We Lost Them in 2022 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Leslie Jordan

Leslie Jordan was in 17 episodes of "Will and Grace." In 2006 he was awarded an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Star in a Comedy Series. His reoccurring character, Beverley Leslie, was a gay man who was still in the closet. Karen (Megan Mullally) is especially adamant that Beverley is gay.

He was in other shows as well, including "Picket Fences" and "Reasonable Doubts." Jordan was once arrested for drunk driving and shared a cell with another celebrity: Robert Downey Jr. He died at age 67 after his BMW crashed into a building when he had a medical emergency.

Answer: Bob McGrath

Bob McGrath played Bob Johnson on "Sesame Street." Before that, he was a professional singer with a tenor voice. He sang many songs on "Sesame Street" and played a music teacher on the show from 1969-2016. He was also part of the 50th anniversary special in 2019. McGrath earned his Master's degree in Music in 1959.

He also worked with Mitch Miller on the "Sing Along with Mitch" from 1960-1964. He died at age 90 after having a stroke.

Answer: Robbie Coltrane

Anthony Robert McMillan (aka Robbie Coltrane) was born in Scotland in 1950. He played Rubeus Hagrid in all eight "Harry Potter" movies. He was JK Rowling's first choice for the part. Hagrid was the gamekeeper at Hogwarts. His official title was "Keeper of Keys and Grounds." He has been in other movies as well, including "GoldenEye," "Let It Ride," and "Ocean's Twelve" (the 2004 remake). Coltrane took the name Coltrane in honor of jazz player John Coltrane.

He died at age 72 after being ill for two years.

Answer: Kirstie Alley

Kirstie Louise Alley was born on January 12, 1951, in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Her first major movie role was in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)," where she played Saavik. Alley took over for Shelley Long when she left "Cheers." She played the role of the neurotic gold-digging manager Rebecca Howe for the final six seasons of the show when she auditioned for the position. She showed up in a blonde wig to look like Shelley Long.

Alley was well-known for her connection to Scientology as well. Since Leah Remini left the group, this has caused a disconnection between the two, and they often battled publicly, especially on Twitter. She was also well known for the "Look Who's Talking Trilogy (1989, 1990 and 1993)." She has often stated she was in love with John Travolta - so much so that his now late wife Kelly Preston had told her to stop flirting with him at one point. Alley was a great actress with superb comedic timing. Her cause of death was colon cancer. She was 71.

Answer: Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 in London, England. Her mother was actress Moyna Macgill who was mainly a character actress. In 1940, with the Nazis threatening to bomb the United Kingdom, Lansbury moved to the United States, where she studied acting in New York. In 1942 she signed on with MGM. Her first movie was "Gaslight" in 1944. She played the housemaid, Nancy. She won a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2013.

Lansbury made her Broadway debut in a farce called "Hotel Paradiso." She played Marcelle, the wife of Cot. Her first musical on Broadway was Stephen Sondheim's "Anyone Can Whistle" in 1964, playing Cora Hoover Hooper. She was nominated for eight Tony Awards of which she won six. From 1984-1996 she starred as writer and sleuth, Jessica Fletcher, on the TV show "Murder, She Wrote." Every season she was nominated for an Emmy Award, but never won. Lansbury died of natural causes five days before her 97th birthday.

Answer: Louise Fletcher

Estelle Louise Fletcher was born in Binghamton, Alabama, USA, in 1934. Both of her parents were deaf. Fletcher's aunt taught her and her three siblings how to speak since her parents did not talk. All four siblings were born without any hearing loss. When she won the Oscar, she signed part of her speech when thanking her parents. According to actress Marlee Matlin, Fletcher was the first person to use sign language when accepting an Oscar.

Fletcher thanked everyone for "hating her so much they gave her an Oscar." This refers to how horrible Nurse Ratched was. She is so hated by people that sometimes, when someone is so hateful or spiteful, they are called "Ratched." In 1982, Fletcher received an honorary degree from Gallaudet University. She died in France at age 88.

Answer: Gallagher

His fans know Leo Gallagher Jr simply as Gallagher. His comedy special, "An Uncensored Evening", was the first stand-up comedy special to be seen on cable. According to Gallagher, he did about 200 shows every year of his thirty-five-year career.

Gallagher had a brother named Ron who also performed, and Leo allowed his brother to use his material as long as he made it clear that he was not Leo. Eventually, Ron stopped clarifying which Gallagher he was, and Leo asked him not to use his material anymore. And in 2000, Leo sued and won against his brother. Gallagher has had heart problems since at least 2011. He died on November 11, 2022, at age 76 from organ failure as a result of the multiple heart attacks he had.

Answer: Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth was born in 1926 in London, England. Her father, although duke when she was born, became King George VI after his brother Prince Edward abdicated the throne. In 1947 she married a former prince of Greece and Denmark. She and Prince Philip were married for 73 years until his death in 2021. They had four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

Elizabeth became queen after her father's death when she was 25 years old. She reigned until her death in 2022 at age 96. She was the first British monarch to visit Hong Kong, which they had control of until 1997, when it was returned to China per an agreement made in 1898. She was also the first to visit Australia and New Zealand while reigning. In 1994, she became the first British monarch to go to Russia. She opened the 1976 and the 2012 Summer Olympics, as well as the 2012 Paralympics.

In 2007, she surpassed Queen Victoria for oldest living British monarch. In 2015, she became the also surpassed Queen Victoria as longest-reigning monarch. She was the first British monarch to have a Sapphire Jubilee (65 years) in 2017. People all over the world mourned her death. Her oldest son Charles III became king upon her death.

Answer: Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis was born in 1935. He began his career in 1949 but faced a significant scandal in 1957 when he married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown. He was about 22 at the time. So there were two causes for alarm - her age and the fact that they were cousins.

When he started performing country music in 1968, his career was revived. During his career, he won four Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2022, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was 87 when he died.

Answer: Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John (ONJ) was born in Cambridge, England, in 1948. She was primarily raised in Australia, having moved there at age five when her father became a professor at a university in Melbourne. In interviews, ONJ would often remind people she was British when they introduced her as being Australian. She was a citizen of the UK and Australia (as of 1981). ONJ was already an established singer in Australia before she came to the United States in 1974.

John Travolta suggested ONJ for the role of Sandy in "Grease." He reasoned that like himself at the time, all the young men had crushes on her. At first, she was reluctant as she did a British movie called "Toomorrow" in 1970, which had awful reviews. She also felt that at age 28, she was too old to play a high school senior. Another can concern she had was her Australian accent. The movie version dealt with that by making Sandy an Australian visiting the United States with her family over the summer, but then her parents decided to stay. She and Travolta became life-long friends. Her sister Rona married "Grease" co-star Jeff Conaway in 1980. They divorced five years later.

"Physical" came out in 1980, and was considered a very risqué song back then.
"Hopelessly Devoted to You" was written specifically for her for "Grease" by her long-time friend and song-writer, John Farrar. The song was part of her contract when she agreed to star in the movie. In 1980, she played Kira in another musical, "Xanadu," which was considered by critics one of the worst movies of 1980. However, the soundtrack went double platinum with songs such as "Magic," "Suddenly", and the title song, "Xanadu." In one interview, she was asked if she regretted doing the film, and she said she didn't because it gave her so many hit musical numbers and "I got to dance with Gene Kelly."

In 1984, she married Matt Lattanzi, and they had one child, Chloe, before divorcing in 1995. A year later, she began a relationship with Patrick McDermott. In 2005 he disappeared while on a fishing trip. This resulted in a scandal, as some claimed he faked his death. However, the Coast Guard ruled he was most likely lost at sea. In 2008 she married John Easterling, and they remained married until her death from cancer at age 73. She was cremated in California, but her family was offered by the State of Victoria in Australia to be given a state funeral, and the family accepted.