Famous Celebrities and their Countries Quiz

Answer: Canada

Pamela Anderson was born on Canada Day (July 1st) on the country's 100th birthday (1967). She was 'discovered' after being seen on the jumbotron at a BC Lions (Canadian football) in 1989, and later that year was featured in the October issue of "Playboy". During the '90s she hit the height of her popularity and publicity, starring in "Home Improvement", "Baywatch", and "V.I.P.".

In addition to continued acting and modelling, Anderson has been involved with various causes during her career, using her celebrity status in support of such issues as animal rights and AIDS research, amongst other things. In 2006, Anderson was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame.

Answer: Canada

Shania Twain was born in Windsor, Ontario on August 28th, 1965 and grew up in Timmins, where she graduated from high school and where got her start as a singer. She had a difficult childhood, and helped the family make money by singing at local bars (beginning at the age of 8 years old). After high school, Twain actively pursued her music career, but it would not be until 1993 that she produced her first, self-titled album. With her next album, 1995's "The Woman in Me", Twain achieved commercial success and celebrity status.

In 1998, Shania Twain was dubbed "the reigning queen of country music" by "Maclean's" magazine, and in 1999 she was named 'Entertainer of the Year' by both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. In 2011 she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (in the category of recording).

Answer: Canada

Mario Lemieux was born in Montreal, Quebec on October 5th, 1965, and grew up skating and playing hockey from a very early age. As a junior hockey player, Lemieux amassed a record of 562 points (247 goals, 315 assists) in just three seasons. He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1984, the team with which he played his entire NHL career.

Lemieux led the Penguins to two consecutive Stanley Cup Championships in 1991 and 1992 won the Art Ross Trophy as the top-scoring (total points) player in the league six times in his career. After retiring at the end of the 1996-97 season, Lemieux was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame that same year. But he would come back from retirement for another five years of play in the early 2000s. Upon his second retirement in 2006, Lemieux also became a part owner of his beloved Pittsburgh Penguins.

After surviving Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1993, Lemieux established the Mario Lemieux Foundation, which is dedicated to funding cancer research and supporting families in challenging medical situations.

Answer: United States

Val Kilmer was born in Los Angeles, California on New Year's Eve, 1959. His career as an actor began in earnest in the 1980s after attending Juilliard, and his big break came with his first film role as the lead in the comedy "Top Secret!" (1984)

It didn't take long for Kilmer to rise through Hollywood's ranks, beginning with comedy roles, then moving into action and dramatic roles. He hit his stride in the 1990s with such films as "The Doors" (1991), "Tombstone" (1993), "Batman Forever" (1995), "Heat" (1995), and "The Saint" (1997), to name but a few.

Kilmer's star fell off in the 2000s, but he continued to work, doing a variety of films and stage work, including a one-man show that he wrote called "Citizen Twain". Unfortunately, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 and underwent chemotherapy and had two tracheotomies to overcome it.

Answer: United States

Mariah Carey was born in Huntington, New York on March 27th, 1969. She began writing songs while still in high school, and after graduating in 1987, she moved to New York City and pursued a career in singing (while also going to beauty school). After getting her demo tape into the hands of Tommy Mottola of Columbia Records, she was quickly signed and became their feature female vocalist.

Her self-titled 1990 debut album was a hit, with all four of its singles reaching Number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. When her first single from her second album "Emotions" (1991) was released, it also reached Number 1. It was the first time that an artist managed to accomplish such a feat in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.

Carey flourished during the 1990s, and slowly moved towards independence from Columbia to manage her own career. Her star took a dip during the early 2000s, but she managed to regain career success after a few years, and has continued performing and recording. And her portfolio included a number of film roles, as well as a stint as a headline show in Las Vegas. She produced her 15th studio album in 2018.

Answer: United States

Born October 1st, 1961, Mark McGwire hails from Pomona, California. He grew up as a sports enthusiast, playing golf and basketball in addition to baseball. But it was with baseball that McGwire chose his sporting career, and he was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in 1984.

McGwire finally got his start with the team in late 1986, with his first full season as a rookie coming in 1987, and he managed to break the rookie home run record (previously 38), finishing with 49. His record would stand until 2017.

His skill with getting home runs became a highlight for baseball fans in the 1990s, and by the time McGwire was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1997, he had set the home run franchise record with the Athletics at 363. But in his first year with the Cardinals, the baseball world was abuzz with the single season home run record breaking race between McGwire and Sammy Sosa, which McGwire won, surpassing Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs, reaching 70 (Sosa got 66). But Barry Bonds would break McGwire's record in 2001, reaching 73.

That 1998 record-breaking season resulted in McGwire being awarded the inaugural 'Babe Ruth Home Run Award' for the player who gets the most home runs in a season. After the 2001 season, McGwire retired, having amassed a total of 583 home runs along with an impressive set of other statistics.

Answer: England

Emma Thompson was born in London, England on April 15th, 1959. With an actress for a mother and a writer for a father, Thompson felt it was inevitable that she would become an actress, and her talents certainly supported her career choice. While at Cambridge, she joined the famous 'Footlights' theatrical club; the first woman to do so since the club's founding in 1883.

Thompson's professional acting career began in 1982, and in she had a number of breakthroughs by the end of the decade that vaulted her into the limelight, but it was in the 1990s that she hit the heights of her young career, achieving critical acclaim for her role in 1992's "Howard's End", for which she won her first Oscar (for Best Actress). Her second Oscar came with 1995's "Sense and Sensibility", for which she wrote the screenplay (Best Adapted Screenplay).

In 2018, Thompson was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to (British) drama.

Answer: England

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (AKA George Michael) was born in East Finchley (North London), England on June 25th, 1963. As a teen, he met his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley, and they would form their duo in 1981, achieving fame through the early 1980s.

George Michael embarked on his solo career in 1987, and came into his own in the 1990s and beyond. Sadly, he passed away in 2016, but he certainly left behind a musical legacy. Amongst his career accolades, he received 56 award nominations, winning 19, including two Grammys. He was a great philanthropist, supporting many charities (mostly anonymously), and (coming out as gay in 1998) also a LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS fundraiser.

Answer: England

Lennox Lewis was born on September 2nd, 1966 in West Ham (London), England, and moved to Canada (Kitchener, ON) at the age of 12. In his amateur boxing career, he represented Canada at the Olympics in 1984 and 1988 and at various other international competitions. Over his amateur career, he amassed a record of 85-9 before returning to the U.K. to make the transition to professional boxing in 1989. He competed professionally until 2003, earning boxing championship titles at European, British, and Commonwealth levels before earning the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title for the first time in 1992.

By the time Lewis retired in 2004, his professional record was 41 wins, two losses and one draw. 32 of those wins were by knockout.

Answer: Australia

Heath Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia on April 4th, 1979. After becoming involved in theatre productions as a child in school, Ledger made the effort to graduate early from high school (at 16), to pursue an acting career. Outside of a small part in a locally-shot movie (1992's "Clowning Around") while still in school, he began acting in television in the mid-1990s, and made the move to feature-length films in 1997, with his breakthrough role in 1999's "10 Things I Hate About You".

Ledger came out of the 1990s as a hot Hollywood commodity, and soon was in demand for big budget films like "The Patriot" (2000), "Monster's Ball" (2001), and "A Knight's Tale" (2001), to name a few. Tragically, Heath Ledger's life was cut short in his prime, as he died in 2008 of an accidental overdose of a mixture of prescription drugs. Posthumously, Ledger won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight" (2008).

Answer: Australia

Born on May 28th, 1968 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Kylie Minogue began her entertainment career as a child actor, taking a role in the soap opera "The Sullivans" at the age of 10, and as an older teen she received acclaim for her role as Charlene Mitchell in "Neighbours". But around the time that she was acting on "Neighbours", she was also developing her first album as a solo singer.

Vaulting from her popularity in the soap opera, her debut single "The Locomotion" was a terrific hit in 1987, and her debut album "Kylie" was released the following year, eventually becoming the best-selling album of the 1980s (according to the UK Albums Chart).

Minogue's music through the 1990s developed a different, more mature style as she became an established superstar. Her career has continued, virtually non-stop, and she released her 15th studio album in 2020, and has been nominated for more than 300 awards (winning more than 200 of them).

Answer: Australia

Cathy Freeman was born in Mackay, Queensland, Australia on February 16th, 1973. Her athletic skills were noted when she was still quite young, and she was able to receive professional training already at the age of 14. At the age of 16, she represented Australia at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand as part of the 4x100 m relay team. The team won gold, and Freeman became the first Aboriginal Australian gold medalist.

Opportunities for international competition continued for Freeman, but her breakthrough came in 1994 when she won gold in both the 100 and 200 m events at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, BC, Canada. She competed at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, but only managed a silver in the 400 m event before redeeming herself at the World Championships the following year in Athens, taking home the gold.

At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Freeman had the honour of lighting the Olympic Flame, and carried the honour of her home country, winning gold in the 400 m event.