John Trivia Quiz

Answer: John Boorman

Boorman was born in 1933 in Surrey. His first movie, "Catch Us If You Can" (1965), described a tour by the pop group Dave Clark Five. Boorman ventured into fiction with "Point Blank" (1967), a gangster movie starring Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. The adventure movie "Deliverance" (1972), set against the forces of nature in the Appalachian Mountains, scored three Oscar nominations. The historic movie "Hope and Glory" (1987), telling the story of a young boy growing up during the London Blitz, was nominated five times. "The Tailor of Panama" (2001) was an espionage movie. Boorman also explored sci-fi ("Zardoz", 1973) and the Arthurian myth ("Excalibur", 1981).

John Cassavetes (1929-1989) was an American actor and director. He starred in "The Dirty Dozen" (1967)and "Rosemary's Baby" (1968).

Several people with the name John Moore have been active in the movie industry. I've picked an Irish director whose first full-length movie was "Behind Enemy Lines" (2001).

John Collins is another very common name in the movie industry. Let's mention here the actor who interpreted the role of Flying Officer Fairfax in the TV series "Allo Allo".

Answer: John Denver

John Denver is the artistic name of Henry John Deutschendorf. He was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1943. His song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" was first recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1969. John Denver soon covered it and included the song on his album "Rhyme and Reason". Later hits for John Denver included "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (1971) and "Annie's Song" (1974).
John Denver spent a lot of time piloting various aircraft. In October 1997, he decided to try out an experimental aircraft, but this ended in a catastrophe: his plane crashed into the ocean, presumably while he was reaching for a badly placed fuel selector valve.

Elton John (born Reginald Dwight, 1947) is an English singer-songwriter, well known for his song "Candle in the Wind".

John Fogerty (born 1945) started his career as singer and guitar player in the band The Golliwogs. After five years with Creedence Clearwater Revival, he started a solo career in 1972.

John Steel (born 1941) was the original drummer in the British band The Animals.

Answer: Blake Carrington

John Forsythe (1918-2010) was born as Jacob Lincoln Freund. He starred in a few movies, but is best known from a number of TV series. From 1957 until 1961, Forsythe was the leading actor in the TV series "Bachelor Father". He also had an off-screen role in "Charlie's Angels" from 1976 until 1981, but his main success was the role of Blake Carrington in the series "Dynasty" (1981-1990). In this role he tries to lead an oil firm, while his ex-wife Alexis Colby (played by Joan Collins) is his main competitor.

Jock Ewing is the father of JR in the TV series "Dallas". Jim Davis (1909-1981) played this role.

Paul Robinson is the main character in the Australian TV series "Neighbours". This character is played by Stefan Dennis.

Ken Barlow is the protagonist in the English soap series "Coronation Street". William Roache (born 1932) plays this role for over 50 years.

Answer: John Frankenheimer

Frankenheimer was born in New York in 1930. After having directed several TV programmes, he took up a career in movie directing. "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) tells us the story of an inmate at Alcatraz taking up ornithology. The prison setting does not imply an escape attempt. "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) is a movie about a plot to manipulate the most popular candidate for the US Presidency. "Ronin" (1998) is another political thriller, this time with secret agents double crossing each other.

As for the other options: John Keats (1795-1821) was an English poet, John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was an American novelist and John Galliano (born 1960) is a British fashion designer.

Answer: John Huston

John Huston (1906-1987) is the man we're looking for. He started his career as a director with the famous mystery movie "The Maltese Falcon" (1941).
John Huston directed his father in the western "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) and they both won an Oscar. John also won an Oscar for the script to this movie.

"The African Queen" (1951), starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, was another of Huston's major movies. He was nominated for the Oscar as Best Director and for Best Script.

John Huston's penultimate movie, the gangster movie "Prizzi's Honor" (1985), gave him another Oscar nomination as Best Director. The only Oscar win for this movie went to John's daughter Anjelica Huston.

John Ford (1894-1973) was another American movie director. Ford's greatest successes were "Stagecoach" (1937), "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962).

John Major (born 1943) is a British politician. He was Prime Minister from 1990 until 1997.

John Barrymore is the name of several American actors: John Barrymore senior (1882-1942), his son John Drew Barrymore (1932-2004) and his grandson John Blyth Barrymore III (born 1954).

Answer: John Lennon

John Lennon was born in Liverpool in 1940. He started his musical career in The Quarrymen, a group soon joined by Paul McCartney. Together with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, John and Paul formed the band The Beatles, and they scored many number one hits from 1962 until 1970. I'll refrain from mentioning one, for the list is too long to go and cherry pick. After The Beatles split in 1970, John continued a solo career . He and his wife Yoko Ono were also regularly demonstrating for world peace. On December 8th, 1980, John was shot four times in the back by a deranged fan.

Augustus John (1878-1961) was a Welsh painter and etcher.

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) was an American politician. His highest office was Secretary of State.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) was the 35th US President.

Answer: John Thaw

John Thaw (1942-2002) was born in a small town near Manchester, from humble parents. His first roles on TV were a detective constable in the series "Z-Cars" and a member of the military police in the series "Redcap".
From 1974 until 1978 Thaw played Detective Jack Regan in the series "The Sweeney". This was his breakthrough in the UK. Abroad, he gained fame with his role as "Inspector Morse" in the eponymous series (1987-2000), in which he plays a grumpy, classically educated Chief Inspector. From 1995 until 2001, he also played a lower-class lawyer rising up to the supreme QC status in the TV series "Kavanagh, QC".

Sir John Gielgud (1904-2000) was a famous British actor, famous for his leading roles in various Shakespeare plays on stage. One of his first remarkable movies was "Secret Agent" (1936), and he also played one of the leading roles in the TV series "Merlin" (1998).

John Higgins (born 1975) and John Parrott (born 1964) are renowned snooker players.

Answer: John Turturro

John Turturro (born 1957) majored in drama at the State University of New York. His first role was an extra in the movie "Raging Bull" (1980).
Turturro starred in "Miller's Crossing" (1990), "Barton Fink" (1991), "The Big Lebowski" (1998) and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000) by the Coen brothers. He was directed by Spike Lee in movies such as "Mo' Better Blues" (1990), "Jungle Fever" (1991), "Clockers" (1994) and "Miracle at St. Anna" (2008).

There have been a few people with the name John Solomon in the movie and TV industry. The one I thought of was the writer and one of the directors of the TV series "Saturday Night Live" (started in 2006).

John Candy (1950-1994) was a Canadian actor, best remembered for his comic roles in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987) and "Uncle Buck" (1989).

John Grisham (born 1955) is the author of a large number of legal thrillers, such as "The Firm" (1991) or "The Pelican Brief" (1992).

Answer: Marion Morrison

Marion Robert Morrison (1907-1979) started his movie career in 1926. The first movie for which he was given credit on the screen was "Words and Music" (1929) in which he still used his birth name. But this name didn't sound quite interesting enough to build a career upon, so director Raoul Walsh came up with the pseudonym "John Wayne", and with this alias he would star in many movies.
Some of the major movies in which John Wayne appeared were "Stagecoach" (1939), "The Quiet Man" (1952), "The Searchers" (1956) and "True Grit" (1969). His last movie was "The Shootist" (1976).

Robert Zimmerman (born 1941) is better known as Bob Dylan.

The David Jones (born 1947) mentioned here as a red herring, has adopted the pseudonym David Bowie.

Allen Konigsberg (born 1935) chose the alias Woody Allen for his movie career.

Answer: John Williams

John Williams was born in the state of New York in 1932. He started his movie career in the 1950s with, among others, the score for the B-movie "Daddy-O" (1958). His first Oscar nominations were for "Valley of the Dolls" (1967) and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1969). He won Oscars for "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971), "Jaws" (1975), "Star Wars" (1977), "E.T." (1982) and "Schindler's List" (1993).

"John Carter" is the title of a science fiction movie released in 2012. The movie tells us about a veteran trying to escape from an unknown planet.

John Travolta (born 1954) is an American actor known for his roles in "Grease" (1978) and "Pulp Fiction" (1994).

John Malkovich (born 1953) is an American actor. Some of the most famous movies he starred in are "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988) and "Con Air" (1997).