Portraying Miss Marple Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gracie Fields

Gracie Fields (1898-1979) was an English singer, actress and comedienne. She was one of the biggest celebrities of the 1930s and her career in movies and concerts spanned seven decades. During the Second World War, she entertained the troops and was known affectionately as "Our Gracie" and the "Lancashire Lass".

Fields is generally acknowledged to be the first person to portray Miss Marple on-screen, starring in a 1956 television adaptation of "A Murder is Announced" for Goodyear Playhouse.

Answer: Margaret Rutherford

Dame Margaret Rutherford (1892-1972) portrayed Miss Marple on the "big screen" in 1961, in the first of four movies (plus a cameo in a later film). Agatha Christie was not a fan of this set of movies as she felt that the movie character was too far removed from her creation and certainly not a comical figure as portrayed by Rutherford. Nevertheless, Christie admired Rutherford's acting skills and they subsequently became good friends.

The four movies that featured Rutherford as Miss Marple were "Murder She Said" (1961), "Murder at the Gallop" (1963), "Murder Most Foul" (1964) and "Murder Ahoy" (1964). These movies are now considered classics. She also made a brief uncredited cameo in a 1965 spoof movie "The Alphabet Murders".

Answer: Inge Langen

German actress Inge Langen (1924-2007) played Miss Marple in a West German television production of "Murder at the Vicarage" ("Mord Im Pfarrhaus") in 1970. She was only 46 years of age when she played Miss Marple, a character in her 70s.

Answer: Elsa Lanchester

"Murder by Death" is a spoof movie of the typical country house murder, written by playwright Neil Simon. It features a thinly disguised collection of famous detectives.

British actress Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986) plays "Jessica Marbles", a caricature of Miss Marple. The choice of Jessica as a first name may suggest a link to Jessica Fletcher, the Marple-like character in "Murder She Wrote", but actually there is no connection. The "scream queen" reference relates to Lanchester's famous role as the Bride of Frankenstein, where she emits a piercing scream as she rejects the monster.

In addition to Jessica Marbles, the various parodies in this movie are as follows: Peter Falk as Sam Diamond (= Sam Spade), Peter Sellers as Sidney Wang (= Charlie Chan), Richard Narita as Willie Wang (= Charlie Chan's son), David Niven as Dick Charleston (= Nick Charles), Maggie Smith as Dora Charleston (= Nora Charles), and James Coco as Milo Perrier (= Hercule Poirot). Despite the star-studded cast, reviews were mixed.

Answer: Angela Lansbury

"The Mirror Crack'd" (1980) featured a stellar cast - starring Angela Lansbury (1925-2022) as Miss Marple, as well as Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, and Geraldine Chaplin.

Angela Lansbury only played Miss Marple on this one occasion, although she was originally slated to make three movies. Due to a disappointing performance at the box office, plans for the other two movies were scrapped. Four years later, Lansbury began her role as mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher in the highly successful television series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). The character was inspired by Miss Marple and the show's title was a direct reference to the Margaret Rutherford film "Murder She Said" (1961).

Lansbury said she enjoyed playing the role but thought the completed movie was "dreadful". She aimed to portray Miss Marple as a more active and robust character. This included a scene where she is seen smoking, something the literary Miss Marple would never have done and which shocked many Christie fans.

Lansbury appeared in another Agatha Christie movie, "Death on the Nile (1978), as Salome Otterbourne, a closet alcoholic and author of sexually explicit novels. The relevant sleuth in that movie was Hercule Poirot rather than Miss Marple.

Answer: Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes (1900-1993) is one of the few actresses to portray Miss Marple who was not British. An American actress, her first Agatha Christie-related role was as Lavinia Pinkerton in the made-for-TV movie, "Murder is Easy" (1982). This movie was based on the book of the same title, which did not feature either Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. The following year, at the age of 82, she portrayed Miss Marple in "A Caribbean Mystery and then "Murder with Mirrors" in 1985. Her portrayal of Miss Marple was very warm and "grandmotherly".

She earned her nickname, the "First Lady of American Theatre" after a long, award-winning career. She was the first woman to win an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and the first person to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting" (acting awards in film, television, and theatre).

Answer: Joan Hickson

Miss Jane Marple featured in 12 novels and 20 short stories. Between 1984 and 1992, the BBC produced a series of 12 episodes entitled "Agatha Christie's Miss Marple", representing each of the 12 novels. This series featured Joan Hickson (1906-1998) as Miss Marple.

Hickson's portrayal is generally acknowledged to be the closest one to Christie's description of her character as a gentle and frail spinster. In fact, after seeing Hickson on stage, Christie was so impressed with her performance that she sent her a note saying, "I will call you to play my Miss Marple one day, if I can find the time to write another play". It was to be 38 years before Hickson fulfilled this wish. Unfortunately, Christie passed away in 1976 so she never got to see Hickson portray Miss Marple.

Joan Hickson's appearances were as follows:
1984: The Body in the Library
1985: The Moving Finger, A Murder Is Announced, A Pocket Full of Rye
1986: The Murder at the Vicarage
1987: Sleeping Murder, At Bertram's Hotel, Nemesis, 4.50 from Paddington
1989: A Caribbean Mystery
1991: They Do It with Mirrors
1992: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Answer: Ronnie Corbett

Ronnie Corbett (1930-2016) was one half of the comedy duo known as "The Two Ronnies" in a television show with the same name. In a 1986 episode, they performed a sketch called "The Teddy Bear Who Knew Too Much". The sketch is a parody where Ronnie Corbett plays Miss Marple and Ronnie Barker plays Hercule Poirot. (Of course, in the Christie canon, these two sleuths never meet).

"The Teddy Bear Who Knew Too Much" is a send-up of the classic "locked room mystery" scenario and was inspired by the BBC series featuring Joan Hickson. It features the characteristic puns and witty dialogue for which "The Two Ronnies" are famous. (It is well worth watching this sketch on Youtube).

Answer: Geraldine McEwan

Geraldine McEwan (1932-2015) starred in the first twelve movie-length episodes (three seasons) of ITV's "Marple" series.

Regarding her role as Miss Marple, McEwan said, "Marple is really hard work but very stimulating...I think Agatha Christie must have had a sense of humour, the way she places this elderly, very middle-class figure in a country village, but solving all these horrific crimes".

McEwan announced her retirement from the role in 2008 after falling and breaking a hip in late 2007.

Geraldine McEwan's appearances were as follows:
Series 1 (2004-2005): The Body in the Library, The Murder at the Vicarage, 4:50 from Paddington, A Murder is Announced
Series 2 (2006): Sleeping Murder, The Moving Finger, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, The Sittaford Mystery (30 Apr 2006)
Series 3 (2007-2009): At Bertram's Hotel, Ordeal by Innocence, Towards Zero, Nemesis

Answer: Julia McKenzie

Julia McKenzie (b.1941) replaced Geraldine McEwan in ITV's "Marple" series for the 4th to 6th seasons. McKenzie stepped into the role when Geraldine McEwan retired after breaking her hip.

The IMDb website quotes McKenzie as saying, "I'm very excited, but also slightly daunted by the enormous responsibility that comes with taking on such an iconic role. Just about everybody in the world knows about Miss Marple and has an opinion of what she should be like, so I'm under no illusions about the size of the task ahead". She also joked that she would need to remind herself how to knit.

Julia McKenzie's appearances were as follows:
Season 4 (2009-10): A Pocket Full of Rye, Murder Is Easy, They Do It with Mirrors, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Season 5 (2010-11): The Pale Horse, The Secret of Chimneys, The Blue Geranium, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
Season 6: (2013): A Caribbean Mystery, Greenshaw's Folly, Endless Night