A Winnipeg Who's Who Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nia Vardalos

Nia Vardalos (full name Antonia Eugenia Vardalos) was born in Winnipeg on September 24, 1962. She studied theatre at Ryerson University (class of '86) in Toronto, and worked with the Toronto Second City comedy troupe and also television before making it big with 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', the play she wrote and starred in, which was made into a movie in 2002. Tom Hanks' wife Rita Wilson saw the play, fell in love with it and brought it to the big screen. Vardalos is married to actor Ian Gomez (they married on September 5, 1993 and like Ian in the movie, real-life Ian converted to Greek Orthodoxy). When the Queen and Prince Philip visited Winnipeg in 2002 Vardalos was a guest at the civic banquet where the Queen confided to her "Philip is Greek, too." Does this mean that the Royal Wedding of 1947 could also be classified as a Big, Fat, Greek Wedding?

Note that protégée is spelled with a double final e, which makes it the feminine form and thereby negates Neil Young. Chantal is a Winnipegger but I don't know if she's ever met Rita Wilson, and I rather doubt that Evelyn Hart, the former Prima ballerina of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, has, either.

Answer: Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin (real name Edna Mae Durbin) was born in Winnipeg in 1921. She was fourteen when she made her first movie, a short subject called 'Every Sunday' for M-G-M. That was in 1935 and her co-star was a girl called Judy Garland. For some reason, Louis B. Mayer decided he didn't need two girl singers under contract so he told studio executives "to get rid of the fat one". He meant Judy Garland, but the execs. Had a different definition of what constituted 'the fat one' and canned Durbin instead. Universal Studios quickly snapped her up and put her under contract and she starred in a string of hits between 1936 and 1948. Her movies were so successful that she is credited with saving Universal from bankruptcy! She received a special Oscar, the Academy Juvenile Award, in 1938.

Durbin had two brief, unsuccessful marriages (the first lasted from 1941 to 1943, the second lasted from 1944 to 1949) and then proved the adage that 'three times is the charm' in 1950 when she married Charles David who directed her in 'Lady on a Train'. She retired from show business after her marriage to David and the couple moved to Paris, France where Ms Durbin still lives in seclusion (her husband died in 1999). Since her retirement she has resolutely resisted all offers to perform.

Visitors to the Achterhuis in Amsterdam, where the Frank family hid out during World War II, can still see the poster of Deanna Durbin that Anne Frank pinned on the wall beside her bed.

Mary Pickford was from Toronto and pre-dated Deanna Durbin by quite a few years. Judy Garland, the other 'fat one' remained under contract to M-G-M, as did Jane Powell. Neither Judy nor Jane was born in Winnipeg.

Answer: Winnie the Pooh

Captain Harry Colebourn, a Winnipeg veterinarian, was one of the original officers of the 34th Fort Garry Horse regiment in World War I. In 1914, his regiment was en route to Valcartier, Quebec, the staging point for deployment to England, when the troop train stopped at White River, Ontario. It was there that Colebourn paid a trapper $20.00 for a black bear cub that had been orphaned when its mother was killed. He named the little bear Winnipeg for his hometown. Winnipeg became the pet of the Canadian soldiers and lived with them in their camp on Salisbury Plain. When orders came for the regiment to ship out to France, Captain Colebourn took the little bear to the London Zoo, and visited her whenever he was able to leave.

She was so tame that she became a feature attraction at the Zoo and when the war ended in 1918, Captain Colebourn, who had fully intended to take Winnipeg home with him, realized how attached she had become to her keepers - and they to her - that he donated the bear to the London Zoo. A plaque at the zoo, erected in 1919, marks that occasion, which was covered in all the British newspapers, so great was Winnie's popularity.

In 1924, writer A.A. Milne took his young son Christopher Robin to the zoo and the little boy fell in love with Winnie. Well, the rest is history.

Winnie died in 1934, aged 20 - a good old age for a Canadian black bear - and she was duly mourned by the keepers and the patrons of the London Zoo.

In 2000 the only oil painting of Winnie-the-Pooh (which, by the way, is pronounced Winnie-ther-Pooh) by Ernest Shephard, who did the illustrations for the original books, was placed on the auction block by Sotheby's of London, and was valued at $40,000 to $60,000.00. A consortium of Winnipeg philanthropists commissioned a local art dealer to bid on the painting on behalf of the City of Winnipeg and theirs was the successful final bid of $263,000.00 The portrait of Winnie-the-Pooh now hangs in the Pavilion Gallery in Assiniboine Park, a stone's throw away from the Winnipeg Zoo where, there is a statue of Harry and Winnie (a duplicate of which can also be seen at the London Zoo).

Smokey the Bear derived from a bear cub that U.S. firefighters saved from a forest fire in Washington State. Teddy Bears were named for President Theodore Roosevelt after a hunting incident in Tennessee that garnered press coverage in 1904. The White Spirit Bear hails from British Columbia, which is a long way from Winnipeg.

Answer: William Stephenson

William Samuel Clouston Stanger (he later changed his last name to Stephenson and dropped the Clouston from his name) was born in Winnipeg in 1897. During World War I, he served with the Winnipeg Light Infantry, becoming a sergeant before he was 19. He transferred to the British Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and downed twelve enemy planes before he was shot down in 1918. By the end of World War I, he was a Captain and the proud possessor of a DFC and an MC.

After the war, he returned to Winnipeg and established himself in the hardware business. However, the business failed and he returned to England where he achieved great success and became one of Britain's leading industrialists and enormously wealthy. His business contacts were international and by 1936, Stephenson was passing along information about the German government's arms build-up (in violation of the Treaty of Versailles) to his good friend Winston Churchill.

It was Churchill who, when he became Prime Minister in 1940, asked Stephenson (whose code name was Intrepid) to set up and manage the British Security Coordination, with offices in New York City. By the end of World War II, the BSC had become the umbrella organization that oversaw the efforts of British intelligence services throughout North and South America and the Caribbean, and trained operators for covert work throughout the world. Stephenson worked for no pay, and employed brilliant scientists and communicators (stars among them being David Ogilvy, who later made his mark in the advertising world and 'Pat' Bayly, a University of Toronto professor who created the Rockex - a secure communication system that was used by all the allied forces).

In 1941, Stephenson set up a BSC camp called Camp X in Ontario to train British, Canadian and American spies. The camp's students included members of the OAS, the ISO, the FBI, the RCMP, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Military Intelligence. Five future directors of the CIA were among those trained at Camp X, as was Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. (Rumour has it that Fleming based Goldfinger's plan to raid Fort Knox on Stephenson's idea (which never came to fruition) to steal the Vichy government's vast gold reserves from the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean.)

As Churchill's personal representative to U.S. President Roosevelt, Stephenson became a trusted advisor to FDR and it was he who suggested that friend William 'Wild Bill' Donovan should be put in charge of the U.S. intelligence services. Doovan established the Office of Strategic Services that eventually became the CIA. Stephenson was knighted in 1945 for his work and in 1946; he was the first non-US citizen to receive the Presidential Medal for Merit.

Stephenson died in Paget, Bermuda in 1989.

Ian Fleming, a non-Winnipegger, worked for Stephenson, Kim Philby was a famous British 'mole' who defected to the USSR and I doubt if he ever saw Winnipeg, and Gary Doer is the Premier of Manitoba and wasn't even born when Stephenson was running spy ops in the Western hemisphere.

Answer: Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan was two when his family moved from Edmonton to Winnipeg in 1915, and he attended Kelvin High School (the alma mater of Neil Young, another Winnipegger of whom you may have heard). He was the winner of the Arts and Sciences Gold Medal at the University of Manitoba in 1928, where he majored in English. After earning his BA and MA degrees at U. of M., he studied at Cambridge in England, where he earned a second BA and began work on his second MA in 1934. He earned his Ph.D. in 1943 (his dissertation was on the Thomas Nashe and the verbal arts).

A convert to Roman Catholicism (a move which greatly upset his Baptist mother), McLuhan taught in Roman Catholic colleges and universities - St. Louis University, Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario, and St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto where, in the 1950s, he began the celebrated Communications and Culture seminars that propelled him to fame as a media guru. In order to retain their celebrated professor, who was receiving numerous offers of employment from other universities, the University of Toronto established the Centre for Culture and Technology in 1963, and it was here that McLuhan remained until his death in 1979 following a stroke.

Among his books are 'The Mechanical Bride', which examines advertising's effects on the culture, and 'The Gutenberg Galaxy' which is a study of the culture of print. McLuhan coined the phrases 'The medium is the message' and 'the global village'.

David Ogilvy was an Englishman who may - or may not - have visited Winnipeg. Lord Beaverbrook (born William Maxwell Aitken), the British press baron, was a native of Fredericton, New Brunswick. Conrad Black (aka Lord Black) was born and raised in Ontario.

Answer: Len Cariou

Len Cariou was born in Winnipeg in 1939. He and began his acting career in high school, where he produced and performed in plays and musicals. He got his start in professional theatre at Winnipeg's outdoor summer theatre Rainbow Stage and at the fledgling Manitoba Theatre Centre (in 1961 he played Nicholas Devize in the 'Lady's Not for Burning' by Christopher Fry. The actor playing his twin Humphrey was Donnelly Rhodes who went on to fame as 'Dutch' in the wonderful series 'Soap'). Gordon Pinsent, star of 'Away from her' also got his acting career underway at the Manitoba Theatre Centre, but Gordon was not born in Winnipeg. He is from Newfoundland.

Len never attended theatre school but learned his craft hands-on at MTC, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario and at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis (where he eventually served as Artistic Director for a while).

In 1968, Broadway beckoned and he appeared in such classics as' A Little Night Music' and 'Applause'. Len created the role of Sweeney Todd in the Sondheim musical of the same name and won the 1979 Tony award for his performance. (When Len was starring in Broadway musicals, another Winnipegger was also appearing on Broadway. Edward Evanko, who made his Broadway debut in the musical 'Canterbury Tales' in 1969, has since had a career change and is now a Ukrainian Catholic priest.)

In 1981, Len starred with Alan Alda, Carol Burnett and several other luminaries in the popular movie 'The Four Seasons'. He has also worked extensively in television and was a frequent guest star on 'Murder, She Wrote', which starred his friend and 'Sweeney Todd' co-star Angela Lansbury.

That alien thing. Oh, yes. Len played an alien who took on the guise of Captain Janeway's father in an episode of 'Star Trek Voyager'.

Answer: Doug Henning

Doug Henning was born in Winnipeg in 1947, and took up magic as a youngster. He did his first show at age 14 at a friend's birthday party. The enthusiastic reaction of the other guests inspired him to place an ad in the newspaper and he spent his teen years entertaining partygoers and convention delegates. He also hosted a magic show on local television. After graduating from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario with a major in psychology and perception, Henning got a Canada Council grant that enabled him to travel and study the great magicians of the day, including Slydini and Dai Vernon.

In 1974, he mounted his first stage show 'Spellbound' that was directed by Ivan Reitman. The Toronto show broke box office records and it ended up on Broadway, renamed 'The Magic Show', and ran for two and a half years. Henning was nominated for a Tony award for 'The Magic Show'.

In 1975, NBC televised 'Doug Henning's World of Magic', which attracted over 50 million viewers. NBC immediately signed Henning up for more of the same and he continued the once-a-year broadcasts for seven years.

He quit performing to study Transcendental Meditation (in the 1993 Canadian federal election he ran as a candidate for the Natural Law Party which maintained that TM was the solution to the nation's problems). At the time of his death from liver disease in 2000, he and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi were planning a billion-dollar project to be called Maharishi Veda Land. The project would combine magic, illusion and state-of-the-art technology to present ancient Vedic stories and the secrets of the universe in a 'magical Himalayan setting'. Visitors could enjoy all this and organic food, too!

Despite the fact that Henning seems to have lost his grip on reality in his later years, his legacy in the world of magic is undisputed. He really believed his mantra 'Nothing is impossible'.

David Copperfield is not a Winnipegger. James Cielen and Brian Glow are both Winnipeggers, and both are magicians but they were not born in 1947.

Answer: Chantal Kreviazuk

Chantal Kreviazuk was born in Winnipeg in 1973, and is a classical pianist by training. Her first album, 'Under these Rocks and Stones' was released in Canada in 1996 and in the U.S. in 1997 and catapulted her to fame, which prompted her nomination for a Juno award as Best New Artist. (The album features the song 'God Made Me' which is not to be confused with 'When God Made me' by that other famous Winnipeg singer Neil Young.)

Kreviazuk's music can be heard on the soundtracks of several television shows and films, among them 'Dawson's Creek', 'Providence', 'Men in Trees', 'Joan of Acadia' and 'Laguna Beach' (TV) and 'Saved!', 'Uptown Girls',' The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' and 'Just My Luck' (movies).

Kreviazuk is married to Raine Maida, lead singer of the Canadian band Our Lady Peace and the couple has collaborated on writing songs for April Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore, Kelly Clarkson, the Veronicas, Marion Raven and Cheyenne Kimball.

My favourite Kreviazuk moment was when she bowed out of singing the Canadian national anthem at the opening of the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg in 1999 "because the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra couldn't play it in her key"!

By the way, April and Shania are both from Ontario and Diana Krall is from B.C.

Answer: David Steinberg

David Steinberg (born 1940) is the Winnipeg native who is credited with prompting the cancellation of the popular 'Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' in 1969. Actually, Steinberg's irreverent sermonettes were just the excuse that CBS needed to cut loose the controversial show with its highly-charged political humour (this was during the Vietnam war years, don't forget) and their controversial subject matter - marijuana, free love, etc., etc. (Those who love political conspiracies maintain that it was Richard Nixon who pressured CBS to cancel the show.)

Steinberg, the son of a rabbi, got into comedy while attending the University of Chicago. He attended a performance of the Second City comedy troupe and found his life's work. He joined Second City and spent two years performing with the troupe in the mid-1960s. He then embarked on a solo stand-up career.

He was one of Johnny Carson's 'go to guys' (the other was Bob Newhart), on whom Carson would call at the last minute if a guest cancelled a 'Tonight Show' turn. Steinberg he made a total of 140 appearances on the Carson show.

In the mid-1980s, Steinberg turned his hand to directing and has directed episodes of 'Seinfeld', 'Mad About You', 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and 'Friends'.

Since 2005, Steinberg has hosted 'Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg', a one-on-one interview show featuring famous comedians/comic actors ( Roseanne Barr, Larry David, George Lopez, Jon Lovitz, Bob Newhart, Ray Romano, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Martin Short, Jon Stewart and Robin Williams among others), which is filmed in front of a live audience at UCLA and seen on TV Land in the U.S.

Steinberg's biography 'The Book of David' was published in 2007 by Simon and Schuster.

Rich Little and Martin Short are both natives of Ontario and John Wing was born and grew up in B.C.

Answer: Monty Hall

Monty Hall (born Monty Halperin in 1921) hails from Winnipeg's famed North End, a melting pot of Polish/Ukrainian/Russian and other Eastern European immigrants. The story goes that as a youngster Monty was poor but hard-working, saving his money to get into university (there were no student loans in those days!), and came to the attention of a local philanthropist who anonymously paid his way through university. (It is also rumoured that it was years before Monty learned the name of his benefactor, and for years after he became successful Monty returned the favour by paying the way for other poor but promising youngsters to make it to university). He graduated with a double major in chemistry and zoology, fully intending to go on to medical school, but show business beckoned (did you know that Monty started out as an actor and singer?).

In 1963, he became a household name in North America when he became the first host of 'Let's Make a Deal', the immensely popular TV game show he developed with Stefan Hatos.

While he is best known for his work in TV, Monty has many charity projects dear to his heart, chief of which is Variety, the international children's charity that has raised millions for kids with disabilities and special needs. In 2000, Monty received the Ralph Edwards Service Award from the Game Show Congress for his charitable work.

Monty and his wife Marilyn (nee Plottel) have been married since 1947 (to be married to the same person for 60 years has to be something of a record in Hollywood!) and they have three children - actress Joanna Gleason, television director/writer Sharon Hall and television producer Richard Hall - and numerous grandchildren.

Of the other choices, only Alex Trebek is Canadian - he is from Sudbury, Ontario. Sajak and Barker are both Americans.