Mixed Celebrities Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

Just as Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" and Shakespeare's Macbeth never said "Lead on, MacDuff", Will Shatner never spoke the words "Beam me up, Scotty" either. Born in 1931, Shatner has had one amazing career. Actor, author, producer, director, musician - there's just no end to the skills of this very talented man. Not once but four times he has headed successful television shows. These include the very successful series "Star Trek" (1966-1969) and its spin-off movies, where he, in his role of Captain James T. Kirk, has taken us all on many breathless adventures in space. His other three shows were as the police sergeant T.J. Hooker, in the series of the same name (1982-1986), hosting the reality series "Rescue 911" (1989-1996), and as the simply hilarious solicitor Denny Crane in the series "The Practice" (1997-2004) and again in "Boston Legal" (2004-2008).

Created by Gene Roddenberry, "Star Trek", the original series, made its first appearance on our screens and ran for three seasons. It took us all on a trip to the stars, to many different planets and new worlds. It was exciting, adventurous and pure enjoyable escapism. Since that time, it has spawned many separate television series, based around this same theme. These are "Star Trek: An Animated Series" (1973-74), "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987-94), "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993-99), "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995-2001) and "Star Trek: Enterprise" (2001-05).

Answer: He hated her and had done so since he was a child.

This was discussed in two separate interviews in 1984 and 1987 which appeared in "Time Magazine". After his father abandoned his mother in 1940, when Sondheim was aged ten, she treated the child to years of emotional coldness and psychological and physical cruelty. She even informed him, in a letter when he was older and she about to face heart surgery, that her only regret in life was giving birth to him. This tragic upbringing led the child to turn to a deep and abiding love for music instead. Sondheim has given the world the music and lyrics for works such as "Follies" which opened in 1971, "A little Night Music" (1973), "Sweeney Todd" (1979), "Sunday in the Park with George" (1984) and "Into the Woods" (1987). He also collaborated with other great composers, such as Leonard Bernstein, by writing the lyrics for the 1957 opening of the powerful musical "West Side Story", based on Shakespeare's work "Romeo and Juliet".

Yet Sondheim, the man, continues to be a solitary and introverted figure, with an inability to express his emotions in anything but his music. He once wrote to a fellow composer, Mary Rodgers, thanking her for a gift of a plate, but enquiring why his mother's head wasn't on it. It wouldn't be until he was in his mid-sixties, and after half a century of analysis, that he was able to conquer his childhood demons and announce he was finally at peace with his life.

Answer: Yes

Born in New York City in 1940, Rene is a noted actor in theatre, television and film. His film appearances include his role as Father Mulcahy in the movie version of "M.A.S.H" (1970), which details the lives of medical personnel during the Korean War. He is noted for his two long-term television roles as the solicitor Paul Lewiston in the popular law series "Boston Legal" (2004-2008) and as the changeling Odo in the engrossing Star Trek series "Deep Space Nine" (1993-1999) in which he plays the officer in charge of station security. His theatre career, among other appearances, has included many fine presentations of Shakespeare's works. Auberjonois is also noted for his voiceover work in several video games, talking books, and on radio. He's been an extremely busy changeling all up.

Rene's family blood lines read like those of a thoroughbred racehorse. His father is the Swiss Pulitzer Prize winning author, Fernand Auberjonois. His grandfather, after whom he is named, was a post-Impressionist of some note. His mother was a royal princess and a descendant of one of Napoleon's loyal supporters. He also descends, on his maternal side, from Emperor Napoleon himself. This line includes a Russian noblewoman as well, and several other connections to either inherited or awarded royal ranks in Europe.

Answer: Baby

Audie Murphy (1925-1971) was complicated. There can be no other word to describe this enigmatic man. One of twelve children, he was born to a woman who desperately fought to keep her family together after she was abandoned by her husband. She died when he was sixteen and he mourned her for the rest of his life. He dropped out of school in fifth grade to pick cotton in order to help feed the family. During this time he became very skilled with a rifle as well, as he shot game to help augment the family's food supplies. As soon as he could after the war was over, he bought a large home for his brothers and sisters in an attempt to keep the family together. That sense of family and trying to find his lost childhood stayed with him always.

On enlisting in the army following the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, Audie's astonishing array of subsequently earned medals included the Medal of Honour, Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts, Legion of Merit, two Presidential Unit Citations, French Legion of Honour, three French Croix de Guerre, and two Belgian Croix de Guerre. That's amazing. Yet this was a man who hated to see the look of fear in a soldier's eyes. He suffered from malaria, rose to the ranks of First Lieutenant and Major, struggled terribly with post-traumatic stress disorder, overcame his addiction to sleeping pills as a result of this disorder, through sheer willpower, and made forty-four films after the war. These included his autobiographical film "To Hell and Back" (1955) which was based on his memoirs and in which he starred as himself. Yet this fine man died bankrupt as a result of his gambling addiction, having wasted more than three million dollars in his futile attempts to keep winning and beating the odds. Given the nickname Baby by his fellow soldiers because of his youthful appearance, and the fact that he lied about his age when he enlisted, Audie Murphy was killed in a private plane crash in 1971. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Poor boy.

Answer: Malcolm McDowell

"A Clockwork Orange", based on a short story by writer Anthony Burgess, is a disturbing, violence filled film about a futuristic Britain. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but is considered by others to be a classic. Malcolm McDowell, born in 1943, is an English actor of some note. His specialty appears to be villainous roles, and these he plays to perfection. Alexander is his sister's son. Alexander, who was born in the Sudan in 1965, but grew up in England, was endowed with the lengthy name of Siddig El Tahir El Fadi El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Karim El Mahdi by his Sudanese father. Fortunately for the credits in movies and television shows in which he has appeared, the young man changed his name to Alexander Siddig when he entered his acting career.

Alexander, known as Sid to his friends, is most noted for his role as the charming, somewhat naive, would-be lady killer in the hit television series "Deep Space Nine" (1993-1999) in which he plays the space station's medical officer. Since then, because of his striking looks, Alexander has played various roles in both movies and on television, in which he usually specialises as a villainous character. He can do foreign accents to perfection. These include upper class English, Cockney English, Algerian, Arabian, and French. His uncle on his father's side was Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.

Answer: Paul Anka

Born in Canada in 1941, Paul Anka became an American citizen in 1990, after a long career as a popular entertainer in the fields of singing, songwriting and part time acting. His was the pen that gave us one of the biggest hits from singer Tom Jones, "She's a Lady" (1971) and Frank Sinatra's signature hit number "My Way" (1969). He married Anne de Zogheb, the daughter of a diplomat, in 1963, and together the couple had five daughters. Their fourth daughter, Amanda, married actor Jason Bateman in 2001.

Jason Bateman was born in New York in 1969. He first began to be noticed as an actor of worth with his appearances in different television series, such as his role as Michael Bluth in "Arrested Development" (2003-2006) in which he plays the straight man, trying to keep his extremely dysfunctional family together. Jason's film roles include "The Break-up" (2006) in which he plays the realtor torn between a fighting couple in the process of their break-up, and in "Couples Retreat" playing one of the four couples undergoing therapy counselling at a tropical resort. Jason's sister is Justine Bateman, the ditzy character we grew to love in the sitcom "Family Ties" which ran from 1982 until 1989.

Answer: It's hard to look cool in a green windbreaker.

"Happy Days" was a very popular sitcom that ran from 1974 until 1984. Its basic plot revolved around the lives of a group of people from the 1950s. Henry Winkler, who was only introduced as a minor character initially, soon rose to become one of the show's leading stars. He played a biker who also ran an auto mechanic's shop, and his character was a combination of toughness, Mr Cool, and a hidden vulnerability. The ABC executives didn't like him dressed in a leather jacket because they feared it would give the show an image of criminality. Producer Gary Marshall had to argue long and hard to let that leather jacket be allowed, and eventually a compromise was reached, where Fonzie would always be seen in his leather jacket when on his bike. Somewhere along the line though, he managed to wear that jacket in a lot more scenes than that.

Born in New York City in 1945, Henry didn't have the happiest of childhoods. For years he struggled with dyslexia at a time when little was known about the condition. This led to a bad relationship with his father who often referred to Henry as a dumb dog and punished the boy for his poor school results. Yet he rose above all that to earn his MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 1970 and a Doctor of Humane Letters some years later. Today he is a well respected producer, actor, writer and director.

Answer: "That's like trying to compare apples and oranges."

Cyd Charisse (1922-2008) was born in Texas. After a childhood bout with poliomyelitis which left her frail and weak, her parents enlisted her in ballet school to build up her muscular strength again. By the time she was fourteen, her skill at this form of dance was so great that she was dancing with the top name company, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. From there she began her steady rise up the dance ladder of stardom, finally appearing in such film classics as "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) and "Brigadoon" (1954) opposite Gene Kelly, and "The Band Wagon" (1953) and "Silk Stockings" (1957) opposite Fred Astaire, all of which were musicals built around successfully concluding love stories. Fred Astaire in particular was taken with her enormous talent, stating in his book "Steps in Time" (1959) that she was "beautiful dynamite" and that when anyone danced with her, "you stayed danced with".

Of those two great dancing partners, Cyd Charisse stated in her autobiography "The Two of Us" (1976) that Kelly was the more inventive of the two choreographers but that Astaire's sense of rhythm and coordination was uncanny. She went on to say, "I'd say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on screen. But it's like comparing apples and oranges. They're both delicious."

Answer: "Francis was getting more fan mail than I was."

Actor Donald O'Connor (1925-2003) who appeared opposite Francis in all seven movies, played the role of the bumbling hero, Peter Stirling. Peter is helped along, and hindered in as many ways by Francis, in various situations in civilian and army life. The movies were made between 1949 and 1955. He decided to give away making these films because he was finding his contractual commitment to the same interfered with his accepting other, juicier Hollywood roles. The top ranking of these roles he missed out on would have been his appearance opposite Bing Crosby in the 1954 classic "White Christmas". Hilariously so, O'Connor couldn't make it that year because he'd contacted an illness from Francis. Apart from the series of Francis movies, he is noted for his roles in other films, such as his starring role alongside Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly in the classic "Singin' In The Rain" (1952). This is a wonderful musical depicting life in Hollywood during the days it moved from making silent movies to talkies - and of course with a love story or two included in the tale as well.

Known to many filmgoers as Francis the Talking Donkey, Francis was actually a mule and, just to prove you should never really believe anything you see on the big screen, Francis was actually a Frances, with the real name of Molly. Les Hilton, who was a former assistant to the great cowboy, vaudeville performer, actor and comedian Will Rogers (1879-1935), also trained Bamboo Harvest, aka Mr Ed, the talking horse featured in the television series of the same name (1961-66). To make it seem as though Francis is talking in the seven movies built around this comical character, Hilton put a piece of thread in Molly's mouth, and as her lips moved as she tried to dislodge it, this action was filmed and words accordingly added. Mr Ed, on the other hand, had peanut butter smeared on his teeth to achieve the same effect. All the movies based around Francis basically involved the wise, and extremely comical, but just a little bit sardonic mule, saving the bumbling but lovable blockhead, Peter, from the many pickles in which he found himself.

Answer: She was almost six foot tall.

Born in 1963, the lovely Terry rose to fame in two separate television series. These were her role as science officer Jadzia Dax in "Deep Space Nine" (1993-1999) and the unlucky-in-love coffee diner shop owner Regina Kostas in "Becker" (1998-2004). Another interesting fact about Terry is that, owing to her fine performance in the first series of the two, she subsequently had an asteroid named after her by its discoverer.

This is asteroid 26734 Terryfarrell which was discovered in 2001. Now that really is a tribute. Jadzia Dax would be suitably impressed.