Making a Song and Dance Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Powell

At the time Powell was a major star in the Metro Goldwyn Meyer (MGM) stable. With his fine urbane voice and smoldering good looks he was a perfect fit for the showman. His profile had, earlier, been boosted when he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in 1934 for his role as Nick Charles in "The Thin Man", a role that he would reprise a further five times.

He would go on to receive Best Actor Oscar nominations in 1936 for "My Man Godfrey" and in 1948 for "Life with Father".

Answer: The World's Strongest Man

Nat Pendleton plays Sandow whom Ziegfeld introduces to the world at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. He markets him so well that he manages to trump his main rival, Billings, who is parading a young belly dancer by the name of "Little Egypt". His ploy to allow the women to touch the strongman proved to be the masterstroke. Ziegfeld then takes Sandow on the road but when he is placed in a cage with a lion and the lion falls asleep he is labelled a fraud.

Answer: Publicity

Indeed, Flo Ziegfeld is flat broke at the time he first meets Held, having blown all his money at the casino. Held is not impressed with Ziegfeld's lack of liquidity and almost sends him packing on two occasions. However, it is the fact that Ziegfeld has been upfront and honest with her that keeps him in the game.

He clinches the deal when he promises Held "more publicity than she ever dreamed of".

Answer: Milk

In what turns out to be a great marketing ploy, Flo Ziegfeld orders 20 gallons of milk to be delivered each day to Held. He then refuses to pay for it. Scenting a scandal, the press is all over it. Ziegfeld then spins them the fiction that Held bathes in it, hinting, rather than declaring, that this is the secret behind her beauty.

Intrigued, the punters start to flock to the show, more out of curiosity than the merits of the production and the show becomes an outstanding success.

Answer: The Ziegfeld Follies

These revues are extremely lavish and highly extravagant. Flo Ziegfeld spared little expense on them and the crowds loved them. He went to extraordinary steps to boost the standings of the revue; employing Audrey Dane, endeavoring to make her a star despite her well documented battles with the bottle and launching money and gifts to Fanny Brice to lure her away from vaudeville.

As an aside, Brice plays herself in this film. But success here comes at a cost to Ziegfeld. Anna Held, now his wife, sees that the attention of the world is no longer on her and when she walks in on an awkward moment between Ziegfeld and an inebriated Audrey she divorces him. Once again Ziegfeld finds himself strapped for cash.

Answer: Myrna Loy

Loy started as a dancer but soon realized that her strength lay in acting. Her early career was not helped by being typecast as the seductress/femme fatale. Her big break came in 1934 when she was cast alongside William Powell, as Nora Charles, in "The Thin Man".

This started a run of 14 films that she would appear in alongside Powell. "The Thin Man" became one of the biggest films of 1934 and it would open many doors for Loy. In 1990 Myrna Loy was graced with an Honorary Academy Award as "an appreciation for a lifetimes worth of indelible performances".

Answer: Showboat

The public can be fickle and they do change their tastes from time to time. Ziegfeld's shows were starting to have a touch of sameness about them and the critics became negative in their assessments. His follies were starting to be seen as "trivial and unrealistic". Ziegfeld bounced back with one of the most important pieces in American musical theatre; "Showboat", which debuted on Broadway in 1927 and was described as "a radical departure in musical storytelling, marrying spectacle with seriousness".

In the same year he would launch "Rio Rita" onto Broadway and, whilst these were still on show, "Whoopee" and "The Three Musketeers" followed in 1928.

Answer: False

It is true that Ziegfeld made a fortune by putting four extremely successful shows onto Broadway in such a short space of time. He took his fortune of a million dollars (in 2016 terms, approximately $13.5 million) and invested it on the stock market. The stock market crashed the following year and drove him into bankruptcy. To add to his woes, movies were the source of entertainment that people were flocking to now and stage shows were not that trendy any more.

The final scene shows Ziegfeld sitting at a window, reminiscing about scenes from his biggest hits, when he slumps over and dies.

Answer: Hunt Stromberg

Hunt Stromberg was one of the most prolific producers during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He would also be responsible for some of its most enduring as well as most profitable films. As well as "The Great Ziegfeld" he was also the man behind "The Thin Man" series of films and the stunning 1939 feature film "The Women", which starred Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell.

A strong part of the MGM machine, he was also one of the studio's top ranked money makers, enabling them to remain profitable despite the fact that they were in the midst of the Great Depression.

Answer: Irving Berlin

Nominated eight times for Academy Awards, many of Berlin's numbers, such as "White Christmas", "Easter Parade", "God Bless America" and "There's No Business Like Show Business", would go on to become a form of anthem. Among his contributions to "The Great Ziegfeld" was "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody", which would become the centre-piece for one of the most remarkable ensemble sequences on film.

The song would go on to become the theme for the Ziegfeld Follies, a part of the Great American Songbook and is often covered as a jazz standard.