Don't Quote Me Any More! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bill Cosby

William Henry "Bill" Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 12 July, 1937. He is a stand-up comedian, actor, TV producer, author and musician. He began his acting career in junior high school, and he excelled in sports and played baseball, football and track and participated in field events. After leaving high school in tenth grade, he worked at odd jobs and then joined the US Navy. After leaving the Navy he won a university scholarship and studied physical education. After university, he set out to pursue a career in comedy, and worked as a stand-up comedian in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York City. He appeared on "The Tonight Show" in 1963, which gave him wide exposure, which led to his signing a record contract with Warner Bros Records, and in 1964 he released "Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow...Right!", which was his debut LP.

He was cast alongside Robert Culp in the TV series "I Spy" in 1965, which was one of the twenty most-watched TV shows that year. Cosby went on to win three consecutive Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series". He continued with his stand-up routines and also recorded several musical and comedy albums. After further TV work he returned to university, and in 1972 he received an MA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Returning to TV, he hosted a Saturday morning show "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids", which was based on his own childhood, and it ran from 1972 to 1979. He also started his film career at this time and appeared in several movies. In 1984 "The Cosby Show" made its appearance on TV, and in its day was the highest-ranking TV sit-com of all time. He continued working in movies and TV.

Some of the awards and honours he has won are "Man of the Year" Award from Harvard University in 1969; induction into the Television Hall of Fame in 1991; the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to television in 2002; the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award in 2003, and he was presented with the 12th annual Mark Twain prize for American Humour in 2009. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As well as the Emmys he won for "I Spy" he also won one for Outstanding Variety or Musical Programme for "The Bill Cosby Show". He has won several Grammy Awards and received honorary degrees from at least twelve colleges and universities.

Answer: Will Rogers

William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers was born in Oklahoma, on 4 November 1879. He was a movie star, a cowboy, performed in vaudeville, a social commentator and a humourist, and he was a world-famous celebrity in the 20s and 30s. He was a quarter Cherokee Indian and he said that his ancestors did not come over on the "Mayflower" but they "met the boat". Rogers dropped out of school in tenth grade and worked on his father's ranch until 1901, when he left home to travel to Argentina to become a gaucho. Losing all his money in that venture, he sailed for South Africa, where he worked on a ranch in Natal. Whilst there he began his show business career as a trick roper in "Texas Jack's Wild West Circus", but left to travel to Australia, where he worked in the Wirth Brothers Circus performing as a rider and doing tricks with rope. In 1904 he returned to the US and went into vaudeville, where he performed his riding and roping tricks for the next ten years or so.

In 1915 he appeared in "Florence Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic", where he dressed as a cowboy and would twirl his lasso and make monologues and jokes about the news of the day. He graduated to movies in 1918 with his first starring role in "Laughing Bill Hyde" and a three-year contract with Goldwyn. He transferred to Hal Roach in 1923 and made 12 films in one year. Altogether he made 48 silent movies and then became a favourite movie star in "talkies", going on to make over 20 films and starring with the big names of the day such as Lew Ayres, Billie Burke, Andy Devine, Boris Karloff, Myrna Loy, Dick Powel, Mickey Rooney, and many others. He had a syndicated newspaper column from 1922 to 1935 with "Will Rogers Says", which was read by more than 40 million people. He travelled the US on a lecture tour. He became a star on radio as well. He was mayor of Beverly Hills for a short time and was a goodwill ambassador to Mexico. He was well-known for quotes and one liners and many of them became famous. He was a great friend of aviator Wiley Post, and whilst flying with Post in Alaska on 15 August 1935, the plane plunged into a lagoon. Both he and Post died instantly. In his home State of Oklahoma he has been honoured in many ways, with statues, and place names and buildings being named after him. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Answer: Duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, ("The Iron Duke") was born on 1 May 1769 in Dublin, Ireland. His parents were wealthy Anglo-Irish aristocrats. He attended various schools prior to enrolling in Eton from 1781 to 1784, and then moving to Brussels, then in the Austrian Netherlands, in 1785. The following year he enrolled in the French Royal Academy of Equitation in Angers, France, where he learned to ride and speak French, returning to England in 1786. The following year he was commissioned as an ensign in the 73rd Regiment of Foot and was assigned to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Buckingham, as aide-de-camp, and transferred to the 76th Regiment and promoted to lieutenant. He became interested in politics and was eventually nominated and elected as a Member of Parliament for Trim in the Irish House of Commons. In 1791 he was promoted to captain, then to major and in then to lieutenant colonel.

As England was at war with France, he sailed with the 33 Regiment to Flanders. During a campaign that eventually proved unsuccessful, he commanded a brigade, and learned very valuable lessons on "what not to do". When he returned to England in 1795, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Trim in Ireland. In 1796 he sailed with his regiment to Calcutta, India, with the rank of colonel. After several successful campaigns and the end of the war, Wellesley became the Governor of Seringapatam and Mysore and promoted to brigadier general in 1801 and then to major general the following year. Further battles broke out and eventually he applied for permission to return to England in 1804. To reward him for his valuable service in India, he was made a Knight of the Bath. He was sent on further campaigns to Germany and upon returning took an extended leave from the army and was elected as MP for Newport in the Isle of Wight, and made a member of the Privy Council.

His army duties came again and in 1807 he headed to Denmark and commanded an infantry brigade in the Second Battle of Copenhagen and upon his return to England was promoted to lieutenant general. In 1808 he participated in the Peninsular War against France where he defeated them at the Battle of Rolica and the Battle of Vimeiro. In 1809 he went to Lisbon and routed the French and secured Portugal. The French returned with larger numbers and more battles took place over the next couple of years. After the battle with King Joseph Bonaparte in the Battle of Vitoria in 1813, he was promoted to field marshal. Upon the end of the war with France, Wellesley was created "Duke of Wellington". That title is still held by his descendants today. Following Napoleon's escape from Elba, Wellington set off for the "Waterloo Campaign" and of course fought in the famous "Battle of Waterloo". He returned to politics and after holding several posts including Commander-in-chief of the British Army in 1827, he resigned from that post and was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1828. He retired from politics in 1846 and died on 14 September 1852 of a stroke and epileptic seizure. He was 83 years of age.

Answer: Dan Quayle

James Danforth "Dan" Quayle, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on 4 February 1947. He was the 44th Vice-President of the US, serving under President George H W Bush. In 1965 Quayle graduated from high school and attended the DePauw University, receiving a BA in political science in 1969. From 1969 to 1975 he was a member of the Indiana Army National Guard and reached the rank of sergeant. At the same time he attended Indiana University Robert H McKinney School of Law, earning a Juris Doctor (JD) degree in 1974. In 1971 he took a job as an investigator for the Consumer Protection Division of the Office of the Indiana Attorney General and then as an administrative assistant to Governor Edgar Whitcombe. He practiced law, with his wife, in Huntington. He was elected by a big majority in 1976 to the House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th Congress District, again winning re-election in 1978. In November that year he was invited by Congressman Leo Ryan (California) to travel with a delegation to look into conditions at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana. Luckily Quayle was unable to go, as, leading up to the Jonestown massacre, Leo Ryan was murdered.

At age 33 in 1980, Quayle was the youngest person ever elected to the Senate from Indiana; he was re-elected to the Senate again 1986. At the Republican convention in 1988 held in New Orleans, George H W Bush invited Quayle to be his running mate in the 1988 Presidential Election and their ticket won the November election. He made trips to over 45 countries during his Vice-Presidency, and was ridiculed in the media as an "intellectual lightweight" and "general incompetent", and his tendency to make muddled statements, such as "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future", and "The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history ... No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history"

In the 1992 election Bush and Quayle were challenged by the Democrat ticket of Clinton and Gore. Bush and Quayle lost the election. In 1999 Quayle announced that he would run for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination. However, he withdrew and supported Bush. Quayle has published several books, served on several corporate boards, and joined Cerberus Capital Management. When working as an investment banker and living in Phoenix, he was mentioned as a possible candidate for Governor of Arizona, but he declined to run. His son, Ben Quayle, was elected to the US Congress in 2010.

Answer: Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, on 25 October 1881. He was baptised Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Crispiniano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. He was a painter, sculptor, stage designer, poet, playwright, ceramicist and printmaker. Pablo's father was an artist and a professor of art at the School of Crafts, and young Pablo drew with skill from an early age, being formally trained by his father. After moving to Barcelona with his family, Pablo was admitted to the School of Fine Arts at only 13 years of age. When he was 16 his father sent him to the prestigious Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, however he stopped attending classes. In 1900 he went to Paris, where he learned to speak French. He moved in with a journalist friend and at that time was quite poor and he burned a lot of his paintings to keep warm. In his "Blue Period" (1901-1904) most of his paintings were in blue and blue-green and were of emaciated people and he spent half of his time in Spain and half in France. During his "Rose Period" he added more orange and pink colours and painted circus people. From 1905 Americans began collecting his paintings and it was about that time that he met Henri Matisse, who became Picasso's rival and life-long friend. Not long after, he and Georges Braque developed the Cubism movement, using mainly monochrome brownish and neutral colours.

Picasso continued with his paintings during World War I After the war he collaborated with Igor Stravinsky on the ballet "Pulcinella", with Picasso doing several drawings of Stravinsky. He continued on with his paintings. In 1939-40 The Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibition of Picasso's work. He remained in Paris during World War II and he was often harassed by the Gestapo. He then took up writing and wrote over 300 poems between 1935 and 1959, and also two plays. He was married twice and had many mistresses over the years. He had three children. He became quite a wealthy celebrity and had several homes. He had joined the Communist Party in 1944 and in 1962 received the "Lenin Peace Prize", Pablo Picasso died in Mougins, France on 8 April 1973. He was 92 years of age. It's estimated that the total number of artworks produced during his lifetime are 50,000, over 1,880 being paintings, 1,288 sculptures, over 2,800 ceramics, about 12,000 drawings, thousands of prints and many rugs and tapestries. Several of his paintings have sold for many millions of dollars each. In May 2010 his painting "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust", which he painted in 1932, sold for $106.5 million. He certainly did have enough paintings to fill a museum.

Answer: Stephen King

Stephen Edward King was born in Portland, Maine, on 21 September, 1947. He is a very well-known author of suspense, horror, fantasy and science-fiction. When he was two years old, his father told his mother that he was going to buy a packet of cigarettes, and never came back and his family suffered financial hardship. He started writing when still at school and wrote articles for his brother's newspaper. He attended the University of Maine and graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. After leaving University with a certificate to teach high school, and being unable to find a teaching job at that time, he worked as a labourer and sold short stories to magazines. He gained a teaching position at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine, whilst still writing stories.

His first novel, "Carrie", was published in 1973, and his second novel "Salem's Lot" was published in 1975, followed by "The Shining" in 1977. He published several short stories in the late 70s, early 80s, under the pen name "Richard Bachman". King has published at least 50 novels, some of them having been made into feature films, TV movies and comic books. It is estimated that his books have sold over 350 million copies. He has received many awards including at least fifteen "Bram Stoker Awards" and the "Mystery Writers of America 2007 Grand Master Award. King's wife Tabitha has also published at least nine novels and both his sons, Owen and Joseph, are also published authors. He is a big baseball fan and supports the Boston Red Socks.

Answer: Sir Winston Churchill

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL FRS, RA, was born in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, UK on 30 November, 1874. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was the third son of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough. His mother's father was the American millionaire Leonard Jerome. Winston's father was a politician and at one time was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Churchill lived in Ireland until he was six years old as his grandfather was Viceroy. When he returned to England he was educated in three different schools, the last one being Harrow. He was not a good scholar and he stuttered quite badly, however he managed to overcome this as he got older. After leaving Harrow, he attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1893, where he joined a cavalry unit, and after graduating in 1894 was commissioned as a Cornet (Second Lieutenant) in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895. To supplement his income he did some work as a war correspondent for several newspapers. He travelled to Cuba to write about the Spanish fighting the Cuban guerrillas. It was there that he became very fond of Havana cigars, which became one of his trademarks and he smoked them for the rest of his life.

In October 1896 he was sent to India, where he became involved in several campaigns with the Pashtun tribe, and others. In 1898 he was sent to Egypt and served in the Sudan under General Kitchener. When he returned to England he began work on his book "The River War" which was told in two volumes. After resigning from the British Army in 1899, he became a war correspondent for the Second Boer War. He was captured and became a POW but escaped and eventually returned to England in 1900, ultimately being elected to Parliament. In 1911 he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and resigned from Parliament in about 1915. He again joined the Army where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and commanded the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. After the end of World War I, Churchill returned to Parliament where he worked with the War Office and in the early 1920s he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. At the outbreak of World War II he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and in 1940 he became Britain's Prime Minister. He was defeated in 1945 and became Leader of the Opposition, but was returned to government as Minister for Defence in 1951 and in 1952 again became Prime Minister He resigned as Prime Minister in 1955, and stood as an MP down at the general election of 1964. He died at his home in London on 24 January 1965. He was 90 years of age. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

Answer: Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Ada Driver (Phyllis Diller) was born in Ohio on 17 July 1917. She was an American voice artist, actress and comedienne. In the 50s she appeared as a contestant on the Groucho Marx TV show "You Bet Your Life". She studied piano for many years but did not wish to make music her career. She was part of the "New Wave" comedians with Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart and Mort Sahl, who commenced their careers after World War II. She worked at KRCO radio in Oakland California in 1952 and in the same year began filming a TV show "Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker". Diller began her stand-up career at "The Purple Onion" in San Francisco in March 1955, and played there for 87 consecutive weeks. During the 60s she made many movie and TV appearances with Bob Hope, and she accompanied him and his USO troop to Vietnam in 1966. During that decade she appeared often as a guest on numerous TV programmes such as "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" and she appeared in more than 12 movies.

Diller appeared on Broadway in "Hello Dolly" in 1969 for three months as a replacement for Carol Channing. She appeared as a piano soloist between 1971 and 1981 in approximately 100 performances with various symphony orchestras across America. In 1998 she provided the voice of the Queen in the Disney animated movie "A Bug's Life" and provided voices for several other animated movies. She continued working in the 90s and 2000s. She was married and divorced twice, but her husband "Fang" to whom she frequently referred in her comedy routines, was completely made-up. Diller died on 20 August 2012 of natural causes at age 95. According to her family, "she died with a smile on her face".

Answer: Jimmy Durante

James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was born in New York City on 10 February 1893. He was a comedian, pianist, singer and actor and for many years he was one of America's most popular personalities. He had a gravelly voice and a large nose that he called his "Schnozzola", and "Schnozzles" became his nickname. His parents were Italian immigrants, and he was an altar boy at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church. His schooling ended in eighth grade when he dropped out to play ragtime piano in New York piano bars and he joined a jazz band, the "Original New Orleans Jazz Band", which was renamed the "Jimmy Durante Jazz Band" in 1920.

He entered vaudeville and became a radio personality in the mid-20s and appeared on Broadway in the Cole Porter musical "The New Yorkers" in 1930, and also appearing in his first film "Roadhouse Nights". He had a hit with his novelty song "Inka Dinka Doo" in 1934, for which he wrote the music, and it became his life-long theme song. In 1935 he returned to Broadway in the musical "Jumbo", later going on to star in the 1962 movie of the same name. He appeared in three movies with Buster Keaton in the 30s, and went on to make many more Hollywood movies. In 1950 he made his TV debut on Tallulah Bankhead's comedy-variety show, and he was one of four hosts on NBC's comedy-variety series "4-Star Review" in 1950 and 1951. He regularly appeared in Las Vegas and had his own TV show "The Jimmy Durante Show" on NBC. He signed off his performances with "Good night, Mrs Calabash, wherever you are", which he revealed later was a tribute to his first deceased wife. He continued with his film and TV career during the early 70s and retired from performing when he suffered a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair. He died on 29 January 1980 from pneumonia. He was 87 years old.

Answer: Charles Schulz

Charles Monroe Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 26 November, 1922. As an American cartoonist he was responsible for the comic strip "Peanuts". His father was German and his mother Norwegian and his uncle gave him his nickname of "Sparky". He is considered to be "one of the most influential cartoonists of all time". He loved to draw and was very disappointed when his drawings were rejected for his High School Year Book. However, 60 years later a five-foot tall statue of Snoopy was placed in the main office of the school. During World War II he was drafted into the United States Army and served as a squad leader on a machine gun team with the rank of Staff Sergeant. After his discharge from the army in 1945 he worked at a few jobs before his first regular one-panel cartoon "Li'l Folks" was published in the St Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to 1950, where he first used the character name "Charlie Brown", and a dog that looked a lot like Snoopy.

His four-panel cartoon "Peanuts" made its debut on 2 October 1950 in seven newspapers. "Peanuts" would go on to become one of the most popular comic strips of its time. He illustrated Ark Linkletter's two volumes "Kids Say the Darndest Things" in 1957 and 1961. At one time, "Peanuts" was published daily in approximately 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and in 21 languages. The comic strip was published for nearly 50 years and Schulz drew approximately 18,000 strips, and with product endorsements and merchandise, he became a very wealthy man, earning an estimated $35 million annually. Due to ill health, Schulz retired in December 1999, having suffered several small strokes and having discovered that he had colon cancer. He died in his sleep on 12 February 2000 and his last original "Peanuts" strip was published the very next day. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has received many other awards and honours, including a Congressional Gold Medal. His characters Charlie Brown, Patty, Shermy, Snoopy, Violet, the piano-playing Schroeder, Lucy and Linis van Pelt, Pig-Pen, Woodstock, Peppermint Pattie, and many, many others, will probably live forever.