Deaths in the News (American) - 2012 Quiz

Answer: Butcher

"Marty" originally made its debut in 1953 on the NBC television anthology series "The Goodyear Television Playhouse", with Rod Steiger in the role of Marty Piletti, a kindly bachelor butcher from the Bronx whose bad luck in love changes when he meets Clara (Nancy Marchand), a plain woman who is jilted at a ballroom by her date. Paddy Chayefsky adapted his teleplay into a feature-length film in 1955, with Borgnine playing Marty and Betsy Blair opposite him as Clara. "Marty" won four Academy Awards - Best Picture, Best Director (Delbert Mann), Best Actor (Borgnine), and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (Chayefsky).

Ernest Borgnine's lengthy career included many film and television appearances. Notably, Borgnine headlined the cast of the ABC-TV sitcom "McHale's Navy" (1962-66), earning an Emmy Award nomination for his work. He also starred in the CBS-TV action-adventure series "Airwolf", playing helicopter mechanic Dominic Santini during the show's network run, 1984-86. And he provided the voice of Mermaid Man, an aging superhero, on Nickelodeon's long-running cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants". That job reunited him with fellow "McHale's Navy" star Tim Conway, who played Mermaid Man's sidekick, Barnacle Boy.

Answer: Doc

A native of Deep Gap, a small community in Watauga County, North Carolina, Arthel Watson picked up his nickname during a live radio performance early in his career. The announcer, after remarking about Watson's first name, asked the audience for a more simple nickname, and Doc - presumably inspired by the character of Dr. Watson from the "Sherlock Holmes" stories - stuck.

During his career, Watson won seven Grammy Awards and was accorded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. He also established MerleFest, an annual music festival held at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in 1988 in honor of his son Merle, with whom he frequently performed and who died in 1985 in a farming accident. Though he started out playing electric guitar, Watson played acoustic guitar and banjo extensively during his career.

Answer: "The Deep"

Based on a 1975 novel by Peter Benchley, the motion-picture adaptation of "The Deep" was released almost two years to the day that the more famous blockbuster "Jaws", also based on a Benchley novel, debuted. Actor Robert Shaw, who appeared in both movies, played a treasure-hunter who helped a vacationing couple, played by Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, determine the origin and provenance of a sunken treasure off the coast of Bermuda. The theme to the movie, called "Down, Deep Inside", was a collaboration between Summer and Academy Award-winning composer John Barry, who was well known for his work on a number of "James Bond" films. The song reached number-three on the U.S. Dance charts and number-five on the U.K. Singles chart.

During her career, Donna Summer won five Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Recording Artist (1980). Summer was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.

Answer: "The Blob"

A native of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, Larry Hagman cemented his place among television legends with two career-defining roles. First he played U.S. Air Force captain (later major) and astronaut Anthony Nelson on the NBC-TV sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" (1965-70). Later, he played ruthless oil baron John Ross (J.R.) Ewing on the CBS-TV drama "Dallas" (1978-91). Hagman reprised that role when TNT revived the series in 2012. He worked behind the camera as well, directing some episodes of "Jeannie", "The Good Life" (a 1971 NBC-TV sitcom Hagman starred in with future "Knots Landing" star Donna Mills), and the television version of "In the Heat of the Night", which ran on NBC (1988-92) and CBS (1992-95).

Hagman also appeared in a number of feature films during his career, most notably as Buck, a Russian translator who helps the President (played by Henry Fonda) during an accidental nuclear attack on Moscow in Columbia Pictures' 1964 adaptation of "Fail-Safe". His lone motion-picture directorial effort was "Beware! The Blob", which featured African-American comedian Godfrey Cambridge, future "Laverne and Shirley" star Cindy Williams, and future "Eight is Enough" star Dick Van Patten in a story about a new strain of the gelatinous creature terrorizing suburban Los Angeles.

Answer: Georgia

Born and raised in Lakeland, Florida, Neva Jane Langley took to the piano at an early age and developed her talents by playing at weddings, funerals, and church services. Originally enrolled at Florida Southern College in her hometown, she transferred to Wesleyan College in Macon to take advantage of the musical studies programs that they had there. She won the talent portion of the Miss America Pageant with her piano playing, and she became the first Miss Georgia to ever win the coveted crown. As a result of the win, she appeared as a mystery guest on an episode of the long-running game show "What's My Line?" and rode the grand prize float in the 1953 Rose Bowl Parade.

After her reign as Miss America, Langley returned to school at Wesleyan to finish her degree, and continued to make public appearances playing piano with symphonies in Macon and Atlanta. Langley married William A. Fickling, Jr., and eventually settled down in Macon to raise four children together. She was active on several boards, including those at both Wesleyan College and Mercer University in Macon, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Georgia Council of the Arts. She was also honored for her work with Keep America Beautiful.

Answer: Detroit

A native of St. Louis, Clara Stanton Jones originally planned to be a school teacher. In fact, she went to Wisconsin State Teacher's College-Milwaukee (now the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) for that reason. But after transferring to Spelman College in Atlanta, she was encouraged by the staff there to seek a career as a librarian. After gaining her bachelors at Spelman in 1934, she earned her degree in library science at Michigan in 1938. She worked at the libraries of the private historically-black Dillard University in New Orleans and the public historically-black Southern University in Baton Rouge before heading north to Detroit.

In 1977, Jones made history a second time when she became the first black to lead the American Library Association. During the year she spent as president, she worked to help raise awareness of racism and sexism in library materials, and encouraged librarians to challenge the censorship of such materials.

Answer: 25

Of the 37 Grand Slam titles Margaret Osborne duPont won between 1941 and 1960, 25 of them occurred at the US Open. That includes three consecutive women's singles titles (1948-50), 13 women's doubles titles (which includes a string of 10 straight titles, 1941-50), and 9 mixed doubles titles (won between 1943 and 1960). The other 12 championships she won came at the French Open (two singles, three women's doubles) and at Wimbledon (one singles, five doubles, one mixed doubles). She never won mixed doubles at the French Open. And because her husband wouldn't allow it, she never played at the Australian Open.

In her later years, duPont, who divorced her husband, formed a partnership with fellow former tennis star and doubles partner Margaret Varner Bloss to raise thoroughbred race horses. At one point, they were considered to be among the top 20 owners in the sport.

Answer: Ebonite

When Don Carter won the first-ever PBA National Championship in 1960, he earned $5,600 for his efforts. It was one of many wins in a career that saw him win Bowler of the Year honors six times between 1953 and 1962. Carter helped raise bowling's profile on the national scene with his steady game. Both of his wives were also influential in the sport. His first wife, fellow hall-of-famer LaVerne Carter, to whom he was married from 1953 to 1964 and who died two months after he did, was a founding member of the PBA as well as the Professional Women's Bowling Association. His second wife, fellow hall-of-famer Paula Sperber Carter, to whom he was married from 1973 until his death, won the 1971 US Women's Open and rolled five perfect games in her career.

Ebonite International has been a key player in the production of bowling equipment for many years. It makes bowling balls and other gear under several brands, including Hammer Bowling (which it acquired in 2002) and Columbia (which it acquired in 2007).

Answer: Johannes Kepler

When she went aloft during STS-99 in February, 2000, Janice Voss became the fourth American woman to travel into space five times - joining Shannon Lucid, Bonnie Dunbar, and Tamara Jernigan in this exclusive club. One other woman flew along with Voss on each of her missions, including mission specialist Nancy Sherlock Currie (STS-57), pilot Eileen Collins (STS-63), pilot Susan Still Kilrain (STS-83 and STS-94), and mission specialist Janet Kavandi (STS-99). Voss was part of the only multi-person crew ever launched into space together twice, to complete a flight of the Microgravity Science Laboratory that was terminated due to a fuel cell problem on board the space shuttle orbiter Columbia.

From October, 2004, to November, 2007, Voss served as the science director for the Kepler spacecraft. Kepler was launched in March, 2009, to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

Answer: Natalie Wood

It was David Brown, an editor at "Cosmopolitan" who became her husband in 1959, who encouraged Helen Gurley Brown to write a book describing how a single girl goes about having an affair. What resulted, though, was a best-selling guidebook to help single women navigate their way to both sexual freedom and financial independence. Mrs. Brown became editor-in-chief of "Cosmopolitan" in 1965, and transformed what had been a struggling literary magazine into a wildly-successful one focused on women, including articles on fashion and sex. Mrs. Brown served as the editor-in-chief of the U.S. version of "Cosmopolitan" until 1997, and as editor-in-chief of the international versions up until her death.

Warner Bros. adapted "Sex and the Single Girl" as a comedy in 1964. Natalie Wood played psychologist and book author Helen Gurley Brown opposite Tony Curtis, who played sleazy tabloid reporter Bob Weston. The next year, Wood and Curtis appeared in another Warner Bros. feature, the slapstick comedy "The Great Race".