Famous People Who Died in the Early 2020s Quiz

Answer: Roy

Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn passed away in May, 2020. His partner, Siegfried Fischbacher, died about a half year later in January, 2021, of pancreatic cancer. The duo spent four decades performing their magic shows in Las Vegas. These shows had illusions and large wild cats. One of their tigers attacked Roy on stage in 2003, which severed his spine and brought their Las Vegas show to an end.

He recovered from the attack, but succumbed to complications of COVID-19 during the pandemic.

Answer: Colin Powell

Colin Powell was born on April 5, 1937. He entered the Army in 1958, where he rose to the rank of four-star general of the US Army. In 1989, he became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is the highest military appointment in the US. In 2001, he became the 65th United States Secretary of State under George W. Bush. He is known for a scandal during his tenure as Secretary of State. He gave a speech to the United Nations in an attempt to justify the war in Iraq, but later admitted that he had presented some inaccuracies there. Due to this, he was forced to resign from his position when Bush was re-elected to a second term.

During retirement, Powell authored his second book and became a public speaker. He contracted Parkinson's Disease and myeloma, a type of blood cancer. The cancer had weakened his immune system, so despite being vaccinated, Powell contracted COVID-19 and passed away from the complications that resulted on October 18, 2021, at the age of 84. He was buried during a private service at Washington National Cathedral on November 5, 2021.

Answer: Charley Pride

Charley Pride was born in Mississippi in 1934. He taught himself to play the guitar when he was fourteen years old, but had a bigger interest in playing baseball. In the early 1950s, he pitched in the Negro American League, and on the farm teams of other American League teams. When one of his managers noticed his singing ability, he asked Pride to sing in the stadium for fifteen minutes before each game. This was the start of his career as a singer. He became known as the first African-American country singer as he became more famous.

Pride's most successful song, "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'", was released in 1971. He had his first performance at the Grand Ole Opry in 1967, only the second African-American performer to ever sing on that stage. He was formally inducted to the Grande Ole Opry in May, 1993. He was only the second African-American to be inducted since the first inductees were announced in the mid-1920s. Pride developed COVID-19 while he lived in Texas in 2020. He passed away from complications of the virus on December 20, 2020. He is buried at the Calvary Hill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Dallas, Texas.

Answer: As an actual voice in Milli Vanilli, not one of the lip-syncers

John Davis was born in South Carolina in 1954. He was a member of the US Armed Forces, and was stationed in Germany for most of his career. He developed a singing career there by performing in Army clubs to entertain the troops. He was approached by a German music producer in the early 1980s to work on a project.

He recorded some work, and realized only later that his voice was being lip synced by Fabrice Morvan. Morvan was one of the members of the infamous group Milli Vanilli that was caught up in a lip sync scandal in 1989. Davis contracted COVID-19 and passed away from complications due to the virus on May 24, 2021.

He was only 66 years old.

Answer: Winning a university scholarship at a Miss America pageant

Cloris Leachman was born in April, 1926. She had been interested in acting during her youth, but when she placed in the top 16 at the Miss America Pageant in 1946, she received a scholarship. This allowed her to travel to New York to study acting at the Actor's Studio. Leachman performed in plays and in small roles on television through the 1960s. She may be most well-known for her role as Phyllis Lindstrom on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". She also appeared in a number of movies by Mel Brooks.

She received many awards for her work, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards, an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award. Leachman passed away in January, 2021. The cause of death was found to be a stroke, but COVID-19 was identified as a contributing factor by the San Diego medical examiner's office.

Answer: Dawn Wells (Mary Ann)

Dawn Wells was born in 1938. Her acting career started in 1961 when she appeared in an episode of "Wagon Train". She continued to appear in single episodes of a variety of shows until she landed the role of Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" in 1964. She appeared on 98 episodes of that show by the time that it ended in 1967.

From 1968 on, she continued to appear in a variety of single episodes in multiple television shows. Wells appeared in three "Gilligan's Island" reunion movies after the show ended. She also appeared in a few movies, and a number of theatre productions from the 1970s on. Wells passed away as a result of complications from COVID-19 on December 30, 2020. She was buried with her mother at the Mountain View Cemetery in Reno, Nevada.

Answer: The Yorkshire Ripper

Peter Sutcliffe, or the Yorkshire Ripper, was a serial killer who was active from 1975-1980. Upon his arrest, he was found guilty of murdering or severely injuring over twenty women. Despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia, he was initially sentenced to twenty concurrent life terms in prison after his arrest in January, 1981. That sentence was changed to a whole life order in 2010.

The hunt for Sutcliffe by police was the most extensive ever when he was sought in the 1970s. There were no computers used by the investigators, so all information about the case had to be recorded on paper. As a result, the floor of the incident room at the police station had to be reinforced due to the weight of the paper.

Sutcliffe died at the age of 74 in November, 2020 after contracting COVID-19. He suffered from diabetes and heart disease, two risk factors for COVID-19. He reportedly refused treatment for the virus when he contracted it late in 2020.

Answer: Annie Glenn

Annie Glenn (nee Castor) was born in February, 1920. Annie and John Glenn were married for 73 years at the time of his death in 2016. She worked as a music teacher early in her marriage, and spent time supporting her husband in the space program and in his political career over the course of their marriage.

Annie Glenn had a speech impediment that affected her from the time that she was a child until she passed away. She worked to support children and others with speech disorders over the course of her life. She received a number of awards and honours from hearing and speech associations as a result of her dedication to this cause. When she passed away due to complications of COVID-19 on May 19, 2020, she was 100 years old.

Answer: Jaws

Lee Fierro was born in New York City in February, 1929. She was an active actress and theatre promoter from 1975-2016, but mainly in local community theatre so she was not very well known to the general public when she landed her biggest role. She was cast as Mrs. Kintner in "Jaws" in 1975. In the movie, she was required to slap the town's police chief (played by Roy Scheider). Unfortunately for Scheider, Steven Spielberg, the film's director, required multiple takes of the scene. Fierro reported on CNN that she remembered seventeen slaps before the scene was considered completed by Spielberg. Fierro passed away from complications due to COVID-19 at the age of 91 on April 5, 2020.

The hint in this question refers to the fact that actors and workers on the set of "Jaws" nicknamed the shark "Bruce".

Answer: As a member of the Four Seasons

The singer who was known as Tommy DeVito was born in New Jersey in 1928. He had sung with a few minor groups before he was introduced to Frankie Valli. They formed a quartet that they called The Four Lovers. They achieved some minor success on the charts and a spot on the Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1960, the group was re-named the Four Seasons when two members of the group left and DeVito and Valli were joined by two different musicians. DeVito left the group in 1970, but reunited with the original group a few times, including in 2005 on Broadway at the opening of "Jersey Boys", a Tony Award winning play about the group's early days. DeVito passed away from complications due to COVID-19 in Las Vegas on September 21, 2020.