Girl Interrupted At Her Music Trivia Quiz

Answer: Karen Carpenter

Karen Carpenter (1950-1983) sang "We've Only Just Begun", and "Rainy Days and Mondays", with a total of 17 top 20 hits alongside her brother Richard. She was named Best New Artist at the 1970 Grammy Awards. She was a gifted drummer, beating Led Zeppelin's John Bonham in a "best rock drummer" poll of 1975. She considered herself "a drummer who sings", but as women drummers were rare in those times, she was discouraged from drumming. By late 1982 she seemed to have successfully treated her lifelong disorder anorexia nervosa, and was divorcing her abusive husband.

But in February of 1983, her weakened heart suddenly gave out. She has 10 gold singles, nine gold albums and three Grammy awards. She's a "Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Singers of All Time", interrupted at age thirty-two.

Answer: Cass Elliot

Ellen Naomi Cohen (1941-1974) "Mama Cass" sang the hits, "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'" with the Mamas and the Papas (65-71), going solo as Cass Elliot in her show, "Don't Call Me Mama Anymore" in 1973. In April 1974 she collapsed, was released from hospital and went on to London for a series of sold-out cabaret concerts. Soon after arrival she died in her sleep of heart failure, age 32, her music forever interrupted. Cass died in Flat 12, the same room where Keith Moon of The Who would die four years later, also age 32.

A rumor circulated that Cass choked to death on a sandwich--a Frank Zappa song and several others make joking reference to it and her weight--but that is false, and the kind of "fat" prejudice that caused the obese Cass great heartache, and some important gigs. David Crosby later wrote that he and Cass did illegal drugs together many times, including heroin, and she went on some horrific crash diets which may have damaged her heart as well. Yet Cass always retained her profound voice and famous sense of humor. The Mamas and the Papas were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. They released 5 albums and 17 singles, six in the top ten. Cass had one daughter.

Answer: Amy Winehouse

Amy Jade Winehouse (1983-2011) started vocal and dance training at age 9, writing her own music at fifteen. She released her debut album in 2003 at age 20, achieving platinum sales. Winehouse skyrocketed to fame singing R&B, jazz, and soul, wearing a girl-group beehive hairdo, thick brows and bright lipstick, for which she was much criticized and beloved. She won the 2007 Brit Award for Best Female Artist, and Best Contemporary Song for both "Stronger Than Me" (2007) and "Rehab" (2008). She was the first British woman to win five Grammys (2008).

Her last recording was a duet with Tony Bennett, "Body and Soul" which won a Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2012. For a time "Back to Black" was the best-selling album in the UK in the entire 21st century.

Winehouse was known for her generous contribution to charities, and her genius in clothing fashion. But in late 2007 she was booed off stage for a stumbling, drunken performance. This was repeated many times in following years despite attempts at treatment. She had problems with violence, depression, an eating disorder and self-harm. She was able to stop using illegal drugs in 2008, but by then heavy smoking and drug abuse had damaged her lungs. She died of alcohol poisoning on July 23, 2011. A bodyguard tried to rouse her at 10 a.m. and being unsuccessful, checked back at 3 p.m., when he called an ambulance. At just 27 this magnificent voice went silent.

A 2015 documentary depicting her fragility, talent and trouble with stardom premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, winning several awards. Lady Gaga, Duffy, Bruno Mars, Adele and many others credit Winehouse for their success.

Answer: Judy Garland

Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm (1922-1969) in Minnesota, died at 47 in London of a barbiturates overdose. She'd been a "triple threat" for decades, singing, dancing and acting from 1924 to 1969. She's immortalized for her iconic 1938 role as Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz", singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for which she received the rare Academy Juvenile Award, her only Oscar.

Judy debuted at age two, singing "Jingle Bells" with her sisters at her father's movie theater. Age 13 Judy signed with MGM, a "short ugly duckling" among the glamorous beauties of the day, one director told her. In 1957 they paired her with Mickey Rooney, with whom she did several films. Garland said the actors were regularly prescribed amphetamines to keep them awake, and barbiturates so they could sleep, with extreme diets and tobacco to keep them slim. Rooney however denied it. An unfinished autobiography by Garland claimed that Louis B. Mayer of MGM, and others in authority, repeatedly sexually groped and propositioned her as a teen and young lady.

Garland starred in 35 films, falling in and out of love and marriage with men such as Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, and Tyrone Power. She said she was forced to abort two pregnancies. She had a nervous breakdown in 1947 and attempted suicide, at the same time her top-grossing film "Easter Parade" with Fred Astaire thrilled MGM. They paired her with Astaire again, but she had a drinking problem by then, and morphine, and migraine headaches, so Garland was replaced with Ginger Rogers and given a time out.

Garland had great success with treatment, but once she was back on the MGM stage she began to use pills again and showed up late, if at all. In 1950 she and MGM parted ways. Her reputation sullied, friend Bing Crosby invited her to his radio show, telling the listeners that the nervous Judy "needs our love". That transformed audience reception and her career, and soon she toured to sellout crowds. But filming "A Star is Born" Judy fell into old ways, feeling ill, failing to show up. Once again she made a grand comeback, bringing down the house at Carnegie Hall in 1961, winning multiple awards for the album, and creating her own television gig, "The Judy Garland Show".

Despite her many personal, career and financial struggles, this incredible talent won much recognition, among them a Golden Globe, Special Tony Award, and Grammy Award for Album of the Year--the first woman to win in this category. Several of her recordings made the Grammy Hall of Fame. The American Film Institute lists her among the 10 greatest female stars in classic American cinema. She had three children, each performing alongside their shattered yet mighty mother.

Answer: Patsy Cline

Honky-tonk, rockabilly, country, pop, gospel...Patsy Cline (1932-1963) could sing it all. Yet she earned just 2.34 percent on a two-year recording contract with Four Star Records, and her first major hit wasn't until 1957 with "Walkin' After Midnight", followed by a night spent sleeping in a Nashville park while she waited to audition for the Grand Ole Opry. For some years Cline struggled to find her own style, and a chance at fair, lucrative promotion.

In January 1961 she did "I Fall to Pieces" which seemed a bust until August when it topped the country chart, then crossed over and made the "Billboard Pop" chart as well. But just as the song gained fame, Cline and her brother were hit head-on by another car, damaging Cline's face, dislocating a hip and breaking her wrist. Cline wasn't expected to live. Her husband said she told him that Jesus came to her hospital bed, saying there was more for her to do so she would live. Though she suffered with headaches, pain and facial scars for the rest of her life, she was back at work just weeks after leaving the hospital.

Willie Nelson's "Crazy", she initially hated and refused to record. It became her biggest pop hit in late 1961. Her producer said her voice was "an instrument of... glory". But the New York Times called the entire Nashville crowd "hillbillies". True, in the early years Cline often wore cowgirl outfits made by her mother. But Roy and Dale Rogers, Gene Autry and Hank Williams, even Elton John and John Lennon all dressed like cowboys. In any case, a clever female TV producer put Cline into a cocktail dress one day, transforming her image.

In March of 1963 Cline did a benefit in Kansas and was delayed going home due to heavy fog. Her close friend singer Dottie West asked her to ride back to Nashville in the car, but Cline joked if it was her "time to go" then so be it. She got on a Piper PA-24 Comanche aircraft, 90 miles from home, never to arrive. Her music abruptly interrupted, she was 30 years old.

In a weird twist of fate perhaps, Dottie West got home safely that night, but died of a car crash near Opryland in 1991.

Patsy Cline's music made the charts in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Due in part to her close friendships with other famous stars, the emotional expressiveness in her "bold" and "velvety" voice, feisty personality, and an unusual crossover from country to pop, there are many films, documentaries, plays and musicals about her short life. In 2013 The Washington Post wrote, "She didn't open doors; she kicked them down".

Answer: Billie's

Billie Holiday (1915-1959) blew away the jazz and pop scene with her innovative technique and improvised style. "Lady Day" was born in Pennsylvania and started singing in Harlem and New York City nightclubs as a teen, later selling out Carnegie Hall many times, and taking four Grammy Awards after her death. Yet she had only $1,000 when she died, with most of her work out of print. Still her profound legacy would one day make it into the Down Beat, Jazz, Rock and Roll AND Grammy Halls of Fame.

Holiday's beginnings were hard knocks. She was a victim of sexual trafficking when she was 13, and imprisoned for it. She struggled all her life with drug and alcohol addiction. She sang with Count Basie for a time but was fired for being "temperamental". She said it was low pay and bad working conditions. Artie Shaw hired her on with his all-white orchestra just a month later, where she toured the segregated US, encountering racist denigration and harassment, yet she also found a broad radio audience. Holiday skillfully arranged her performance of "Strange Fruit" (based on an eerie poem about lynching by Abel Meeropol) to spellbind a live audience. It became a best-seller in the 1930s. "I Cover the Waterfront" and "Embraceable You" are other favorites. "God Bless the Child" is among Lady Day greats in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Holiday attempted to move into film but in her first, "New Orleans" (1946), the efforts of both she and Louis Armstrong were deleted or watered down due to the racism so prevalent at the time. She died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 44.

Answer: Janis Joplin

It's tough to find words to express the dynamic, astounding, exhilarating energy and passionate voice of legend Janis Joplin, called a "complete and daring original" in a Hall of Fame essay (Myra Friedman). Joplin grew up in Texas in the 1940s, a bullied and unpopular child. In high school she sang blues and folk, in college she joined a folk trio. By 1963 she was in California, a hard drug user and drunk. In 1965 at just 88 lbs (40 kg) she quit drugs, went back to college in Texas, wore her hair in a beehive and began to sing solo and record studio tracks. She became engaged to be married, that broke off, and she went to counseling. There she confronted her fear she would not perform well sober.

Chet Helms recruited Joplin back to California in 1966, where she rose to fame at the 1967 Monterey pop festival with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Her star seemed on fire. By 1968 they played with Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Elvin Bishop, Chicago, and Santana, and Joplin did her first nationwide TV appearance. Newspapers called her "staggering" and "magic". But in 1969 she was back on the needle, and hard. In August, 1969 at Woodstock Janis performed stumbling drug and stoned. Singing with Tina Turner in New York City that year Janis was again slurry and stoned. In early 1970 Joplin went to Brazil where she again got off drugs and fell in love. But, when she came back to the USA she picked up heroin once more. Some say because of her close friends who were users. In 1971 she made top of the charts with "Me and Bobby McGee".

Then this shooting star with the "electric" stage presence was suddenly and permanently interrupted. In October, 1970, 16 days after Jimi Hendrix died at age 27, Joplin became a member of the 27 Club, dead of a heroin overdose, alone in a hotel, waiting for her fiance and a friend who never showed. The wildly talented Joplin left the world with four albums, her psychedelic Porsche, and a piece of her heart. She's one of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Answer: Selena

Selena Quintanilla-Perez (1971-1995) could do it all--model, sing, act, compose songs and design gorgeous fashion. Called the "Queen of Tejano", roughly a Latin/Texas mix of country, R&B and Mexican folk, this Texas girl become one of the most influential Latin artists ever.

She started in a band with her sisters at ten. There were attempts to block her from working in "Tejano" venues, an all-male genre at the time. But she won the Tejano Music Award for "Female Vocalist of the Year" nine times, and held #1 on the charts for months on end. Selena strove to maintain a 'clean' image, saying she wanted to be a good model for kids. Some felt she was overly sexy, often compared to Madonna or Janet Jackson, but Selena said she was changing the public mindset about beauty--that curves are in. Selena was active in community service and charity funding. She was the first Latin Artist to debut an album at #1 on the Billboard 200 (1995 with "Dreaming of You")--but Selena was gone, her music interrupted, by then.

On March 31, 1995 Selena's friend and boutique manager Yolanda Saldivar took a gun from her purse and shot Selena, who died later that day, age 23. Yolanda had embezzled over $30,000 from the fan club and Selena's boutiques. Up to 40,000 attended the public viewing and vigil. An arrest warrant was issued to Howard Stern for disorderly conduct after he mocked her music and her death on air. Then governor of Texas George W. Bush declared April 16 "Selena Day". This caused another outburst because April 16th fell on Easter. Yet Selena's albums broke sales records, she remains an icon decades later, and "Dreaming of You" was the best-selling Latin album of all time in 2017. She is inducted into several music Halls of Fame, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her life has been portrayed in film, concert and theater, as well as a 2020 television series, and a 2019 "Selena" clothing line. She left us five studio albums (1989-1995) and a global legacy.

Answer: Aaliyah

Aaliyah Dana Haughton (1979-2001), known simply as Aaliyah (Uh-LEE-a), was an R&B, hip hop and pop singer born in Brooklyn. She moved to Detroit at five, studied dance there and appeared on "Star Search" at ten. At 14 she released her first album, produced by husband R. Kelly (1994-1995), though that illegal marriage was annulled by her parents, a scandal that made it hard for Aaliyah to find a new producer. Their "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" sold 3 million copies and made Aaliyah a star, but apparently she terminated all contact with Kelly.

No matter. In 1996 with producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott, a second album "One in a Million" sold 8 million copies worldwide. Aaliyah branched into modeling, and made her acting debut in "Romeo Must Die" (2000) where her song "Try Again" won a Grammy Award. She told Vibe magazine she lived to perform, and was a "really happy girl....fulfilled and complete". She was called professional, moral, and well-spoken, "influential and innovative", while also a sex symbol. She wrote none of her own music, but brought to it lyrics and a unique vocal style that changed the world of music.

Aaliyah released a third album in 2001, which reviewed well but sales were declining. To boost sales her record labels sent her to the Bahamas to film a music video of her single, "Rock the Boat". Then this girl's music was forever interrupted. The evening of August 25, 2001 the overloaded plane she got in crashed soon after takeoff, killing all eight on board. Aaliyah was carried to her grave in a horse-drawn, glass hearse. Posthumous releases and sales exceeded 25 million albums. In 2018 she was listed in the Billboard "Top 60 Female Artists of All-Time".

Answer: Whitney Houston

Elizabeth Houston known as Whitney Houston (1963-2012) signed her first contract at age 19 and reached #1 on the charts with her first two studio records. In all Whitney achieved seven consecutive #1 singles, she was a "best-selling music artist of all time", she sold 200 million records worldwide, and she made "I Will Always Love You" a soaring success in "The Bodyguard", her 1992 acting debut. That soundtrack was Record of the Year and Album of the Year, while the single spent 14 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over 29 million worldwide. It is one of the best-selling songs of all time. Of note, Dolly Parton's original version did make #1 on the charts, twice. It's just a fantastic song. But Whitney made it hers.

At age 11 Whitney did her first solo. She was a backup singer at 14, then a successful teen fashion model. She signed a worldwide recording contract in 1983 at just twenty-one. Her debut album ""Whitney Houston" sold 25 million copies. She was an established international star by 1986, opening a path for other African-American women singers, and her star just kept on rising from there.

She spent much of the 1990s as an actress. She was also active against apartheid, for needy children and in support of Gulf War veterans. She married singer Bobby Brown in 1992, and many mark the onset of her drinking and drug abuse there. Around 1999 Whitney's problems began to take a big toll on her fame. She was repeatedly late, cancelled and acted strange. She lost a great deal of weight, and both her voice and her attitude faltered. In 2002 she admitted to Diane Sawyer in interview that she was abusing drugs and alcohol, and that there was violence in the marriage. In late 2003 Bobby Brown was charged with battery. Whitney went on a world tour in 2004. They filed for divorce in 2006. Whitney told Oprah in 2009 she had done drugs everyday with Bobby, and had been to rehabilitation. A 2010 "comeback" world tour did not go well. In 2011 she entered rehab again, and then, her song was forever interrupted.

She was found unconscious in a hotel bathtub on 11 February, 2012, not long before the pre-Grammy party she was slated to attend. She was 48. Her death was "accidental" due to heart disease and cocaine use. At the Grammy's the next day Jennifer Hudson honored Whitney, and other singers who had recently passed, by singing, "I Will Always Love You". Whitney is known as "The Voice" because of her phenomenal, dramatic vocal talent. When it comes to Houston, "Didn't (she) Almost Have It All"?