One Night in Hollywood... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Demi Moore & Bruce Willis

Demi Moore and Bruce Willis were married in 1987 by singer Little Richard who was also an ordained minister; they divorced in 2000, but have reportedly remained friends since.

Moore was born Demi Gene Guynes in New Mexico in 1962; in the 1980s she signed to a modelling agency and had small roles in several films, eventually appearing as Michael Caine's daughter in the 1984 romantic comedy "Blame it on Rio", the film that brought her to the notice of a wider audience. She met her husband-to-be, Bruce Willis, on the set of "Stakeout" (1987), and they have played opposite each other in several films since. Her accolades include Best Actress at the Saturn Awards for her role in "Ghost" (1991).

Willis was born Walter Bruce Willis in West Germany in 1955 and began his acting career in the 1980s, coming to prominence as the detective David Addison in the TV series "Moonlighting". He has appeared in over one hundred films, but is perhaps most well known for the role of John McClane in the "Die Hard" series, and has received many accolades including Harvard's Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Award in 2002.

The clues refer to Demi (= half), Moore (= half a James Bond, Roger Moore), and Bruce (from the Monty Python "Bruces Sketch").

Answer: Julianna Margulies

Julianna Luisa Margulies was born in New York in 1966. Her father, Paul Margulies, worked in advertising and originated the Alka-Seltzer jingle "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz...". Her parents divorced while she was still an infant, and she spent much of her childhood with her mother, moving around in several countries including France, where she became fluent in the language.

Originally intending to pursue a career in law, she gravitated to acting while at college, and eventually graduated in English and Art History. The years following were not easy: she appeared in only one film after graduating, before landing a longstanding role in the TV series "E.R.". Although she has since appeared in more than twenty films, "E.R." and the TV series, "The Good Wife", have been the mainstays of her acting career. Margulies has received many nominations and awards for her performances in "E.R." and "The Good Wife".

The clues refer to several of Margulies' films - "Snakes on a Plane" (2006), "The Darwin Awards" (2006), "City Island" (2009), and "Stand Up Guys" (2012), and to her involvement in the TV series "E.R.".

Answer: Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born in California in 1974. He became interested in performing at an early age, appearing in several commercials and a couple of TV series, but was supposedly dismissed from the popular U.S. children's TV series "Romper Room" in 1979 for disrupting shooting. After a slow start, he began to get minor roles in several TV series in the 1990s, but came to the attention of the film-going public in 1993 for his performance in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". The film that really "launched" him, though, was "Titanic" in 1997. Several more big budget films - generally well-received - followed and in the 2000s he began to explore the production side of film making.

Among DiCaprio's many accolades are nominations for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1994) - he lost out to Tommy Lee Jones - and Best Actor for "The Aviator" (2005), "Blood Diamond" (2007), "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2014), and "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood" (2020), losing out to Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Matthew McConaughey, and Joaquin Phoenix respectively.

He won the Best Actor Academy Award in 2016 for his role in "The Revenant".

Answer: Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in the town of Winona, Minnesota, in 1971. She gravitated to acting as a teenager, with a debut role in the teen comedy "Lucas" (1986) directed by David Seltzer, who wrote the screenplay for "The Omen" (1976). She has appeared in over fifty films since, a surprising number of which appear to be in the comedic and psychological thriller genres.

Ryder was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards for "The Age of Innocence" (1994), and Best Actress for "Little Women" (1995), but lost out to Anna Paquin and Jessica Lange, respectively.

Answer: Russell Crowe

Russell Ira Crowe was born in New Zealand in 1964, into a family with film and television connections; in the 1980s he had a short-lived music career, and also appeared in the dual role of Eddie/Dr. Everett Scott in New Zealand and Australian stage productions of "The Rocky Horror Show". Following this, like a few other antipodean actors, he appeared in the long-running Australian TV series "Neighbours" before taking roles in various Australian films.

A move to North America followed, with roles in several films including "The Quick and the Dead" (1995), "Gladiator" (2000), and "A Beautiful Mind" (2001); he made his directorial debut in 2018 with "The Water Diviner", in which he also acted.

Crowe has been nominated for, and won, numerous awards throughout his career; he was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for "The Insider" (2000) and "A Beautiful Mind" (2002), but lost out to Kevin Spacey and Denzel Washington respectively; he won the Best Actor Academy Award in 2001 for his portrayal of General Maximus Decimus Meridius in "Gladiator".

Answer: Candice Bergen

Candice Patricia Bergen was born into a showbiz family in California in 1946: her parents were Frances Westcott, an actress and model who had a number of minor roles in films from 1953 to 1993, and Edgar Bergen, an actor, comedian and ventriloquist best remembered as the voice of Charlie McCarthy.

In the 1960s, while still at college, she appeared in her first film, "The Group" (1966), courtesy of the director Sidney Lumet who knew her parents. More roles followed, including starring in "Soldier Blue" (1970), and playing the photographer Margaret Bourke-White in Richard Attenborough's "Ghandi" in 1982. She became the first female host for "Saturday Night Live" in 1975.

Bergen has won several awards, mainly for her starring role in the U.S. TV series "Murphy Brown"; she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for "Starting Over" (1980), but lost out to Meryl Streep.

(The clues refer to Bergen, a city in Norway, and "Candice", which sounds like "candies" - one of the UK English words for candies is "sweeties".)

Answer: Steve Martin

Steve Martin was born Stephen Glenn Martin in Texas in 1945. The family moved to California, and during summer breaks from school he earned money selling guidebooks at Disneyland. While there, he developed an interest in magic and eventually moved on to working in Disney's Fantasyland magic shop. His interest in acting and comedy blossomed during his college years, leading to his working in Los Angeles clubs and eventually dropping out of college.

By the late 1960s he was appearing regularly in television comedy shows such as "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour", followed in the 1970s by "The Tonight Show" and "Saturday Night Live". For about 15 years, his off-the-wall ironic and thought-provoking stand-up comedy drew large audiences, sometimes polarising opinions, but always entertaining.

In the 1980s, Steve Martin abandoned stand-up comedy and moved into films: he has appeared in over fifty, including "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982) and "Father of the Bride" (1991), and has also been involved in writing, as an executive producer, and voice actor for several animated films.

Martin received an Honorary Award at the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony, "in recognition of his extraordinary talents and the unique inspiration he has brought to the art of motion pictures."

Answer: Julia Roberts

Julia Fiona Roberts was born in Georgia (US) in 1967. After graduating from high school, where she had played clarinet in the school band, she attended university but did not graduate, instead gravitating to New York where she took up modelling and started acting classes. Her film acting career began in the late 1980s, with productions such as "Mystic Pizza" (1988) and "Steel Magnolias" (1989) bringing her to widespread notice; worldwide fame then followed from "Pretty Woman" (1990) in which she co-starred with Richard Gere. She also appeared as Tess Ocean in "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) and "Ocean's Twelve" (2004).

She has appeared in over fifty films across a wide range of genres, with a significant number falling into the broad category encompassing romantic/comedy/drama variations.

Roberts was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy awards for "Steel Magnolias" (1990) and "August: Osage County" (2014), but lost out to Brenda Fricker and Lupita Nyong'o respectively; she was also nominated for Best Actress for "Pretty Woman" in 1991, losing to Kathy Bates, and won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2001 for her role in "Erin Brockovich".

Answer: Bette Midler

Bette Midler was born in Hawaii in 1945, and began her acting and singing career in New York in the 1960s, appearing in several off-Broadway productions; she also had a spot at the Continental Baths, where her piano accompanist was Barry Manilow.

Her long career as a singer, comedian, author, and actress on both stage and screen has encompassed voice roles, TV specials, documentaries, and production. She was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for her roles in "The Rose" (1979) and "For the Boys" (1991), but lost out to Sally Field and Jodie Foster respectively.

Aside from the Johnny Carson clue, the less obvious ones referred to The Divine Miss M's films "The Rose" (1979) and "Beaches" (1988).

Answer: Clint Eastwood

Clinton Eastwood, Jr. was born in California in 1930. His upbringing was unremarkable and he was not noted for his academic capabilities either at school or at college. Like many of his contemporaries, he was drafted into military service in the early 1950s, serving mainly at Fort Ord in California. He appeared to drift into acting by being in the right place at the right time: one of his acquaintances had contacts in Hollywood and sneaked him into Universal Studios where an influential cameraman remarked that he was "the sort of good looking young man that has traditionally done well in the movies".

From bit parts in TV programmes and largely uncredited film appearances in the 1950s (who could fail to identify those piercing eyes behind the pilot's helmet in the closing minutes of the 1955 sci-fi/horror film "Tarantula!") he graduated to a regular role as the good-natured young cowpoke Rowdy Yates in the TV Western series "Rawhide", following that with the move to Sergio Leone's spaghetti western "Dollars" trilogy of films, showing a different side of his character capabilities in his portrayal of "The Man with No Name".

Many more memorable, and some not-so-memorable, roles followed, along with a move towards directing in the 1970s. Although "Play Misty for Me" (1971) is usually documented as his directorial debut, his interest in what went on behind the camera started much earlier, and he filmed some of the trailers for "Rawhide".

Bearing in mind the relatively high proportion of his film appearances in the Western genre, it is perhaps surprising to learn that Clint Eastwood is reported to be allergic to horses!

Over his long career, Eastwood has been nominated for, and won, numerous awards and accolades.
Academy Awards nominations:
Best Actor - "Unforgiven" (1992), losing out to Al Pacino, and "Million Dollar Baby" (2004), losing out to Jamie Foxx;
Best Picture - "Mystic River" (2003), losing out to "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", "Letters from Iwo Jima" (2006), losing out to "The Departed", "American Sniper" (2014), losing out to "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)";
Best Director - "Mystic River" (2003), losing out to Peter Jackson, "Letters from Iwo Jima" (2006), losing out to Martin Scorsese.
Academy Awards wins:
Best Picture - "Unforgiven" (1992), "Million Dollar Baby" (2004);
Best Director - "Unforgiven" (1992), "Million Dollar Baby" (2004);
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1994) - awarded to "creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production". Other recipients of this award include Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg.