Celebrity Rhyme Time - Classic Edition Quiz

Answer: rabbit Abbott

William Alexander "Bud" Abbott (1895-1974) was the straight man to bumbling Louis Francis "Lou" Costello (1906-1959) across three decades. They both got their start in burlesque shows, and together they performed on radio, in the movies and on television. Their beloved "Who's on First?" sketch, also called The Baseball Sketch, is considered one of the greatest comedy routines of all time.

By the way, did you omit the second T in "Abbott"? An abbot is a monk who runs an abbey, so perhaps you were thinking of that. When used as a surname, however, it often spelled with 2 Ts.

Answer: warren Lauren

Lauren Bacall (b. 1924) and Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) met on the set of "To Have and Have Not" (1944) and married in 1945. After Bogart's death, Bacall continued to make movies including comedies like "Designing Women" (1957) and mysteries like "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974). Her famous "look" in which she presses her chin to her chest and looks upward at the camera, was not an attempt to seduce the audience but actually a coping mechanism for her to control her nervous shaking!

By the way, the word "warren" comes to the English language thanks to those conquering Normans, who had adapted an Old French word "garenne", meaning "game park".

Answer: blooper Cooper

Gary Cooper (1901-1961) was born in Helena, Montana. He was best known for his role as Marshal Will Kane in "High Noon". There were concerns that as he was 50 years old, nearly 30 years co-star Grace Kelly's senior, he was too old for the part. He showed them all and won a Best Actor Oscar.

This was his second; he had already won one for "Sergeant York" (1941) a decade earlier. The American Film Institute, in 1999, named Cooper the 11th-greatest male star in classic Hollywood.

Answer: jailer Taylor

English-born Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor (1932-2011) began her career as a child actress in the 1940s. Her first major success was as girl-jockey Velvet Brown in "National Velvet" (1944). As an adult, she starred in the most expensive film ever, at the time of its release, "Cleopatra" (1960), and married her co-star Richard Burton (he was her fourth husband).

She divorced him in 1974 and then remarried him in 1975, and then divorced him again in 1976. She became politically active and helped her next husband, Republican John Warner, get elected to the Senate. Following the death of her friend, actor Rock Hudson, she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR).

Answer: soap Hope

Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (1903-2003) was a comic actor with a six decade career. He appeared in nearly eight dozen feature films and shorts. He made a total of seven "Road" pictures, starting with "Road to Singapore" in 1940, in which he co-starred with crooner Bing Crosby and the glamorous Dorothy Lamour.

He also did many big-budget TV specials for NBC. Throughout his career, beginning in the 1940s, he performed in numerous USO shows for American troops. He would go anywhere to entertain them, including Vietnam.

In 1997 President Clinton signed a bill making Bob Hope an Honorary Veteran for his decades of service.

Answer: plant Grant

The dashing, debonair Cary Grant (1904-1986) was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England, but he was certainly one of classic Hollywood's leading men. Aside from Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" (1959), he starred in comedies like "Bringing Up Baby" (1938), "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944), and many, many others.

He never won the Oscar for Best Actor, despite numerous nominations, although in 1970 he received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement. While not politically active, he did speak out against McCarthyism in 1953 when silent film star Charlie Chaplin was blacklisted.

Answer: clerk Kirk

Cleft-chinned Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on December 9, 1916 in New York State, USA. His other films include the Disney spectacle "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957), and "Seven Days in May" (1964), a Cold-War thriller about a conspiracy to overthrow the President. In 1996 he suffered a severe stroke. Nonetheless he appeared in films again, beginning in 1999 with "Diamonds".

His son, Michael Douglas, is equally famous, having played the greedy corporate raider Gordon Gecko in "Wall Street" (1987). On TV, he co-starred with Karl Malden in the Quinn Martin police drama "The Streets of San Francisco" (1972-77).

Answer: Honda Fonda

Henry Jaynes Fonda (1905-1982) began in Broadway before moving to film with "The Farmer Takes a Wife" in 1935. For his role as Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath", based on the Depression-era novel by John Steinbeck, Fonda was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. For "12 Angry Men", in which Fonda plays a juror who is not so sure his man is guilty, he surprisingly did not receive an Oscar nomination, but in 2008 the American Film Institute (AFI) named it one of the top 10 films of all time. In 1999, the AFI had already named Fonda the 6th-greatest male star of all time.

His famous children include actor Peter Fonda and actress-activist Jane Fonda, who have enjoyed sizable careers in their own right. Jane Fonda'a exercise videotapes were a prime mover behind the fitness craze of the 1980s, and they also motivated many households to purchase VCRs for the first time.

Answer: jelly Kelly

Grace Patricia Kelly (1929-1982) starred in several films by director Alfred Hitchcock, including "Dial M for Murder" (1954) and "Rear Window" (1954), both thrillers that everyone must watch! She was also a favorite of director John Ford, who directed her in "Mogambo" (1953).

In April 1956 she married Prince Rainier III, of the House of Grimaldi in Monaco. Her acting career came to an end with her fairy-tale marriage, whereupon she became Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco. Unfortunately, she lost her life in an automobile accident in 1982.

Answer: cheetah Rita

Brooklyn-born Margarita Carmen Cansino (1918-1987) took the name Rita Hayworth in order to gain more roles in Hollywood at a time when Hispanic performers encountered difficult barriers. A fantastic dancer, she starred opposite Gene Kelly in "Cover Girl" (1944) and Fred Astaire in "You Were Never Lovelier" (1942). In fact, she was the first dancer to have starred in movies with both of those men.

Courted by Prince Aly Khan, Hayworth had hoped to have a fairy-tale marriage like Grace Kelly. Unfortunately, once she married, she could not keep up with the flamboyant lifestyle and the Prince was unfaithful. She returned to New York in 1953 and divorced him. Hayworth resumed her career and continued to appear in films through the 1970s. She made the American Film Institute's list of legends (published in 1999) as the 19th-greatest female star of all time.