La reine vierge

Cast as on-screen lovers Young Bess (Queen Elizabeth I) and Sir Thomas Seymour, in real life Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger were married to each other when this movie was filmed. Granger (né James Stewart) and Simmons met in 1946 while working on the picture César et Cléopâtre (1945). They would meet again over a year later, with Simmons now a grown up 18. The relationship soon turned to romance, and the couple appeared in a film that reflected their own situation. In Adam et Évelyne (1949), Granger plays a man in love with a younger woman. Later, after divorcing his first wife, Granger and Jean married on December 20, 1950. He was 27. The bride was 21. They also appeared together in Des pas dans le brouillard (1955). Simmons said of her scenes with Granger in the film, "I feel more self-conscious about playing love scenes with him now, than I did before we were man and wife." But the chemistry flourished on screen.

In the film, young Bess is mostly referred to as "Princess Elizabeth". In history, Elizabeth was denied that title from the age of three. Her father Henry VIII declared his marriage to Anne Boleyn invalid before her execution for treason, thus Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and only to be called "Lady Elizabeth".

Featured in The World According to Smith & Jones: The Tudors (1987)