Red Carpets and Runways Trivia Quiz

Answer: Will Rogers

For most of my life I had no idea who Will Rogers was or what made him so special. If you threw the surname at me, I would have associated it with Roy Rogers and that would have been a big mistake. This ignorance is what made the research of this question so significant. This man was a star, a breath of common sense and fresh air, who reached a multitude of people across North America and, to a lesser extent, across the globe. He had a massive impact on so many people's lives... and I wonder what impact he may have had in this world if he'd lived in the age of the internet.

Rogers grew up on his father's ranch, went to military school, ran a livestock business in Argentina and then made his way across to South Africa just after the Boer War. He appeared in Wild West shows in Australia and returned to the States to become a vaudeville star. It was as a member of the Ziegfeld Follies that Americans first started to hear, and fall in love with, his Oklahoma twang and that iconoclastic brand of humour. He ventured into silent movies, but it was the introduction of the talkies that saw him reach his acting heights. So much so that he was the biggest box office draw in 1934 and only Shirley Temple could boast being a greater attraction in 1935.

The man was a tireless worker who took to writing newspaper columns and books. These translated magnificently onto radio and his apolitical views and wit made him a friend of every US President of his time. As to why he was so popular, and christened "Oklahoma's Favourite" - simple, he espoused the everyman. He spoke to them, he reached them and, if asked, most would want to be like him. He promoted quality values, and he promoted the cause of hard work. To add weight to what he said, he led by example and found value in every person that he met.

He was also a great promoter of aviation so it is almost ironic that he should lose his life flying from Fairbanks to Barrow in Alaska, with his good friend, the famed aviator Wiley Post. It seems appropriate then that Oklahoma would name one of its major airports in his name. Opening in 1911 as the Oklahoma City Municipal Airfield in 1911 it was renamed in 1941 as the Will Rogers World Airport. Oklahoma City has another significant airport, which acts as a reliever field for the Rogers' airfield and this one they named in honour of Wiley Post.

Answer: Bob Hope

Bob Hope, who lived to be a hundred years old, was an extremely versatile entertainer. A vaudevillian, he could sing, dance and act... he was also a pretty good comedian. He took part in 54 feature films but is probably best remembered for the seven "Road to..." films that he starred in alongside his good friends Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. These films were almost devoid of any significant plot and were, essentially, a medium for a welter of gags and jokes by the trio.

Hope's name is also synonymous with the Oscars (Academy Awards). Not that he earned any for his skills as an actor, but the fact that he was a regular host of the awards. He was the Master of Ceremonies on a whopping 19 occasions, commencing in 1940 and hosting his final one in 1978. Appropriately that was also the 50th anniversary of the awards. That said, Hope was the recipient of four honorary Oscars, as well as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Memorials to honour Bob Hope are spread right across the USA. There are numerous streets that bear his name from Miami across to El Paso, to a bridge in Cleveland. His name adorns hospitals, schools, theatres and a home for retired Air Force members. The Air Force has named a transport plane after him and, if you wanted to, there was a time that you could avoid all the traffic and congestion at the Los Angeles International Airport by flying past it to the Bob Hope Airport situated in Burbank, California. You did notice that I used past tense there... named after the comedian in 2003, it was rebranded to the Hollywood Burbank Airport in 2019 so that the name was more geographically prominent.

Perhaps his most endearing feature is his contribution to the morale of soldiers in the theatre of war. Hope made 57 tours for the United Service Organizations, entertaining US troops across the globe. This moved the United States Congress to pass a bill in 1997 that made him an honorary veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces. If you were one of the soldiers at one of these events, you may have heard him quip "As we flew in, they gave us a 21-gun salute. Three of them were ours."

Answer: Federico Fellini

In 2020, the movie world celebrated 100 years since the birth of Federico Fellini and took the opportunity to reflect on the career of the man who is often cited as the most influential director of the 20th century.

A noted caricaturist, he had made an attempt at a variety of careers before stumbling into screenwriting in his mid-twenties. During this time he met, fell in love and married the impeccable Giulietta Masina, a star in her own right who would add a special glow to his later works. They would remain a couple for fifty years and were only separated by Federico's passing. In 1950 Fellini directed his first film, the bittersweet "Variety Lights". Four years later came the masterful "La Strada", which earned the third of his twelve Oscar nominations and gained him international acclaim.

Fellini stood at the forefront of the Italian neo-realism movement, and he climbed to the height of his talents with the incredible "La Dolce Vita" (1960), a film that took a swipe at the decadent lifestyles of those in Rome at the start of the "Swinging Sixties". Fellini would generate extreme criticism from those he ridiculed, censorship demands from the Vatican and glowing responses from critics across the globe. This was, not only, the film that introduced the term "paparazzi" to the English language (after the photographer character - Paparazzo - in the film) but the movie that focused the attention of the world onto Italian cinema.

Fellini was born in the city of Rimini in the northern regions of Italy. It is a city that can boast, as being the home to, the names of world sporting champions, supermodels, archbishops, artists and poets but, it holds a special place in its heart for its famed film director. Let's face it, what Fellini did for the Italian film industry can be viewed in the same context as the Beatles and rock and roll music. Consequently, a stroll through Rimini will reveal streets, one of its largest parks and apartment houses that bear his name. Visitors, too, are welcomed to the city at its international airport, which was named after Fellini in 2015.

Answer: George Best

Best by name and best on the soccer field. George was an extraordinary footballer who spent the majority of his career with the famed Manchester United club. He possessed the skills, the pace, the balance, the feints and that two footed ability that confounded the best defenders in the game and had supporters whisper the word "genius" when they spoke of his football prowess. And the accolades were showered upon him; an inaugural inductee into the English Football Hall of Fame, on the 6-man short-list for British Athlete of the Century, two League title and a European Cup win with Manchester.

While he captured people's imagination on the field, he had them shaking their heads about him off the field. His playboy life-style, dashing good looks and hairstyle made him one of the world's most talked about celebrity sports people. In 1966, the Portuguese reporters would christen him "El Beatle", after the Fab Four, such was his reputation. But there was a dark-side to the man and it was alcohol. It became a habit and then a problem, and it would follow him to his end of days. Best was aware of his issues, but he did not make any apologies for them. He was famously quoted "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds [women] and fast cars - the rest I just squandered."

Best passed away in 2005 after contracting a kidney infection, which was further complicated by the drugs that he was taking to prevent his body rejecting a liver transplant he'd had three years earlier. He was 59 years old. A year later, on the day it would have been his 60th birthday, Belfast would name its international terminal after the man they'd dubbed as "the greatest player to ever pull on the green shirt of Northern Ireland".

Answer: Ian Fleming

Born into wealth, his grandfather having founded both the Scottish American Investment Trust and the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co, he had a crack at joining the Foreign Service but failed the examination. An avid writer during his schooling years, he then made an attempt at journalism, joining Reuters and soon gained respect with his coverage of the Russian "show trial"
against a group of Royal Engineers who'd been charged with espionage.

Drafted into British Naval Intelligence at the outbreak of World War II he revealed an uncanny ability at the "spy game", so much so that he was called upon to provide his expertise to the US's OSS (Office of Strategic Services). After the war Fleming retired to Jamaica and pursued his hobby of bird-watching, events that would provide influence on his future.

He built a home on the island and called it "Goldeneye" (which is the name of a type of duck) and then decided to write a novel. The novel was "Casino Royale" (1953) and it spawned the character James Bond. Once again, Fleming's interest in birds came to the fore, drawing inspiration from the name of the author of the book "Bird of the West Indies" (1936). In Fleming's words "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, and 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers." It's interesting as to how the world's perception of that name has changed over the decades.

The airport, formerly known as Boscobel Aerodrome in St. Marys, Jamaica, was christened as the Ian Fleming International on January 12, 2011. This puzzled a number of people... why Fleming? Fleming fell in love with the country when he first visited the place in 1943. He built his home there and he would write all of his "James Bond" novels there. He even used the island as the backdrop in a number of the stories, the most prominent being "Dr No" (1958), "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1965), "Live and Let Die" (1954) and parts of "Octopussy" (1966). This, in turn led to the island being the location for several of the "James Bond" movie shoots. When he opened the airport, Jamaica's Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, suppressed these naysayers by announcing that Ian Fleming gave the island "an image much larger than it otherwise would have had".

Answer: James Stewart

Stewart started acting while he was studying architecture at Princeton University, where he became part of the University Players (drama) group. Not long later he met Henry Fonda, which started a life-long friendship that not even their differences in politics could break. The pair performed on Broadway until Fonda left for Hollywood. Stewart followed a little later, after the work had dried up, thanks to the effects of the Depression.

In Hollywood Stewart commenced a great working partnership with Frank Capra, consolidating his career with films such as "You Can't Take It with You" (1938) and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939). The pair would work together after World War II on "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), a film that made Stewart a top level star. Stewart had an "everyman" quality about him, and this added an extra dimension to his roles. This was never more evident than in his role as the lawyer turned Senator, Ransom Stoddart, in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) and his numerous collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock.

Stewart won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in "The Philadelphia Story" (1940). He immediately packed it up and sent it to his father, who placed it in a frame and displayed it in his hardware store where it sat for 25 years... the store was located in (wait for it) Philadelphia Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania. This is the town where Stewart was born but, once he left for Princeton, he did not return to live there. He did return to visit his family numerous times, and, on those occasions, the community embraced him as a favourite son. In 1995 they established a museum to maintain his memory. Previously, in 1959, as a tribute to his love of flying, they named their airport after him and, eventually, put his personal plane, a Cessna 310-F on display there. However, my favourite memorial, on two of the crosswalks on Philadelphia Street, they have installed an impression of Jimmy's voice, courtesy of vocal impersonator Rich Little, to guide you across the road.

Stewart enlisted in the armed forces for World War II, well before most Hollywood actors, and well before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. For his efforts in the conflict, he would become one of Hollywood's more decorated actors. He achieved the rank of Colonel while on active duty and remained in the Reserves until 1959, retiring with the rank of Brigadier General.

Without doubt, one of his greatest features was his loyalty. He married Gloria McLean in 1949 and remained faithful to her for the duration of their marriage, which ended after 45 years with Gloria's passing from lung cancer in 1994. Stewart would pass away three years later and his final words, purportedly, were "I'm going to be with Gloria now."

Answer: John Lennon

If George Harrison was the "quiet" Beatle, then John Lennon was the "activist" Beatle. Never afraid to speak his mind, he created the perfect storm with his "we're more popular than Jesus now" quote in 1966. The backlash from this pushed the Beatles away from public comment and there was a definite endeavour to ensure that their lyrics, going forward, remained apolitical and did not disturb the waters. This did not sit well with Lennon and he released his frustrations in 1968 with the writing and recording of "Revolution" for the band's self-titled album, better known as the "White Album". Even then he was restrained, while calling for change he also called for a plan and, if that plan called for violence, "Don't you know that you can count me out". After their break-up, and freed of the Beatles leash, Lennon would seek to change the world his way with tracks such as "Give Peace a Chance" (1969), "Power to the People" (1971) and the dream that was "Imagine" (1971).

That said, his song-writing partnership with Paul McCartney was one of the most influential, not to mention successful, of the 20th century but, for this author, the key to it all was their ability to work together with an apparent seamlessness, despite being polar opposites in character.

Lennon's first marriage was to Cynthia Powell and it lasted six years but, from reports, it seemed like it was not a true two-way relationship from the outset. When asked why the Lennon-Ono relationship worked and the Powell relationship didn't, Paul McCartney responded that, "To John, Yoko represented a strong woman who was similar to the other women who raised him... his first wife wasn't". Yoko Ono drew other creative responses from Lennon, as evidenced by their three experimental noise albums commencing with "Two Virgins" in 1968. Not that Lennon was averse to experimentation himself, he'd previously written two books of "nonsense", "In His Own Write" (1964) and "A Spaniard in the Works" (1965).

Sadly, the last of Lennon's albums was released in November of 1980, less than a month before he'd be gunned down outside of his home at the Dakota in New York. The LP proved to be a sad reminder of the talent that had been taken away from the world. Seen by a number of critics as some of John's finest work, the disc would earn Lennon a posthumous Grammy for Album of the Year.

Lennon managed to touch the hearts of a multitude of people across the globe with such poignancy, that are numerous memorials have been erected in his honour. There are walls named after him in Prague, Taiwan and Hong Kong, a park in Havana and a gymnasium in Berlin. His home town of Liverpool has also ensured that his memory endures, naming their international airport at Speke after him and christening the Art & Design building at the Liverpool University with his name.

Answer: John Wayne

To understand why the man born Marion Morrison, and better known as John Wayne, left such a deep impression on movie goers one probably needs to understand the psyche that made the Americans of his era. Americans were frontiers-people. Stop and consider that it took a special brand of bravery to set out and find this country in the first place. The country was so wide, wild and brutal that it took a special brand of bravery to settle the place and this same bravery continued to be exhibited in the 20th century when the country managed to put a team of men on the moon. The figure, the image, that rode tall through all of this was that of the cowboy and John Wayne, more than anyone else, helped to shape or epitomize the collective images we have of them.

Wayne struggled for a number of years performing in a string of B-Movies before the first of many collaborations with John Ford. The film was "Stagecoach" (1939). Wayne plays a fugitive, a man who escapes jail and is on the hunt for the people who killed his family, which he manages to do. Yes, he's a killer. Yes, he gets away... and we cheer. Why? Because he's a man of principle and he disobeys the law because he's responding to a higher, more moral code. And so, the die was cast.

Wayne would feature in a further 82 Westerns and in each new saga he played a man with a conscience, set principles and a sense of fair play. These qualities were never more evident than in his Oscar winning performance as Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit" (1969). Off screen images, however, can be different. John Wayne was never backward in coming forward and he didn't hesitate to espouse his views which, generally, were very right-wing. When Wayne passed away in 1979, the people of Orange County, California, immediately took steps to have the name of their airport changed to reflect that of Wayne's. Three years later, they would unveil a statue of the star at the venue. Jump forward almost forty years and we hear of moves, that had been swelling for some two years, to remove the screen legend's name after disparaging comments that the actor had made about selected members of the community in a "Playboy" magazine interview in 1971 were republished.

Answer: Louis Armstrong

The instrumentalist that most of us know as "Satchmo" was also known as "Pops". It was the name that he used to call people he met whose names he couldn't recall. The name stuck but it had an enduring legacy as it also symbolized him as the spiritual father of modern jazz.

Many scholars and artists have pointed to him as being the first great jazz soloist. His improvisations and his energetic playing coupled with the swinging rhythms he was able to generate would provide inspiration to generations of jazz musicians, indeed most genres, to follow. As the great Dizzy Gillespie once said "No him, no me".

Aside from his trumpet, Armstrong wielded another mighty instrument, his voice. Yes, those gravel-tinged vocal chords were distinctive, but it was the freedom with which he sang that had him overshadowing his contemporaries who had the dire habit of sticking to a song's original melodies. Armstrong found new rhythms, a new swing, so to speak, that not only breathed new life into songs but instilled his own fun-loving personality into them. Bing Crosby once called him, "the greatest pop singer in the world that ever was and ever will be forever and ever, because when he sings a sad song you feel like crying, and when he sings a happy song, you feel like laughing."

Over a career that spanned five decades he formed influential groups like the Hot Five, who had a hit with "Potato Head Blues" (1927), appeared in films such as "High Society" (1956) and won Grammy Awards for his rendition of "Hello Dolly" (1969). In a touching tribute to the man, on the 4th August 2001, the anniversary of Armstrong's 100th birthday, the New Orleans International Airport was renamed in his honour.

Answer: Muhammad Ali

Sport may be entertainment, but no one was better at it as an entertainer than Mohammad Ali during the 20th century. It is little wonder that the BBC voted him the Sports Personality of the Century.

Born Cassius Clay in 1942, he was only 18 years old when he won the gold medal at the 1960 Rome Summer Olympic Games in boxing's heavyweight division. Four years later he would cause a major upset by defeating the heavily fancied Sonny Liston to claim the World Heavyweight boxing title. Whilst Ali's conquests in the ring have been matched by others, what stands out foremost in people's minds is the quality of Ali's opponents, the significance of those bouts and the manner in which they were met and stimulated the imagination of the public. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he fought in a number of historic battles, namely the 1971 "Fight of the Century" against Joe Frazier, the second re-match with the same opponent which was touted as the "Thrilla in Manila" (1975) and the unforgettable "Rumble in the Jungle" stoush with George Foreman in 1974.

Ali also made the news with his trash talk, an element designed to intimidate his opponents which incorporated elements of hip-hop style poetry - "Float like a butterfly sting like a bee , his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see" - made headlines with his adoption of the Muslim religion, the discarding of his birth name because he saw it as a "slave name", his fight with authorities not to go to Vietnam and, most importantly, his activism and work with the civil rights movement.

Ali released two spoken word albums in his day "I Am the Greatest" in 1963 and the dental awareness LP "The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay" in 1976. Both would receive Grammy nominations. Ali retired from professional boxing in 1981 and, three years later, told the world that he was afflicted with Parkinson's syndrome. Despite this he continued to be as active a public figure as he could. Few will forget the image of Ali lighting the Olympic flame at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. As that famed swimmer, Janet Evans, carried the torch up the stairs to the cauldron, everyone wondered who would receive it from her. And then, Ali appeared. The torch in his right hand, his left shaking uncontrollably due to his affliction... despite this he was still a presence and he stilled the crowd. President Clinton, who was at the stadium, described it as "the loudest hush" he'd ever heard in his life. Now that's entertainment.

Despite this great presence, and the fact that Ali was Louisville's most prominent citizen of his time, he was a polarizing figure. Many harboured misgivings because of Ali's conscientious objections to the war in Vietnam and his resistance to being drafted. As a result, it took three years of campaigning by Robert Holmes III, and 14,000 signatures on a petition to have the name of Louisville's airport changed to as a homage to Ali. That said, naming an airport after the man does carry a degree of irony, as the man had a fear of flying, had to be persuaded to fly to Rome for the Summer Olympics and, reportedly, carried his own personal parachute with him when he did.