Setting my Story Right: Offbeat Autobiographies Quiz

Answer: Giacomo Casanova

Today, Casanova's name is synonymous with being a ladies' man and indeed his memoir describes his many love affairs in detail. However, there was much more to him than this, as he was also an adventurer and a talented writer. After making a daring escape from "the Leads", a notorious prison in his home country of Venice, he travelled widely and moved in European high society, meeting several crowned heads including Frederick the Great and Louis XV. Several times in his life he made fortunes through various bold schemes, which he squandered through his extravagant lifestyle.

He wrote his memoirs in his old age while employed as a librarian by a nobleman, to keep himself entertained during this boring period of his previously exciting life.

Answer: Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley subtitled this work "An Autohagiography" (life of a saint), although his life was not at all saintly in the conventional sense. The frontispiece of this work features the author's signature in which the initial "A" is written like a phallic symbol. Crowley travelled much of the world while exploring the inner recesses of his psyche with magick (his preferred spelling), yoga, and mind-altering drugs, and he described these adventures in candid detail in his autobiography.

His hedonistic lifestyle earned him notoriety, and he was nicknamed "the wickedest man in the world" by English tabloid newspapers.

He was also one of the many famous people who appeared on the cover of the Beatles album "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Answer: Billy Hayes

While on holiday in Turkey, Hayes noticed that hashish was readily available, and that airport security was usually pretty lax, so he decided it would be fun to smuggle some back to the USA to share with friends. However, in a cruel twist of fate, the day he tried to board his plane home, the airport received a bomb threat, so security was immediately tightened, and all passengers were searched before boarding.

Hence, he was caught and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Over the next five years, he exchanged many letters with his father in which they discussed his options for regaining his freedom.

As these letters were routinely read by the authorities, they resorted to speaking in code to keep their plans secret. For example, working through the legal system to try to shorten his sentence was called "taking the slow train," while the option of escaping, which he eventually went with, was referred to as "the Midnight Express." A film of the same name starring Brad Davis was loosely adapted from the book and has been blamed for nearly destroying the Turkish tourism industry.

Answer: Reg and Ron Kray

The Kray twins were highly feared, very violent, crime lords involved in racketeering, extortion, and gambling, among other activities, for many years before going to prison in 1969. Ron Kray murdered rival gangster George Cornell, allegedly because the latter called Ron "a big fat poof" in front of representatives of the American mafia. Kray later denied this was the reason, claiming that the killing was in revenge for a murder committed by Cornell. Reg Kray was encouraged by Ron to murder fellow gang member, Jack "the Hat" McVitie, after the latter had publicly threatened Reg.

The book was co-written with a ghost writer, Fred Dinenage. Some chapters in their memoir are credited to both twins jointly, while others are credited to either Reg or Ron individually. Ron died of a heart attack while still in custody in 1995. Reg was released from prison in 2000 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and died a few months later.

Answer: Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was famous for his many surreal paintings, especially "The Persistence of Memory", which features the celebrated image of soft watches. He described his paintings as "hand painted dream photographs." His autobiography is a very strange book that provides a striking insight into Dali's inner life, including some bizarre fantasies and outlandish claims, such as being haunted by the ghost of his late elder brother, while still in the womb!

Answer: Malcolm X

Born Malcolm Little, the author changed his name to Malcolm X after joining the Nation of Islam, a radical separatist group that promoted black supremacy. He later became estranged from this group and repudiated their racist teachings after becoming a Sunni Muslim and making a pilgrimage to Mecca.

While he was preparing to present a speech in public, three members of the Nation of Islam fatally shot him. Alex Haley published his autobiography a few months after his death. Malcolm X was once friends with Cassius Clay, later known more famously as Muhammad Ali, but they became estranged after Malcolm left the Nation of Islam. (A few years later Muhammad Ali left this group as well, and he too converted to Sunni Islam.) Like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. had a posthumous autobiography published after his assassination, but not by Alex Haley, and his death was in 1968.

Answer: Carl Jung

Jung had a very rich inner life, which he describes in detail in his book. As well as vivid dreams, including ones he remembered from childhood, he describes visions, mystical experiences, and even hauntings by "ghosts." He believed that examining such experiences was the key to understanding the inner workings of one's psyche, which was a lifelong fascination of his.

Answer: Kenny Everett

Kenny Everett was born Maurice Cole. Published in 1982, this is a hilarious, if at times hard-to-believe, account of Everett's colourful life. Despite the author's apparent candour, he seems to have been in the closet about his homosexuality when he wrote this book, as it contains no mention of this side of his life.

In later years he did publicly admit to being gay and went to live in Spain with his two(!) husbands. Sadly, he died of AIDS in 1995.

Answer: Tom Baker

Baker had a very varied career before becoming an actor. For example, when he was 15, he entered a Catholic monastery, in which he lived for six years. When he eventually decided he had had enough, he told the Abbott that he was filled with the desire to break the Ten Commandments one by one! His tenure as Doctor Who was highly acclaimed, and he regularly topped polls of fans' most favourite actor to play the Doctor, only being surpassed in popularity in recent years by David Tennant.

Answer: Robert Llewellyn

Originally published in 1994, a new edition was issued in 2013 with the subtitle, "The Inside Smegging Story of Red Dwarf". Llewellyn's role as Kryten required that he wear a thick rubber face to get into character. In his memoir, which is extremely funny, he notes that wearing the mask was a very hot and uncomfortable experience.

He was the sole "Red Dwarf" cast member to be offered a role in a planned American version of the show. Although a pilot was made, the American version was not picked up by the network. Llewellyn notes that at the time, he thought this would be a big break into stardom, but looking back he thought to himself, "Dream on, airhead!"