Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna

Last updated
Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
Anastasia- The Mystery of Anna.jpg
DVD release cover
Written by James Goldman
Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky
Creative directorMarvin J. Chomsky
Starring Amy Irving
Olivia de Havilland
Rex Harrison
Jan Niklas
Omar Sharif
Composer Laurence Rosenthal
Country of originUnited States
Austria
Italy
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes2
Production
ProducersLance H. Robbins
Cheryl Saban
Cinematography Thomas L. Callaway
Running time195 minutes
Production companiesTelecom Entertainment Inc.
Consolidated Entertainment
Reteitalia
Original release
ReleaseDecember 7 (1986-12-07) 
December 8, 1986 (1986-12-08)

Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (also titled Anastasia: The Story of Anna) is a 1986 American-Austrian-Italian made-for-television biographical film directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, [1] starring Amy Irving, Rex Harrison (in his last performance), Olivia de Havilland, Omar Sharif, Christian Bale (in his first film) and Jan Niklas. The film was loosely based on the story of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and the book The Riddle of Anna Anderson by Peter Kurth. It was originally broadcast in two parts.

Contents

Plot

The film begins in the December of 1916, at a lavish ballroom gathering just before the Russian Revolution, and moves to the 1917 February Revolution, the Imperial family's forced exile to Siberia that summer after Tsar Nicholas II's forced abdication in March, the late 1917 October Revolution, the Communist takeover, the start of the Russian Civil War, and then July 1918, when the Romanovs are executed. The film then revolves around a woman named Anna Anderson, who believes that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the Tsar's youngest daughter. Anna first tells her story in the 1920s, when she was an inmate in a Berlin asylum after her suicide attempt. Her story of escaping from the Bolsheviks seemed so vivid that many Russian expatriates were willing to believe her. She slowly gains more trust, but the other Romanov exiles are very hesitant to believe her tale and send her away.

Anna travels to the American branches of the family in New York City in 1928, and Nicholas's mother, Dowager Empresss Maria Feodorovna, dies in her native Denmark. America's expatriate Romanovs also eventually publicly denounce her as an impostor and coldly snub her at the Dowager Empress's funeral, which causes her to leave the country in 1931 and return to Germany. The film culminates in 1938 with Anna trying to sue the surviving Romanovs, demanding that they recognize her as Anastasia but never revealing whether or not she is or isn't. The epilogue's narrator states that the court case ended in 1970, with Anna not being able to prove herself or to be disproven as the Grand Duchess, and that she eventually moved back to the United States and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she died in 1984.

Cast

Awards

YearAwardCategoryPersonResult
1987 Artios Best Casting for TV Miniseries'Lynn KresselNominated
Primetime Emmy Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Miniseries or a Special (Dramatic Underscore) Laurence Rosenthal Won
Primetime Emmy Outstanding Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special Jane Robinson (costume designer)Won
Primetime Emmy Outstanding MiniseriesMichael Lepiner
Kenneth Kaufman
Graham Cottle
Marvin J. Chomsky
Nominated
Primetime Emmy Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special Olivia de Havilland Nominated
Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV Olivia de Havilland Won
Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV Jan Niklas Won
Golden Globe Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TVNominated
Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV Amy Irving Nominated

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of Romanov</span> Imperial dynasty of Russia (1613–1917)

The House of Romanov was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russia. Nicholas II and his immediate family were executed in 1918, but there are still living descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia</span> Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia was the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and of Tsarina Alexandra. She was born at Peterhof Palace, near Saint Petersburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia</span> Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.

<i>Anastasia</i> (1956 film) 1956 American historical drama film directed by Anatole Litvak

Anastasia is a 1956 American period drama film starring Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes. The film was directed and written by Anatole Litvak and Arthur Laurents, adapting the 1952 play written by Guy Bolton and Marcelle Maurette. It was inspired by the story of Anna Anderson, one of the best known of the many Romanov impostors who began to emerge after the Imperial family was murdered in July 1918.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Anderson</span> Impostor of Anastasia of Russia (1896–1984)

Anna Anderson was an impostor who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas II and Alexandra, was murdered along with her parents and siblings on 17 July 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Yekaterinburg, Russia, but the location of her body was unknown until 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia</span> Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was the youngest child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and younger sister of Emperor Nicholas II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Princess Xenia Georgievna of Russia</span> Princess of Russia

Princess Xenia Georgievna of Russia was the younger daughter of Grand Duke George Mihailovich of Russia and Princess Maria Georgievna of Greece and Denmark. She is known for recognizing Anna Anderson as Grand Duchess Anastasia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Princess Helen of Serbia</span> Princess Elena Petrovna of Russia

Princess Helen of Serbia was a Serbian princess. She was the daughter of King Peter I of Serbia and his wife, the former Princess Ljubica of Montenegro. She was the elder sister of George, Crown Prince of Serbia and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Helen was also a niece of Queen Elena of Italy, Princess Anastasia of Montenegro, wife of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia and of Princess Milica of Montenegro, wife of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia, the women who introduced Grigori Rasputin to Tsarina Alexandra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Gilliard</span> Swiss tutor to the Russian imperial family (1879–1962)

Pierre Gilliard was a Swiss academic and author, best known as the French language tutor to the five children of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia from 1905 to 1918. In 1921, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he published a memoir, Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, about his time with the family. In his memoirs, Gilliard described Tsarina Alexandra's torment over her son's hemophilia and her faith in the ability of starets Grigori Rasputin to heal the boy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia</span> Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia was the elder daughter and fourth child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia and the sister of Emperor Nicholas II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marga Boodts</span> Romanov impostor

Marga Boodts was a woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia. She was one of a considerable number of Romanov pretenders who emerged from various parts of the world following the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at Yekaterinberg on July 18, 1918. She stands out, however, as one of very few who claimed to have been Grand Duchess Olga, the Tsar's oldest daughter. She was also known as Maria Bottcher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanov impostors</span> Claimants to the Russian imperial Romanov family

Members of the ruling Russian imperial family, the House of Romanov, were executed by a firing squad led by Yakov Yurovsky in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on July 17, 1918, during both the Russian Civil War and near the end of the First World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Cross with Imperial Portraits (Fabergé egg)</span> 1915 Imperial Fabergé egg

The Red Cross with Imperial portraits egg is a jewelled and enameled Easter egg made by Henrik Wigström (1862–1923) under the supervision of the Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé in 1915, for Nicholas II of Russia, who presented the Fabergé egg to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, in the same year.

<i>The Romanovs: An Imperial Family</i> 2000 Russian film

The Romanovs: An Imperial Family is a 2000 Russian historical drama film about the last days of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The Russian title implies both the Imperial Crown of Russia and the crown of thorns associated with martyrs. The film premiered at the 22nd annual Moscow Film Festival. The film was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Academy Awards, but it didn't make the final shortlist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolai Kulikovsky</span> Second husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia

Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky was the second husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, the sister of Tsar Nicholas II and daughter of Tsar Alexander III.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia</span> Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia was the eldest child of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and of his wife Alexandra.

<i>Clothes Make the Woman</i> 1928 silent drama film by Tom Terriss

Clothes Make the Woman is a surviving 1928 American silent historical romantic drama film directed by Tom Terriss, and starring Eve Southern and Walter Pidgeon. The film is loosely based on the story of Anna Anderson, a Polish woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. Anastasia was killed along with her parents and siblings by communist Bolshevik revolutionaries on July 17, 1918.

<i>The Last Czars</i> English-language docudrama on Netflix

The Last Czars is a six-part English-language docudrama that premiered on Netflix on July 3, 2019. The series follows the reign of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia's Romanov Dynasty, from his accession to the throne in 1894 to his execution along with the Romanov family in 1918.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Tegleva</span> Nursemaid to the Russian imperial family (1894–1955)

Alexandra Alexandrovna Tegleva, also known as Shura Tegleva and Sasha Tegleva, was a Russian noblewoman who served as a nursemaid in the Russian Imperial Household. As nursemaid to the children of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, she went with the family into exile in Tobolsk following the abdication of Nicholas II during the February Revolution, but was ultimately prevented from staying with them during their house arrest at Ipatiev House. She survived the Russian Revolution and married Pierre Gilliard, a Swiss academic who served with her in the Imperial Household as the children's French tutor. She moved to Lausanne as a white émigré and remained there the rest of her life. Tegleva worked with her husband to investigate and debunk the claims made by Anna Anderson, a Romanov impostor who pretended to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizaveta Ersberg</span> Russian parlormaid in the Imperial Household

Elizaveta Nikolaevna "Liza" Ersberg was a German-Russian parlormaid who served in the Russian Imperial Household. The daughter of a stoker employed by Emperor Alexander III, she was hired by Empress Maria Feodorovna as a parlormaid at the Alexander Palace in 1898. She used her post to obtain a position at court for her friend Anna Demidova, who became a lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

References

  1. "Anastasia: the Mystery of Anna". BBC. 24 July 1990. Retrieved 18 September 2016.