Bob Vila was born on June 20, 1946, in Miami, Florida. He graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in journalism. Then from 1971-1973, Vila was in the Peace Corps. After winning an award for restoring a house in Massachusetts, he got the job on "This Old House" in 1979. He was on the show until 1989, when he left after having a disagreement with the producers about one of the companies the show endorsed.
In 1990 he hosted his own show, "Bob Vila's Home Again," later renamed "Bob Vila" in 2005. He was also a spokesperson for Sears from 1989 to 2006, when he and the company had a disagreement.
2. Martha Stewart
Answer: (Person's name) Living
Martha Stewart was born on August 3, 1941, in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. As a child, she sometimes babysat the children of former Yankee greats: Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Gil McDougald.
She graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University with a dual degree in history and architectural history. In 1976, she and her friend started a catering business. However, her friend, Norma Collier, found it difficult to work with Stewart.
In 1993, Stewart had a magazine called "Martha Stewart Living." In 1993, it also became a television series. The show ran until 2004, when it stopped because Stewart was tried and convicted for insider trading. She spent five months in jail.
3. Richard Simmons
Answer: Sweating to the Oldies
Milton Teagle "Richard" Simmons was born on July 12, 1948, in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Simmons experienced obesity as early as four years old. As an adult, his weight got as high as 268 pounds. Simmons became interested in fitness in the 1970s and noticed the fitness places catered to people who were already fit. He opened an exercise studio in California, which ran until 2016.
"Sweating to the Oldies" was one of his first exercise videos. In it, different oldies tunes play, and the people work out to the music.
4. Bob Ross
Answer: The Joy of Painting
Bob Ross was born in Dayton Beach, Florida, USA, in 1942. Ross lost part of an index finger while using a saw when he was younger. He usually kept it hidden on TV by holding the paint pallet in that hand.
When he was eighteen, he enlisted in the United States Air Force as a medical service technician. As a Master Sargent, he was "forced to act mean." He stayed in the Air Force for twenty years.
He became interested in painting after taking a class, but found it frustrating that the teachers would say what to paint but not how to paint it. He studied the technique of German "all prima" painter Bill Alexander. In 1983, Ross had his own show on PBS called "The Joy of Painting," which ran until 1994. In the show, Ross taught viewers the "Alla prima" technique he had learned from Alexander.
It is estimated he painted around 30,000 paintings before he died in 1995 at the age 52 from lymphoma.
5. Julia Child
Answer: The French Chef
Julia Carolyn McWilliams Child was born on August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California. During WWII, Child worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). During this time, she helped figure out how to stop sharks from detonating explosives in the water by testing different cooking ingredients in various combinations to find a "shark repellent." This is still used today, and it started Julia Child on her way to a cooking career.
In 1951, she graduated from Le Cordon Bleu, which consists of a network of culinary schools and is very prestigious. In the 1960s, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and, later in the decade, had a mastectomy. Also, in 1962, she had her first cooking television show, "The French Chef," which ran until 1973. "The French Chef" was the first television show that had captioning for the Deaf, though it was open-captioning, not closed-captioning. She died in August 2004 from kidney failure.
6. Billy Blanks
Answer: Tae Bo
Billy Blanks was born on September 1, 1955, in Erie, Pennsylvania, USA. After he was born with a hip joint issue that caused him to be very clumsy as a child, his siblings picked on him, which caused him to develop an interest in martial arts, and Bruce Lee inspired him.
In 1988, he was in Manila while filming "Driving Force." He was there as a bodyguard for actress Catherine Bach, but the producers wrote him into the movie. He started to develop TaeBo, which comes from the words taekwondo and boxing, in 1980.
7. Rachel Coleman
Answer: Signing Time
Rachel de Azevedo Coleman was born October 9, 1974, in Van Nuys, California, USA. After learning her fourteen-month-old child was deaf in 1998, she learned how to sign. In 2001, she and her sister, Emilie Brown, created the children's TV show "Signing Time!" to teach younger children American Sign Language.
The girl on the show, Liam Coleman, is her daughter who is deaf, and the boy is her nephew, Alex Brown.
8. Nancy Zieman
Answer: Sewing with (name of person)
Nancy Zieman was born on June 21, 1953, in Neenah, Wisconsin, USA. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout with a dual major in home economics and journalism. In 1979, she opened Nancy's Notions which sold sewing notions. She also worked for McCall Pattern Company as an author and a designer.
As a young child, she had an ear infection that left her with a condition known as Bell's palsy, which caused part of her face to be paralyzed.
She co-produced "Sewing with Nancy" and also starred in it starting in 1982. The show ran until September 2017, when she had to retire due to health problems. In March 2015, she was diagnosed with bone cancer, and a few months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In November 2017, she died at the age of 64.
9. Dr. Drew Pinsky
Answer: Celebrity Rehab with (name of person)
Dr. Drew Pinsky was born on September 4, 1958, in Pasadena, California. He is a physician and addiction medicine specialist. He graduated from Amhurst (BS) and USC (MD).
"Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" premiered in 2008 and ran for five seasons. He had celebrities such as Jeff Conaway, Rodney King, and Brigitte Nielsen. However, he faced much criticism from people who did not understand the majority of people with addiction problems continue to relapse even after multiple treatments. As a result, in 2012, he redid the show, now called "Rehab with Dr. Drew," and no longer used celebrity patients.
10. Pete Nelson
Answer: Treehouse Masters
Pete Nelson was born on June 4, 1962, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA. Nelson had loved tree houses since his dad built him one when he was five. In 2006, he opened Treehouse Point, a bed-and-breakfast built within tree houses.
In 2013, he began his show "Treehouse Masters," where he and his people went around the world building tree houses. By 2015, the show had over a million viewers. In 2016, he helped singer Zac Brown of Zac Brown's Band create a tree house for his camp for children with neuro-developmental disorders, as well as those from military families who have PTSD.
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor ponycargirl before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
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