Cast
- Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth I
- Errol Flynn as Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
- Olivia de Havilland as Lady Penelope Gray
- Donald Crisp as Francis Bacon
- Alan Hale, Sr. as Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone
- Henry Daniell as Sir Robert Cecil
- Vincent Price as Sir Walter Raleigh
- Henry Stephenson as Lord Burghley
- James Stephenson as Sir Thomas Egerton
- Nanette Fabray as Mistress Margaret Radcliffe (as Nanette Fabares)
- Ralph Forbes as Lord Knollys
- Robert Warwick as Lord Mountjoy
- Leo G. Carroll as Sir Edward Coke
Davis recounted later in life her difficulties in making the film. She had been very enthusiastic about the challenge of playing Elizabeth (in 1955, she would play her as an old woman in The Virgin Queen). She had lobbied for Laurence Olivier to play the part of Essex, but Warner Brothers, nervous at giving the part to an actor who was relatively unknown in the United States, instead cast Errol Flynn, who was at the height of his success. Davis felt he was not equal to the task, and also believed from past experience that his casual attitude to his work would be reflected in his performance. For her own part, she studied the life of Elizabeth, worked hard to adopt a passable accent, and shaved her hairline to achieve a greater resemblance.
Read more about this topic: The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex
Famous quotes containing the word cast:
“You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into. And not only it, but the institutions upon it are plastic like clay in the hands of the potter.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You have overcome yourself: but why do you show yourself to me only as the one overcome? I want to see the victor: cast roses into the abyss and say, “Here is my thanks to the monster, because it didn’t know how to swallow me!””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It was always the work that was the gyroscope in my life. I don’t know who could have lived with me. As an architect you’re absolutely devoured. A woman’s cast in a lot of roles and a man isn’t. I couldn’t be an architect and be a wife and mother.”
—Eleanore Kendall Pettersen (b. 1916)