Come Dine With Me Australia Trivia Quiz

Answer: Paul Hogan

Before becoming known as a stand-up comic, Paul Hogan earned a crust as a painter on the eternal project to repaint the Sydney Harbour Bridge. After an interview on the television show 'A Current Affair', he got his own television show, which also featured his manager, John 'Strop' Cornell.

He was the face of Winfield cigarettes for a number of advertisements in the 1970s, and made a series of ads in the 1980s promoting tourism to Australia, which featured an invitation to "throw another shrimp on the barbie"; although an Australian would definitely call them prawns, the tourism board felt that the targeted audience in the United States would not have understood the term.

His big break on the international scene came with the 1986 movie 'Crocodile Dundee', which included a scene in which his character sneered at the knife that had been drawn to threaten him, and drew his own machete, saying, "That's not a knife...that's a knife!" as he did so.

He met his second wife, Linda Kozlowski, on the set of that film, divorcing Noelene Edwards to marry Linda.

Answer: Nellie Melba

All of these are internationally-acclaimed Australian opera singers, but only Helen Dawn Porter, who used the stage name of Nellie Melba, had the honour of having four dishes created and named after her by the French chef Auguste Escoffier. Melba toast is thinly sliced bread toasted, then sliced in half and toasted again to produce a very thin crisp product, which is frequently seen as an accompaniment to caviar and/or pate. Melba Garniture is made by stuffing tomatoes with a mixture of chicken, truffles and mushrooms, and covered with a veloute sauce. Peaches Melba, our planned dessert, is as described in the invitation; the fourth food Escoffier named after Dame Nellie was Melba sauce, a puree of raspberries (of which she was inordinately fond, as you may have gathered) and red currants. It goes nicely on vanilla ice cream.

Nellie Melba made a final Australian tour in 1928, in the course of which she farewelled a number of cities. This led to the popular Australian phrase "more farewells than Dame Nellie Melba" (used in recent years in reference to John Farnham, among other performers). She spent many years as a teacher at the Melbourne Conservatorium of music, both during and after her performing career.

Answer: Olivia Newton John

Olivia Newton-John was born in England, but moved to Melbourne at the age of six, and we claim her as one of our own, even though she moved to Britain after winning a trip in a talent quest, and established herself as a performer while living there. In the 70s she moved to live in America, where her career really took off after she got the part of Sandy in the movie 'Grease' in 1978.

Her subsequent film career has included the appalling 'Xanadu', which was part of the inspiration for the creation of the Raspberry Awards for the worst films and film performances of the year.

Her recording career has been much more successful, and includes all the titles listed in the invitation.

Answer: Slim Dusty

Slim Dusty, the performance name adopted by David Gordon Kirkpatrick at the age of eleven, wrote and recorded 'When the Rain Tumbles Down in July' in 1945, at the age of 19, and started a long career of chronicling life in the Australian bush. He wrote much of his own material, but one of his biggest hits was the 1957 release 'A Pub with No Beer', describing how life in a country town completely broke down when the truck delivering the beer supply didn't arrive, which was written by Gordon Parsons. Joy McKean and Slim Dusty were the parents of Anne Kirkpatrick, and all three are well known as country music performers.

Answer: Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman first came to international attention playing the part of Curly in the 1998 West End production of 'Oklahoma!', a part he reprised in the 1999 film of that production. His film career has been studded with popular roles, including the part of Wolverine in the first eight 'X-Men' films, the romantic lead in 'Kate & Leopold' (2001), computer hacker Stan Jobson in 'Swordfish' (2001), and Jean Valjean in 'Les Miserables' (2012).

In 2008, he replaced Russell Crowe in Baz Luhrmann's epic 'Australia', which had an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson and David Gulpilil.

He has also been involved in a steady stream of stage appearances, including portraying Peter Allen in the Broadway production of 'The Boy from Oz' (2003-2004).

Answer: Kylie Minogue

Kylie, as she is often known instead of using her full name, is a Melbourne-born singer and actress, whose early career was overshadowed by the success of her sister Dannii, who made it onto the cast of 'Young Talent Time' before Kylie had experienced significant success. However, that changed when she landed the role of Charlene in 'Neighbours' in 1986, and became the youngest winner (to that time) of the Gold Logie, an award voted on by the public to select the most popular television performer of the year. The popularity of her character (and that of her love interest, played by Jason Donovan, with whom she later recorded the duet 'Especially for You') in overseas markets helped establish a platform from which she was able to launch a successful singing career. The success of her first single, a cover of 'The Loco-Motion' in 1987, led to her moving to the United Kingdom to work with producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman. Her first song with them, 'I Should Be So Lucky', was a massive hit, and the start of a lengthy career which has included regular tours as well as recording.

Kylie played the Green Fairy in the 2001 film 'Moulin Rouge' (a name which translates into English as Red Mill), and was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. Her public discussion of the diagnosis and treatment has been seen as a valuable inspiration to have women undergo regular checkups. The World's biggest Morning Tea is an Australian tradition, held in October, to raise funds for Breast Cancer research and treatment.

Answer: Chips Rafferty

Born John William Pilbean Goffage, Chips Rafferty became the iconic Aussie bush character in a number of movies, starting with his (uncredited) screen debut in the 1939 film 'Come Up Smiling'. This was quickly followed by 'Forty Thousand Horsemen' (1940), in which he had a lead role as a member of the Australian Light Horse in World War I.

Although he was serving in the armed forces during World War II, he was released to film 'The Rats of Tobruk' (1944), in which he and Peter Finch played two of the three central characters, drovers who enlist and end up at the siege of Tobruk.

In 1947, he had a more light-hearted role as Long Bill, one of the horse thieves bested by a group of children in the perennial Christmas favorite, 'Bush Christmas'.

Answer: Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii in 1967 while her Australian parents were temporarily living there to study in Honolulu, but she was raised in Australia, and started her career here. After making her film debut in a 1983 remake of 'Bush Christmas', she gained popular attention in 'BMX Bandits', released in the same year. Domestic film and television work followed, until her role in 'Dead Calm' (1989) opposite Sam Neill brought her to international attention.

Her career then shifted to Hollywood, where she met her first husband, Tom Cruise, while filming 'Days of Thunder' (1990).

They were married from 1990 until 2001; in 2006 she married country musician Keith Urban. In 2002, she became the first Australian actress to win an Academy Award, gaining the award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Virginia Woolfe in 'The Hours'; for the same role, she was awarded her first BAFTA and her third Golden Globe.

Answer: Men at Work

These were all popular Australian bands, but it was Men at Work who released 'Down Under' in 1981, both as a single and as a track on the album 'Business as Usual'. They achieved simultaneous No. 1 rankings for both the album and the single on the US Billboard charts, as well as accomplishing the same feat on charts in Australia, New Zealand and the UK (topping the charts in all three countries at the same time).

Even Australians who didn't follow the pop/rock music scene became familiar with 'Down Under' when it was used as a theme song by the crew members of Australia II, the yacht which successfully wrested the America's Cup from American hands in 1983. The band performed 'Down Under' at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where it had been sung by the crowd on a number of occasions when Australians won gold medals.

Here are the complete lyrics - sing along if you are in the mood:

'Traveling in a fried-out Kombi
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said,

"Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
And he said,

"I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."
Yeah

Lyin' in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, "Are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?"
And he said,

"Do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."

Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.'

Answer: Simon Baker

Simon Baker's Australian career began with music videos in 1991, and progressed to small parts on the television shows 'E Street' (1989-1993), 'Heartbreak High' (1994-1999) and 'Home and Away' (1988-), where he played the photographer James Hudson, who hooked up with Roxy after her relationship with Luke ended, disappearing after 19 episodes because she dumped him.

He moved to the US to pursue his career, and got a bit part in the 1997 film 'LA Confidential', in which Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe had much more prominent parts.

A number of supporting roles followed, but his next big break was on television, where he played Nick Fallin in 'The Guardian' from 2001 to 2004. He managed to make movies at the same time as undertaking that role, a practice which he continued while working on what is perhaps his biggest success to the present (2015 - he has a long future ahead of him!), the part of Patrick Jane on 'The Mentalist' (2008-2015).

His character (who had plenty of opportunities to flash his boyish grin) worked as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation, using the keen observational skills which he had previously used to con people with his performances as a psychic.

As well as assisting with their cases, he used their support to help him find Red John, a vicious serial killer who had killed Jane's wife and daughter before the series started.