An Affair to Remember
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40 free An Affair to Remember trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
An Affair to Remember is the film that taught generations of moviegoers how a love story should make them cry. Released in 1957, it follows playboy Nickie Ferrante and singer Terry McKay, who meet on a voyage home to New York while each is promised to someone else, and who make a pact that fate promptly wrecks. This quiz covers the whole picture: the shipboard courtship and the visit ashore, the missed reunion and the final scene. It also looks at the people who made it, from Cary Grant and his co-star to the voices on the soundtrack, at the earlier version it was remade from, at the awards it chased and at the later films that borrowed its ending. The questions start with easy plot points for anyone who has seen the film once and move on to tougher ones about cast, crew and production. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up something new even when you guess.
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Q 01At which New York landmark do Nickie and Terry vow to meet in six months in An Affair to Remember?
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building date comes with a condition: each must first end an engagement and start earning a living. The same rooftop promise had driven the plot of the 1939 original.
Q 02In An Affair to Remember, what stops Terry McKay from reaching Nickie on the day of their reunion?
A car hits her
A car hits her as she jumps out of a taxi with her eyes fixed on the skyscraper where Nickie is waiting. With her doctor unsure she will walk again, she refuses to contact him until she can.
Q 03Which Scottish-born star of The King and I plays Terry McKay in An Affair to Remember?
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr was nominated six times for the Best Actress Oscar and never won a competitive one. The Academy gave the Glasgow-born star an honorary award in 1994.
Q 04Which Meg Ryan comedy has its heroine weep over An Affair to Remember and copy its rooftop date?
Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle shows clips of the 1957 film and reuses its theme song. Its lovers finally meet on the very observation deck where Terry never arrived.
Q 05Which object in Terry's bedroom finally reveals her secret to Nickie in An Affair to Remember?
His own painting
His own painting hangs on her wall: his dealer had given it away to an admirer in a wheelchair who could not afford it. Nickie works out mid-sentence that the admirer was Terry.
Q 06On which night of the year does Nickie turn up at Terry's apartment in An Affair to Remember?
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve finds Terry lying on her couch, where she stays for the whole scene so that Nickie cannot see she is unable to walk. She dodges every question about the missed date.
Q 07Which director remade his own romance Love Affair, almost scene for scene, as An Affair to Remember?
Leo McCarey
Leo McCarey reused the 1939 script at Cary Grant's urging. Grant had hung around the set of the original and wished the lead had been his.
Q 08Which relative of Nickie's do he and Terry visit when the ship stops in An Affair to Remember?
His grandmother
His grandmother Janou wins Terry over at her hillside villa, where she plays the piano while Terry sings. She confides that she hopes Terry will be the one to settle Nickie down.
Q 09Which screen legend made her last big-screen appearance in the 1994 remake of An Affair to Remember?
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn, then 86, played the hero's aunt after the film's leading man personally lobbied her to take the part. It was her first big-screen role in nearly ten years.
Q 10Which comedy duo did An Affair to Remember's director first team up at the Hal Roach studio?
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were teamed at his suggestion while he was their supervising director from 1927 to 1930. He also slowed their comedy from the frantic silent-era pace to a more natural one.
Q 11Which film beat Love Affair, the 1939 original of An Affair to Remember, to the Best Picture Oscar?
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind won eight Oscars that night, a record at the time. Love Affair had six nominations, and its leading lady later said she never stood a chance against it.
Q 12Which real-life married couple starred in Love Affair, the 1994 remake of An Affair to Remember?
Beatty and Bening
Beatty and Bening were husband and wife, and Beatty also produced and co-wrote the film. Its stopover moved to the South Pacific, with scenes shot on Tahiti and Moorea.
Q 13Which studio, home of the CinemaScope widescreen process, released An Affair to Remember?
Q 21Janou's hillside villa in An Affair to Remember stands above which town on the French Riviera?
Villefranche-sur-Mer
Villefranche-sur-Mer has one of the deepest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, so big ships can anchor in its bay just east of Nice. The 1939 original set the same visit on Madeira.
Q 22Which English actress, about 15 years older than Cary Grant, played Janou in An Affair to Remember?
Cathleen Nesbitt
Cathleen Nesbitt had been engaged to the poet Rupert Brooke, who wrote love sonnets to her before his death in 1915. She was still acting on Broadway in her nineties.
Q 23Which French star first played the playboy role Cary Grant took over in An Affair to Remember?
Charles Boyer
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox released it for producer Jerry Wald, whose Peyton Place earned a Best Picture nomination the same year. The 1939 original had been an RKO picture.
Q 14Which director's war epic beat An Affair to Remember to the Oscars for cinematography and score?
David Lean
David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Oscars that night, Best Picture among them. An Affair to Remember converted none of its four nominations.
Q 15Which singer, Natalie Wood's voice in West Side Story, sang for Terry in An Affair to Remember?
Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon had ghosted for the same star a year earlier in The King and I. She later stepped in front of the camera herself as a nun in The Sound of Music.
Q 16Which crooner, praised by Frank Sinatra for his voice, sings An Affair to Remember's opening theme?
Vic Damone
Vic Damone, whose voice Sinatra rated the best in the business, also performed the song at the Academy Awards, where it was up for Best Song.
Q 17In which city does Terry McKay resume her singing career after the voyage in An Affair to Remember?
Boston
Boston is where she goes back to singing for a living while Nickie works to prove he can support a wife. She flies to New York when the six months are up.
Q 18What is Lois Clark, whose engagement to Nickie Ferrante makes headlines in An Affair to Remember?
A wealthy heiress
A wealthy heiress, among the richest in America, Lois is the fiancée Nickie is sailing home to marry. He gives her up, and the fortune with her, to prove he can earn a living himself.
Q 19Which lost item of Nickie's is Terry carrying when the two first speak in An Affair to Remember?
His cigarette case
His cigarette case is what first makes him notice her. She hands it back, then answers his flattery with a sarcastic remark about his reputation.
Q 20Which keepsake of Janou's does Nickie hand to Terry in the final scene of An Affair to Remember?
Her lace shawl
Her lace shawl was promised to Terry as the ship's horn called them back from the villa. Nickie collects it on a last visit after Janou's death.
Charles Boyer played him as Michel Marnet in 1939. His turn as the thief Pepe le Moko in Algiers a year earlier was the model for the cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew.
Q 24Which actress, called the First Lady of Hollywood, played Terry McKay before An Affair to Remember?
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne earned one of her five Best Actress nominations for the part in Love Affair. She picked the film's signature song, Wishing, herself, and it became one of 1939's most popular tunes.
Q 25Which screwball comedy first teamed Cary Grant with An Affair to Remember's Oscar-winning director?
The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth made Grant an A-list star, even though the improvised shooting unsettled him so much that he tried to leave the production. It won its director the Oscar.
Q 26Which studio owned the title Love Affair, forcing the remake to be renamed An Affair to Remember?
Columbia
Columbia held the rights to the name, so the remake dropped its working title early in 1957. The 1994 version got the old title back.
Q 27Why was The Philadelphia Story's Oscar-winning writer left off the credits of An Affair to Remember?
He was blacklisted
He was blacklisted in 1950 and moved to England the following year. Because the remake reused the 1939 script, Donald Ogden Stewart's old work reached the screen without his name.
Q 28In which English city was Cary Grant, the star of An Affair to Remember, born Archibald Leach?
Bristol
Bristol unveiled a statue of Grant by its harbour in 2001, and in 2014 the city launched a biennial festival called Cary Comes Home.
Q 29Which habit had hypnotherapy turned Cary Grant against while he filmed An Affair to Remember?
Smoking
Smoking lost its appeal after hypnotherapy sessions with his wife, and he was reportedly grumpy on set as a result. He also had a lump removed from his forehead during the shoot.
Q 30Which Frank Sinatra song beat An Affair to Remember's title number to the Best Song Oscar?
All the Way
All the Way was introduced in The Joker Is Wild and won for Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn. The losing title song went on to become a jazz standard.