Young Bess

The mother died under the executioner’s axe; the daughter rose to become England’s greatest monarch—the brilliant and cunning Queen Elizabeth I.

Jean Simmons portrays young Bess in this rich tapestry of a film that traces the tumultuous, danger-fraught years from Elizabeth’s birth to her unexpected ascension to the throne at a mere 25 years of age.

Charles Laughton reprises his Academy Award®-winning* role as her formidable father Henry VIII. Deborah Kerr plays her last stepmother (and Henry’s last of six wives), gentle Catherine Parr. And Simmons’ then real-life husband, Stewart Granger, adds heroics as Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour.

In a resplendent world of adventure, romance and court intrigue, Young Bess reigns.