Deaths In The News, 2008 (Part 1) Quiz

Answer: "The Great Race"

Suzanne Pleshette made her name on "The Bob Newhart Show" in the 1970s, as Bob Hartley's wife, Emily. Her third husband, the late actor Tom Poston, had a recurring role on that show, and a starring role on Bob Newhart's second CBS sitcom in the 1980s. Another celebrated actress, Natalie Wood, starred with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in the Warner Bros. action comedy "The Great Race".

Answer: Tula

Texas-born Tula Finklea's older brother couldn't quite say "sister". So she wound up being nicknamed "Sid". After marrying her first husband, Nico Charisse, the folks at MGM changed the spelling of her nickname to make it sound more exotic. The leggy dancer and actress was a member of the famed Ballet Russe as a teenager and appeared in many films, including "Brigadoon" and "Singin' in the Rain".

In 2006, she was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts with the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities.

Answer: Spaceguard

Clarke won the Hugo and Nebula awards, two of the highest honors for science-fiction writing, with his 1972 novel "Rendezvous With Rama". Rama, a huge cylindrical space vessel, is discovered in the year 2131 by observers of Project Spaceguard, a system set up to track asteroids and comets. Spaceguard, itself, was the result of a 2077 impact event that decimated Italy.

In 1992, the U.S. Congress issued the Spaceguard Survey Report, which directed NASA to locate large near-Earth asteroids. Four years later, the Spaceguard Foundation, an organization dedicated to tracking potential Earth impactors, was established in Rome.

Answer: Mississippi

There are several different stories as to how Bo Diddley got his famous stage name. But his real name was Ellas Otha Bates. He later dropped his middle name and assumed the late name McDaniel, in honor of his mother's cousin who adopted and largely raised him. Diddley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as part of its second class, in 1987.

Answer: NBC

Charlie Jones got his start in major broadcast television in 1960, when he called the very first game in the history of the American Football League on ABC. He stayed with ABC until 1965. He moved to NBC when the AFL moved its games to that network.

He remained at NBC until 1997, primarily as a football play-by-play man on NFL games, but also working on such sports as golf, soccer, and track and field. In his later years, he worked as a commentator on college football games on ESPN. He didn't work for CBS during his lengthy career.

Answer: "Show and Tell"

"Show and Tell" reached number one on the Billboard pop chart in January, 1974, and stayed there for one week. Although the song is more closely associated with Wilson, it was another soul singer star, Johnny Mathis, who recorded it first, back in 1972. And a third singer, Peabo Bryson, covered the song and took it to the tenth spot on the Billboard R & B chart in July, 1989.

Answer: "Ryan's Hope"

The daughter of Robert Goulet and his first wife, Louise Longmore, Nicolette Goulet played several different characters on daytime television between 1979 and 1989. After her stint on "Ryan's Hope" in 1979, she spent time on "Search for Tomorrow" between 1980 and 1982, "As The World Turns" in 1985, and "Guiding Light" from 1987 to 1989.

Answer: Carl's Jr.

CKE Enterprises, Inc., is the parent company of both Carl's Jr., which Karcher started in California in 1956, and Hardee's, which it acquired in 1997. Both chains in recent years have featured similar menus, headlined by the Thickburger line of hamburgers. That included the Six-Dollar Burger, a sandwich said to rival the taste and quality of a burger served in traditional sit-down restaurants.

Answer: "Forbidden Planet"

Bebe and Louis Barron were originally brought on to do sound effects for "Forbidden Planet", which was released in the United States in 1956. But they ended up doing the entire score for the film, which featured stars like Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen.

The Barrons also did extensive audio recordings of authors reading their works, including Tennessee Williams, Aldous Huxley, and Anais Nin. They also scored other movies, including "Crystal Growing" (1959), "The Computer Age" (1968) and "Cannabis" (1975).

The Barrons continued to work together after their 23-year marriage ended in 1970.

Answer: Herbert Solow

Philadelphia native Alexander Courage, who wrote the "Star Trek" theme, was the first of the three alums to pass away, falling to a stroke on May 15, at the age of 88. In addition to his work on "Star Trek", Courage arranged and orchestrated music for a numerous TV programs and movies, and worked with noted composers like Andre Previn and John Williams.

New York-born Joseph Pevney died on May 18 in Palm Springs at age 96. He directed some of the more notable episodes of the series, including "The Trouble With Tribbles" and "The City on the Edge of Forever". He also directed episodes of many other shows, including "Bonanza", "Adam-12" and "Emergency!"

Robert Justman, also a native New Yorker, died of complications from Parkinson's Disease on May 28, at age 81. Working as an associate producer and supervising producer on "Star Trek", he collaborated with Herbert Solow, who worked as an executive for Desilu Productions, to write "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story" in 1996. That book is considered to be the definitive history of the series. Solow is the only one of the four to live through the month.