Celebrities of the 1920s [2] Trivia Quiz

Answer: Clara Bow

At the tender age of 16, Clara Bow entered the 1921 "Fame and Fortune" contest and won first prize after making it through several screen tests. That led to a small role in the silent film "Beyond the Rainbow" in 1922, but her scenes were eventually cut from the picture. Rough way to start an acting career. Bow didn't let that stop her. She kept up her pursuits in acting and soon landed a role in "Down to the Sea in Ships".

Bow's big breakout happened after she moved to Hollywood. She became one of the most recognizable stars of the 1920s after starring in 1927's "It", which, as you can probably guess, earned her the "It Girl" nickname. She would go on to become a major draw, appearing in 57 films, including 1927's "Wings", which won the first Academy Award for Best Picture.

Answer: Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker was born in St. Louis and started performing as a teenager before finding international fame in Paris. In 1925, she joined "La Revue Nègre", a Parisian revue featuring an all-Black cast from the United States. Her performance, particularly her dancing and hypnotic stage presence, made her an overnight sensation.

Paris fell in love with Josephine Baker. She later became a French citizen, worked with the French Resistance during World War II, smuggling intelligence with her sheet music, and was awarded France's Legion of Honour for her wartime service.

Answer: Gloria Swanson

1929's "The Trespasser" was Gloria Swanson's first full-length sound picture and was a major success. Swanson played an ambitious woman caught up in various messy romantic and social situations. She also co-produced the movie, giving her an unusual amount of control over the production for a star of that time.

Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress at the 3rd Academy Awards in 1930.

Answer: Duke Ellington

What's the Jazz Age without the jazz? Duke Ellington and his orchestra began their residency at New York City's Cotton Club in late 1927. This came after Ellington was hired to replace King Oliver's band. The gig lasted until 1931 and gave Ellington a venue to develop his distinct sound. The club's nightly radio broadcasts also carried his music far beyond Harlem, helping make him a nationally recognized jazz figure.

The Cotton Club itself was an unusual place. It was located in Harlem, yet maintained a strict whites-only policy for audience members. Meanwhile, it featured many of the leading Black entertainers of the era.

Answer: Jack Dempsey

While most celebrities of the 1920s didn't punch people for profit, Jack Dempsey is definitely a notable exception. He held the world heavyweight championship from 1919 until 1926, making him one of the biggest sports figures of the Roaring Twenties. He was known as the "Manassa Mauler", having won the title by knocking out Jess Willard in 1919.

Unlike Clara Bow and Duke Ellington, he became famous for an aggressive, hard-punching style. His fights drew giant crowds and helped turn professional boxing into a big-time spectator sport in the United States. He would lose the title to Gene Tunney in 1926.

Answer: Anna May Wong

Anna May Wong was one of the first Chinese American performers to gain attention in Hollywood. She began appearing in silent films as a teenager and just kept trucking through the silent era. In "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924), she played a Mongol slave in one of the film's fantasy sequences. Her role was not exactly large, but Wong could make an impression.

Sadly, with the racial stereotypes predominant during the 1920s, the opportunities for her to shine in the United States were few. Wong often found herself offered stereotypical roles while major romantic parts went to white actresses in "yellowface". She eventually got sick of it all and worked extensively in Europe, where she found more substantial roles. Later, she returned to the United States, picking up her trailblazing career in film, television, and theater.

Answer: Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart became an international celebrity in June 1928 when she crossed the Atlantic aboard the Fokker F.VII "Friendship". The plane was piloted by Wilmer Stultz with Louis Gordon acting as mechanic and co-pilot. Although Earhart was herself a licensed pilot, she was officially just a passenger on the flight.

The "Friendship" departed Newfoundland on June 17 and reached Wales about 21 hours later. Earhart later joked about her role, saying she was "just baggage" on the historic flight. Four years later, she corrected that little technicality by becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Answer: Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin did pretty much everything but develop the film on 1928's "The Circus". He directed the movie, wrote the screenplay, produced it, composed its original musical score, and starred as his beloved Little Tramp character. The film tells the story of the Tramp as he accidentally becomes a star attraction at a struggling circus after being mistaken for a pickpocket. Chaos inevitably followed as it always did when the Tramp was involved.

Chaplin's performance earned him a special Academy Award at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, where the Academy recognized his versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing, and producing. The film itself was also a huge commercial success.

Answer: Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein's transformation from physicist to international celebrity began in 1919, when observations during a solar eclipse confirmed a prediction of his general theory of relativity. Newspapers around the world picked up the story, and Einstein suddenly found himself the most famous scientist in the world, words that don't usually go together.

By the time he visited the United States in 1921, he was being treated like royalty, giving lectures, attending receptions, and even visiting the White House. Physics had its first superstar.

Answer: Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks became an international star through her work in German silent films, particularly "Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl", both directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in 1929. In "Pandora's Box", Brooks played Lulu, a seductive woman whose relationships inevitably lead to disaster.

The film was controversial in its day, but Brooks's performance would eventually be seen as one of the greatest examples of silent-era screen acting. Her sleek black bob also became one of the era's most recognizable looks.