Chuckles from Leading Ladies Trivia Quiz

Answer: With a blank page

What can one say about Ethel Merman that could sum that feisty gal up in a few words? She was big, brassy, loud-mouthed, sometimes very vulgar, in your face and talented, with that extraordinarily powerful voice which paved the road to fame for her in musical theatre and film. Born in Queens, New York, in 1908, Ethel Merman died in 1984, and if a lifetime of talent could be inscribed on a headstone, hers would read starring roles in eighteen stage productions, eighteen films, twenty-two television appearances, and twelve hit records - plus four marriages, two children and a host of friends and enemies.

The film most associated with this talented, loud-mouthed, vulgar, and very funny woman is the 1954 "There's No Business Like Show Business", in which she plays part of a husband and wife Vaudeville team that become famous and successful, along with their three talented children and a host of family problems. With a lifetime of hilarious quotes that this talented woman made about anyone and everything - most of which aren't suitable for this site - she did the reverse when discussing her explosive marriage to Ernest Borgnine. It lasted less than two months and, in her 1978 autobiography "Merman", under the chapter regarding that marriage - to which she devoted only one page - she left the entire page blank.

Answer: Rita Rudner

Actress, comedian and writer, Rita Rudner was born in Florida in 1953. She began her entertainment career as a dancer, appearing in several successful stage productions during the late 1960s and early 1970s, before switching to performing in her own stage comedy shows from the age of twenty-five. That funny remark above is from one of her routines. By the 1990s, Rita had moved further along in her career to appearing in various television shows, and from that to screen writing and acting in movies such as the 1992 "Peter's Friends". The plot of this film is centred around a reunion between six friends, ten years after they first acted together in a comedy troupe at Cambridge University - and the loss of love and life that became their finale. Most unlike her normal entertainment persona, Rita stars as the American wife of a big name producer whose marriage is in trouble.

A couple of other funny quotes attributed to Rita include the following:

"In Hollywood, a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk".
"My grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three husbands - and two of them were just napping".
"Men do cry - but only when assembling furniture".
"I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight".
"I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult".

Answer: Phyllis Diller

Actress, singer, dancer, writer, musician and comedian, Phyllis Diller lived from 1917 until 2012. She first began to climb the ladder of success with her stand-up comedy routines, part of which included weird clothing, extremely alarming hairstyles and a simply dreadful voice and laugh. In fact, she made Fran Drescher sound like a nightingale. If you could get past that, however - perhaps by learning lip-reading - Phyllis Diller was one funny woman indeed.

With more than forty films to her credit, and countless television appearances, plus her own TV show for a time, several of these films were made with good friend and fellow comedian, the great Bob Hope. These included the 1967 "Eight on the Lam" in which she plays a housekeeper to Henry, a windower with seven kids. When he finds some money and spends it, he is subsequently accused of stealing from the bank where he works. The title says it all, but all's well that ends well in this funny film. If the above quote made by Phyllis Diller is any indication of her humour, one rather imagines she and Bob Hope quipped their way all the way through that movie.

Answer: "Just the radio."

As a struggling young actress, desperately short of money, Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) agreed to pose naked for several photos in a soon to be published calendar for the following year. She was paid all of $50 for her work which, when discovered, far from ruining her career, gave it a mighty boost instead. Perhaps in the wrong direction for, try as she may in later years to be accepted as a serious actress, the lovely and frail Marilyn was doomed to be portrayed as the ditzy but sexually appealing blonde for the rest of her short life.

People weren't interested in her true acting ability, her dedication to her art, her humour (which was rather brilliant) and her intelligence. They wanted that image up on the screen, and eventually this led to Marilyn's downward spiral into despair, alcohol and prescribed medications. She was a beautiful real life tragedy who constantly gave the world the joy and laughter and sex appeal it demanded of her, but who refused to let that go. This more serious quote from Marilyn perhaps sums up her life perfectly. It's funny, clever and wistful all at the same time: "I want to be an artist, not a celluloid aphrodisiac".

Answer: Maureen Lipman

Maureen Lipman (born in 1946) is an English film, stage and television actress, writer, columnist and comedian. Loving acting all her life, she trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before moving on to an initial career in the theatre. That included her role in "The Vagina Monologues", which was described by the New York Times in the 1990s as "probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade". Well, that's if you like that kind of thing. That work deals with various women giving monologues on all aspects related to the world of women. It is designed to shock and provoke and make people think about these issues.

Maureen describes herself in a newspaper interview as being "both opinionated and thin-skinned and that's not a great way to be". She has indeed found herself in trouble on more than one occasion because of those outspoken opinions, but fortunately she lives in a democracy which allows her the freedom to continue to do so. Comically so, though, as quoted in the question above, her daughter has banned her from social media for that same forthrightness. By the turn of the 21st century, Maureen had appeared in more than thirty different television productions, and made fifteen films. Hopefully, with still a long and productive career ahead of her, that will be achieved without the accompaniment of talking vaginas.

Answer: The Oscar

Judi Dench is just brilliant. Incredibly talented and versatile, this English actress (born in 1934) and writer has had a life-long career on stage, in television and on film. Her acting skills are astonishing. Whenever she dons stage make-up, this amazing woman BECOMES each persona she is portraying. She makes us cry, laugh, hate her or love her, and always, always endlessly entertains us, whether this be as a murderous Lady MacBeth, a tarty but talented Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" (stage), a crisp down to earth M in "GoldenEye", or a heartbreaking Iris Murdoch as she begins her long descent into Alzheimer's in the brilliant 2001 film "Iris". Her above quoted remark about the Oscar was made during her Academy Award acceptance speech for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare In Love", for which she won both an Oscar and a BAFTA Award.

Out of stage make-up, this brilliant actress has as many different sides to her own character as the ones she has played. She's funny, quietly religious, warm-hearted, deeply charitable (her involvement with the poor and disadvantaged world-wide is inspirational), intelligent, loyal, loving, dignified, classy, elegant and always, always fascinating. Judi's list of acting awards are way too many to include here, and her personal honours - to name but one - include the top British acknowledgement of the Dame Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. Just to finish off with another instance of her humour, Judi stated in a 2015 interview on the popular talk show program "Desert Island Discs" - with a perfectly deadpan expression - that her first acting job was as a snail.

Answer: Julie Andrews

Born in England in 1935, Julie Andrews, of the beautiful voice, and sweet persona from which she struggled to escape, has appeared in more than thirty television shows, five very successful stage musicals, received a truly astonishing number of awards, and made more than forty very popular films. These included her award winning roles as the crisp, no-nonsense nanny in "Mary Poppins" (1964) and the enchantingly sweet Maria in "The Sound of Music" who becomes governess to her grumpy employer's many children. Her quote in the question above was made during her 1964 acceptance speech of the Golden Globe for her role in the film "Mary Poppins".

Now in her later years, she is considered to have more than made her mark as a successful actress, singer and dancer, very respected in the world of entertainment, and has also been honoured by Queen Elizabeth for her craft. Sadly though, in the late 1990s, surgery to remove nodules on her vocal cords damaged those same chords beyond repair, and Julie's lovely lyric soprano, which brought her so much early fame, is no more. Not that that held the ladylike, but feisty, lady back. She simply changed direction in her career. Since that botched surgery she has, for example, written a dozen books, taken on straight film roles, and also became a successful director. Yet, testimony to her struggle to escape those early sweet and innocent roles for which she became so famous, I think most of us still like to remember Julie as the lovely Maria and Mary Poppins, and wish somehow that a magical flying umbrella could bring both back again.

Answer: Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem in 1981, but grew up in the United States from the age of three. From a relatively young age she was already an accomplished actress, director and producer, and a winner of some very impressive awards - a rather remarkable set of achievements you'll agree. By the age of just thirty-four, Natalie, who had dropped out of acting for four years along the way to attend Harvard University, had made an astonishing forty-movies. One of these included an Academy Award for her portrayal of the psychologically tortured ballerina in the 2010 "Black Swan" who is forced, far beyond her expertise and nature, to portray two opposing sides of the one character. From this point in the film, audiences are glued to the screen as her character undergoes a type of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde split, and descends further and further into madness, horrifying hallucinations, murder and death.

In addition to the above impressive entertainment record, Natalie is a dedicated Animal Rights advocate, and a Vegan who refuses to even wear anything made from animal products. She has even branched out into designing her own Vegan footwear, a fact that in itself is just a little bit comical. She also supports various environmental causes, is a member of the One Voice movement whose ultimate aim is to establish a two-state solution to the problems in Israel, supports anti-poverty causes, children's causes, women's causes, same-sex marriage, and just about every other cause under the sun. That is one very intense young woman. I'm not sure I could live with her. It'd be like sharing an apartment with a combination of Mother Theresa and Albert Schweitzer. It's surprising that she has time to make any sort of humorous comment at all, let alone take the time off to laugh. One has to learn to do that, and enjoy life as well - just a little bit - along the way.

Answer: Myrna Loy

Those and many other fascinating snippets about the lovely Myrna can be read in the 1987 book "Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming: by James Kotsilibas-Davis" work. Myrna (1905-1993) was a famous film actress who was at the height of her fame from the end of the silent film era until the beginning of the 1950s. Because she was so very beautiful as a young woman, the film studios often cast her in the role of the vamp or fallen woman, but as she grew older, her roles became more challenging and rewarding. She is particularly noted for the series of "Thin Man" comedy-mystery films that she made with William Powell. These were all based on the works of author Dashiell Hammett.

A few other facts about the lovely Myrna Loy include the following: She was named after a whistle stop in Nebraska because her father took a shine to the name. Her figure was considered so perfect that she was used as a model in the famous sculpture Fountain of Education (it appears in the opening scenes of the 1978 movie "Grease" if you're paying attention). When director W.S. Van Dyke was searching about for a star with the necessary composure to star in the "Thin Man" series of films, he pushed her into a swimming pool to test her reactions - and lived. At the peak of her career, she was Hollywood's highest paid actress. She appeared in an astonishing 125 films during her career. And, during the Second World War (1939-1946) she was so fiercely critical of Hitler that she was added to his blacklist.

Answer: Caroline Rhea

Actress, comedian and stand-up comic, Caroline Rhea was born in Canada in 1964. Of her sixteen films and seventeen appearances on television, Caroline is probably most familiar with audiences for her role in "Sabrina, the Teenaged Witch" (1996-2003) as one of Sabrina's aunts in that family comedy about a young fledgling witch being reared by her two aunts. Caroline is far more talented than that, however. She had her own syndicated talk show for several years, is a much in demand comedian on the club circuit, does frequent voiceover work on other productions, and has hosted sever other long-running television shows.

Separated now from her former partner, comedian Costaki Economopoulos, with whom she has one child, hopefully the cause of that separation wasn't anything to do with her comical remark above.