Deaths in the News, 2010 (Part 1) Quiz

Answer: West Virginia

Robert Carlyle Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr., in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in 1917. He was adopted by his aunt and uncle, Titus and Vlurma Byrd, after his mother's death in a flu epidemic just a year after he was born, relocated to West Virginia, and renamed.

In 1951, Byrd, as a state delegate representing Raleigh County, witnessed the first two executions carried out in West Virginia with the electric chair. (The state conducted nine such executions before abolishing the death penalty in 1965.)

Byrd was elected to the U.S. House of Representative in 1952 and spent six years there before defeating Republican W. Chapman Revercomb for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Byrd was vocally opposed to civil rights legislation and supported the Vietnam War, but later in his career he changed tack by supporting various civil rights measures, opposing the war in Iraq, and giving support to Barack Obama during his historic presidential campaign.
[thanks to the West Virginia Division of Culture and History for additional information]

Answer: Los Angeles Rams

The third overall pick in the 1962 NFL Draft, out of Utah State, Merlin Olsen compiled an impressive body of work during his long career. Olsen was part of a defensive line with Rosey Grier, Lamar Lundy, and fellow Hall-of-Famer Deacon Jones famously known as "The Fearsome Foursome". He was the NFL's Rookie of the Year in 1962, was a 6-time First-team All Pro selection, was voted to an amazing 14 straight AFC-NFC Pro Bowls, and was one of just five players to be voted to the NFL All-Decade Teams representing the 1960s and 1970s. Olsen was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982.

After leaving the field, Olsen remained highly visible in the public eye. He worked for many years as a color analyst on NBC Sports coverage of the NFL, notably teamed with play-by-play men Dick Enberg and Charlie Jones. He was also a spokesman for FTD Florists and participated in many Children's Miracle Network telethons. And he was an actor, appearing on "Little House on the Prairie" and headlining his own drama, "Father Murphy", for two seasons.

Answer: 1

Rue McClanahan earned four straight Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series between 1986 and 1989, winning the coveted award in 1987. She also earned three straight Golden Globe nominations for the same role between 1986 and 1988. Prior to working on "The Golden Girls", McClanahan worked with "Golden Girls" co-stars Bea Arthur and Betty White on other shows.

She was a regular on Arthur's groundbreaking show "Maude", and worked with White on "Mama's Family", a spinoff of "The Carol Burnett Show".

Answer: Aon Center

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Bruce John Graham joined the celebrated architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1951. With legendary structural engineer Fazlur Khan, Graham designed two of America's most distinctive structures - John Hancock Center, which features X-shaped structural bracing on its exterior, and Sears Tower (renamed Willis Tower), which was the world's tallest office building from 1974 until the opening of the Petronas Towers in 1998.

Another well-known Chicago architect, Edward Durell Stone, designed what was originally known as the Standard Oil Building, which opened in 1973. The building was renamed Aon Center, after the building's previous primary tenant, Amoco, moved out in 1999.
[ thanks to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP for additional information on Bruce John Graham ]

Answer: She was married to Harry Belafonte

Despite the fact that she endured racism during her lengthy career, Lena Horne married her second husband, longtime MGM musical director Lennie Hayton, in 1947. The interracial union produced no children, and Horne admitted in an interview in Ebony Magazine that although she came to love Hayton, she initially married him to further her career. Hayton died in 1971, while he and Horne were separated.

Before Horne married Hayton, she had two small children from her first marriage to Louis Jones. Her son, Edwin Jones, died in 1970 of kidney disease. Her daughter, Gail, was the third wife of director Sidney Lumet from 1963 to 1978. That union yielded a daughter, Jenny Lumet, who went on to win awards for her screenplay to the 2008 Anne Hathaway movie "Rachel Getting Married". Horne did not remarry after Hayton's death, and she was never married to fellow entertainer Harry Belafonte.

Answer: Lutheran

The United Lutheran Church in America, which became part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1998, provided the original funding for "Davey and Goliath". The original show ran from 1960 to 1965, and was syndicated to independent stations and network affiliates across the country. Among the voice talent on the show was Hal Smith, best known for playing Otis the town drunk on "The Andy Griffith Show", and Dick Beals, who provided the voice of Speedy Alka-Selzer in commercials for Alka-Selzer.

"Davey and Goliath" was a boy-and-his dog program that dealt with topics like racism, respecting authority, and faith. Only Davey and the audience could hear Goliath speak. Joe Clokey, Art Clokey's son, resurrected the characters in 2004 in a holiday special in which aspects of Christmas, Hanukkah and Eid-ul-Fitr (the celebration of the breaking of the fast of Ramadan) are explored.

Answer: Days Of Our Lives

Before becoming a charter member of the cast of "Days Of Our Lives" in November, 1965, Frances Reid cut her teeth on other soap operas, including "Portia Faces Life", "As The World Turns" and "The Edge of Night". Her work as the matriarch of the Horton family, one of the two main families on the show, earned her four Soap Opera Digest Awards and two Daytime Emmy Award nominations.

She received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Her last appearance on "Days" took place the day after Christmas, 2007.

Answer: House Calls

Based on the theatrical motion picture starring Academy Award winners Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, "House Calls" made its debut on CBS in December, 1979. On the show, Redgrave played hospital administrator Ann Atkinson, who found herself dealing professionally with three different doctors, including one (played by "M*A*S*H" star Wayne Rogers) for whom she has romantic interest. Redgrave earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her work, but was fired after insisting upon bringing her newborn daughter on the set to keep her on her breast-feeding schedule. Universal, the production company responsible for "House Calls", saw this as a move on Redgrave's part to get more money, leading to her ouster. Sharon Gless, who went on the fame on the crime drama "Cagney and Lacey" replaced Redgrave on the show's last episodes.

Answer: General Foods

The only member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen to earn the designation of "ace" - a pilot who shoots down five enemy aircraft in combat - New York native Lee Archer eventually retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1970, at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He received the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple Air Medals during a career spanning three decades, and he was honored along with the other members of the Tuskegee Airmen with a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.

After retiring from the air force, Archer joined General Foods and became a key executive who ran three of its investment arms. Those arms helped finance various other companies. He left General Foods in 1987, just before the company was acquired by Philip Morris, to form his own venture capital firm.
[ thanks to The New York Times for additional information ]

Answer: Moscow (1980)

Juan Antonio Samaranch's tenure as IOC President lasted 21 years. Only Pierre de Coubertin, the first head of the IOC, served longer, boasting a 29-year reign. Samaranch is credited with helping rescue the Olympics from financial ruin, changing how corporate sponsorships and broadcasting contracts were done to ensure more lucrative commercialization of the Games. He also encouraged the best athletes to participate in the Games, paving the way for traditional Olympic powers like the United States, which had eschewed using pros in favor of amateurs, to change tack.

But Samaranch's tenure was not without controversy. The 1980 Games at Moscow, for example, were boycotted by 65 nations, led by the USA, after the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets, along with 14 allied nations, responded in kind when the Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984.