What Was My First Job? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Soap-lather girl in a barbershop

Swedish born Garbo (1905-1990) was one of Hollywood's most beautiful women to ever grace the screen. There was something about her face that drew the camera irresistibly, and her skin had a shimmering translucence to it that was astonishly lovely. The film for which she is best remembered, perhaps, is the 1936 production of "Camille".

In this movie she played a dying woman of great beauty who had been the mistress of a rich man, but who had fallen in love with another younger, more or less penniless fellow.

This great star, who remained as mysterious as any of her screen characters, indeed started out her working life as a soap-lather girl in a barbershop. It was there she met the son of a famous department store owner who gave her a job, firstly as a clerk and then as a model. From that she graduated to film and massive stardom.

In her early forties, tired of Hollywood and the artificiality of its life, she completely retired from the screen, and became a recluse in a secluded New York apartment.

She died there, unmarried and childless, at the age of 84.

Answer: Elevator operator

This job was in Chicago with the Marshall Field department store. Lamour earned a whole $17 a week there, as she zoomed patrons of the store up and down all day long. Born in 1914, she began her film career with Paramount Studios and first rose to fame in the 1936 movie "The Jungle Princess", in which she played a role equivalent to a female Tarzan. One hoped the sarong she had to wear during this film didn't come undone as she leapt through the trees.

It was that sarong, however, that was forever identified with her in many of her follow up roles, including those of the "Road" movies with Hope and Crosby. During World War II, she was one of the most popular pin-up girls with servicemen, and she was the major driving force in setting up the war bond tours, where stars travelled all over the country selling government bonds to the public to support the war effort. Lamour was also known for never letting stardom go to her head and was a byword among the film industry for her easy-going nature, humour, and lack of any pretension whatsoever.

She died in 1996, aged 81, from a heart attack.

Answer: As a stilt walker in a stage troupe

Somehow I just can't see the debonair Mr Grant hobbling around on a pair of stilts. He worked with the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe" at this job, and others for two years, after the company moved to America from Britain, where he was born. A fellow has to start somewhere I guess, "Judy, Judy, Judy".

The American Film Institute named Cary the second greatest star of all time, a great honour for him to be sure - except he's dead. His acting style was that of the virile and charming, upper class chap who almost always managed to get himself in a spot of bother with the ladies, and to be sure, he always carried it off with great aplomb.

In real life he was married five times and had another long term relationship. Some of his films included "Bringing Up Baby" in 1938 (a truly hilarious movie); "Arsenic and Old Lace" in 1944 (another hilarious classic); "An Affair to Remember" in 1957 (so romantic, sniff); and the 1958 "North by Northwest".

Answer: Ballet dancer with Sadler's Wells

One can imagine this graceful beauty in her first career as a ballet dancer, where she first began dancing professionally with Sadler's Wells in 1938, at the age of seventeen. By 1940, however, Deborah had moved from ballet into her first acting role in the film "Contraband", released that same year.

The always elegant, graceful and ladylike Deborah Kerr is probably best identified with two films during her long and successful career. The 1953 film "From Here to Eternity" was one, during which she played the role of an unhappily married woman having an affair.

In spite of the rather glorious scene where she and actor Burt Lancaster, caught up in the throes of passion, rolled around on the sand with the ocean washing over them, she still retained that special aura she alone possessed.

The second of her many famous films that deserves mention was her absolutely breathtaking performance in the 1956 musical "The King and I" with Yul Brynner playing opposite her. That role completely captured the very essence of Deborah Kerr's cool self-possessed beauty, elegance and style.

Answer: French speaking radio announcer

Everything about Yul Brynner was as fascinating as any of the characters he played so powerfully on the screen. Born in Russia in 1920 of Russian, Swiss, Mongol and Romani ancestry, the family was abandoned by his father when he was a child. His mother subsequently took the children to China where they attended a YMCA school there, before she relocated them all to Paris.

As a young man, Brynner worked as a radio announcer for the US Office of War. Because he could speak French, his work there consisted of broading propaganda to occupied France.

He then began acting and modelling, including posing for a nude photograph, the naughty man, before moving on to television acting and stage shows, and then into the world of film. His most famous role was that which won him an Academy Award, the King of Siam in the 1956 film, "The King and I", a role he played over 4,500 times in stage productions as well. Brynner was also a highly skilled photographer, author, musician and singer. Along the way he married four times and also had a long time affair with actress Marlene Dietrich. Sadly this fascinating man died in 1985 from lung cancer, caused by his lifelong addiction to cigarette smoking.

Answer: An ice cream shop

"Will that be with or without nuts...pilgrim?" From this chilly beginning as a teenager earning a little amount of extra cash in an ice cream shop, John Wayne won a football scholarship to university where he studied pre-law. An injury while bodysurfing in a wild ocean forced him out of the game of football however and, by default, from his studies.

While he was at university however, he had obtained a part time job in the props department at a local film studio. This was courtesy of silent film star Tom Mix who wanted tickets to see a football game, which Wayne obtained for him. Wayne's career in film began from that inauspicious beginning. Just as a matter of interest, Wayne actually met retired lawman Wyatt Earp in those early days. How amazing is that? Named in the American Film Institute's 1999 list of the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, Wayne was known for such films as the 1956 "The Searchers" and the 1969 production "True Grit" as well as many, many other roles.

Answer: In the coal mines

The poor little thing was only ten years old when he went into this work, following the early death of his father, earning $1 for every ton of coal mined. From here Bronson managed to graduate from high school as well, and then entered the military during World War II, winning a Purple Heart along the way. To a degree his later Hollywood career mirrored the tough and resilient nature of the man, and Bronson was known for the tough guy roles he played later in his film career.

These films included the excellent 1967 film "The Dirty Dozen" and the "Death Wish" series of films made between 1974 and 1994. Aged 81, this grand old actor and devoted family man died of pneumonia in 2003.

Answer: Shoe shine boy

The poor little urchin, from the time he did turn seven, had moved along from polishing shoes on street corners for anyone who would pay him, to working full time in a syrup making shop. Children today will hopefully never ever know the extent of the poverty that large fatherless family did. Burns was the ninth of twelve children. His father had died in an influenza epidemic in 1903 when Burns was only six. From that time, the child was sent to work carrying out that shoe shining - and running errands and selling newspapers on the side - until he was "lucky enough" to earn a more stable income in the syrup making business. He managed to go to school on and off until he reached fourth grade, but then quit altogether. In the meantime, three other six and seven year old little boys who worked with him in the shop, got together to form a small singing group. They called themselves The Pee-Wee Quartet and starting singing in saloons, on ferry-boats, on street corners - and in brothels. After leaving school, Burns then went into show business full time, doing anything he could to earn a living. He built up his trade, in vaudeville, on stage and on radio and television.

In the latter part of his career, Burns was made even more famous than he already was, in films roles such as "Oh, God" in 1977 and "18 Again" in 1988. He was married to comedienne Gracie Allen for 38 years, until her death in 1964. The pair had a long time career as the double comedy act, "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show". After Gracie passed away, he never re-married, grieving her loss the rest of his life. On his own death in 1996 at the age of 100, he left instructions to be buried alongside this much loved woman, with the crypt marking changed to read "Gracie Allen & George Burns - Together Again". On making the change, he said that, this time, he wanted Gracie to have top billing.

Answer: In a tyre factory

Ah Mr Gable, how you make my heart go pitter-pat when I look at your old movies on television. Born in 1901, Gable, somewhat surprisingly, was more interested in language skills and literature when he was a young man. He also played piano and later developed a love of brass instruments. In addition to these hobbies, he really enjoyed stripping down old cars and repairing them as well. So, when he was a young man, and his father suggested he earn a living working on the farm the family had purchased, Gable disagreed and left instead to work in a B.F. Goodrich tyre factory in Akron. All this just adds to his masculine and romantic screen appeal of course. Well, that is, if you're a woman.

We know Mr Gable more than anything else, for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 wonderful old movie "Gone With The Wind", a role, incidentally, he didn't want to play. His wife, Carole Lombard, talked him into it. Sadly, the great actor died in 1960 of a heart attack, after completing his role in the film "The Misfits", which was released shortly after, a role that critics agree was his finest. "Life Magazine" summed up Gable in the following words: "All man...and then some" - and that about says it all.

Answer: Working in a shoe factory

Born Leonard Franklin Slye, Rogers (1911-1998) came from a poor but extremely close knit and loving family. They moved constantly during his early years, including living on a houseboat at one time. Caught up in the struggle for existence during the depression years, his father was often forced to work away from home. Whenever he could, he returned home in between bouts of work, and always brought gift with him for the family he missed so much. This included, at one flush time, a horse for his delighted son. At the age of 17, Rogers left full time school to work with his father in a shoe factory to help swell the family finances. He continued attending night school for a while, but on being laughed at by his classmates for falling asleep in class, he quit, never to return. One of the many jobs the family had, before obtaining more permanent work in the shoe factory, was travelling from job to job as fruit pickers, living in camp sites as they moved from farm to farm. It was there that Rogers saw how much pleasure his singing and guitar playing brought to his fellow workers around the camp fires late at night.

Consequently, when work at one shoe factory ran out, but another job in the same field cropped up elsewhere, Rogers received his father's blessing to try to obtain work instead in the entertainment business. During his long show business career that followed, Rogers featured in over 100 movies, and with his wife, Dale Evans, in their own television production, "The Roy Rogers Show". Rogers had met Evans following the death of his second wife in childbirth, a marriage that had produced one adopted child and two biological ones. With Evans, he had another child, a little girl, who was born with Downs Syndrome, and who sadly died at the age of two. They also adopted several other children, and, were known throughout America for their tireless work for thousands of other homeless and disabled children for years.