Twenty People Who Died Between 2020-2023 Quiz

Answer: Jeopardy!

George Alexander Trebek was born on July 22, 1940, in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. He started hosting "Jeopardy!" in 1984 and continued doing so for 37 seasons until he died in 2020 from pancreatic cancer. He had hosted other game shows in the past such as "High Rollers" and "To Tell the Truth".

In the season eight episode of "Cheers" called "What is...Cliff Clavin?" Trebek made a cameo appearance as himself when Cliff got to be on "Jeopardy!" when the show came to Boston.

Answer: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

"Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" aired on CBS from 1993-1998. It was a Western drama about a woman named Dr. Machaela "Mike" Quinn (played by Jane Seymour) who moved from Boston, Massachusettes to Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1867.

In the pilot episode, Loren Bray was played by Guy Boyd, but then the producers recast many of the supporting characters, Boyd was out and Orson Bean played the part for the remainder of the series. He was also in the first of the two movies "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman: The Movie" (1999). The second movie, "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within" (2001) did not have his character as they were not in Colorado Springs.

Loren Bray was an older grumpy man. He lost his wife early in the first season. He lost his daughter before the show started. She was married to Byron Sully (played by Joe Lando), who was friends with the Indians. In the beginning, he hated Sully that is until Sully saved his life with a blood transfusion, then their relationship slowly started to change. Loren was close to Dr. Mike's youngest adopted son Brian (played by Shawn Toovey). He also courted (off and on) Dr. Mike's sister Marjorie (played by Orson Bean's real wife until his death, Alley Mills).

Answer: Spider

The book of a musical is also called the libretto. "Kiss of the Spider Woman" is a Kander and Ebb musical that came to West End (London) in 1992. It is based on the novel "El Beso de la Mujer Arana" by Manuel Puig. It came to Broadway (NYC) in 1993 and won the Tony for Best Musical that year.

The plot tells the story of Molina, a gay window dresser who is in prison in Argentina. He was sent to prison for corrupting a minor. He lives mostly in fantasy as a way to escape the torture and humiliation he faces within the prison. His roommate, Valentin is a Marxist revolutionary, who is not healthy after having already been tortured. Valentin abhors Molina, mainly because he is gay. He tells him when he first arrives in the prison, "Don't dare to think that you'll ever be some fairy friend of mine" in the song "I Draw the Line".

Molina's fantasies mainly revolve around Aurora whom he worships, but fears one, and that is the kiss of the spider woman. The kiss of the spider woman means you will die.

Answer: False

In October of 1947, Chuck Yeager was the first person to travel faster than the speed of sound. Charles Elwood Yeager was born on February 13, 1923, in Hamlin, West Virginia. He was in the United States Army in World War II as part of the Army Air Forces. He started as a mechanic but soon became a pilot. He became "ace in a day" meaning he shot down at least five enemy aircraft in one day, on October 12, 1944. Before the end of WWII, he was promoted to captain.

Yeager was 24 years old when USAAF wanted him to fly the Bell XS-1, a rocket ending powered aircraft, to break the sound "barrier" as part of the orogram for NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) which was the United States predecessor to NASA. He retired in 1975. He then did some cameo appearances in movies including "Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and "The Right Stuff" (1983). Yeager died on December 7, 2020 at the age of 97 in Los Angeles, Calfiornia, USA.

Answer: spy novels

David John Moore Cornwell was born on October 19, 1931, in Poole, England. His first novel was "Call for the Dead" in 1961; however, it was his third novel, "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963) which became an international best-seller. The book is about Alec Leamas who used to be an SOE during World War II.

After an agent is killed, he is called back to London to "bring down the head of the East German Intelligence and destroy their organization." He died at age 89 on December 12, 2020, in Truro, England.

Answer: Saturday Night

Stephen Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, in New York City. However, when he was around ten, his parents divorced and he spent his childhood growing up on a farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. One of his closest friends happened to be James Hammerstein, the son of the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. As a result, Sonheim was mentored by Hammerstein at an early age.

"Saturday Night" was written in 1955 with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. It was based on their play, "Front Porch in Flatbush". It did not open on Broadway as planned, however, because the head producer died suddenly. Then in 1957, Sondheim went on to write the lyrics for another musical, "West Side Story".

Stephen Sondheim went on to write several more musicals including "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," (1962) "Merrily We Roll Along," (1981) "Into the Woods" (1987), and "Assassins" (1990). Hem died on November 26, 2021, at age 91 in Roxbury, Connecticut, of cardiovascular disease. The lights on Broadway dimmed for one minute on December 8, 2021, for one minute in his honor.

Answer: Life with Elizabeth

Betty White starred as Elizabeth the wife of Alvin (played by Del Moore) from 1953-1955. Essentially while there were other characters on the show sometimes, the plot of each episode was there would be an issue and they would talk to each other to get through the problem. Of course, Betty White's comic timing was perfect.

She died a few weeks before her 100th birthday (they already had magazines out with her on the cover declaring her to be 100 years old) on December 31, 2021. According to White's good friend, actress Vicki Lawrence, White's last word was "Allen." Allen Ludden was White's husband.

They were married from 1963 until he died in 1981. When Anderson Cooper interviewed her in 2011, he asked why she didn't remarry; she explained, "If you've had the best, who needs the rest?"

Answer: Raiders

John Madden was a star player when he was in high school. He had a knee injury in college and needed an operation on his knee. Then he played in college as well. Before his senior year at Cal Poly, he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. He finished his senior year playing football with Cal Poly, but his playing was cut short due to a collarbone injury in October 1958. But he still played in the All-American Bowl in 1959. Unfortunately at training with the Eagles, he injured his other knee, and his playing career was ended before he got to play in any actual games.

Madden had earned a degree in teaching and loved football. So he became a coach. He started as an assistant coach in 1960 at Hancock College in Santa Maria, California. In 1967, he was hired as the linebacker coach for the Oakland Raiders. That year the Raiders made it to Superbowl II. They lost to Green Bay, but they got there thanks in part to the help of Madden. In 1969 Madden, at age 32 was named the head coach of the Raiders. At the time, he was the youngest head coach in the NFL (at that time it was the AFL/NFL). In 1977, Madden and the Raiders got to the Superbowl, (Super Bowl XI) and defeated the Minnesota Vikings.

But, as a person who is not a fan of football, I have to say, that I will always remember Madden for his eight-legged turkeys often seen during the Thanksgiving Day game while the rest of my family were watching it.

Madden died at the age of 85 on December 28, 2021, in Pleasanton, California, USA. The then NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said this about Madden, "there will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today." He also said that Madden "was football." What a beautiful tribute!

Answer: Ramona Quimby

Beverly Atlee Cleary was born on April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon, US.
When she was in first grade, she was put into the lower reading group in school, and she said, "I wanted to read but somehow could not." She said she found reading boring and didn't understand why authors didn't write books about normal people, or that were funny. In third grade, she read Lucy Fitch's "The Dutch Twins" and discovered she liked reading this story about children. She then started looking in the library for more books about children. When she was in sixth grade a teacher suggested she become a children's author based on essays she wrote for class.

She went to college to become a children's librarian. She met her future husband, Clarence Cleary, around 1938. Her Presbyterian parents did not approve of Cleary who was a Roman Catholic so the couple eloped in 1940. They were married until he died in 2004. While working as a librarian, Cleary noticed how hard it was to help parents and children find good books to read with relatable characters, so she decided to start writing books. Her first book was "Henry Huggins" in 1950 which was a series of fictional chapter books about Henry and his dog Ribsy. His neighbor was Beezus and her little sister Ramona Quimby.

In 1955, she wrote her first book to focus on the Quimby sisters, "Beezus and Ramona." She was asked by the publisher to write a book about a kindergartener. She ended up writing eight books in this series. She died on March 25, 2021, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California at age 104.

Answer: Secretary of State

Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in New York City, NY, USA. He was in the ROTC program and graduated as a second lieutenant in 1958. He was in the services for 35 years and rose to the rank of a four-star general during that time. From October 1989 to September 1993, he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which if the highest military position in the United States Department of Defense.

On December 16, 2000, President-elect George W. Bush named Colin Powel as his Secretary of State in Crawford, Texas. Powell was the first member to accept a Cabinet position in Bush's administration. He also was the first black United States Secretary of State. He held that post until the end of Bush's first term. Powell passed away on October 18, 2021 in Bethesda, Maryland at age 84.

Answer: Star Trek II

Kirstie Louise Alley was born in Wichita, Kansas on January 12, 1951. In 1982, Alley played Saavik in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." A big fan of the original "Star Trek" series, when she auditioned for the role she did an impersonation of Leonard Nimoy a Spock and that was how she won the role. Saavik is half Vulcan and half Romulan.

She is a student of Spock's (played by Leonard Nimoy). Unlike full-Vulcans, because she is only half she is not in total control of her emotions. Therefore, at the funeral for Spock, you see her crying because she cannot keep control of the sadness she feels.

Answer: rap

Artis Leon Ivey Jr (better known as Coolio) was born on August 1, 1963, in Monessen, Pennsylvania, USA. He got the nickname, Coolio as a teenager as a take-off of singer Julio Iglesias. His nickname was originally Coolio Iglesias and then was shortened to Coolio.

One of his best songs "Gangsta's Paradise" was released in 1995. It was part of the "Dangerous Minds" movie soundtrack. It his number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was a top hit in multiple countries including the UK, France, Italy, and Switzerland. Coolio won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for "Gangsta's Paradise." Coolio died on September 28, 2022, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 59 from an accidental overdose.

Answer: True

Jean-Luc Godard was born on December 3, 1930, in Paris, France. He started his work in the film industry as a film critic in 1950. Two years later, he left Paris and moved in with his mother who lived in Switzerland. He was working with his mother's boyfriend on the Grande Dixence Dam and became interested in making a documentary about the dam. And so he got his start in making movies.

In 2014, he wrote and directed the movie "Goodbye to Language." The film showed a parallelism between a married couple and a dog staying between a town and the country. The movie starred Heloise Godet as Josette and Kamel Abdelli as Gedeon. He died on September 13, 2022, in Rolle, Switzerland at age 91 as a result of assisted suicide.

Answer: Boston Celtics

William Felton Russell was born on February 12, 1934, in Monroe, Louisiana, USA. He was drafted by the St. Louis Hawks in 1956 but traded to the Boston Celtics for Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan. With Russel as the center, the Celtics won their first NBA championship in 1957, they then set a record winning eight consecutive championships from 1959 to 1966. Russell was Most Valuable Player five times and an All-Star player twelve times.

In his last three years as a player (1966-1969) he also coached acting as a player-coach. He was the first black NBA coach, and the first black NBA coach to win a championship. From 1973-1977 he was head coach and general manager of the Seattle Supersonics. He also coached the Sacramento Kings for a year in 1987. In 1975, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He died on July 31, 2022, at age 82 in Mercer Island, Washington, USA.

Answer: Yes

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931, in Privolnoye, Russia SFSR, Soviet Union. He grew up while Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union. He eventually joined the Communist Party.

In 1985, the Politburo ("de factor supreme political authority of the Soviet Union") elected Gorbachev as general secretary, the "de facto leader". While he believed strongly in Marxist-Lenist ideals, Gorbachev also believed that for the Soviet Union to continue surviving it needed to change with the times. He therefore worked with United States President Ronald Reagan toward ending the Cold War. He started the policy of "glasnost" ("openness") within the U.S.S.R. allowing for things such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

In 1988, Gorbachev started introducing more democracy in the Soviet Union. However, this was impeded by what he called, "a slave psychology" that the people had developed from centuries of having to live under strict Communist rule. (Note, he wasn't giving up Communism totally, but trying to merge some democracy in with Communism). As a result, some people were elected to the new "Congress of People's Deputies", but 85% were still chosen by the Party. Gorbachev was happy; it was a start.

In 1988, after their second summit, Reagan and Gorbachev still had vastly different ideas politically. However, Raegan stated that the Soviet Union was no longer "an evil empire." The two men had declared that they considered themselves to be friends. Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022, in Moscow, Russia after "a severe and prolonged illness".

Answer: Mary's Boy Child

Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. was born on March 1, 1927, in Harlem, New York City, NY, USA. During WWII, he dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Navy. He then got a job as a janitor's assistant in an apartment building and a tenant gave him tickets to the American Negro Theater. He fell in love with the theatre and became friends with Sidney Poitier because of this experience. The two were both struggling financially and would buy one ticket to shows between them, and take turns, each going to one act of the show, and filling the other in on what happened during the act they missed. But by the end of the 1940s he was able to take acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in NYC. In 1954, he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for "John Murray Anderson's Almanac."

He started singing in clubs to pay for the acting classes he was taking. In 1956, he released the album "Calypso" which sold more than a million copies in one year. It brought Calypso music to Americans (Calypso music originated in Trinidad and Tobago). Belafonte earned the title "King of Calypso" as a result. The album included the "Banana Boat Song" often referred to as "Day-O" due to its popular chorus, "Day-O, day-o, daylight come and me wanna go home." In 1957, he recorded "An Evening with Belafonte." The album included the song "Mary's Little Boy Child." The song was written by Jester Hairston. Belafonte released it in 1956 as a single before his album came out. He died at age 96 on April 25, 2023, in his home in Manhattan, NYC, NY, USA.

Answer: Mork and Mindy

Captain Nirvana was a Necron who was superior to both Earthlings and Orkans. Necrons were incredibly gorgeous and operated on lust and hate. Nirvana is on a mission to get everything Mork knows about Earth and she tells him if he doesn't share willingly she will out his brain by sucking his ear.

Jo Raquel Tejada was born on September 5, 1940, in Chicago Illinois, USA. Her father came from Bolvia, and her cousin Lidia Gueiler Tejada was the first female president of Bolivia. Her family moved from Illinois to California when Raquel Welch was two. When she was fourteen she started to win beauty titles such as Miss Photogenic. She lost the state title (Maid of California) however.Wanting to act, she entered San Diego Stage College in 1958 on a theatre arts scholarship. The following year she married James Welch, her high school sweetheart, which is when she took the name Raquel Welch.

The two separated in 1962, and she moved with their two children to Dallas, TX, where she worked as a model and a cocktail waitress to make money. She then moved to L.A. again in 1963 and hired an agent, Patrick Curtis; and they worked on a plan to make her into a sex symbol. Not wanting her to be typecast because of her Latina background he told her to keep her ex-husband's last name. She died on February 15, 2023, from cardiac arrest at her home in L.A., CA, USA. At the time of her death, she also had Alzheimer's disease.

Answer: ballroom dancing

Len Goodman was born on April 25, 1944 in Farnborough, Kent, England. Unlike most dancers who start early, he did not start dancing until he was nineteen when it was recommended as therapy for a foot injury. From there he turned pro and started winning competitions. He retired in his late twenties from dancing.

Goodman was once the sole head judge on "Strictly Come Dancing" which was Britain's version of America's "Dancing with the Stars." He later worked with other judges as well. After season 31 he retired from that. He died from metastatic prostate cancer on April 22, 2023, three days before turning 79, in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.

Answer: Cleveland Browns

Jim Brown was born February 17, 1936, in St. Simons Island, Georgia, USA. While in school, Brown lettered in football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, and track. With the help of Kenneth Molloy, lawyer and Syracuse University lacrosse former player and alum, Brown became the first black athlete to play football at Syracuse University. When SU did not honor their promise to pay his tuition for the year's second half, Molloy personally paid for it. He dealt with racism while there, was taunted, warned not to date white women, and not allowed to be housed in the housing for other athletes.

In his senior year of college, he made the first-team All-American. He also excelled in basketball, track and lacrosse while at Syracuse. During this time, he also was in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and graduated as a second lieutenant. While in the NFL he was in the United States Army Reserve for four years and when discharged was a captain.

He was drafted in 1957 by the Cleveland Browns in the first draft. He played fullback until 1965 with the same team. During that time he had one NFL champion (1964) win and won Most Valuable Player three times (1957, 1958, and 1965). In 1957, he was voted NFL Rookie of the Year. He is in both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He was also an actor having appeared in "I Spy," (1967), " "El Condor" (1970), and "He Got Game" (1998) to name a few. On January 13, 2020, ESPN named him the "greatest college football player of all time" at a ceremony celebrating the 150th anniversary of college football. Brown died at age 87 on May 18, 2023, at home in Los Angeles, California, USA from natural causes.

Answer: In Touch Ministries

"In Touch Ministries" is a multimedia Christian organization. One of the things Dr. Stanley did with it was a television program for televangelism. Charles Frazier Stanley was born on September 25, 1932, in Dry Fork, Virginia, USA. He became a born-again Christian when he was twelve and started working in the ministry when he was fourteen.

He got his Master's in Divinity from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He earned his Doctorate of Theology from Luther Rice Seminary which was then located in Jacksonville, Florida.

In 1971, he became the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta. In 1977, he founded "In Touch Ministries." Stanley wanted to lead people to Jesus and make local churches stronger. Since then it has been translated into fifty languages, it airs on 500 radio stations, and 300 television stations, as well as many satellite networks. There is also an "In Touch" magazine.

Stanley was elected the president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1984 and 1985. He was also a photographer, and his work is featured in the "In Touch" magazine, as well as other "In Touch" merchandise such as their calendars. On April 18, 2023, Charles Stanley died at his home in Atlanta at age 90.