Celebrities Born before 1900 Trivia Quiz

Answer: French

Sarah Bernhardt was born as Henriette-Rosine Bernard in Paris. She had a few parts in school plays, before entering the prestigious Parisian theatre company La Comédie Française in 1862. Sarah was one of the first actresses to take up world tours.
Sarah Bernhardt's movie career started with "Le Duel d'Hamlet" in 1900, where she played the title role. In 1908 she starred as "Tosca" in a short movie, and in 1912 she excelled as Marguérite in the movie "La Dame aux Camélias".
Although she lost one of her legs to gangrene in 1915, she did continue acting on stage and in movies up till her death.

Answer: Nellie Melba

Helen Mitchell was born in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne (Australia) and started singing at a young age. After an unhappy marriage that lasted only a few months, she returned to Melbourne in 1884 and her career as a soprano took off. That's why she adopted the stage name Melba (after the city where she was born). In 1887 she debuted as the leading soprano in "Rigoletto" at the Mint opera in Brussels.
IMDb mentions a few movies in which ancient recordings by Nellie Melba were used on the soundtrack, for instance the 2001 movie "Serenades".
Nellie Melba was honoured with a few recipes named after her, most notably the dessert with peach, raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream.
This has inspired me to peruse some cooking books for other recipes named after famous women. Agnes Sorel gave her name to a creamy chicken soup, Reine Claude (one of the French Queens) is a type of plum, and the dessert Poire Belle Helene was named after the mythical Helen of Troy.

Answer: The Birth of a Nation

IMDb lists over 500 movies directed by D.W. Griffith, between 1908 and 1931. After a few very busy years (for instance about 70 movies directed in 1912 and over 40 short movies directed in 1913) Griffith realised his best known movie in 1915: "The Birth of a Nation". It portrayed a northern family (the Stonemans) and a southern family (the Camerons) in the period of the end of the US Civil War up till about twenty years later. After depicting several violent outbursts, including a lynching party by the Ku Klux Klan, the movie turned back to the mutual romance with the marriage of Phil Stoneman to Margaret Cameron and the marriage of Ben Cameron to Elsie Stoneman.
"The Birth of a Nation" has obtained mixed reactions. The content is biased and racist and condones violence, but the movie introduced several cinematographic techniques (for instance the fade-out).

Griffith also directed the other red herrings.
"Intolerance" (1916) depicted victims of intolerance in four different eras.
"The Mother and the Law" (1919) expanded on one episode of "Intolerance".
"Broken Blossoms" (1919) told the love story of a Chinese Buddhist and an abused young woman in London.

Answer: She was strangled.

Isadora Duncan grew up in relative poverty after the divorce of her parents, caused by accusations that her father would have embezzled company funds. Isadora joined a theatre company in New York in 1896, but soon left her first employer because she felt constricted by classic ballet conventions. Instead, she launched free choreography in long flowing Greek tunics and on bare feet, and knew immediate success. She started touring Europe (London, Paris, Moscow...) in 1898, only occasionally returning to the USA. Isadora founded dance schools in Berlin and in Moscow, and in 1922 adopted the Soviet nationality.
Her first two children (Deirdre, born 1906 and Patrick, born 1910) both drowned in 1913. Later she had another son, who also died in his infancy.
On a warm September night in 1927, Isadora embarked in an open car driven by her friend Benoit Falchetto. She was dressed in her usual Greek-styled tunic and a long flowing scarf. Alas, her scarf got entangled in the rear wheel of the vehicle, and she was strangled and thrown out of the car. She died instantly.
In 1968 Vanessa Redgrave portrayed Isadora Duncan in the movie "Isadora", based upon Duncan's autobiography.
The red herrings were also real causes of death in some cases. Beulah Bondi (1889-1981), an American actress known for her supporting role in "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), tripped over her cat and broke her ribs, eventually dying from pneumonia. And Nellie Melba (1861-1931) died of a septic infection after facial surgery.

Answer: Frankenstein's Monster

William Pratt grew up with a few impediments for an acting career: stuttering (which he managed to overcome), lisp, and crooked legs. He started university hoping to enter the British consular service, but gave up on his studies in 1909 and started traveling. In 1911 he started acting on stage, and his first movie credit was in 1919 ("The Lightning Raider"). His first portrayal of the famous Monster of Frankenstein was in 1931 ("Frankenstein"), and he would retake this role twice ("Bride of Frankenstein" in 1935 and "Son of Frankenstein" in 1939).

The red herrings were also characters that have been portrayed many times, but not by Karloff.

Answer: Charlie Chaplin

I doubt the exact birth dates have helped you to answer this question, but the words "great dictator" were a clue to the solution. Indeed: in the movie "The Great Dictator" (1940) Charlie Chaplin played a Jewish barber as well as the great dictator Adenoid Hynkel, the Phooey of Tomania. Hynkel was clearly a spoof of Hitler: a gifted orator, out to conquer all the world, who was extremely antisemitic.
In one of the memorable scenes Hynkel took out a world globe and played with it as if it were a balloon - which it in the end indeed turned out to be: at the end Hynkel held only a deflated piece of latex.
Chaplin made fame during the silent movie era with productions such as "The Tramp" (1915), "The Kid" (1921), "Gold Rush" (1925) and "Modern Times" (1936). "The Great Dictator" was his first sound movie.
The other actors listed here have also played double or multiple roles in one or more movies.

Answer: America's Sweetheart

Mary Pickford started acting on Broadway at the tender age of 13. In 1909 she turned to acting in movies, incited by the famed movie director D.W. Griffith. At the start of her movie career, she played almost every week in a new (short) movie: Wikipedia states she appeared in 51 movies in 1909, and IMDb lists almost 50 movies in 1910.
In 1919 Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks joined forces to found the American movie company United Artists. She also was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and won an Oscar for her role in the movie "Coquette" (1929).
Her last role was in 1934. Pickford died in 1979.
Mary Pickford earned the nickname "America's Sweetheart" because of the typical charming way she acted in American movie productions, most frequently playing the underdog and adding some comical relief.
The Swedish Nightingale was the nickname of the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind (1820-1887).
"The Italian Heartthrob" is the title of a romantic novel by N.J. Adel, not the nickname of someone involved in the movie industry.
And "The African Queen" was the title of a 1951 movie, named after a boat.

Answer: The General

Buster Keaton and his family performed in vaudeville acts during his youth. When he, with his mother, settled in New York, he started his movie career with the short movie "The Butcher Boy" (1917), in which he and Roscoe Arbuckle played two young men infatuated with the same girl.
Keaton then developed his act as "The Great Stone Face", an apathetic character to whom various dangerous adventures occurred. The most iconic stunt is in "Steamboat Bill Jr." (1928), with the front of a house toppling over at the spot where Keaton's character stood, unscathed because of an open window.
In "The General" (1926) Keaton re-enacted a train chase during the American Civil War. Buster Keaton played a civil engineer from the Confederate States, who engaged in a desperate try to recover a train locomotive stolen by Union soldiers while his beloved one was on board.
In "Seven Chances" (1925) Buster Keaton played a character faced with a timed challenge: he had to be married before 7 PM that night to inherit the gross sum of 7,000,000 dollar.
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1966) was Keaton's last movie, in which he appeared as a very minor character (Erronius the scribe) running into a tree and falling down.

Answer: Edith Head

Edith Head (1897-1981) was born as Edith Claire Posener. She studied literature and romance languages and started teaching Spanish. When she could obtain a raise by also teaching art, she took up drawing and design. In 1924 she enrolled in the movie industry as costume sketch artist. After her first movie collaborations ("The Wanderer", 1925 and "Wings", 1927) turned out a big success, Edith abandoned teaching and turned full-time costume designer.
Edith Head was nominated 35 times for an Oscar and was the first woman ever to win 8 Oscars in the same category. Only Walt Disney outdid this achievement: Walt won 12 Oscars for producing short animated movies (and ten other Oscars for producing other types of movies).
Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) was the first to win four Oscars for Best Actress, and had eight other nominations.
Kathleen Kennedy (born 1953) was the first female movie producer nominated for 8 Oscars. She won a lifetime achievement award in 2019, although her career was not ended at that moment.
Frances Goodrich (1890-1953) was the first female scriptwriter nominated for 4 Oscars. Alas, she won none.

Answer: Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) started his career as a movie director in 1922 with the (unfinished) movie "Number 13". He soon turned to the thrillers we know him for, starting with "The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog" (1927, inspired by the history of Jack the Ripper). "The Lady Vanishes" is set on a train, where suddenly during the voyage an elder woman has passed out of sight. In "Suspicion" a recently married woman started finding clues that her husband was a greedy murderer. "Torn Curtain" had an espionage backdrop story, but also showed Hitchcock's mastery of building suspense.
Better known movies of his are "Vertigo" (1958), "North by Northwest" (1959), "Psycho" (1960) and "The Birds" (1963).
Tarkovsky (1932-1986) is best known for his long takes in more or less philosophical movies such as "Solaris" (1972).
Bergman (1918-2007) made a reputation as director of family plots (see for instance "Smulstronstället" in 1957, translated as "Wild Strawberries").
Kurosawa (1910-1998) will always be remembered for his samurai movies such as "Rashomon" (1950) and "The Seven Samurai" (1954).