Celebrities of the 1920s Trivia Quiz

Answer: Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel was already in the process of making a name for herself in fashion when the 1920s arrived on the scene. She had opened her first Paris hat shop in 1910, then moved into clothing and developed a style that was simpler and less restrictive than a lot of the nutty fashions of the day. Her clothes helped make comfort look fashionable, in a way that Crocs never quite managed to pull off. Chanel's look was simple and modern, and it became part of the changing image of what it meant to be a fashionable woman around town in the 1920s.

But we can't forget the perfume. In 1921, Chanel worked with perfumer Ernest Beaux to create Chanel No. 5. Why No. 5? Well, Beaux presented her with several samples, and Chanel chose the fifth one. WD-40's name has a similar story, but they never did get the smell right.

Answer: Al Jolson

Al Jolson was a huge singer and stage performer, which is probably why Warner Bros. cast him in "The Jazz Singer" in 1927. Most of it was still silent, but it included several synchronized singing and speaking sequences using Warner Bros.' Vitaphone sound system. Audiences loved it. Studios paid attention.

Jolson was already known as "The World's Greatest Entertainer" before the movie came along, so he was a pretty easy choice to sell the new technology to the public. When he appeared on screen and spoke to the audience ("Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!"), it became one of those moments people remembered.

While "The Jazz Singer" was largely silent, it did help set off the rush toward sound films. Within just a couple of years, Hollywood had mostly moved on from silent movies.

Answer: Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth was already without a doubt baseball's biggest celebrity by the time he hit those 60 home runs for the New York Yankees. The 1927 season was the peak of the whole Babe Ruth phenomenon. He hit .356, drove in 165 runs, scored 158 times, all while hitting 60 home runs.

Nobody had ever hit that many in a season, and Ruth's record stood until Roger Maris hit 61 in 1961. Newspapers loved him, fans adored him, and his giant personality was made for the growing world of mass media. He had already helped turn the home run into baseball's main attraction, and his 60-homer season only added to that.

Answer: Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith made her first recordings in 1923. She had spent years working the vaudeville and theater circuits, learning from the great blues singer Ma Rainey. But it was her very first record release that shot her to stardom: "Down Hearted Blues". Columbia Records released Smith's recording that year, and it became a huge hit, selling more than 780,000 copies in its first six months. Suddenly, everyone knew her name.

Smith became one of the biggest Black entertainers of the 1920s and was eventually earning as much as $2,000 a week on the theater circuit. "Down Hearted Blues" is interesting because Smith wasn't the one who wrote it. Alberta Hunter wrote the lyrics with pianist Lovie Austin. Nevertheless, it took Bessie Smith to turn it into a major hit.

Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald became famous almost overnight with his first novel, 1920's "This Side of Paradise". The book was a hit, and it helped make Fitzgerald one of the young writers people thought of when they saw the hip, new, fast-moving culture of the 1920s. He and his wife, Zelda, also became celebrities in their own right, with a reputation for parties, drinking, and generally living as though tomorrow were somebody else's problem.

Fitzgerald published "The Great Gatsby" in 1925, along with short stories and another novel, "The Beautiful and Damned," in 1922. "Gatsby" is now considered his best-known work and one of the great portraits of the Jazz Age. However, it didn't do particularly well at the time and would only be seen as a classic much later.

Answer: Al Capone

Al Capone took over the Chicago gang, formerly run by Johnny Torrio, in 1925. This was after Torrio was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt and decided that the gangster business was bad for his health. Capone was already neck-deep in Chicago's bootlegging and other rackets, but becoming the boss put him front and center. He wasn't shy about it, either. Newspapers loved writing about him, and Capone seemed to enjoy his gig as a celebrity gangster.

The authorities said he ruled a gangland empire that included bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, bribery, and extortion. But he dressed well, smiled for the cameras, went to sporting events, and generally wooed the press like a politician running for office.

Answer: Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino was one of the biggest stars of the silent-film era, in large part because the ladies couldn't get enough of him. He was Hollywood's famous "Latin Lover," particularly after starring in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" in 1921 and "The Sheik" later that year. Good looks, romantic roles, dancing skills. Yeah, the women went insane. By the middle of the decade, Valentino was one of the most recognizable men on the planet.

Then he died suddenly at 31 years old, on August 23, 1926, after complications from a ruptured ulcer, proving that bad things happen to hot guys, too. The public reaction was less than subdued. Tens of thousands came to see his body at a New York funeral home, and the crowds became so roused that windows were smashed and police had to step in. Around 100,000 people were estimated to have lined the streets for his funeral.

Answer: Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh was 25 when he flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927. He was alone for the entire 3,610-mile flight, which took about 33 and a half hours. When he landed at Le Bourget Airport, a crowd of about 150,000 people was waiting for him.

With those 33 hours in the air, Lindbergh went from being a relatively unknown airmail pilot to one of the most famous people in the world. He became known as "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle", and his flight suddenly made every kid want to be a pilot. Later that year, he took the Spirit of St. Louis on a 95-day tour of the United States, visiting 82 cities. Millions of people turned out to see him and his famous little airplane that could.

Answer: Henry Ford

Henry Ford was a household name by the 1920s. You can thank the Model T and the mass-production methods that made it possible to sell cars to ordinary Americans for that. Ford Motor Company began producing the Model T in 1908, and by the early 1920s, Fords made up more than half of the registered automobiles on the planet. The car wasn't really glamorous, but it was affordable and dependable. It was everywhere. And that's as good a way as any to become famous.

By 1927, the Model T was over. Americans were starting to want cars with more features and more style. General Motors was also doing a good job of convincing people that maybe they did not want to drive the exact same car forever. On May 26, 1927, Henry and Edsel Ford drove the 15-millionth Model T out of the Highland Park plant, marking the end of an era.

Answer: Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford managed to become one of the biggest stars of the silent-film era while still in her twenties. She was born Gladys Smith in Toronto, Canada and began performing professionally as a kid. Eventually, she adopted the name Mary Pickford, and the rest is history. She nourished the persona of a spirited, eternally youthful girl, and it was a persona that became hugely popular. To wit, she was actually 24 when she played the 11-year-old Gwendolyn in "Poor Little Rich Girl", a comedy-drama about a neglected heiress.

In 1919, Pickford became something much more than an actress who showed up and collected a paycheck. She had substantial control over her productions and wanted more independence from the big studios. On February 5, 1919, she joined Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith in forming United Artists.