Movies
Young Bess (MGM 1953, Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr)
In lavishly mounted and engagingly performed historical romance Young Bess, Jean Simmons plays the young princess who would become Elizabeth I. She deals with the heartbreak of first love with an admiral (Stewart Granger, Simmons’s off-screen husband) and the machinations of jealous courtiers. Laughton again in one of his most acclaimed roles, Bess’s father, Henry VIII.
Academy Award Nominations: Best (Color) Art Direction; Set Decoration; Best (Color) Costume Design.
production details
USA | MGM | 112 minutes | 1953
Director: George Sidney
Producer: Sidney Franklin
Director of Photography: Charles Rosher Jr.
Editor: Ralph E. Winters
Composer: Miklos Rozsa
Screenwriter: Jan Lustig
Production Designer: Cedric Gibbons
cast
Charles Laughton as King Henry VIII
Deborah Kerr as Catherine Parr
Stewart Granger as Thomas Seymour
Cecil Kellaway as Mr. Parry
Kay Walsh as Mrs. Ashley
Guy Rolfe as Ned Seymour
Kathleen Byron as Ann Seymour
Norma Varden as Lady Tyrwhitt
Robert Arthur as Barnaby
Leo G. Carroll as Mr. Mums
Jean Simmons as Young Bess (Queen Elizabeth I)
Rex Thompson as Prince Edward / King Edward VI
Alan Napier as Robert Tyrwhitt
Noreen Corcoran as Bess as a child
Ivan Triesault as Danish Envoy