Rockers in the Movies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nancy Wilson

It is a very young Nancy Wilson who appears as "the beautiful girl in the convertible". The cameo is fleeting but it was long enough for her to catch the eye Brad Hamilton, played by Judge Reinhold, as she pulls up at a set of traffic lights. Unfortunately for Brad he is decked out in his Captain Hook Fish & Chips uniform and all he gets from Nancy is a bit of a snicker before she drives off and disappears from his life.

Nancy didn't only catch Brad's eye, she also caught the eye of Cameron Crowe. This film was Crowe's first effort as a scriptwriter and he promptly asked Nancy to be in his next film, which he also wrote and produced, 1984's "The Wild Life". A little later on he would ask her to marry him, which she did in 1986. The couple would divorce in 2010.

Nancy rose to fame as the guitarist and backing vocalist, alongside her older sister Anne, of the band Heart. They were one of the first female hard rock bands who achieved strong success in the 1970s and 80s and would be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.

Answer: Jack White

Bear in mind that "Walk Hard: The Dewy Cox Story" is not a biopic, but a parody of the genre. Armed with this knowledge it does not seem strange that the role of Elvis, in this film, is played purely for laughs.

The up-and-coming Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) is waiting for his turn to go on stage when he's confronted by White's sneering Elvis, showing off his karate moves and shouting a stream of gibberish at him. Yes, the casting of Jack White as Presley, on paper, seems a strange one, but, in this environment, coupled with White's off-the-wall performance, it seems like an inspired one.

To complete this parody Frankie Muniz is cast as the late, great, Buddy Holly and, appearing uncredited as the Beatles, are Paul Rudd (John Lennon), Jack Black (Paul McCartney), Justin Long (George Harrison) and Jason Schwartzman (Ringo Starr).

Answer: Lenny Kravitz

Directed by Lee Daniels, "Precious" tells the story of an overweight, illiterate teenager, who has been continuously abused by her mother, is pregnant with her second child and is seeking a way to escape the social welfare cycle that plagues her Harlem neighbourhood. The film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and it hailed the acting debut for Lenny Kravitz.

Kravitz plays Nurse John, who befriends Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), while she's in hospital. He shows a level of kindness to Precious that is extremely rare in her life. For Kravitz it required a radical change to what he considered normal and that all the preconceived notions he'd had for the role virtually vanished with his first meeting with director Daniels. "He'd say 'you can't walk like that, you can't move like that, your hand can't do that, you can't talk like that'". To inhabit the character, he advised, he had to "disappear". This meant a total abandonment of the persona of a performer that he'd spent years crafting and was a natural part of his being.

(Footnote) The film also features a significant performance from the "Pop Princess" Mariah Carey, sans her glamour and make-up, as a social worker who befriends Precious.

Answer: The Clash

A bunch of rowdy onlookers gather in a street scene during a very public argument between Robert De Niro's Rupert Pupkin and Sarah Bernhard's Masha. Front and centre in the crowd, shouting and screaming encouragement are members of the Clash and some members of their entourage. Billed as "street scum" (so appropriate for punk rockers) in the credits, their cameo is so brief you almost need to hit the "pause" button to catch a glimpse of them. Among the crew are Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon. You will also get a glance at their manager Kosmo Vinyl, film maker Don Letts and Jones' then-girlfriend Ellen Foley, perhaps best known for her vocals on Meatloaf's debut album "Bat Out of Hell" (1977).

The Clash were at the height of their powers at the time. Their album "Combat Rock" was finally garnering radio airplay and they were supporting The Who on a stadium tour across the States. While they were in New York they met socially with Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro with the former insisting the group be sought when he called for extras to act as onlookers.

(Footnote) "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." is a song that features on the Clash's critically acclaimed, self-titled, debut album from 1977.

Answer: Singles

"Singles" is a Cameron Crowe written and directed film that is set in Seattle at the height of the grunge movement. The film centres on two couples in the same apartment block and the rocky road of their relationships. The two main characters are Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda), a waitress in a coffee shop who fawns over Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon), the front-man for the grunge band Citizen Dick.

Sadly, unlike its vaunted soundtrack, the film has not aged well. However, with its Seattle backdrop and Crowe's links to the music world, it was not surprising to see a number of grunge luminaries have cameo appearances in the movie and they provide some much needed levity to the proceedings. Three members from Pearl Jam provide some mirth pretending to be doped out members of Matt Dillon's band and Chris Cornell, the late lead singer for the band Soundgarden, is hilarious as he ambles down the street to stop by a car and start head-banging to the music streaming from it. Other notable grunge notables that make cameos here are Alice in Chains and Tad (Doyle).

Answer: The Dead Pool

At the time of this film Guns N Roses (GNR) were one of the biggest bands in the world. Their debut album "Appetite for Destruction" (1987) had catapulted them from the club scene in California to global super-stardom. It also opened up so many doors for them.

One of those doors was the opportunity to appear in the fifth instalment (1988) of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" franchise. By this stage though, the series had grown tired and this outing was easily the weakest in the set. What the film is notable for, however, is the combining of Eastwood with Liam Neeson, playing a music video director, and a relatively unknown Jim Carrey, who fronts up as the drug addled rock singer, Johnny Squares. The film revolves around people placing wagers on the next celebrity to die, unaware that a serial killer has rigged the contest.

GNR, who found Eastwood intimidating, only appear together at the funeral scene, paying their last respects to a fellow musician, however, some do appear in a later scene. The most notable of these features the band's guitarist, Slash, firing a harpoon through a boat window. GNR would also provide the song "Welcome to the Jungle" (1987) for the film.

Answer: The Aviator

In "The Aviator" (2004) director Martin Scorsese provides us with a glimpse of the idiosyncratic life of Howard Hughes (DiCaprio), once the richest man in the world. As he did with Charlie Cappa in "Mean Streets" (1973) and Henry Hill in "Goodfellas" (1990), he does so again with Howard Hughes (is it a coincidence that all these names are alliterative?) here. He takes two paths of the character, one where everything is going right and the other where it doesn't and melds them into a portrait of a character where a certain greatness sits within their grasp, but they just cannot seem to nail it down.

Scorsese drew such an all-star cast to this modern day epic that Gwen Stefani's name, as the blonde bombshell that was Harlow, almost seems out of place. Whilst she does have a speaking part, it is a short one, that it could almost be deemed a cameo. Despite this she manages to capture the essence of Harlow and exudes all the glamour and beauty that were the hallmarks of the Hollywood starlet.

Stefani, who was better known then as the front-woman (about to go solo) of the punk-ska band No Doubt, reputedly won the role when Scorsese spotted her on the cover of "Teen Vogue" (posing as Marilyn Monroe) and demanded "Who's that girl, get her".

Answer: Joan Jett

"Light of Day" (1987) was a film that had so many things going for it and, yet, it failed to fire up the box office. For starters, it had Michael J. Fox, fresh off his successes with "Teen Wolf" (1987) and "Back to the Future" (1985). It had a support cast of Gena Rowlands and Michael McKean who'd put in outstanding performances. It had a theme song that became a live stadium killer, written by Bruce Springsteen, who was also at the peak of his powers at the time. And then there was Joan Jett...

Jett plays Patti Resnick who, with her brother Joe (Fox), forms a band and is struggling to balance a career that seems destined for stardom with being a single mother and dealing with a relationship with her own mother (Rowlands) that is bordering on confrontational. As an actress Jett proves she's no Ginny-Come-Lately, producing a performance for the ages. Film critic Roger Ebert gushed "she is acting in the big league" and that her work with Rowlands was "a rare and powerful chemistry".

(Footnote) In keeping with the theme of this quiz, the film's writer and director, Paul Schrader, based his script on the work of Cleveland band the Generators. He also invited their front-man, Mark Addison, to be in "Light of Day" as part of the fictitious band the Problems. Addison was joined on stage by two members from another local band, the Exotic Birds - Frank Vale and a then unknown Trent Reznor.

Answer: Metallica

Metallica, owners of such great albums as "Kill 'Em All" (1983), "Ride the Lightning" (1984) and their self-titled "Black Album" (1991), simply don't rate a mention in this film, make an appearance. Nor did they provide music for the movie's soundtrack.

Alice Cooper, who once joked about his role in the film "I think they couldn't get the Stones or the Beatles, they scraped the barrel until I was the only one left", was quite surprised when he rocked up (pun not intended) to rehearsals to find that he had a significant speaking part. He managed to showcase some acting chops, meeting Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) backstage at a concert where he is hailed by the pair with an extended chant of "we're not worthy".

Aerosmith have been a staple for "Wayne's World". Initially they were a part of the "Saturday Night Live" comedy sketch where Wayne and Garth interview them on their fictitious cable access show. In this movie they get referenced by Garth who is seen wearing his Aerosmith "Aero Force One" tee-shirt and, to cap it off, they stage a concert for the sequel "Wayne's World 2" (1993).

Perhaps the most iconic scene in "Wayne's World" shows Wayne and Garth, along with their friends, in their car, headbanging and singing along to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975). In a touching afterthought, Queen guitarist Brian May, in an interview with VCR "Classic Rock" magazine, advised he take a tape of the scene to Freddie Mercury, who was in his final days at the time. Despite his weakness, May said, he laughed loudly.

Answer: Courtney Love

Having watched the rise of Courtney Love, the unvarnished leader of the grunge, turned glitzy pop, band Hole, during the 1990s, been exposed to her very public history of cocaine addiction and her fishbowl marriage to the icon that was Kurt Cobain, it is difficult to comprehend that she could be a movie star. Acknowledge the fact that she had, previous to "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996), held down bit parts in films such as "Sid and Nancy" (1986) and "Straight to Hell Returns" (1987) but those were as lustreless as her music image was, to this point.

However, in "... Larry Flynt", she shines. Some would argue that her performance is the best thing to come out of Milos Forman's biopic, which follows the life of "Hustler" magazine founder, turned accidental activist, Flynt, played by Woody Harrelson. While the film's focus is Flynt's legal battle toward freedom of speech, Love, as the love of his life, Althea Leasure, is never too far from attention and dominates the screen when she's there.

As mentioned, Love earned a Golden Globe nomination and a trove of critical acclaim and it should have been the making of her as an actress. Sadly, apart from another Forman biopic, 1999's "Man on the Moon" she has not managed to find that impetus that could have driven her toward acting superstardom.