City Folk (Part 5) (Actors, Part 2) Quiz

Answer: Hannah and Her Sisters

While Sydney Pollack did act in Woody Allen's ensemble family drama piece "Husbands and Wives", he did not play any role in Woody Allen's earlier family ensemble comedy film "Hannah and Her Sisters". Regarding "Tootsie", a film he directed, Dustin Hoffman and he famously argued during production to the extent that Hoffman insisted Pollack play the role of his agent, feeling that their contentious working relationship would carry over effectively onscreen. And it did--their scenes together are comedy classics, especially the restaurant scene in The Russian Tea Room. Stanley Kubrick cast Pollack in "Eyes wide Shut" as Victor Ziegler a rich patient of Tom Cruise's doctor character, Bill. And Robert Zemeckis cast Sydney as the ER doctor in "Death Becomes Her"; though the film wasn't a great success critically, Pollack does steal the movie with a hilarious scene in which he cannot detect a heartbeat or pulse in Meryl Streep.

The very first movie house in Australia was the Salon Lumière, located in Sydney at 237 Pitt Street. It opened in October of 1896, and screened the first Australian-made short film.

Answer: Eugene Levy

At the 72nd Emmy Awards on September 20, 2020, Eugene Levy and his son Daniel made history when they became the first father and son nominated for Emmys at the same Awards ceremony. What's more is they both won. And what's more again, it was for the same show, "Schitt's Creek". Eugene won Best Actor in a Comedy Series and son Dan won for Supporting Actor. The last time Eugene won an Emmy before that was in 1981, for writing for the legendary comedy troupe show "SCTV", made in Canada and starring many comedy icons from Canada like Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Andrea Martin, John Candy and Eugene Levy himself. Eugene, Oregon by the way is a mere 420 miles from the Canada border.

Answer: cello

Much the same way Henny Youngman would break out his violin in his act, Morey would play the cello. His father was a violinist, and Morey played both the saxophone and cello, but preferred the cello. He was of course an accomplished joke writer, having written for Will Rogers and Fanny Brice.

He was nicknamed "The Human Joke Machine" for his ability to call out for any subject from the audience and he would deliver a joke on that topic right on the spot. Ironically, Morey Amsterdam died October 27, 1996, which is 721 years to the day that the name Amstelledamme occurs for the first time, the traditionally viewed founding of the city of Amsterdam.

Answer: The Dick Van Dyke Show

Born July 25, 1925 in San Francisco, Jerry Paris started out in the entertainment business as a supporting actor. Among those many TV roles was his part on the "The Dick Van Dyke Show" which ran from 1961 to 1966. While an actor, he began making the segue into working behind the camera, and indeed directed 84 of the 158 episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show".

He went on to direct episodes of "Happy Days" and the pilot for "Laverne and Shirley" in 1976. Regarding his views on acting as opposed to directing he has said, "At last I can paint the whole canvas. How's that for a figure of speech, eh? When I was a character actor, I was painting only one color--blue or green, as it were. Now I can work on the whole movie." Paris, France has a reputation for superior dental care across the world.

Its advanced dental techniques are thanks in part to the majority of dental fees being reimbursed by the government, up to 70% in some cases.

Answer: Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman's big break was playing Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols in the film "Sid and Nancy". His roles were usually very odd or extreme in nature, but very soon his acting talent revealed an ability to play nearly anything including low key characters as he did in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". For "The Thin Red Line" there was a role written specifically for Gary Oldman, and it was sent to him, but he never wound up shooting it because Malick realized he already had too many characters in his awkwardly overpopulated script, so Oldman's role was among those that were excised. Viggo Mortensen, Martin Sheen, and Jason Patric had participated in read-throughs but that was as far as their involvement went. Other actors were completely cut out of the film even after shooting scenes. Mickey Rourke, Bill Pullman and Lukas Haas were among those. And other actors, like Adrien Brody had their roles drastically reduced.

None of these Garys mentioned as choices seem to be on record as ever having acted in versions of Meredith Wilson's musical "The Music Man" so we may never get to hear them sing "Gary Indiana":
"How I happened on this elegant syncopation,
I will say without a moment of hesitation
There is just one place
That can light my face.
Gary, Indiana,
Gary Indiana,
Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but--
Gary, Indiana,
Gary, Indiana,
Gary Indiana,
My home sweet home."

Answer: Johnny Knoxville

Born in Knoxville on March 11, 1971, Johnny Knoxville would later attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, California. He had a gig writing for a skateboarding magazine called "Big Brother" and was working on a piece about self-defense equipment, when he decided to try it out on himself.

The magazine's editor filmed Knoxville's efforts, and those led to several videos featuring skateboarding wipe outs and other mishaps. And those led to the "Jackass" shows in which Knoxville and his co-stars participated in slapstick stunts, often at risk to themselves. All the choices have Tennessee cities, however, Ricky Memphis is an actor born in Rome, Italy who starred in the police drama, "Distretto di Polizia". David Jackson is a British actor, best known for being in the TV show "Blake's 7".

Answer: Clark Gable

The three Best Picture winners that starred Clark Gable were "It Happened One Night" in 1934 and the very next year in 1935's "Mutiny of the Bounty". The third was "Gone with the Wind". Every time he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, the film he was in won Best Picture. But he actually won Best Actor for "It Happened One Night". Clark Gable was on a U.S. postage stamp commemorating classic films released in 1939. His stamp featured him playing Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh playing Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind". The other three 1939 films honored on the stamps were "Beau Geste", "Stagecoach", and "The Wizard of Oz".

There are quite a few cities named Clark in the United States. States such as Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Sout Dakota, Texas, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin, all have towns named Clark.

Answer: Spencer Tracy

Warner Bros. Studios had purchased the rights to a 1963 detective novel called "Mute Witness" written by Robert L. Pike (he was born Robert L. Fish) about a Boston detective named Lieutenant Clancy who liked to eat a lot of ice cream and never solved a case. The studio wanted Spencer Tracy to play the role, but when he died, the property came into the possession of Steve McQueen and producer Philip D'Antoni. The famous car chase scene was not in the book--that was a scene that they added along with switching the story locale from Boston to San Francisco. And of course, they changed the name from Clancy to Frank Bullitt.

Spencer, Massachusetts is the most populated Spencer in the U.S. with 11,688, just nudging out Iowa's Spencer of 11,031. However, according to a "Smithsonian Magazine" study, it is Spencer, Iowa that was deemed one of the best cities in America to live with a population under 20,000 people.
Tracy, California is just shy of 100,000 people. The retail industry employs 14% of the citizens, followed by manufacturing (12.1%), healthcare (9.9%), construction (9.6%).

Answer: Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was making guest appearances at martial arts events across the country when he caught the attention of a Hollywood hair-stylist named Jay Sebring who introduced him to the TV producer William Dozier who at the time, had a successful hit show with "Batman" starring Adam West. Dozier figured on capitalizing on the Batman comic book character by bringing another crime fighter to TV: The Green Hornet. And in so doing, Dozier was looking to cast an Asian actor to play the Green Hornet's sidekick, Kato. Bruce's screen test won him the part, and "The Green Hornet" starring Van Williams as the title character aired in 1966-1967. The response was middling. But Lee impressed. The show was canceled after only one season of 26 episodes, but Lee was so popular he was receiving more fan mail than Van Williams. While the show was still in production, Bruce made many promotional appearances as his character Kato, and this led to his receiving film opportunities and more TV shows.

There are roughly ten or more cities and towns named Lee in the U.S.: California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York are some of the states. Lee, New York is the most populated amongst all the Lees with about 6,486 people in its 45.5 square miles. The town was founded in 1811, named after Revolutionary War General Charles Lee.

Answer: Henry Fonda

In 1964 Henry Fonda played "The President" in the thriller "Fail Safe" directed by Sidney Lumet. Fonda's character's surname is never mentioned--he's just called "the President". Likewise in the 1979 science fiction thriller "Meteor", directed by Ronald Neame, Fonda again plays the President of the U.S. but we never hear his name. It was a cameo as Fonda shot his scene in two days. His President makes a two-minute speech to the Washington Press Corps.

Henry, Illinois has a population between 2,000 and 3,000, and is named after General James D. Henry. Because it had the first dam built on the Illinois River, the town's slogan is "Best Town in Illinois by a Dam Site".
Fonda, Iowa is in Pocahontas County; originally called Marvin, officials changed the name to Fonda in 1874. Fonda, New York was named after Douw Fonda, a Dutch settler.