Adventures in Autographing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro was born August 17, 1943 in Manhattan and was raised in the Greenwich Village and Little Italy neighborhoods, apparently a few blocks from where director Martin Scorsese also grew up. De Niro made an impact early in his career playing an explosive gambler in "Mean Streets" (1973), which was his first outing with Scorsese. The pair would go on to make some of their most well-known films together, including "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Raging Bull" (1980) (which won De Niro an Oscar for Best Actor), "Goodfellas" (1990), "Cape Fear" (1991), and "Casino" (1995). The lengths to which he will go in preparing for a role are legendary. He studied Sicilian to play the young Vito Corleone in "The Godfather, Part II" (1974), learnt to play the saxophone for "New York, New York" (1977), and famously put on weight to play the aged Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull" and Al Capone in "The Untouchables" (1987). Among his other well-known films are "The Deer Hunter" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "Awakenings" (1990), "Meet the Parents" (2000), and "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012).

De Niro has also branched out into other areas of the film industry, making his directorial debut with "A Bronx Tale" in 1993 and helming "The Good Shepherd" in 2006. A long-time supporter of Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, De Niro has had a hand in several businesses in the area, including the restaurants Tribeca Grill, Nobu, and Locanda Verde. In 2002 he co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival, which helped to revitalize the Lower Manhattan area following the 9/11 attacks. He was named #1 on "Empire" magazine's "Greatest Living Actors (Gods Among Us)" list in 2004.

Answer: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1989, and was reportedly inspired by artists like LeAnn Rimes, Shania Twain, and Faith Hill to move to Nashville when she was 14 to break into country music. Her debut album "Taylor Swift" spawned five US Top 40 singles and remained on the Billboard 200 chart for 157 weeks. In 2010, she became the youngest person to win the Grammy for Album of the Year at the age of 20 for her second album "Fearless", which also won three other Grammy awards. Her third album "Speak Now" set a Guinness World Record for Fastest Selling Digital Album by a Female Artist, and the lead single off her fourth album "Red" set a Guinness World Record for Fastest Selling Single in Digital History. Her fifth album "1989" secured her a second Grammy for Album of the Year in 2016, making her only the fifth person and the first female artist to achieve that feat. November 2017 saw the release of her sixth studio album "Reputation", which became her fifth consecutive album to top the Billboard 200, as well as her fourth consecutive album to achieve more than a million record sales in the US during its first week of release.

As a songwriter, Swift is known for drawing inspiration from her personal life, prompting extensive speculation from both her fans and the media about which of her songs were written about her various ex-boyfriends. She has also written or co-written songs recorded by Kellie Pickler, Miley Cyrus, B.o.B, Rihanna, and Little Big Town.

Answer: Gordon Ramsay

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, OBE was born in Scotland in 1966, but his life could have turned out very differently if he was luckier in sports. He played as a trialist for the Rangers Football Club when he was 15, until a knee injury cut short what could have been a promising football career. He turned to cooking, honing his culinary skills in a series of restaurants under well-known chefs like Marco Pierre White, Albert Roux, Guy Savoy, and Joël Robuchon. After several successful gigs as head chef in various Michelin-starred restaurants, Ramsay branched out on his own and quickly began racking up accolades and accomplishments. In 2001, Ramsay became the first Scotsman to be awarded three Michelin stars for Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, his first solo restaurant, and he won three Catey (Caterer and Hotelkeeper) Awards for Newcomer of the Year (1995), Chef of the Year (2000), and Independent Restaurateur of the Year (2006).

Ramsay is best known for co-creating and/or presenting various reality television shows that focus on cooking and hospitality, such as "Kitchen Nightmares", "Hell's Kitchen", "MasterChef", and "Hotel Hell", and has developed a larger-than-life television persona with a reputation for being a quick-tempered, foul-mouthed perfectionist (although he is perfectly capable of being civil and even kind to the young cooks who compete on "MasterChef Junior"). Ramsay has authored numerous cookbooks as well as the autobiography "Humble Pie", in which he talks about his early struggles with his family, and his relationships with former colleagues and mentors. He ran the London Marathon each year between 2000 and 2009 to raise money for the Scottish Spina Bifida Association, and has helped raise money for UNICEF by participating in Soccer Aid.

Answer: David Copperfield

David Copperfield was born on September 16, 1956 in Metuchen, New Jersey. He began practicing magic when he was 10, was accepted into the Society of American Magicians when he was 12, and was teaching magic at NYU when he was 16. He began making television specials in 1977, wowing audiences with one incredible illusion after the other. He levitated a Ferrari, made a Lear jet disappear, made the Statue of Liberty disappear and reappear, levitated over the Grand Canyon, walked through the Great Wall of China, escaped from Alcatraz, disappeared from a floating platform in the Bermuda Triangle, escaped from a building about to be demolished, escaped from a yellow raft falling over Niagara Falls, made an Orient Express dining car disappear, and flew onstage for several minutes apparently unaided by any wires or camera tricks.

Copperfield has amassed numerous Guinness World Records and won over 20 Emmy awards. His 1996 Broadway show "Dreams and Nightmares" set a record for most tickets sold in a week, and he consulted on (and cameoed in) the 2013 Steve Carell magic-themed comedy "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone". In 1982, Copperfield started Project Magic, a program accredited with the American Occupational Therapy Association that teaches sleight of hand to patients with disabilities as a form of physical therapy.

Answer: David Beckham

David Beckham was born on May 2, 1975 in England and began his football career when he was 17. He played for Manchester United from 1992 to 2003, followed by four and five-year stints respectively for Real Madrid and Los Angeles Galaxy, during which time he was also loaned out to AC Milan. After completing a five-month contract with Paris Saint-Germain, Beckham retired from soccer in May 2013, marking the end of a 20-year career which saw him winning league championships in England, Spain, the US, and France, and playing (and scoring) in three separate FIFA World Cup tournaments. Beckham's celebrity status also extends to being a pop culture and fashion icon, together with his wife, Victoria Beckham (formerly Posh Spice from the Spice Girls), with endorsements for Adidas, Pepsi, and Disney, as well as his own clothing and fragrance lines.

Beckham is also known for his philanthropic work, and was appointed goodwill ambassador for UNICEF in 2005. He has helped raise money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, UNICEF's Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS Campaign, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Help for Heroes, and Malaria No More UK.

Answer: Stan Lee

Stan Lee was born on December 28, 1922 in New York City. He worked various odd jobs in his teens, and after graduating from high school he secured a position in Timely Publications, which would eventually become Marvel Comics. Lee moved up the ranks quickly, becoming editorial director when he was only 19. By the late 1950s, he was tasked with revitalizing the artform to compete with rival DC Comics, who were enjoying considerable success with their "Justice League" super-team. Lee responded with a stable of new and updated characters that featured more complex, realistic characterizations, and who all inhabited the same universe. Among his co-creations are the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Daredevil. Lee became publisher and editorial director of Marvel Comics in 1972, and went on to become its president and chairman.

The Marvel properties Lee helped create have since spawned an entire cinematic universe of successful movies and TV series. Lee has appeared in cameos in numerous Marvel films and television shows, including entries in the "X-Men", "Spider-Man", "Fantastic Four", and "Avengers" film franchises. He is the only actor to appear in the first 15 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe produced by Marvel Studios.

Answer: Howard Stern

Howard Stern was born on January 12, 1954 in Queens, New York. From an early age, he knew that he wanted to be on the radio, and used to record his own shows in the basement of his house. He worked at the campus radio station in college, and upon graduating he worked in various radio stations around the country's east coast. He is best known for his talk radio show "The Howard Stern Show", which began airing in 1986, and for his provocative on-air persona who thrives on content that many consider incendiary and offensive. At least two of his employers had to institute a seven-second delay so that they could censor what they deemed undesirable content, and radio stations airing Stern's show were fined a record-setting $2.5 million by the FCC between 1990 and 2004 for breaching indecency guidelines. In 2005, Stern moved his show to Sirius Satellite Radio, which was not subject to the FCC's broadcast regulations.

Stern's talents extend beyond being a radio personality. His 1993 autobiography "Private Parts" spent 20 weeks on the "New York Times" bestseller list, and was made into a successful movie in 1997. Stern played himself in the film, and contributed the songs "The Great American Nightmare" and "Tortured Man" to the soundtrack that he performed with Rob Zombie and The Dust Brothers. Stern also acted as a judge on "America's Got Talent" for four seasons from 2012 to 2015, and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2012.

Answer: Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres was born on January 26, 1958 in Metairie, Louisiana. She had her start as a stand-up comedian, and in 1994 began starring in the self-titled sitcom "Ellen" for five seasons, making history when her character (and DeGeneres in real life) came out of the closet during the show's fourth season. DeGeneres reinvented herself as a daytime talk show host with "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2003, which has won numerous accolades and endured in popularity over the years. DeGeneres replaced Paula Abdul as a judge for the ninth season of "American Idol", and she has brought her unique comedic sensibilities as the host for the Grammys, the Emmys, and the Oscars. She set a Twitter record when a group selfie she took at the 2014 Oscars ceremony was re-tweeted more than 2.8 million times in 24 hours. The Pixar animated film "Finding Nemo" (2003) featured DeGeneres as the voice of Dory, a regal blue tang fish suffering from short-term memory loss, and she reprised the role in the 2016 sequel "Finding Dory".

DeGeneres won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1997 for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, and has received over 28 Daytime Emmy Awards for her talk show. When she won her 20th People's Choice Award in 2017, she became the most decorated individual in the award show's history. She became PETA's Woman of the Year in 2009 for her animal rights activism, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Answer: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda was born on January 16, 1980 in New York City, New York, where he grew up listening to rap and inherited his parents' love of Broadway cast albums. He showed his musical inclinations from an early age, writing jingles as a child, appearing in school musicals in middle school, and writing and performing original shows in high school. While in college he began writing "In the Heights", a musical about a Hispanic-American community in Washington Heights that would make it to Broadway and go on to be nominated for 13 Tony Awards in 2008, winning four including Best Musical. Miranda followed that success by co-composing the songs for "Bring It On: The Musical", before going on to write the book, music and lyrics for "Hamilton: An American Musical" about the life of Alexander Hamilton. The show had a workshop in 2013 and an off-Broadway run in early 2015, before moving to Broadway that July, where it reportedly made over $30 million in advance sales alone.

"Hamilton" received a record-setting 16 nominations at the 2016 Tony Awards, winning 11 including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Featured Actor and Actress in a Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Orchestrations. The show also garnered a Grammy award and a Pulitzer Prize. That same year, Miranda collaborated with composer Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa'I to write the songs for the Disney animated film "Moana". In 2017, the song "How Far I'll Go" from that film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Answer: Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian was born on October 21, 1980 in Los Angeles to Robert Kardashian and Kris Jenner, and has epitomized the notion of a celebrity who is "famous for being famous". She achieved some notoriety as the personal stylist for various prominent socialites and celebrities, but her real breakthrough came with the success of the "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" reality TV series about the lives of the extended Kardashian-Jenner family. Since its inception on the E! cable network, critics have called it "tedious" and "repugnant", and bemoaned how it promotes "self-absorbed egocentrism" and is symptomatic of "our nation's moral, spiritual and cultural decay". Still, the show has proven to be a guilty pleasure with audiences, growing in viewership since it premiered in 2007 and generating several spin-offs. Kim leveraged the show's popularity to become a media and pop culture sensation, model, fashion designer, and entrepreneur. In addition to her many commercial endorsements, Kim has launched her own jewelry line, perfumes, an online shoe business, a successful mobile phone game and her own line of emojis or 'Kimojis'. Together with her sisters Khloe and Kourtney, Kim released an autobiography called "Kardashian Konfidential" and launched a retail store in Vegas called "Kardashian Khaos", as well as a "Kardashian Kollection" clothing line.

Kim has also dabbled in acting, appearing in "Disaster Movie" (2008), which garnered her a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress. She went on to win the award in 2014 for her appearance in "Temptation: Confession of a Marriage Counselor" (2013). She married rapper and songwriter Kanye West in 2014.