her chauffeur after she had a driving accident, and despite her initial resistance, she ended up becoming close friends with him. The other Best Actress nominees were Isabelle Adjani ("Camille Claudel"), Pauline Collins ("Shirley Valentine"), Jessica Lange ("Music Box"), and Michelle Pfeiffer ("The Fabulous Baker Boys").