Oscar Trivia Quiz: Best Picture/Relatives Edition

[Mister Tee]

- Sorry, I saw Magilla got the Fiennes one

for 10a)

Claude Rains and Isabel Jeans. He was in Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia (I nearly wrote Lawrence of Olivier there) and she was in Gigi.

I don't think Magilla got all the way to the Fiennes answer (which, yes, is correct for number 5). He mentioned having confused Colin Firth's brother with Fiennes' brother, and noted that Joseph Fiennes was in Shakespeare in Love, but as far as I can tell didn't make the leap you did.

And, yes, correct again on Claude Rains/Isabel Jeans. You're really cooking, here.

I believe this leaves us with only:

2c. Brothers in the same best picture-winning film, one of them far more prominently featured, to the tune of an acting nomination.

8. The fourth example of Couples who met while shooting an Oscar-winning film.

9. Couple that married shortly after each had appeared prominently in a best picture winner. Short-lived union -– barely 4 years. One of them won an Oscar, the other has been nominated multiple times.

and

11. The one that got me started on this merry-go-round:

The parent had a very small part in a famous musical. The offspring had a larger role in a winning movie over 40 years later.

The other parent is almost certainly the most famous of the three –- winner of an acting Oscar –- but has never had a best picture winner.

Since everyone seems to be having trouble with this, I'll add that the parent's part is listed as Uncredited, but you'll remember the moment. I knew this person because, by the time I saw the film, I had seen them on a 1-year-run sitcom. By the time most of you younger folk saw the film, you'd have known them for a well-known mid-60s TV series.

[Okri]

- Sorry, I saw Magilla got the Fiennes one

for 10a)

Claude Rains and Isabel Jeans. He was in Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia (I nearly wrote Lawrence of Olivier there) and she was in Gigi.

[Okri]

3. The 4th instance is two brothers who each appeared in biopic winners.

One of the brothers is quite familiar -– he’s got a famous role in a film everyone’s seen.

5. The last in this group features one brother who appeared in three best picture winners over a decade and a half (the last in a small role). The other co-starred in his best picture winner, sometime between his sibling’s 2nd & 3rd.

I think 5 is Ralph and Joseph Fiennes. Ralph acted in Schindler's List, The English Patient and (small role) The Hurt Locker. Joseph did Shakespeare in Love. That said, if you believe Shakespeare in Love is biopic adjacent and Fiennes as Voldemort, it could squeeze into 4 as well.

[Mister Tee]

Since I can't come up with more answers, I'll add a question:

Two actors appeared in and were nominated/won for their associations with these Oscar winning films - one's sister was married to the other's brother.

The weasel phrase "associations with" suggests to me you mean Joaquin Phoenix/Gladiator (nominated as actor) and Ben Affleck/Argo (won as producer), with Casey Affleck married to Summer Phoenix.

[Mister Tee]

I really wish Uri would look/chime in on this.

Thank you! Alas - I'm not in the best of shapes - back problems - so I'd struggle sitting for a long time, researching.

But, beside the obvious ones, the one that came straight to my mind was the Gene Kelly/Betsy Blair connection.

1) Greetings.

2) Wishing you quick relief.

3) Kudos on being first to answer number 6.

[Uri]

Since I can't come up with more answers, I'll add a question:

Two actors appeared in and were nominated/won for their associations with these Oscar winning films - one's sister was married to the other's brother.

[Uri]

I really wish Uri would look/chime in on this.

Thank you! Alas - I'm not in the best of shapes - back problems - so I'd struggle sitting for a long time, researching.

But, beside the obvious ones, the one that came straight to my mind was the Gene Kelly/Betsy Blair connection.

[CalWilliam]

Thank you, that was fun. Number 11, though, I’ve been mulling over and checking the entire casts of all musicals that won Best Picture and I can’t find the answer either.

[Mister Tee]

I think this is a very exciting and tricky game, but I would like to make my little contribution to number 12, which is the only one- apart from De Havilland and Fontaine- I came up with the answer pretty easily. Correct me if I’m wrong, Mister Tee, but that surely must be Lee Grant and Dinah Manoff (In the Heat of the Night and Ordinary People).

As Ed McMahon used to say, You are correct, sir.

[Big Magilla]

Sounds like you got it, Cal.

[CalWilliam]

I think this is a very exciting and tricky game, but I would like to make my little contribution to number 12, which is the only one- apart from De Havilland and Fontaine- I came up with the answer pretty easily. Correct me if I’m wrong, Mister Tee, but that surely must be Lee Grant and Dinah Manoff (In the Heat of the Night and Ordinary People).

[Big Magilla]

I will try harder tomorrow if Uri or someone else doesn't jump in in the meantime.

But you missed the very first familial connection. It was that of James Gleason who had a small part as well as doing some of the writing on The Broadway Melody and his son, Russell, who was one of Lew Ayres' soldier friends in All Quiet on the Western Front.

I mixed Jonathan Firth up with Joseph Fiennes who was in Shakespeare in Love.

Forgot that Eastwood and Fisher weren't married.

Funny that your father was the one to lead you to the Morgan brothers. It was my mother, who in the 1950s, told me that Ralph was Frank's brother. You should catch him in 1933's The Power and the Glory, which some believe was the film that Welles and Mankiewicz stole the plot of Citizen Kane from. He all but steals the film from Spencer Tracy.

I've known about the Movita-Brando connection from the time Brando did the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty which I found shocking at the time, thinking that Gable's beautiful love interest in the original must have been old enough to have been his mother. She was, in fact, only eight years older than him. She only died in 2015 at 98.

I had recently rewatched The Fisher King in which Amanda Plummer gave a more memorable performance than I had remembered. Why I thought that was an Oscar winner, I don't know. She won a Tony for Agnes of God in the role Colin Firth's one-time wife Meg Tilly received an Oscar nod for. I must have still had Firth on the brain.

The additional clues to 10 a, and 11 don't help me off the top of my head.

I had ruled out Oscar winning musicals because of the way you worded the question, referring to the musical only as a "famous" one.

[Mister Tee]

Okay, some clean-up here. I'll leave the unidentified open, in case anyone else happens along to take part.

Comments:

1. I do find it interesting that the two most celebrated sister-nominees -- the Fontaine/DeHavillands, the Redgraves -- meet this criteria. Though the latter case is a bare one: total screen time for Lynn in Tom Jones/Vanessa in A Man for All Seasons can't exceed 3 minutes.

2. c) The Dillon brothers weren't in the same winning film-- Kevin was in Platoon, Matt in Crash. So, you're still short on that one. They are, however, the answer to number 4.

3. If you're interested in why I suddenly heard of Ralph Morgan in the past week or so: I was visiting my parents, and someone drank a Manhattan. This led to a discussion of bitters; my father mentioned that US distribution of the product was handled by Angostura Aromatic Bitters, run by "a family with two acting brothers". A Google/IMDB search uncovered the Morgan connection.

4. The Dillon brothers, as noted, are the correct answer. Jonathan Firth has never been in a best picture winner (or even nominee).

5. Sanders/Conway and the Thorndykes are an example of how far I didn't carry the research. Uncredited role? This was tough enough to compile.

So, no: Sanders Conway is not the answer. You need to find a more recent/active pair of acting brothers.

6. Never even heard of Movita, and would never have known she was in the original Mutiny on the Bounty. (Funny that they divorced the year he did the remake.)

I'm surprised this one was so elusive. Let me help by saying he was a MUCH bigger/more beloved star than she. In fact, a woman I knew (who adored him) expressed surprise someone as attractive as he had such a plain wife.

8. Frances Fisher and Eastwood were never married, according to IMDB. (If long-term relationship counted, Naomi Watts/Liev Schreiber would be back-to-backers in 2014/15.) So, you need one more there. It's a pretty obscure one, a relationship about which I didn't know (or care) until I undertook this.

Speaking of obscure: I discovered, in this process, that Richard Ney is the grandfather of Minka Kelly, who was a long-time fiance of Yankee Derek Jeter. The marriage never happened, which is a shame: it would be the only best picture/World Series ring combo.

9. This one is more recent (well, in my time, anyway). My waitress friends at Barrymore's in Times Square told me of the pair sitting drinking shots together in the mid-80s.

10. a) As I said, this one is quite obscure. So, to help: he was a 4-time acting nominee, never a winner.

b) I'd never heard about Hawkins/Tandy. As far as I knew, Tandy came out of the womb married to Hume Cronyn.

11. Interesting to me that the question that provoked all this in me is one you go blank on.

So, to help: a few years after the musical won best picture, the parent in question became considerably better known for his memorable lead role on a TV show.

12. Amanda Plummer has no best picture winner on her resume.

The parent I'm thinking of is, however, like Plummer, a winner in support.

I really wish Uri would look/chime in on this.

[Big Magilla]

There were three that completely stumped me, but I got most of the others. Answers are in bold within Tee's quote.

I’ll start off with siblings.

1. There’s only one true case of sisters both having best pictures to their credit.* If you don’t get this one, you probably shouldn’t even bother with the remainder of the quiz. If you need a hint: Their winning films came in consecutive years.
* (A sort of exception will be dealt with below.)

Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine

There are 6 sets of brothers who’ve both appeared in Oscar-winning best films.

Found six but one may not be the pair hinted at.

2. Three of those brother combos actually appeared in the same best picture winner. In two of those three cases, one of the brothers also appeared in a later best picture winner.

a) The first should be one of the most obvious.

John and Lionel Barrymore

b) The second, you’d be more likely to know about one brother’s later winning film (and Oscar-winning performance) than to realize either of them is in this famous film.

Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields

c) The third comes decades later, with one of the brothers far more prominently featured in the film. To the tune of an acting nomination.

Matt and Kevin Dillon

3. The 4th instance is two brothers who each appeared in biopic winners.

One of the brothers is quite familiar -– he’s got a famous role in a film everyone’s seen.

The other I’d frankly not heard of till a week or so ago, when my father mentioned him in a context totally removed from movies. But IMDB shows him with over 100 credits.

Frank and Ralph Morgan

Actually Ralph, who was older, was initially more famous. He was also in more films I saw on TV as a kid than I did his brother's better known ones.

4. The 5th pair is two actors we first saw in their quite young days. The more prominent brother –- the one with an Oscar nomination –- didn’t get his best picture winner till almost 20 years after his younger sibling.

Colin and Jonathan Firth

5. The last in this group features one brother who appeared in three best picture winners over a decade and a half (the last in a small role). The other co-starred in his best picture winner, sometime between his sibling’s 2nd & 3rd.

Sounds like George Sanders and Tom Conway who had an uncredited role in Mrs. Miniver but I'm only aware of two Best Picture winners in which Sanders appeared so this may not be the correct answer.

Missing siblings: Sybil and Richard Thorndike who were both in Hamlet

On to Married Couples, the largest group I found. I include any two who were married at any point in their lives; it didn’t matter if they were married at the time their films won. In fact, I could only find one case where a couple was married at the time when each of their films won. Hollywood marriages, right?

6. Let’s start with that pair. They didn’t stay married forever, but during their 15 years together, each saw a film of theirs win the top award. The two films were wildly different in tone, and budget. (If no one guesses them quickly, I can provide more explicit clues.)

Don't know but Movita and Marlon Brando were married for eight years after both had starred in Oscar winning films 19 years apart six years before their marriage.

7. There are three cases of couples who were married for one partner’s winning film, but not the other. In two cases, the films were released during the same decade.

a) The first is another legendary acting winner pair that should be the first to come to mind.

Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

b) In the second case, he’s an acting winner for his best picture. She has been highly awarded in other media, but not film. She had a small but memorable part in a beloved, Oscar-winning film.

George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst

c) In the third, he’d already appeared in a winning film prior to their marriage but had another during their time together. Then, she appeared (in a minor part) in a film that won over 40 years later.

Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom

8. An interesting sub-group I’ve encountered: People who met on the sets of their winning movies and subsequently tied the knot. There were four such couples, ranging from the WWII years through the new millennium.

One of them should come easily to mind.

Hint: In each case, one of the partners got an acting nomination for the film, the other didn’t. Three times, it was the female.

Greer Garson and Richard Ney

Bette Davis and Gary Merrill

Clint Eastwood and Frances Fisher

Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany

9. I found only one case of a couple that married shortly after each had appeared prominently in a best picture winner. It was a short-lived union -– barely 4 years -– but it counts. One of them won an Oscar, the other has been nominated multiple times.

Don't know.

10. Finally, two cases that emerged strictly from IMDB research, and I’d be surprised if anyone gets.

a) Their marriage began and ended long before either got to the Oscars. He appeared in two legendary best picture winners almost two decades apart. She had a smaller role in a film that won between his two. Her name was only vaguely familiar to me.

Don't know.

b) This was one that shocked hell out of me. He appeared in two big best picture winners just a few years apart. She top-lined a best picture winner decades later. You think of her as permanently married to someone else. But they were, in fact, married for about 8 years, prior to either of them being prominent.

Jack Hawkins and Jessica Tandy - a legendary pairing I thought everyone knew about.

Missing couple: Jim Carter and Imelda Staunton who were together in Shakespeare in Love

And, at last, the parent/child group -- the ones that got me onto this topic in the first place.

11. The parent had a very small part in a famous musical. The offspring had a larger role in a winning movie over 40 years later. (This was the one that inspired this entire topic.)

Hint: The other parent is almost certainly the most famous of the three –- winner of an acting Oscar –- but has never had a best picture winner.

Don't know.

12. The parent is a multi-nominee under acting, and had a juicy supporting role in a powerful best picture winner. The child hasn’t had as prominent a career (though is a Tony winner), but made an impression in a serious drama that won a decade-plus later.

Chistopher and Amanda Plummer

13. Should be the easiest of this group. The parent has appeared in two Oscar winners, more than two decades apart. The child's film won in the years between the two. Both of them have had prominent TV careers.

Martin and Charlie Sheen

And, finally, the Oscar-palooza (also the one that explains the asterisk on the sister-sibling question):

14. The parent had minor roles in two best picture winners, two decades apart. One of the offspring also had a small role in the first of those. Two other offspring -– of opposite genders –- appeared in a best picture winner just a view years later than that first film (though one in just a wordless cameo).

Lynn, Vanessa, and Corin Redgrave - parent in Oscar winning films was Rachel Kempson

Missing: Mother and Son-in-Law – Gladys Cooper and Robert Morley

I hope you enjoy puzzling these out as much as I enjoyed researching them.

[Big Magilla]

Reza, you are correct, but the question is also the answer to Tee's number 14 question which I initially missed. The clue is a bit tricky because their father Michael Redgrave did not have minor roles in Oscar winning films decades apart, but their mother Rachel Kempson did. She was in both Tom Jones and Out of Africa.