Famous Short People Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dolly Parton

The amusement park Dollywood, founded in 1986, is in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, 35 miles south of Knoxville. The daughter of a tobacco farmer and one of 12 children, Dolly began appearing at the Grand Ole Opry at age 13. She got her first ticket to stardom through Porter Wagoner, whom she sang duets with for 7 years before going solo. She has appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, and has won 5 Grammys.
This dynamic lady stands exactly 5 feet tall. Hey, at least she's tall enough to ride the rides :)

Answer: Francis of Assisi

St. Francis of Assisi is next at 5'1". Living from 1181-1226, St. Francis of Assisi was an Italian saint and founder of the Franciscan religious order. He was a soldier before his religious conversion in his 20's. In 1224, he was the first person to receive the stigmata, which is bleeding from the same locations on the body where Christ was wounded. St. Francis was a nature lover, and had great love and respect for all his fellow humankind. Pope Gregory IX canonized St. Francis in 1228. www.catholic-forum.com/saints

Answer: Margaret Mead

Standing just 5'2", U.S. anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote 23 books on culture and personalities during her lifetime. Her studies on sexual equality and gender roles led her to propose that masculine and feminine characteristics reflected society, not genetics- a novel concept at the time she presented it.

In her later years, she became a deeply committed activist on women's rights and nuclear weapons. Due to her publications on ancient Goddess worship, she is considered by many people to be an instrumental factor in the rise of Paganism today.

Born in 1901, she died of cancer in 1978. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. www.mead2001.org

Answer: Voltaire

In fact, the "quotation" comes from Evelyn Beatrice Hall's biography of Voltaire, first published in 1907. (She wrote under the pseudonym S. G. Tallantyre).

Answer: James Madison

James Madison was born in 1751, in Port Conway, Virginia. Madison got the ball rolling to hold a national convention to draft the Constitution. Next, Madison's "Virginia Plan" served as the model for the Constitution that was agreed upon. To make sure the Constitution was pushed through, Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay published the 'Federalist' essays to help the Constitution get ratified. Madison also helped design the Bill of Rights, and founded the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1794 he married Dolly Todd; you may recognize her married name on those snack cakes you eat.

The United States of America's 4th President, James Madison was 5'4". Madison died in his home in Montpelier, Virginia in 1836. www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm4.html

Answer: Pablo Picasso

Born Pablo Ruiz Picasso in 1881 to Jose Ruiz and Maria Picasso. Pablo decided to use his mother's last name, rather than the more common last name Ruiz. Picasso created more than 20,000 works of art during his lifetime, and is a huge contributor to modern art. Picasso worked in a wide variety of mediums, and was a master of every art form he tried his hand at- be it painting, sculpture, ceramics, or illustration. Picasso and Georges Braque created cubism, which is the art of reducing subject matter to basic geometric shapes.

The idea behind cubism is that even though depth can be faked in a painting, in the end you are still dealing with a flat canvas. Since it seemed ludicrous to them to try and put a 3-dimensional item on a 2-dimensional plane, they chose instead to change the rules. Picasso also created lithographs, etchings, drypoints, lino cuts, woodcuts and aquatints. Pablo Picasso is credited with changing art more profoundly than any other 20th century artist. Picasso was 5 feet, 4 inches tall- brush not included. Picasso died in 1973 at the age of 91. www.artelino.com/articles/pablo_picasso.asp

Answer: Baby Face Nelson

Born Lester Joseph Gillis on December 6, 1908 in Chicago IL. Gillis got picked on a lot as a youth, both for his small stature of 5'4 3/4", and for his "angelic" looks. Tired of being picked on, one day he fought back- with a switchblade. After that, the other kids didn't mess with him. Gillis, not yet a teenager, took to roaming the streets looking to commit crime. Gillis later became a strong arm for Al Capone during Prohibition. Gillis was known to enjoy killing, and showed zero remorse. Capone's outfit fired him for being too rough and too bloody. Looking for a new line of work, Gillis tried armed robbery.

He was arrested robbing a jewelry store, but later escaped while being transported to trial. Gillis fled to California, where he changed his name to George Nelson. Parente, the local crime boss Nelson was working for, gave him the nickname "Baby Face", after the song. Nelson loathed the nickname. Nelson quit working for Parente in order to start robbing banks to make "big money".

After a successful run of bank robberies, Nelson was hiding out in the Hotel St. Francis when he met up with a member of the Dillinger gang, who invited him to join their group. While this had been a dream of his, Nelson refused, offering instead to let Dillinger into *his* gang. Dillinger and Nelson did join forces, but Dillinger never considered Nelson anything but an associate, certainly not the boss. Dillinger was amazed at the insanity and intense violence displayed by Nelson, and often admonished him to stop shooting people. When J. Edgar Hoover put out a "public enemies" list, Nelson was livid that Dillinger was #1, and that Dillinger drew a bigger reward than he did. Dillinger was killed running from the FBI, which bumped Nelson to the top of the list where he stayed until his death. "Baby Face" Nelson died September 27, 1934, after being riddled with 17 bullets from a violent shoot-out with FBI officers. http://www.crimelibrary.com/americana/babyface/index.htm

Answer: Hirohito

Born Michinomiya Hirohito in Tokyo April 29, 1901. Hirohito, the 124th sovereign of Japan, is next on our list, checking in at 5'5". As a young man, Hirohito traveled in Europe for six months, a first for a Japanese crown prince. Upon his return to Japan, he took the title of regent due to the ill health of his father.

When his father died a few months later, Hirohito assumed the throne at age 25. Hirohito was interested in many subjects, among them Marine Biology, a subject which he wrote several books about.

In 1945, after losing the lives of 3 million Japanese, Hirohito made a radio broadcast announcing Japan's surrender to the Allies, ending World War II. The longest reigning monarch in Japan's history, Hirohito ruled as the emperor for 62 years until his death from cancer, January 7, 1989. about.com

Answer: Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Socrates Onassis was only 5'5", but that didn't stop him from amassing a huge shipping empire. Born in 1900 in Smyrna, Onassis moved to Buenos Aires as a young man, where he was made the Greek Consul to Argentina. This gave him enough political connections and leverage to make a success of his shipping business, which started from 6 ships he saved from the scrap yard.

His business was built up through smoke and mirrors, and outright lies and deception. Onassis fought hard for his "monopoly rights" for both his oil and his airline business, Olympic Airways of Greece, and was a principal stockholder in the company that ran the Monte Carlo casino.

Not entirely beyond the "long arm of the law", Onassis was investigated by the FBI in 1954 for fraud against the US Government.

He pled guilty, and bought his way out of jail time with seven million dollars. Despite his reputation, he was able to marry Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of President John F. Kennedy, in 1968. Onassis died in 1975, and was buried on his private island.

In his will, he left half of his estate to set up a charity that furthers the arts through donations, scholarships and grants. greece.org

Answer: Tutankhamen

Steve Martin did a King Tut bit on Saturday Night Live in 1978. Tutankhamen ends our list at 5'6". Tutankhamen was born Tutankhaten roughly 1,350 BCE in Amarna. At the age of ten he became pharaoh of Egypt, and promptly married Ankhesenamen, his seven year old half-niece. In the second year of his reign, Tutankhaten assumed his new "pharaoh" name of Tutankhamen. Tutankhamen died at age 18, apparently from a blow to the head- murder is suspected, and there are many books out now theorizing on who killed him, and why. King Tut's tomb was found at Thebes in 1922, one of the most intact Egyptian tombs ever discovered. The discovery of this tomb has given us a great deal of information about Egyptian culture and government. There is rumor of a curse on his tomb, as all who have entered it have died a mysterious death shortly thereafter. histoportal.com
Heights came from "The Book of Lists #2" by Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace, and Sylvia Wallace.
For those of you interested, the author of this quiz is 5'3 1/2", and the preferred term is vertically challenged :-)