Famous After 50 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Inglourious Basterds

This role won Christoph Waltz the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Django Unchained in 2013.
[ dolly_llama ]

Answer: Ray Kroc

Ray Kroc was born into a well to do family. The stock market crash of 1929 destroyed the family's wealth. Ray survived doing whatever fell to his hand. By the 1940s he was selling disposable cups to restaurants. He moved up to equipment sales, which led to his meeting the McDonald brothers in 1954.

By the time he passed away in 1984, Ray Kroc was worth an estimated 600 million US dollars. The spurious answers: Sanders (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Wian (Bob's Big Boy), and Peterson (Jack In The Box) were major players in American fast food, but none achieved anything like Kroc's success with McDonald's. [ jdeanflpa ]

Answer: Raymond Chandler

In addition to his novels, Chandler also received an Oscar nomination as a screenwriter for his work on The Blue Dahlia. He created the iconic hard boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, who has been portrayed on the screen by Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum. All three were excellent.
[ our team cheerleader, manilow65 ]

Answer: Richard Adams

Richard Adams, not to be confused with Douglas Adams of "Hitchhiker" fame, was a British Civil Servant who wrote his first book "Watership Down" when he was 52 after making up the story to amuse his daughters. Watership Down is a real place in Hampshire, and the book is about a group of rabbits faced with the destruction of their home by humans. His next book,"Shardik" was a fantasy novel about a primitive tribe awaiting the appearance of a huge bear called Lord Shardik. "The Plague Dogs", set in the English Lake District, follows the fate of two dogs who escape from an establishment where animals were experimented on. Adams wrote over twenty books in all but none achieved the fame of "Watership Down" which sold over a million copies.

For the bemused, or the misled, Lewis Carroll wrote about the White Rabbit in his "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and Beatrix Potter wrote about many animals including Peter Rabbit in her tales for children. Michael Bond was the creator of Paddington Bear from deepest Peru, Rupert Bear was a strip cartoon character created nearly 100 years ago and who lived in Nutwood, and AA Mine created Winnie the Pooh Bear who lived in the Hundred Acre Wood. Finally the spotted dogs were the 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith; and Jack London was the author of "The Call of the Wild" about a dog kidnapped in California and made a sled dog in Alaska.
[ davejacobs, our team's senior active member, is from Hampshire UK ]

Answer: Tomás Garrigue Masaryk

Tomás Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1936) was just getting into gear when most of us are thinking of retirement. He was still a student when he married his wife, Charlotte Garrigue, an American. and took her name as his own. A professor of philosophy in Prague and active as a reformer, in 1900 he formed the Czech Realist Party with a eye to the formation of an independent state. He got the Slovaks on board, but in 1914 he had to go into exile. With his colleague Edvard Benes, he travelled to London and Paris to negotiate with the Allies. In 1917 he went to Russia with Edvard Benes, where he continued to negotiate. They travelled across Russia to Vladivostok, where they took a ship to the United States. In Chicago in 1918, Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State Edward Lansing agreed to the 'Lansing Accord' which recommended the formation of a Czechoslovak state.

In 1918 Masaryk became the first president of the new state of Czechoslovakia and was re-elected three more times. He became known world-wide as 'the grand old man of Europe' for his rationalism and progressive views. He died in 1936. Edvard Benes followed Masaryk as president, Alexander Dubèek was the liberal Czechoslovak leader during the Prague Spring of 1968, and Václav Havel was the playwright who became the president of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1989.
[ CSLwoman ]

Answer: Nelson Mandela

Mandela was a young lawyer when the white regime in South Africa brought it apartheid rules in 1948. Originally an advocate of peaceful protest, he became more sympathetic to positive action especially after the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. Eventually he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

When it became clear that apartheid could not be sustained in the face of international condemnation, president F.W. de Clerk ordered his release, and together they planned the dismantlement of that oppressive and racist regime.

After he became President of South Africa his policy was one of reconciliation without recrimination, making him admired and respected throughout the world. [ davejacobs ]

Answer: Allen Ludden

Ludden was the host of the very popular game show 'Password' which aired between 1961 and 1975. The couple met on the set of the show when she was a guest star. They remained married until his death in 1981 at age 63. Betty White started in show business in the 1930s but never really made a big impact with the public until she landed a role on the long-running sitcom 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' where she played the man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens.

Another of her popular TV characters was Rose Nylund on 'Golden Girls' and Elka Ostrovsky in 'Hot in Cleveland'.

After Ludden's death, she never married again and is still going strong at age 95. [ our team's most prolific quiz author, debodun ]

Answer: Leslie Nielsen

At age 54 Nielsen was cast in his first comedy role as Dr. Rumack in 'Airplane!'. His tongue in cheek delivery garnered him roles in several comedies in following years including the popular "Naked Gun" films as well as numerous television roles. Nielsen's performance in the "Police Squad" series earned him a 1982 Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
[ team leader, wilbill ]

Answer: Wally Blume

Wally Blume graduated from Purdue University in 1962 with a B.A. in Economics. For over the next quarter-century he worked in the dairy industry in various capacities. Blume established Denali Flavors on the concept of Moose Tracks, an ice cream flavor which included vanilla ice cream, peanut butter cups and a thick dark chocolate fudge.

He later expanded his business to include a Denali Ingredients division. His product flavor lines includes mouthwatering selections such as Caramel Caribou, Bear Claws, Kodiak Island Fudge and Otter Paws. Mr. Blume was featured in Kristin S. Kaufman's book 'Is This Seat Taken? It's Never Too Late to Find the Right Seat'.

The book features 15 people who achieved huge successes after the age of 50. [ donna399 ]

Answer: Albert Einstein

Einstein made this statement and he indeed developed his work on relativity and photoelectric effect before the age of 30. However, a recent study by Jones and Weinberg of Cambridge University concludes that this statement is not true today. Using data from Nobel Laureate scientists between 1901 and 2008 they concluded that the median age of the award-winners is steadily rising, with many scientists reaching greatest success after age 50. Our team's quiz shows that this trend may also be true in fields other than science. [ our Brazilian teammate, masfon, found someone who disagrees with our premise that life begins at 50 ]