Almost Nobody Can Ace This 40s Actors Quiz. Can You?

Lauren Bacall was an actress known for her distinctive voice and sultry looks. She was named the 20th greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute, and received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2009.

Walter Andrew Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936, 1938, and 1940, making him one of only three male actors to win three Academy Awards.

Hume Blake Cronyn, Jr. was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside Jessica Tandy, his wife of over fifty years.

Joel Albert McCrea was an actor whose career spanned almost five decades and appearances in more than 90 films. These films include Alfred Hitchcock’s spy film Foreign Correspondent (1940), Preston Sturges’ comedy classics Sullivan’s Travels (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942).

Mary Astor was best remembered for her role as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.

Margaret O’Brien is a film, radio, television, and stage actress. Beginning a prolific career as a child actress in feature films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the age of four, O’Brien became one of the most popular child stars in cinema history and was honored with a Juvenile Academy Award as the outstanding child actress of 1944.

Ruth Roman was a Lithuanian-American actress, principally appearing in dramas including the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train (1951).

Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian actor and singer. Huston won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, directed by his son John Huston. He is the patriarch of the four generations of the Huston acting family.

Jean Arthur was an actress and a film star of the 1930s and 1940s.Arthur had feature roles in three Frank Capra films: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can’t Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), films that championed the “everyday heroine”.

Carl William Demarest was a character actor, known for playing Uncle Charley in My Three Sons. A veteran of World War I, Demarest became a prolific film and television actor, appearing in over 140 films, beginning in 1927 and ending in the 1970s.

Gladys George went on the stage at the age of 3 and toured the United States, appearing with her parents. She starred on stage in the 1920s, although she had made several films in the early part of that decade. She starred in Personal Appearance, a comedy by Lawrence Riley.

Marshall’s first film appearances were in the 20th Century Fox films Gentleman’s Agreement and Daisy Kenyon in 1947. She went on to play roles in over 25 more films until 1967. Among her television appearances, she guest starred twice on Perry Mason in 1959. She played murderer Irene Bedford in “The Case of the Shattered Dream,” and title character Ginny Hobart in “The Case of the Spurious Sister”.

Dan Duryea was an actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was a film and stage actor whose performances in numerous films from the Classical Hollywood era made him a cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him as the greatest male star of American cinema.

George Orson Welles was an actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three: in theatre, most notably Caesar (1937), a Broadway adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; in radio, the legendary 1938 broadcast “The War of the Worlds”; and in film, Citizen Kane (1941).

Donna Reed was a film and television actress and producer. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life.

Thomas John Mitchell was an American actor. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Doc Boone in Stagecoach, Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life and Mayor Jonas Henderson in High Noon

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was an actress born in Japan to British parents who was best known for her starring roles in cinema during the Classical Hollywood era.

Waldo Brian Donlevy was an American actor, noted for playing dangerous tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best-known films are Beau Geste (1939) and The Great McGinty (1940).

John Elmer “Jack” Carson was a Canadian-born, American film actor. Though he was primarily used in supporting roles for comic relief, his work in films such as Mildred Pierce (1945) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) displayed his mastery of “straight” dramatic actor roles as well.

Sara Ellen Allgood was an Irish–American actress. In 1904, she had her first big role in Spreading the News and the following year was a full time actress.

Claire Trevor appeared in over 60 films, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Key Largo, and earning nominations for her roles in The High and the Mighty and Dead End. She also received top billing in Stagecoach.

Ellen Hansen Corby was an American actress. She is best remembered for the role of Grandma Esther Walton on the CBS television series The Waltons, for which she won three Emmy Awards.

John Ridgely was a film character actor with over 175 film credits.He appeared in the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film The Big Sleep as blackmailing gangster Eddie Mars and had a memorable role as a suffering heart patient in the film noir Nora Prentiss (1947).

William Nigel Ernle Bruce was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes).

Dorothy Hackett McGuire was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress for Friendly Persuasion (1956).

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an actress whose six-decade career included work in radio, stage, film, and television. She is best known for her role as Endora on the television series Bewitched.

Robert Warwick was an American stage, film and television actor with over 200 film appearances. Handsome and with a booming voice, Warwick trained to be an opera singer, but acting proved to be his greater calling.

Jane Darwell was an actress of stage, film, and television. With appearances in more than one hundred major motion pictures spanning half a century, Darwell is perhaps best-remembered for her poignant portrayal of the matriarch and leader of the Joad family in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was a film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair.

Ray Milland was a Welsh-American actor and film director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend (1945).

Valerie Hobson, Baroness Profumo was an Irish-born actress who appeared in a number of films during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Her second husband was John, 5th Baron Profumo, a government minister who became the subject of a sensational sex scandal in 1963.

John Benjamin Ireland was a Canadian-American actor and film director. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in All the King’s Men (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Academy Award nomination.

Jennifer Jones also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an actress and mental health advocate. Over the course of her career, which spanned over three decades, she was nominated for the Academy Award five times, including one win for Best Actress.

Ruth Elizabeth “Bette” Davis was an actress of film, television, and theater. With a career spanning 60 years, she is regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history.

Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland is a retired actress born in Japan to British parents. Her career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading movie stars during the golden age of Classical Hollywood.

Jean Merilyn Simmons,was an English actress and singer. One of J. Arthur Rank’s “well-spoken young starlets”, she appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Great Britain during and after the Second World War, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onwards.

Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford was a British actor, producer, and socialite, who lived in the United States throughout his adult life. He was a member of the “Rat Pack” and the brother-in-law of President John F. Kennedy, and the senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy.

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century.

Peter Lorre was an Austro-Hungarian-born American actor. He began his stage career in Vienna before moving to Germany where he worked first on the stage, then in film in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Cary Grant was an English-American actor, known as one of classic Hollywood’s definitive leading men. He began a career in Hollywood in the early 1930s, and became known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing.

Charles Douville Coburn was a film and theatre actor. Best known for his work in comedies, Coburn received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1943’s The More the Merrier.

Rhonda Fleming acted in more than forty films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most glamorous actresses of her day. She was nicknamed the “Queen of Technicolor” because her fair complexion and flaming red hair photographed exceptionally well in Technicolor.

Carver Dana Andrews was a film actor and a major Hollywood star during the 1940s. He continued acting in less prestigious roles into the 1980s. The role for which he received the most praise was as war veteran Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

Stanley Augustus Holloway was an English stage and film actor, humourist, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

Lionel Barrymore was an actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and remains best known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life.

Gale Sondergaard began her acting career in theater, and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse (1936).

Veronica Lake was a film, stage, and television actress. Lake won both popular and critical acclaim for her role in Sullivan’s Travels and for femme fatale roles in film noirs with Alan Ladd during the 1940s.

Barbara Stanwyck was an actress, model, and dancer. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra.

Helen Walker earned a solid reputation playing leading roles in comedies – a “reactress” to comic leads, as she described it. Walker’s film debut came in 1942’s Lucky Jordan, a comedy about a gangster (Alan Ladd) who ends up drafted in the Army, where Walker’s character reports him AWOL.

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television. Beginning as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and silent films before the First World War.

Dame Frances Margaret Anderson known professionally as Judith Anderson, was an Australian-born British actress who had a successful career in stage, film and television. A preeminent stage actress in her era, she won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.

Claudette Colbert was a stage and film actress and a leading lady in Hollywood for over two decades, and has been called “The mixture of inimitable beauty, sophistication, wit, and vivacity”.

Albert Bassermann was a German stage and screen actor. He was considered to be one of the greatest German-speaking actors of his generation and received the famous Iffland-Ring. He was married to Elsa Bassermann with whom he frequently performed.

George Henry Sanders was a British film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned over forty years. His upper-class English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters.

Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is perhaps best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award.

Gary Cooper was an American actor. Known for his natural, authentic, understated acting style and screen performances, Cooper’s career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, and included leading roles in 84 feature films. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era through to the end of the golden age of Classical Hollywood.

Joan Geraldine Bennett was a stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies, well into the sound era.

Linda Darnell was an American film actress. Darnell progressed from modeling as a child to acting in theater and film. At the encouragement of her mother, she made her first film in 1939, and appeared in supporting roles in big-budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s.

Anne Revere was a stage, film, and television actress. She made her Broadway debut in 1931 in The Great Barrington. Three years later, she went to Hollywood to reprise her stage role in the film adaptation of Double Door.

Henry Travers was an English film and stage character actor. His most famous role was the guardian angel Clarence Odbody in the 1946 film classic It’s a Wonderful Life. He also received an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Clifford Porter Hall was a character actor known for appearing in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. Hall played movie villains or comedic incompetent characters.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress. Known for her fierce independence and spirited personality, Hepburn was a leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years. She appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and she received a record of four Academy Awards for Best Actress.

James Maitland Stewart was an actor and military officer who is among the most honored and popular stars in film history. With a career spanning 60 years, Stewart was a major Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player who was known for his distinctive drawl and down-to-earth persona.

Anna Lee was a British-born American actress. She became known for her roles in films set amongst the wealthy particularly in Chelsea Life (1933), in which she starred with Louis Hayward.

Myrna Loy was a film, television and stage actress. She was originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, but her career prospects improved greatly following her portrayal of Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934).

Beulah Bondi was an actress of stage, film and television. She began her acting career as a young child in theater and, after establishing herself as a stage actress, reprised her role in Street Scene for the 1931 film version.

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury is an English-American-Irish actress who has appeared in theatre, television, and film. Her career has spanned seven decades, much of it in the United States, and her work has attracted international acclaim.

Rita Hayworth was an actress and dancer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era’s top stars, appearing in a total of 61 films over 37 years. The press coined the term “The Love Goddess” to describe Hayworth after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s.

Paulette Goddard was an actress, a child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl; she became a major star of Paramount Pictures in the 1940s.

Margaret De Wolfe Wycherly was an English stage and film actress. She spent many years in the United States and is best remembered for her Broadway roles and Hollywood character parts. On screen she played mother to Gary Cooper (Sergeant York) and James Cagney (White Heat).

Edward G. Robinson was an actor of stage and screen during Hollywood’s Golden Age. He appeared in 40 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career.

Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was a British-American actress popular during the Second World War, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America’s top-ten box office draws from 1942 to 1946.

Chishu Ryu was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 TV productions. For about ten years, he was confined to walk-on parts and minor roles, often uncredited. During this time he appeared in fourteen films directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian-American actor, known for his commanding, stage-trained voice. For his lead role in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Massey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Dame Mary Louise Webster, known professionally as May Whitty and later, for her charity work, Dame May Whitty, was an English stage and film actress. She was one of the first two women entertainers to become a Dame. The British actors union Equity was established in her home.

Henry Jaynes Fonda was a film and stage actor with a career spanning five decades.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins.

Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall was an English stage, screen and radio actor who, despite losing a leg during the First World War, starred in many popular and well-regarded Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s.

Leo Gratten Carroll was an English actor. He was best known for his roles in several Hitchcock films, and in three television series, Topper, Going My Way, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

Edwin Eugene Lockhart was a Canadian-American character actor, singer, and playwright. He also wrote the lyrics to a number of popular songs. He became a United States citizen in 1939.

Paul Henreid was an Austrian-born American actor and film director. He is best remembered for two roles: Victor Laszlo in Casablanca and Jerry Durrance in Now, Voyager, both released in 1942.

Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was an English film actor. After varied stage work, he achieved star status with his role in the film Brief Encounter (1945), followed by The Third Man (1949).

Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She is best remembered for her roles as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942) and Alicia Huberman in Notorious (1946).

Maureen O’Hara was an Irish-American actress and singer. O’Hara was a famous redhead who was known for playing fiercely passionate but sensible heroines, often in westerns and adventure films.

Felix Bressart was a German-American actor of stage and screen. He began as a supporting actor, for example as the Bailiff in the box-office hit Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1930), but soon established himself in leading roles of minor movies.

Anne Baxter was an actress, star of Hollywood films, Broadway productions, and television series. She won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Emmy.

James Austin Gleason was born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter. His film debut was in Polly of the Follies (1922), starring Constance Talmadge. Balding and slender with a craggy voice and a master of the double-take, Gleason portrayed tough but warm-hearted characters.

Charles John “Tim” Holt III was an American actor best known for his youthful leading roles in dozens of Western films and his co-starring roles in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Virginia Mayo was an actress and dancer. She was in a series of comedy films with Danny Kaye and was Warner Brothers’ biggest box-office money-maker in the late 1940s.She also co-starred in the 1946 Oscar-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives.

William Claude Rains was an English–American film and stage actor whose career spanned several decades. After his American film debut as Dr. Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man (1933) he appeared in classic films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was a British actor. While he did not work in films until the age of 62, he had a run of significant films in a Hollywood career lasting for under a decade.

John Reginald Owen was an English actor. He was known for his many roles in British and American films and later in television programs. Owen is perhaps best known today for his performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1938 film version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Gene Eliza Tierney was a film and stage actress. Acclaimed as a great beauty, she became established as a leading lady.Tierney was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura (1944).

Jane Wyman was an actress, singer, dancer, and philanthropist whose career spanned seven decades. Wyman’s professional career began at age 16 in 1933, when she signed with Warner Bros.

Muriel Teresa Wright was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: in 1941 for her debut work in The Little Foxes, and in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver, winning for the latter.

Burton Stephen Lancaster was an actor and producer. Initially known for playing “tough guys”, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles. He was nominated four times for Academy Awards, and won once for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960.

Adolf Anton Wilhelm Wohlbrück was an Austrian actor who settled in the United Kingdom under the name Anton Walbrook. In 1936, he went to Hollywood to reshoot dialogue for the multinational The Soldier and the Lady (1937) and in the process changed his name from Adolf to Anton.

Barry Fitzgerald was an Irish stage, film and television actor. In a career spanning almost forty years, he appeared in such notable films as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Long Voyage Home (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941).