Xanadu and Other Entertainment Starting with X Quiz

Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge (1772-1834) is perhaps best known for his work "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", a sailor wearing an albatross around his neck. Every poetry lover will have heard the lines "water, water, everywhere, nor a drop to drink" and "a sadder and a wiser man".
In 1797 Coleridge completed the poem "Kubla Khan", published only 19 years later. The first lines describe Kublai Khan's summer residence:
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan // A stately pleasure-dome decree // Where Alph, the sacred river, ran // through caverns measureless to man // down to a sunless sea."
Coleridge then follows with a description of how such a lovely place was built in a desolate area.
In the movie, Kira (played by Olivia Newton-John) persuades Sonny Malone (role by Michael Beck) to build a huge roller skating rink with a podium for a music band. They name the club "Xanadu", inspired by Coleridge's poem (which they quote in the movie, by the way).
Keats (1795-1821) is famous for his poems "Endymion" and "Hyperion", and for his "Ode on a Grecian Urn".
Lord Byron (1788-1824) has left us the masterpiece "Don Juan".
Shelley (1792-1822) wrote "Ozymandias" and "Ode to a West Wind", and some other works.

Answer: Xanthippe

Xanthippe was many years younger than Socrates (470 BC- 399 BC). Plato describes Xanthippe as holding their youngest boy (Menexenus) on her lap in the dialogue "Phaedo", one of the latest dialogues by Socrates.
There seem not to be many facts recorded on Xanthippe by her contemporaries. In Greek society around 400 BC most wives gained very little attention: their husbands were the focus of historians, philosophers and playwrights.
The first harsh depictions of Xanthippe came from the Roman authors Aelian (175 CE -235 CE) and Diogenes Laertius (first half of the third century CE).
Shakespeare referred to her character in "The Taming of the Shrew", where Petruchio describes his future wife Katharine "as foul as was Florentius' love, //As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd //As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse".
Edgar Allan Poe deliberately misspelled "Zanthippe", so that answer does not fit. By the way, I insist (in the hint) that your answer has to start with an X.

Answer: Charles Xavier

Stan Lee wrote the first stories (illustrated by Jack Kirby) to the comic series "X-Men", a series that inspired several movies and video games.
Charles Xavier is the founder of a school for mutants, where they can learn to control and enhance their special abilities. Xavier hopes that his pupils will integrate in the human world, and use their special forces only if needed. Xavier is one of the best telepaths worldwide. Although confined to a wheelchair, he can fight his foes with mental bolts and psionic blasts.
On the other hand, Magneto wants world domination. He feels mutants can only survive when they suppress ordinary humans.
Wolverine is one of Xavier's pupils. He has supreme healing powers and uses retractable claws in man-to-man fight.
Storm is a female mutant from African descent. She can control weather phenomena.
Mystique is a female shape shifter. Her natural appearance is blue-skinned with yellow eyes, but she can portray anyone.

Answer: Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless was born in New Zealand in 1968 as Lucille Ryan. She started her career in 1987 in the TV series "Funny Business". Her breakthrough was in the 1995 series "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys", in which her character Xena became so popular it inspired the spin-off series "Xena: Warrior Princess".
Xena is an Amazon princess who travels around fighting evil everywhere, and taking on every villain - either mortal, half-god or even god.
Lucy Lawless continued her career with the mini-series "Tarzan" (2003) and 16 episodes in "Battlestar Galactica". Furthermore she starred in "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" (2011) and "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" (2010-2012).
The false answers are the actresses who played the witch sisters in "Charmed" (1998-2006): Alyssa Milano played Phoebe Halliwell, Holly Marie Combs starred as Piper Halliwell and Shannen Doherty took the role of Prue Halliwell.

Answer: Greek

Iannis Xenakis was born in Romania in 1922, and lived there during his youth. As both of his parents were Greek, he had the Greek nationality - something you may have derived from his name.
In 1932 he moved to Greece and went to boarding school. While he was preparing his entrance exam to the Technical University of Athens, war with Italy (and later with Nazi Germany) broke out.
In 1947 Iannis moved to France, where he started working in Le Corbusier's architectural workshop. He then also adopted the French nationality, as his second one. But his favourite pastime, music, oriented him to a composing career rather than that of an architectural engineer.
Some of his musical compositions remind us of his technical studies. For instance, the ballet "Pithoprakta" is based upon statistics about how gases move. I'm afraid you'll have to see the show for yourself, otherwise you won't ever comprehend the previous sentence.
Xenakis showed both of his main interests (music and engineering) also in developing the UPIC in 1979 - basically a graphic tablet connected to a computer. One draws one or several curves on the tablet, and the computer generates the sound with the same waves.

Answer: Xenophilius

Xenophilius Lovegood is Luna's father. He has adopted some quite eccentric beliefs, even for a wizard. For instance, he is constantly looking for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, a cryptid no one has ever laid eyes upon.
Harry Potter first met Xenophilius Lovegood at the wedding of Bill Weasley with Fleur Delacour. On this occasion, Harry was intrigued by the necklace Xenophilius wore. Later on Xenophilius explains to Harry and his friends that this necklace symbolizes the three Deathly Hallows: the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility.
In the movie series, Xenophilius is played by Rhys Ifans.
Mundungus (Fletcher), Alastor (Moody) and Elphias (Doge) are the first names of some other wizards appearing in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1". 

Answer: Who Pays the Ferryman?

Alan Haldane is the protagonist in "Who Pays the Ferryman?".
During the Second World War, the British soldier Alan Haldane fought with the local resistance (the Andarte) on Crete, and was known to his comrades as Leandros. Thirty years later, his boat making factory has been sold and he decides to go back to Crete. In his spare time, he patches up a kaik given him by one of the locals. Just before Easter, Xenophon Hasapis challenges Leandros to a boat race. The winner will get the other kaik as a reward.
Then there is the magnificent scene: Leandros has won the race and Xenophon offers to buy back his kaik - his only source of income. Leandros sees that Xenophon has a bottle of Metaxa with him and sets the price at one bottle of Metaxa.
"Maelstrom" (with the protagonist Catherine Durrell); "Dark Side of the Sun" (with as main character Raoul Lavalličre) and "The Aphrodite Inheritance" (with the protagonist David Collier) are three other novels by Michael J. Bird turned into TV mini-series.

Answer: Xerxes

Xerxes is the title character, although the Italian title of the opera uses his Italian transcription "Serse".
Xerxes is betrothed to Amastre. However, he falls in love with Romilda and plans to marry Romilda instead of Amastre. Xerxes' brother Arsamene also loves Romilda, and to make things even more complicated Romilda's sister Atalanta has a crush on Arsamene.
George Frederic Handel (1685-1759) was a prolific German-born composer. He worked in London since 1712 and most of his compositions premiered there.
Darius, Cyrus and Cambyses were other Persian kings, but they didn't inspire Handel at all.

Answer: XXX

Xander Cage is a young extreme sports athlete. When he steals a car from a senator, Gibbons offers him the choice between serving several years in prison or entering a dangerous spying mission. Gibbons gives him the codename xXx, because that is the text on one of Xander's tattoos.
In the 2002 movie, Xander Cage unravels a plot from Russian ex-military personnel to poison various world cities with nerve gas.
In the 2005 movie, Darius Stone (the next XXX) has to prevent a coup d'etat in the USA.
At the moment when this question was written, the script for a third movie was announced, but no date was set for the start of the production.
"Aktenzeichen: XY - ungelöst" is a German-Swiss-Austrian documentary series about real cases, comparable to "Crimewatch UK". I would translate the title as "File Name: XY - Unsolved". The Dutch television also had a similar show.
Fox Mulder is one of the detectives investigating paranormal incidents in "The X-Files".
Rollie was the nickname of Roland Tyler, a former stunt man now employed by the police, in the movies "F/X" (1986) and "F/X" (1991) and the TV series "F/X: the Series" (1996-1998).

Answer: Xzibit

Joiner was born in 1974. He started recording rap and hip-hop songs in 1994, at first as Exhibit A - later he stuck with the stage name Xzibit. His first album "At the Speed of Life" was a big success in Germany, especially the song "Paparazzi" which also came out as a single. Some of his later albums had military titles such as "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (2004) and "Napalm" (2012).
Xzibit also starred in several movies. I'll mention just a few titles: his debut movie "The Breaks" (1999); "XXX: State of the Union" (2005); "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" (2008) and "The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" (2009).
Dr. Dre is the stage name of Andre Romelle Young. Eminem was born Marshall Mathers. And Calvin Broadus Jr. chose the stage name Snoop Dogg.