Who Could Forget JUDITH ANDERSON?

The great classical actress of stage and screen was always there if one wanted to project evil on screen.

Today’s exercise will put to the test your knowledge of just how intimidating Dame Judith could be onscreen.

First, note that she is not an English actress; she was born Frances Margaret Anderson in 1897 in Adelaide, Australia. (She died in 1992 in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of 94.) As a citizen of the British Commonwealth, she was inducted into the Order of the British Empire and dubbed Dame Commander by Queen Elizabeth in 1960.

Before becoming a major star on Broadway in the Thirties, Forties and Fifties, she had carved out a distinguished career Down Under. She made her Hollywood debut in 1933’s Pre-Code crime drama, Blood Money. Anderson portrays the lover of a crooked bail bondsman (see below).

Her next big film role (see below) should be familiar since it won Anderson an Academy Award nomination and a lasting perch in the annals of the screen’s scariest women. Can you identify the picture?

Here (below) is Anderson as the title character’s wealthy, domineering aunt in this excellent 1946 noir. Hint: Barbara Stanwyck is in the cast.

In this 1944 who-dunnit Anderson plays a wealthy socialite who confesses to being as weak and murder-prone as her blubbering lover (Vincent Price, who else?). Name the picture.

Anderson won plaudits for playing Paul Newman’s mother “Big Mama Pollitt” in this 1958 screen adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play. The title is….

Finally, Anderson turned up as a High Priestess in an unlikely setting in space.in this 1984 sequel. She was all of 87 at the time. Name the picture.