Jacks and Jills Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jack Albertson

Born in 1907 to Russian Jewish immigrants, Jack Albertson got his start in vaudeville and burlesque. He was so poor that couldn't even afford the flophouses and had to sleep in the park or on the subway. Later he got roles on Broadway and eventually had his own radio program. He appeared in many films and television programs as a character actor from the 1940s to the 1970s. He had a lead role in the TV show "Chico and the Man", for which he received an Emmy nomination, and an important role in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971). His last appearance was on "Charlie's Angels" in 1980, and he passed away the next year.

Jack Lemmon died in 2001, Jack Palance in 2006, and Jack Klugman in 2012 -- all in the 21st century.

Answer: Jill St. John

Born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim on August 19, 1940, Jill grew up in Los Angeles. Her mother, who had ambitions for her daughter, changed Jill's surname to St. John because it sounded "more Hollywooed". The stage mother's scheme paid off; St. John began acting at age 16, and at 23 received a Golde Globe nomination for her role in "Come Blow Your Horn" (1963) with Frank Sinatra. She has appeared in a number of films and has guest-starred in various TV shows such as "The Love Boat" and "Magnum, P.I.". Jill St. John retired from acting in 2002.

Answer: Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis Lebris Kerouac was born in Lowell Massachusetts in 1922 to French-Canadian immigrants. He received athletic scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Boston College, and Columbia, eventually choosing the last, but he cracked his tibia and wrecked his football career.

After serving the in U.S. Merchant Marine he worte his first book in 1942, "The Sea is My Brother", although it was not published until 2011. He published other works but the book that launched his stardom was the autobiographical "On the Road" (1951), which also made beatnik culture mainstream somewhat.

He narrated the Beat movie "Pull My Daisy" (1959), starring poet Allen Ginsberg among other Beat figures. The TV series "Route 66" is loosely based on the book, although highly sanitized for the 1960s TV audience's protection! Kerouac planned to sue CBS over the TV series, but somehow was talked out of it.

His lifestyle was rather hedonistic; he married three times and died at only 47 from cirrhosis of the liver due to heavy drinking.

Answer: Jillian Medoff

Born in 1963 to a traveling salesman, Jillian Medoff moved around during her childhood, eventually ending up in Atlanta. She earned an MFA from NYU and studied under Alice Walker, Joyce Carol Oates, and Toni Morrison, among other renown authors. Barbara Hershey and Christina Hendricks starred in the 2003 telemovie adaptation of Medoff's breakthough novel, "Hunger Point" (1997). Her other novels have included "Good Girls Gone Bad" (2002) and "I Couldn't Love You More" (2012).

Jillian Hunter is also an author, but she writes historical romance novels, primarily about the fictional Boscastle family. Between 1995 and 2008, she received eight nominations for the Romantic Times Award (the Pulitzer Prize for romances), and in 1998 she earned the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Historical Love and Laughter. Her works include "Glenlyon's Bride" (1995), "The Wicked Games of a Gentleman" (2006), and "The Countess Confessions (2014).

Answer: Jack Kevorkian

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a medical pathologist with an abrasive personality, carried out medically assisted suicides -- in brazen defiance of the law -- for terminally ill patients who sought to end their sufferings. He received a 10-to-25-year sentence in a maximum security prison for second-degree murder, when in the last of a string of 130 patients who used his service, Kevorkian crossed the line from assisted suicide to voluntary euthanasia, as the doctor actually injected the lethal anesthesia himself.

He was released after only 8 years on the promise that he would not assist in another suicide. As a medical student in the 1950s, Kevorkian had written a paper advocating for prisoners on death row to be given the option to die by anesthesia so that their organs could be harvested. One result of Kevorkian's efforts was the growth of hospice care in the USA in the 1990s. Kevorkian was also a jazz instrumentalist and composer, and a CD of his music was released in 1997.

Born Jacob Kevorkian in 1928 in Pontiac, Michigan, Kevorkian never married, and he died in 2011 of natural causes (no suicide).

Answer: Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne

Born Gillian Barbara Pyrke in Bromley, Kent, this amazing woman might never have become a dancer had her mother not taken her to see a doctor for her underperformance at school. Her mother described her fidgeting and lack of focus. Then the physician turned on a radio, took the anxious mother out of the room, and told her to watch her daughter dance and advised her to take the child to dance school. She did do this, but sadly her mother died when Lynne was thirteen years old.

During World War II, Lynne danced in Sadler's Wells Ballet. In 1951 she co-starred with Errol Flynn in the Technicolor adventure film "The Master of Ballantrae"(1953), based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. In addition to "Cats" (1981) and "The Phantom of the Opera" (1987), she choreographed many West End and Broadway shows and "The Muppet Show" TV series. She was knighted as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2014, at the age of 87.

Answer: John F. Kennedy

In the famous Vice-Presidential debate of 1988, candidate Dan Quayle said, "I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency." Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen took umbrage and said, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." When Quayle objected, Bentsen elaborated, "You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator - and I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken."

John Quincy Adams was often just called Quincy, and John Calvin Coolidge is better known as simply Calvin Coolidge.

Answer: Jill Biden

Dr. Jill Biden was born in 1951 in Hammonton, New Jersey, and married Joseph Biden in 1977. She has spent her life as an educator, first teaching English in high schools, as well as history to emotionally disturbed teenagers at the Rockford Center psychiatric hospital. Beginning in 1993 she taught English composition at at community college in Delaware, until her husband Joseph Biden was elected Vice President, after which, accompanied by Secret Service agents, she began teaching at another community college in Virginia -- making her the first Second Lady to draw a paycheck while her husband is in office.

She received her doctorate of education in 2007 and founded the Biden Breast Health Initiative. She became the First Lady in January 2021 when her husband became the 46th president.

Answer: Jack Nicklaus

Ohio native Jack Nicklaus (b. 1940) was perhaps the greatest professional golfer ever. By 1980 he had defeated Bobby Jones' record of winning 13 majors and by 1986 had won 18, six of them Masters Tournaments. (Indeed at age 46 he was the Masters' oldest champion). He continued playing off and on until his retirement in 2005. When he first turned professional, reporters had given him more insulting nicknames like Whale Boy and Fat Jack, but as he proved himself and becamse more respected, only the Golden Bear stuck.

Hoffman (1930-2001) and Dugger (1923-88) were American football players who both happened to play defensive end for the Chicago Bears during their careers. Jack Wilshere (b. 1992) plays central midfield for England's Arsenal Football Club (soccer) and its national team.

Answer: Jill Carroll

Jill Carroll earned her bachelor's degree in journalism in 1999. She worked as a commentator for MSNBC among other networks and wrote for the Wall Street Journal among other newspapers. In 2006 she was writing for "The Christian Science Monitor" when masked gunmen pulled her driver (who escaped) from his car, abducted Caroll, and murdered her interpreter. Reporters without Borders stated that Caroll was the thirty-first journalist kidnapped in Iraq since the U.S. invaded in 2003.

Many NGOs, such as Reporters without Borders and the Council on American Islamic Relations, called for her release. Videos of Carroll during her capture were released to news media; in these she pleaded, under duress, it must be understood, for the release of all Iraqi female prisoners and criticized the U.S. military.

After her release she clarified that she was forced to made those statements, and she received public support from Senator John McCain, himself a prisoner of war during the Vietnam Era, for her ordeal. Subsequently, she quit journalism and became a firefighter!