Celebrities' Personal Trademarks Trivia Quiz | Celebrities

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. If you are a fan of cooking shows, you have a number of them to watch on the telly these days. Most celebrity chefs have their own way of exhibiting flamboyance. One jovial host, for example, will add a spice to his recipe and then suddenly yell, "Bam"! Can you select the correct celebrity chef who chooses to do this?

Answer: Emeril Lagasse

Emeril Lagasse, from Lizzie Borden's home town of Falls River, Massachusetts, was born October 15, 1959. He has written over a dozen cookbooks, run several restaurants and hosted a number of TV shows. From 1994-2008 he starred on The Food Channel's "Emeril Live". Lagasse specializes in mostly Cajun, French, Portuguese and Creole dishes. He has served as executive chef at Commander's Palace in New Orleans, Louisiana, regarded by many as one of the top gourmet restaurants in America. In 2008, the committee for the Tournament of Roses chose Lagasse to serve as Grand Marshall for their parade which, each year, precedes the Rose Bowl college football game. On January 14, 2013, he was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame.

Interesting fact: Emeril Lagasse graduated from the renowned culinary school Johnson and Wales, and has since raised millions for chef wannabes who want to be graduates of the same prestigious school.

2. Mr. Rogers had his cardigan sweaters, but a world-famous pianist had his shtick too. It was an ornate candelabra that sat upon his 88s, while he performed live, on TV, or in the movies. He was born in Wisconsin and played with the Chicago Symphony when he was a mere 14 years old. In the 1930s he played in night clubs under the moniker of Walter Busterkeys. See if perhaps you can pick the proper piano player.

Answer: Liberace

In addition to his trademark candelabras, he was also known for wearing glitzy outfits, some with a cape, and many adorned with flowers as well. He wore several ornate rings when he played, and his home even had a piano-shaped swimming pool. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was a star performer in Las Vegas. Many of his flashy cars, outfits, jewelry, and pianos could be seen in Vegas at the Liberace Museum, which closed in 2010 after over 30 years of existence.
Another trademark of his was singing "I'll Be Seeing You" as the finale to his shows and performances. One of his best-selling singles, recorded in the early 1950s, was "Ave Maria" which sold in excess of 300,000 copies.

Interesting fact: When he was born as Wladziu Valentino Liberace, he was a twin. His sibling died at birth.

3. OK, we've had a "BAM!" and a candelabra. Now let's think about who sang a little song each week at the end of her popular, long-running variety show which ran from 1967-1978. She was the daughter of alcoholic parents and was raised by her grandmother. People started to get used to seeing her when she made frequent appearances on one of the earlier TV game shows "Stump the Stars". What famous comic-actress closed her shows by singing "I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together"?

Answer: Carol Burnett

During its run, "The Carol Burnett Show" won an astounding 25 prime time Grammy Awards, and "TV Guide" ranked it 16th on its list of The Greatest TV Shows of All Time (2002). Ms. Burnett received a Golden Globe Award for Best Female TV Star in 1968, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by President George W. Bush. Here are a few more lyrics from Ms. Burnett's show closer: "That's why I'm glad we had this time together. Cause it makes me feel like I'm along. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, 'So long'". Good night, everybody!

Interesting fact: Another signature part of closing her shows was when she would give a little tug on her left ear. It was a way of saying "hi" to her grandma, Mabel Eudora White. Sadly, Ms. White died only six months after the show began, but Carol continued the salute for the entire length of her show (278 episodes in all).

4. Our next celebrity is a multi-Emmy winner who overcame infantile polio to become one of America's most beloved performers. She was a singer-songwriter, actress and TV hostess. She was a popular Big Band singer in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1956, she began her own TV program which ran until 1963. Sponsored by Chevrolet Motors, on each show she would sing the company jingle, which became one of her hallmarks: "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet". Can you recall the name of this lovely lyricist?

Answer: Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was married to actor George Montgomery from 1943-1962. She began her movie career the same year she got married, in "Thank Your Lucky Stars" with Eddie Cantor, and her penultimate flick was "Oh, God" (1977) with George Burns. Along the way she recorded over forty albums and more than 85 singles, including four Number One hits: "I'll Walk Alone" (1944), "The Gypsy" (1946), "The Anniversary Song" (1947), and "Buttons and Bows" (1948). She was a tremendous supporter of women's golf, and for years The Colgate Dinah Shore tournament was a key stop on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) schedule. (It later became The Kraft-Nabisco, one of the four majors on the LPGA tour.) Dinah Shore is an Honorary Member of the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Interesting fact: You may have noticed her birth date is February 29th. People who only get to celebrate their natals every four years are known as "leapers". A couple of other famous leap year babies were bandleader Jimmy Dorsey, hockey great Henri Richard, and former first lady Nancy Reagan.

5. Over the course of four decades, America was entertained by an enormously funny guy. He was a comic, singer, actor, and pianist. When he was just a teenager he began his career as a ragtime piano man. He has a number of well-known quotes attributed to him, including "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are". In fact, for close to forty years he signed off his TV and radio broadcasts with that phrase. Can you name this funny fellow?

Answer: Jimmy Durante

Jimmy "The Schnoz" Durante didn't have the most beautiful voice in the business, but he sure sounded great when he used his gravelly pipes to make us smile. He regaled us with his trademark song (which he himself composed), a novelty ditty called "Inka Dinka Doo" (1934). He also had a popular version of "Frosty the Snowman" (1969). "The Schnoz" appeared in more than forty films, including "Little Miss Broadway" (1938) with Shirley Temple, "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1942) with Bette Davis and Monte Woolley, and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963) with Spencer Tracy. While he made his early mark on the radio, he made his mark on the tube as well, winning both a Peabody Award (1951) and a Prime Time Emmy (1953). Jimmy Durante has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (radio and TV).

Interesting fact: Although dozens of theories abound about just who the Mrs. Calabash that Jimmy bade goodnight was, he never revealed it, and no one has ever established for sure exactly who she was, or even if she existed.

6. Personal slogans are nothing new. Remember back in the early days of TV (1947-1960) when a nation of kids sat spellbound, waiting at home or in the "peanut gallery" for "Buffalo Bob Smith" (Robert Schmidt) to ask: "Say kids, what time is it"? They would then respond, "It's Howdy Doody time". Well, we also have had a news reporter/political commentator who each weekday evening has given us these words of wisdom at the opening of his highly rated program: "Caution, you are about to enter the no-spin zone". Can you name this broadcaster?

Answer: Bill O'Reilly

"The O'Reilly Factor" started as "The O'Reilly Report" in 1975. Bill O'Reilly hosted "The Radio Factor" from 2002-2009, and from 1989-1995 he was the anchor of "Entertainment Tonight". A native New Yorker, born September 10, 1949, O'Reilly holds degrees from Marist College (1971) where he was a history major; Boston U. (1973) where he earned a Masters in Broadcast Journalism; and Harvard U. (1996) where he earned a Masters in Public Administration. A former English high school teacher, he has published more than ten books, including "Killing Lincoln" (2011) and "Killing Kennedy" (2012), which finished the 2012 year in the top two spots on the N.Y. Times Bestseller List (hardcover and non-fiction).

Interesting fact: Bill O'Reilly played semi pro-baseball in 1971-1972, as a member of the Brooklyn Monarchs. He was considered a major league prospect and even had a tryout with the N.Y. Mets as a right-hander hurler.

7. The old saying claims that "clothes make the man". A number of stars must have believed it. Johnny Cash wore black clothes, Perry Como was a cardigan/sweater wearer, and Elton John just loved his gaudy glasses. Our next celebrity was well-known for wearing white buck shoes, mostly back in the 1950s and 1960s, in keeping with his all-American, clean-cut public image. Do you recall who wore those two-toned shoes?

Answer: Pat Boone

Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone has been a busy, busy boy. Since 1955 he has appeared in over a dozen films, including "April Love" (1957) with Shirley Jones and "State Fair" (1962) with Ann-Margret. In addition, he has recorded 130 studio and compilation albums, one of which was appropriately named "Kid in the White Buck Shoes" (2006). Among his sixty plus singles are Billboard Hot 100 list Number One songs "April Love" and "Love Letters in the Sand", both in 1957, and "Moody River" (1961). On TV he hosted "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom" (1957-1960). Pat Boone has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (recording and TV). In 1977, Pat's daughter Debbie took "You Light Up My Life" to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list, and it stayed there for ten weeks.

Interesting fact: Pat Boone claimed to be a great, great, great, great grandson of American frontiersman Daniel Boone, when he appeared on "The 700 Club" (2007).

8. Everybody's tastes are different, right? Some folks like vanilla, while others crave chocolate. Ronald Reagan loved his jelly beans, and you couldn't pry Elvis Presley's hands off a peanut butter and banana sandwich. But a certain heavy metal performer became well known for his alleged fondness for biting the heads off living bats and sweet innocent little doves. Can you name this, er, eccentric member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Answer: Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy decapitated the dove in the midst of a business meeting in 1981, but he had a much larger audience when he made mincemeat of the mammal during a live performance held in Des Moines, Iowa the following year. Famous as the lead singer for "Black Sabbath" (1969-1978), Ozzy Osbourne became known as both "The Prince of Darkness" and "The Godfather of Heavy Metal". Later, along with his wife Sharon and their kids, he had a reality TV show inventively titled "The Osbournes" which debuted March 5, 2002 and ran until March 11, 2005. In 2002, it became the most watched MTV show of all-time (at the time). As both a member of Black Sabbath and as a solo performer he has sold a total of over 100 million records.

Interesting fact: Black Sabbath was inducted into the U.K. Music Hall of Fame in 2005, and they entered the Rock and Roll Hall a year later.

9. Sometimes a frenzied announcement just before the main boxing match of the evening can really get an already excited crowd even more worked up. Case in point: "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" is the call made in a loud drawn-out voice before most championship bouts, and at all such bouts held at any property owned by one Mr. Donald Trump. The ring emcee with the booming baritone pipes, an astute businessman had that now familiar phrase trademarked in 1992. Can you accurately ascertain the announcer?

Answer: Michael Buffer

An ex-acting wannabee, Michael Buffer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 2, 1944. He served in the Army during the Vietnam War, and began ring announcing in 1982. In 1984, he came up with and began using "Let's get ready to rumble". He wisely obtained a trademark for it two years later, and it has earned him not only world-wide recognition in "the sweet science", but a reportedly princely fortune as well. He eventually did get to be an actor of sorts, appearing in over fifteen movies, usually playing the part of a fight announcer, many times playing himself. A couple of his films were "Rocky 5" with Sly Stallone and "Virtuosity" (1995) with Denzel Washington.

Interesting fact: Some guys prefer a moonlit beach under starry skies, or a corner table in a beautiful restaurant to ask for the hand of their beloved. Michael, perhaps not the most romantic man in the world, chose a somewhat different venue to ask his girlfriend Christine to be his (third) wife.
He proposed to her in front of a studio and TV audience on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".

10. When you shell out a couple of hundred bucks for front row seats to a show, you may do so because you want to feel a part of the action. You do not do so in order that you can ruin your new $500 suit or sexy new dress by getting drenched with the juices of watermelons among other things. There is, however, a comedian who is known for taking a wooden sledgehammer to that vegetable, so now people sitting up close come to his shows prepared, wearing rain suits and carrying umbrellas. Can you name this wild and crazy stand-up comic?

Answer: Gallagher

Born on the Fort Bragg, North Carolina army base, Leo Gallagher has been entertaining and saturating audiences for over 35 years. In 1980, Gallagher played as the opening act for Kenny Rogers 100 times. Since then he has performed more than 3,000 shows, and by his own account, has smashed over 15,000 watermelons. There are over 1,200 varieties of this juicy vegetable, (frequently, but incorrectly, thought of as a fruit), so there is plenty of "ammunition at all times". Gallagher has performed over a dozen Showtime TV specials, the first of which was directed by Mike Nesmith, formerly of the singing Monkees. His routine is telling jokes while pounding a sledgehammer-like wooden mallet (the "Sledge-O-Matic") into everything from apple pies to tubes of toothpaste, from cheeseburgers to bunches of grapes, sending liquids of many types flying into the audience, before getting to the watermelon for the grand finale.

Interesting fact: Watermelons are made up of 92% water, hence Gallagher's choice to use them to make his final big splash of the show.

Source: Author paulmallon

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Pagiedamon before going online.
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Celebrities' Personal Trademarks Quiz

Who was known for yelling "Heeere's Johnny" on TV? Right, Ed McMahon. Who was famous for wearing one white glove? Yes, Michael Jackson. Many others are known for things they say, do, wear, etc. See if you can tell whose idiosyncrasies these are.

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