TV and Film Spanning the Atlantic 3 Quiz

Answer: Mary Pickford

Born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Canada in 1892, Mary Pickford was nicknamed "America's Sweetheart" and "Little Mary". She made her screen debut in a series of more than forty 1909 silent shorts by legendary director D.W. Griffith. By 1912, she had already made more than 150 films.

In addition to being one of the world's most recognizable actresses, Pickford was also a pioneer within the movie industry. In 1919, she joined forces with Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks to found United Artists. In 1927, she was one of the 36 people who combined to found the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The following year, Janet Gaynor was the recipient of the first Best Actress Oscar. Pickford collected the second award, in 1929, for her performance in her first 'talkie'.

Pickford retired from acting in 1933. In 1976, the Academy presented the 84-year old Pickford with an honorary award in recognition of her "contribution to cinema". Pickford died aged 87 in 1979.

Answer: Woolley

"Yes, Minister" and the sequel "Yes, Prime Minister" are right up there with "Fawlty Towers", "Blackadder" and "Only Fools and Horses" contending for the title as Britain's best ever TV sitcom. Combined, the two ran for a total of six series between 1980 and 1988, with 45 episodes in all.

The three major characters are The Right Honorable Lord Hacker of Islington, KG, PC, BSc, played by Paul Eddington, Sir Humphrey Appleby, GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon) (played by Nigel Hawthorne), and Hacker's Principal Private Secretary Sir Bernard Woolley, GCB, MA (Oxon) played by Fowlds.

Answer: Pink Cadillac

Lou Ann McGuinn (Peters) takes her white supremacist husband's car when she skips bail. She is pursued not only by bounty hunter Nowak (Eastwood) but also by her husband's gang because, unbeknownst to her, the car (the titular Pink Cadillac, of course) has in hidden in it the gang's stash of counterfeit cash. When Nowak catches up with Lou Ann in Reno, Nevada, he learns that the gang have kidnapped her baby, who was left with her sister. Rather than turn her in for skipping bail, he decides instead to help her get her baby back.

Of the alternatives, "Slaves of New York" is a 1989 comedy-drama starring Bernadette Peters; the other two are both 1990s films starring Clint Eastwood.

Answer: Kiefer Sutherland

He was born Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland in London in 1966. His parents are Canadian actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas. He played Jack Bauer throughout the 8-season run (192 episodes) of the espionage-thriller series "24", and was nominated six times for a Lead Actor Emmy award for his performance.

Of the alternatives, Dennis Franz played detective Andy Sipowicz in 261 episodes of "NYPD Blue" between 1993 and 2005, earning eight Emmy nominations and winning four times; Scott Bakula played Dr. Sam Beckett in 97 episodes of "Quantum Leap" between 1989 and 1993, earning four Emmy nominations; and James Gandolfini played Tony Soprano in 86 episodes of "The Sopranos" between 1997 and 2007 earning six Emmy nominations and winning three times.

Answer: Charles Bronson

Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) is given the task of turning the army's worst ex-soldier convicts into a team of commandos for a vital suicide mission during WWII.

After extensive training, the eponymous dirty dozen are parachuted into France. The first to die is Pedro Jiminez (Trini Lopez), who lands in a tree and breaks his neck. Archer J. Maggott (Telly Savalas) makes it into the enemy compound but is soon shot and killed by one of the other members of the unit when he compromises the mission. The dirty dozen perish one by one and at the end of the mission the only survivor is Charles Bronson's character, Joseph Wladislaw.

Answer: Geoffrey Hughes

Born in 1944 in the Merseyside town of Wallasey, Geoffrey Hughes made his name when he joined "Coronation Street" as Liverpool-born binman Eddie Yeats in 1974. Stan was virtually adopted by Stan and Hilda Ogden in the late 1970s and was a principal character in the show until he married and moved to Bury in 1983.

In the 1990s, Hughes played Onslow "Keeping Up Appearances" and Twiggy in "The Royle Family". His final major role was as the conman Vernon Scripps in the police drama "Heartbeat".

Hughes died in 2012 aged 68.

Answer: Knots Landing

William Joseph Devane was born in 1937 in New York state capital, Albany. He first appeared in "Knots Landing" in season 4 in 1983 and appeared in 269 episodes between then and the end of the show after 14 seasons in 1993. Devane played Greg Sumner, a law school friend of 'Mack' McKenzie (played by Kevin Dobson), who recommended him for the job with the crime commission.

Devane's other TV credits include "Gunsmoke", "Stargate SG-1", "Hawaii Five-O", "Phenom", "The Michael Richards Show", "The X-Files" and "NCIS". He has also appeared in more than 40 movies since making his screen debut in 1967.

Answer: Peter Falk

Peter Michael Falk was born in 1927 in New York City. He made his film debut in 1958 and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for only his third film, "Murder Inc.". A year later, he appeared in Frank Capra's "Pocketful of Miracles" starring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, and again Falk was nominated. He also earned two Emmy nominations in those early years, in the 'Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series' category, for "The Law and Mr. Jones" in 1961 and in 1962 for "The Dick Powell Show", for which he won.

Falk is best-remembered today as Detective Frank Columbo: between 1968 and 2003 he played the bumbling Los Angeles homicide cop in 69 episodes. As Columbo, Falk won a Golden Globe and four Emmys and was nominated for both awards on numerous other occasions.

Answer: Dances with Wolves

Kevin Costner both produced and starred in the 1990 Western war film "Dances with Wolves". Wounded during the American Civil War, First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar asks to be transferred to the western frontier. Isolated from his own kind, Dunbar befriends the local Sioux tribe and is eventually honored by being invited to join in their traditional buffalo hunt. When one of the Sioux sees Dunbar dancing around his camp fire with the stray dog he named Two Socks (because of his two white feet), he is given an honorary Indian name, Dances with Wolves.

A great movie, for anyone who hasn't seen it, with many of the camp scenes filmed in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. In the 1990s, when I lived in Deadwood SD, more than 8,000 feet up in the Black Hills, Costner's brother owned/ran a small casino in town and the Hollywood star would periodically show up in his limo along with a buddy such as Clint Eastwood, much to the delight of both locals and tourists alike.

Answer: Brains

Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who were also responsible for "Stingray" and "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons", "Thunderbirds" ran for two series and 32 50-minute episodes that first aired between 1965 and 1966. The series followed the exploits of the mega-rich Tracy family who form and run the benevolent but secret organization, "International Rescue".

Voiced by British actor and former Royal Air Force radar engineer David Graham, Hiram K. Hackenbacker is the scientific genius of the "International Rescue" team, frequently called upon to found miraculous technical solutions to problems encountered by the Tracy boys. Nicknamed "Brains", Anthony Edwards (Dr. Mark Greene in "ER") played the character in the 2004 live action film based on the series.