Celebrities Born in the Great State of Missouri Quiz

Answer:

FYI - All incorrect answers are people born in Rhode Island.

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- Ginger Rogers (Independence) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Her 1938 salary was $219,500 (adjusted for 2017 inflation: approximately $3.8 million). Her first teaming with Fred Astaire, "Flying Down to Rio" (1933), was her 20th film appearance but only Astaire's second.

- Geraldine Page (Kirksville) was an American actress. In 1985, she became the first woman to receive seven Oscar nominations for acting without winning. The following year, she received her eighth nomination and finally won for her role in "The Trip to Bountiful".

- Jean Harlow (Kansas City) was an American actress. She was the idol of Marilyn Monroe, who backed out of a biographical picture of her life. After reading the script, Monroe reportedly told her agent, "I hope they don't do that to me after I'm gone." Both Harlow and Monroe co-starred in their last films with Clark Gable, Harlow in "Saratoga" (1937) and Monroe in "The Misfits" (1961).

- Betty Grable (St. Louis) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model and singer. In 1946-47, the Treasury Department noted that she was the highest-paid woman in America, receiving $300,000 a year. In the late 1940s, 20th Century Fox insured her legs with Lloyds of London for $250,000.

- Walter Cronkite (St. Joseph) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years, from 1962 to 1981. He signed off his final news broadcast with the statement: "And that's the way it is, Friday, March 6, 1981. I'll be away on 'Assignment,' and Dan Rather will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night." It was actually a pun, as his yacht, on which he planned to spend his retirement years, was named 'Assignment.'.

- Redd Foxx (St. Louis) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. During his early life as a dishwasher, he was called "Chicago Red" to distinguish him from his friend "Detroit Red". "Detroit Red" would later become famous as the political activist-social critic and Black nationalist known as Malcolm X. Due to Foxx's financial woes (the IRS seized and auctioned off his assets in 1989), his widow couldn't pay for his funeral, so Eddie Murphy footed the bill, giving Foxx a lavish, star-studded send-off.

- Dick Van Dyke (West Plains) is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. Although highly praised for his dancing in Mary Poppins (1964) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Van Dyke was never trained as a dancer and did not begin dancing until he was in his thirties. He beat out Johnny Carson for the role of Rob Petrie on what later became The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961).

- Casey Stengel (Kansas City) was an American Major League Baseball right fielder and manager, best known as the manager of the championship New York Yankees of the 1950s and later, the expansion New York Mets. He is the first man in MLB history to have had his number retired by more than one team based solely upon his managerial accomplishments, and was joined in that feat in 2011 by the late Sparky Anderson.

- Vincent Price (St. Louis) was an American actor. He has appeared in six films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Laura (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), House of Wax (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956) and House of Usher (1960). He has also appeared in one music video in the registry: Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983).

- John Goodman (Affton) is an American actor. He is one of the favorite hosts of Saturday Night Live (1975), hosting it 13 times and making numerous surprise appearances. He was regarded as being so crucial to the feature film version of The Flintstones (1994) that the project would have been shelved had he turned down the role of Fred Flintstone. His first TV appearance was for a Burger King commercial in which he had no lines, only having to bite into a Whopper sandwich with glee.

- Edwin Hubble (Marshfield) was an American astronomer. By 1929, he had discovered that not only was the universe home to millions of other galaxies, but the universe itself was expanding. This notion of an 'expanding' universe formed the basis of the Big Bang theory which changed our view of the universe forever, finding that our vast galaxy, home to our sun and 100 billion other stars, is but one of billions of other galaxies.

- Yogi Berra (St. Louis) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach. Yogi got his nickname from childhood friend Jack Maguire, who also went on to play in the big leagues. Maguire started calling Berra -- whose birth name is Lawrence -- "Yogi." The name stuck. He was in the U.S. Navy and served on a gunboat during the Normandy landings (D-Day) on June 6, 1944. He played in more World Series games than any player in major league history.

- Burt Bacharach (Kansas City) was an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. As a VIP guest of President Barack Obama at the White House, he and lyricist Hal David were presented with the Library of Congress "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" trophy. Bacharach had just celebrated his 84th birthday.

- Bill Bradley (Crystal City) is an American politician and former professional basketball player. He was the Democratic Senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997. He was captain of the Gold Medal-winning U.S. men's basketball team at the 1964 Olympic Games and was a member of the 1969-1970 and 1972-1973 NBA Champion New York Knicks. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983.

- Jesse James (Kearney) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James-Younger Gang. He and his brother Frank James joined pro-Confederate guerrillas operating in Missouri and Kansas during the American Civil War. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford, a new recruit to the gang who hoped to collect a reward on James' head and a promise of amnesty for his previous crimes.