3 Characters in Search of an Actor Quiz

Answer: Paul Newman

You really didn't think I was going to give you Butch Cassidy, did you? Paul Newman (1925-2008) came from a time when stars really were stars. Newman was an entrepreneur, director, race car driver, husband of Joanne Woodward for 50 years, team owner, environmentalist, philanthropist, handsome (those eyes!), oh! and did I mention actor? In 1961 he played 'Fast" Eddie Felson, a pool shark.

He reprised the role in 1986 in "The Color of Money" and finally won that Academy Award he'd been denied all those years.

In 1958, he was con artist Ben Quick in Faulkner's "Long, Hot Summer" and he was Henry Gondorff in "The Sting", Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy, Frank Galvin... and so much more.

Answer: Sandra Bullock

Did you know that Sandra Bullock received a Golden Raspberry Award ('Razzie') in 2010 for Worst Actress in the 2009 film "All About Steve"? She actually showed up to receive the award in person and was amazingly funny and gracious. The sting of the Razzie was short-lived, however, because 24 hours later she accepted the Academy Award for Best Actress for "The Blind Side".

In "The Blind Side" she played Leigh Anne Tuohy who takes in a homeless, black teenager who becomes a professional football player.

She was Gracie Hart undercover in "Miss Congeniality" in 2000, and Ryan Stone in the space thriller "Gravity" in 2013.

Answer: Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman began his rise to fame on the TV show "The Electric Company" (1971-1977). "HEY, YOU GUYS"... this was a kids' show, i.e. "Sesame Street" for the older set or "Laugh-in" for the 'tweens. Among his many roles on the show were Count Dracula and Easy Reader.

He then began playing prominent roles in movies like "Glory", "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Invictus". He was President Beck in 1998's "Deep Impact" (the "Armageddon" clone), the psychologist/policeman in 1997's murder mystery "Kiss the Girls", and 'Red' Reddington in the prison movie "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994). He won a Supporting Oscar for the 2004 fight film "Million Dollar Baby".

Answer: Jodie Foster

Alicia Christian Foster ('Jodie') started out acting in TV commercials at three years old and her star just kept rising from then on. In 1976, she got her first important role in "Taxi Driver" with Robert De Niro, where she played Iris, a child prostitute whom Travis Bickle (the taxi driver) is trying to save.

In 1988, she was cast as Sarah Tobias in "The Accused" which was one of the first Hollywood movies to deal with the subject of rape. She won her first Best Actress Oscar for the role. Her second Oscar came with her portrayal of Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee in "The Silence of the Lambs" with Anthony Hopkins as killer Hannibal Lecter.

Answer: Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas followed in his father Kirk's very large footprints and succeeded (where his father hadn't, except for his Honorary Award) in receiving two Academy Awards. The first award was as a co-producer of the extraordinary 1975 film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

The second was a Best Actor Oscar for his depiction of the greedy Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film "Wall Street". The names given in this question refer to: Dan Gallagher in the 1987 thriller "Fatal Attraction" with Glenn Close, Oliver Rose from "The War of the Roses"(1989) with Kathleen Turner, and Andrew Shepherd as the President in "The American President" with Annette Bening, from 1995.

Answer: Halle Berry

Halle Berry is an actress and a former model. The name Halle (though originally her middle name) was given to her by her parents after the Halle's Department Store in Cleveland, Ohio (where Halle was born). She was the first black woman to win a Best Leading Actress Academy Award for her role as Leticia Musgrove in the strangely romantic 2001 film "Monster's Ball" where she falls in love with a widowed prison guard after her husband's execution. Halle was Miss Stone in "The Flintstones" 1994 movie and Storm (Ororo Munroe), the mutant, in the "X-Men" series.

She also won a Razzie in 2004 for "Catwoman".

Answer: Keanu Reeves

I figured if I gave Neo from "The Matrix", it might make the question too easy. Keanu Reeves is a Canadian actor, although he was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1964. He has been in films for over 30 years, often portraying characters who save the world, as in "Little Buddha", "Constantine", "Johnny Mnemonic" and the role of Klaatu in "The Day the Earth Stood Still". As for the characters above: he was Jack Traven going over 50 miles an hour on a bus in "Speed" (1994).

He was Theodore 'Ted' Logan as a 'metalhead slacker" who traveled through time in the "Bill & Ted" adventures, and Johnny Utah, a rookie FBI agent, in the 1991 action film "Point Break".

Answer: Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is a versatile South African actress, producer and model. She has appeared on TV in "Arrested Development" and "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" where she portrayed Britt Ekland. She has been in many movies such as: "The Devil's Advocate", "Mighty Joe Young" and "Mad Max: Fury Road". Charlize was Stella Bridger in the 2003 heist movie "The Italian Job", and played Candy Kendall in "The Cider House Rules" (1999) about an orphanage in Maine, also starring Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire, based on John Irving's wonderful novel. Personally, I think her crowning achievement was "Monster" (2003) about the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, for which she won an Oscar.

Answer: Michael Keaton

Did you know that Michael Keaton's birth name was Michael Douglas? He had to change it for obvious reasons. Michael has been an actor, producer, director and comedian, as well as a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University. At the 2015 Academy Awards he was front-runner for Best Actor for the 2014 movie "Birdman", but lost to Eddie Redmayne. Keaton did win a Golden Globe and SAG Award (among others) for the role though.

After Adam West (1966), he was the first movie Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's 1989 film and again in 1992 in "Batman Returns".

He was also in Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" (1988) about deceased ghosts, and, in 1998, came back from the dead as "Jack Frost".

Answer: Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Lydia Mirren (nee Mironoff) was born in London several decades ago and, boy, does she still look amazing! Aside from her physical fitness, however, is her prowess as an actress. In the 2006 film "The Queen" she WAS 'the queen', as if she had been born to the part.

Besides portraying QE II (not the ship, the person), she also played Queen Elizabeth I in a TV mini-series the year before. At the 2007 Academy Award show, a Best Actress Award was bestowed upon her. In 1999 she portrayed the bitter history teacher whose life was in danger in "Teaching Mrs. Tingle", was the sorceress, Prospera, in "The Tempest" (2010) and both Ophelia and Gertrude in "Hamlet" (1976).