I just love the word “spinster.” It conjures up aging aunts, many MANY cats, and teapots on doilies. But, you know, single ladies have always been fabulous, whether they embrace a “poor me” take on things or rock out with their independence. So let’s celebrate some of my favorite never-married women from historical costume movies!
Because remember…
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it.
Aunt Agatha in Poldark
I wasn’t too sure about her in early episodes, but by the end of season one, Aunt Agatha — great aunt to Francis, Verity, and Ross Poldark — was winning with her cutting remarks.
Miss Havisham in Great Expectations
I don’t think we can talk spinsters without including Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ novel! Famously left at the altar, she still wears her 30ish-years-old wedding dress, and schools her adopted daughter Estella to hate all men.
Gillian Anderson, 2011
Helena Bonham Carter, 2012
Charlotte Rampling, 1999
Sybella Melven in My Brilliant Career
Sybylla: I have always known — that I belonged to — the world — of art — and the world — of — literature — and music.
Here’s someone who wrestles with the CHOICE of being a spinster, to glorious effect. Sybella wants to write novels, and given that she lives in turn-of-the-century Australia, getting married to the man she loves would mean trading away a life focused on writing.
Judy Davis as Sybella
Charlotte in A Room With a View
Cousin and chaperone to protagonist Lucy, at first older Charlotte seems like a wet blanket. But as she befriends a “lady novelist” and the story unfolds, Charlotte turns out to actually be a good egg!
Maggie Smith as Charlotte
Elizabeth I in Everything
Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Another — this time, based-on-a-real-person — character who chooses spinster-dom. Getting married would have meant that Queen Elizabeth I of England would have been subordinate to her husband. She used her single-dom to her effect, flirting with the idea of marrying various people for love and for politics, and this tension-filled dance is frequently the focus of movie and TV adaptations.
Marot Robbie in the forthcoming Mary Queen of Scots movie
Helen Mirren in Elizabeth I (2005)
Glenda Jackson in Elizabeth R (1971)
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998)
Flora Robson in Fire Over England (1937)
Bette Davis in The Virgin Queen (1955)
Which historical movie and TV spinsters have I missed?
Does Miss Bingley in Pride and Prejudice count?
Miss Bingley is still young (she’s only in her early 20s, around the age of Elizabeth and Jane, isn’t she?), pretty, and wealthy, so I don’t doubt she got married to someone rich and well connected once she realised Darcy was out of her reach:)
Agree, she’s likely to marry!
How could you miss out the wonderful Martita Hunt in the equally wonderful David Lean 1946 “Great Expectations”? It had everyone and everything. The scene where Pip first meets Magwitch (Finlay Currie) still haunts my dreams.
Also, Jean Simmons, who played the young Estella in the Lean version, later played Havisham in a television production in 1991.
Miss Austen Regrets/Becoming Jane! Or the ladies of Cranford.
Also, I know she’s not a spinster by the end of the movie, but I LOVE Katharine Hepburn’s Rose in The African Queen.
Ooo, yes, the Cranford biddies! And Jane Austen herself, of course :)
‘As I must leave off being young, I can sit by the fire and drink as much wine as I like.’ Miss Austen with No Regrets!
There’s also Charlotte Lovell in ‘The Old Maid’ – can’t get more spinsterish than that!
How about Marilla Cuthbert from “Anne of Green Gables”? She’s tough as nails yet soft as kitten fur. :) <3
Oooh, yes! I reread Anne of Green Gables last year and was surprised at how much more I identified with Marilla than with Anne. Outside of Marilla’s lack of imagination, of course. :)
But it has to be Colleen Dewhurst’s Marilla not the Netflix version with Geraldine James or Sara Botsfoth in the 2016 version.
Yes. I’m not a 1985-or-bust fan and I was actually really enjoying Geraldine James’ take in the first episode of Anne, but then starting with ep2 everything went to pot. Such a waste of talent on unbelievably crappy writing.
Definitely Ms Dewhurst. She is and will always be Marilla.
Yes! I just reread the Anne of Green Gables series; Marilla was wonderful and had more humor than I remembered! Ms. Dewhurst is perfect.
YES. I’m sorry but all other Annes are anathema to me….ONLY ONE ANNE. :)
One look at Margot Robbie in that dress and I’m thinking “nope.”
Hard agree.
I love almost all of these (haven’t seen “My Brilliant Career”). Charlotte cracks me the hell up. I don’t really love that story but she was hysterically funny and irritating. Miss Havisham is always fabulous — I actually really enjoyed Gillian Anderson’s take on her. But Elizabeth will always be my girl. I think I was like 12 when I discovered her, and that she never married, and was like HELL YES, GIRL YOU RULE THAT COUNTRY. As a perpetually single (by choice) person, I appreciate her forever independence.
The Aunt Agatha Poldark (from the 1975 series), played by Eileen Way, was also a wonderfully snarky spinster. I wish I could find a picture of her!
The sisters Pratt from Lark Rose to Candleford.
Oh, yes and especially the younger sister played by Victoria Hamilton.
Would Dorcas qualify bc she CHOSE not to marry.
I lovingly submit Cousin Bette. Some spinster seamstresses just want to watch the world burn.
Flora Robson did play Elizabeth I in Fire Over England, with Laurence Olivier. You chose a photo of her playing Elizabeth ! in The Sea Hawk, opposite Errol Flynn.
As much as I relate to Poor Charlotte, the Room With a View spinster I really want to be is dashing lady novelist Eleanor Lavish.
This post is kind of a shot in the arm for me today! This year! Or even this decade! I now have major #spinstergoals and plan to embrace eccentricity, badassery, kindness, yarn, cats, pink bathrooms, and brains in my spinsterhood. (Also, I know how to spin, so I’m a spinster in two ways, which delights me.)
I believe the picture of Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth I was from Mary Queen of Scots, not .Elizabeth R. (I always disliked that gaudy floral partlet.)
Where, oh where, is Betsey Trotwood?