"Dreamgirls" Part 1 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Deena's mother wouldn't go to bed.

Deena (played by Beyonce Knowles) was quite young and her mother did not let her out at night, so she had to wait for her mother to go to bed in order to sneak out. Later, when the girls left to go on tour with James Early (played by Eddie Murphy) we saw her leaving an envelope with her sleeping mother to explain her absence.

Answer: No

Allowed to go on even after they missed their designated spot, the girls wowed the crowd with their song "Move". You could tell that they fully expected to win because the audience had been so receptive, but they lost to Tiny Joe Dixon. They did, however, score the job of going on tour with James Early, as his back-up singers.

Answer: He was quite a womanizer.

In the beginning of the film, we saw his manager offering many of the all girl bands, who had competed in the talent show, the chance to sing back-up with Early. Some of the girls showed interest, until they found out who they'd be working with. When Early questioned how things were going, his manager told him that he had to start keeping his hands off of the girls.

The fact that Early was married did not make his advances welcome to most of the girls.

Answer: Effie's brother

C.C. White (played by Keith Robinson) wrote most of the songs for the Dreamettes. Once they hooked up with James Early, C.C. started writing songs for him too. When the girls started to be managed by Curtis Taylor Jr. (played by Jamie Foxx), he also signed C.C. and began to control which of his songs became recorded.

Answer: car salesman

Curtis started making himself valuable to the musicians by securing shows and auditions for them, and before long he had replaced their old manager. He eventually became a very successful promoter with his own record label. Unfortunately he started buying into his own hype and became more and more controlling, disposing of people whenever they gave him any trouble.

Answer: Lorrell

The first night the girls sang back-up for him, Early set his sights on the young Lorrell. Early in their touring days she refused his advances because he was married, but somewhere along the line she succumbed. Their relationship lasted seven years (she gave him a kiss for every year they were together) but she left him the night his wife showed up in the audience.

He died of an overdose shortly after that.

Answer: Curtis Taylor Jr.

Effie (played by Jennifer Hudson) and Curtis shared an attraction from very early on in their professional relationship. Many comments were exchanged about how Curtis preferred real women, with a little meat on their bones, because he had been raised by his sisters who were both of a similar build.
Jennifer Hudson gained twenty pounds to play the role.

Answer: Rainbow Records

Curtis' success as a manager and promoter grew until he had his very own recording label, very much like Barry Gordy Jr. had the Motown Records label. All of the acts that Curtis managed recorded on his label.

Answer: The Dreams

Curtis booked James Early and the Dreamettes into a very prestigious club in Miami, as the first black act ever to perform there. Early's blatant sexuality offended some of the patrons and the club owner was obviously displeased with this. Curtis made the decision to send Early off to his previous type of bookings and to focus on the girls.

He told the girls that they would be The Dreams, because they were all grown up and Dreamettes was a name for little girls.

Answer: Effie

Although Effie definitely had the strongest voice, Curtis was very much into image and decided to push Deena (played by Beyonce Knowles) as the lead singer, because she was the most beautiful one of the three.
"Dreamgirls" was loosely based on the story of The Supremes. Some of the wigs and costumes chosen at this point in the storyline left little room for doubt about who Deena was being styled after!