Flamboyant Women Through Time Trivia Quiz

Answer: Meat

The dress was first worn for the 2010 MTV Awards. It was designed by Franc Fernandez for Lady Gaga's appearance. It was made of flank steak and Gaga had to be sewn into it at the last minute. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame paid $6000 to a taxidermist to preserve it. It was treated with bleach, formaldehyde, and detergent to prevent deterioration.

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta adopted Lady Gaga as her stage name. She rose relatively quickly to fame. Her hit recordings, costuming, and outrageous behavior have kept her in the public spotlight.

Answer: Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great is probably best known for her sexual exploits but also she was a progressive force in 'westernizing' Russia from an isolated European nation to become a force on its continent. Catherine, the daughter of a mid-level Prussian noble, was fortunate to be married to Peter III who was assassinated thus propelling Catherine to the throne. Catherine, an admirer of Peter the Great, as was her husband, initiated reforms. She had many lovers and was generous in rewarding them with power and riches. One reform was the relieve the nobility of mandatory military service.

She wrote many documents promoting education, corresponded with the leading intellectuals of her day, and promoted the arts. Many of her reforms were stalled by the heavy layers of bureaucracy prevalent in Russia thus her reign did little for the lower classes of society.

Historians agree that the myth about her relationship to a horse was concocted by her political enemies.

Answer: Vince McMahon, Senior

When she won her first championship in 1956, she was known by "Slave Girl Moolah" but McMahon changed that. The name stuck for the rest of her career. Born Mary Lillian Ellison, she developed an interest in wrestling as a child. Through the years she did more to develop an interest in female wrestling than any other personality. She was, for instance, the first female to perform at Madison Square Garden.

Moolah had a long and 'fabulous' career. She had been reported to have been the women's champion longer than any other. She appeared on "Raw" television promotion to win her championship back at the age of 76. After the era of Moolah, the promotions of women's wrestling changed from muscular dominant women to skinny bikini clad girls with heavy sexual innuendo.

The one blot on her career was that of a wrestling trainer. She was accused at various times of accepting money and not providing training. The more serious charges were that she acted as a pimp for male professional wrestlers.

Answer: Maria Falconetti

There are literally hundreds of adaptations of Joan of Arc's story. Carl Theodor Dreyer's direction was and is considered a masterpiece. His concentration on close-ups and lighting enables him to tell the story through faces, not just titlecards.

Maria Falconetti considered herself a stage actress and had little interest in a film career. "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928) is regarded as one of the best films of the silent era and all time. Falconette's tears might be real as she spent hours kneeling on the concrete floor set. The sets were designed in detail as Dreyer had spent over a year in research.

2012 marked the 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc's birth.

Answer: Cary Grant

The line is from "She Did Him Wrong" (1933) and is often misquoted. West often claimed that Grant's later success was tied to the two films he made with her. West's career spanned seven decades from the stage, films, vaudeville, and screenwriting. The core of her fame are probably both the pre-code films of the early 1930s and also in the Hayes Office era because of her disputes with censors. She attributed much of her success to the censors who generated publicity for her films. Her last film appearences were in 1970 in the camp "Myra Breckenridge" and in "Sexette" (1978)

She appeared in "Diamond Lil", a play she wrote, several times on Broadway. She had a hand in writing several screenplays of films she acted in. If not writing the material herself, she was prone to ad-libbing dialouge. Her autobiography, "Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It", was a bestseller in 1959.

Answer: Political activity

Sappho is remembered today by her association with women's rights and sexual preference for her own sex. This is found her various fragments of poetry although other poets of the time wrote of similiar topics. Her exile lasted several years due to the fact that Lesbos was in a stage of political unrest and she had perhaps supported the wrong faction. She did return to Lesbos.

Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho was 'small and dark' and compared her to Socrates: "What else could one call the love of the Lesbian woman than the Socratic art of love? For they seem to me to have practised love after their own fashion, she the love of women, he of boys. For they said they loved many, and were captivated by all things beautiful".

Answer: Madonna

Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Bay City, Michigan, she has been a popular entertainer with a worldwide audience. The "Guinness Book of Records" lists her as the best selling female singing artist of all time. Through her career she has been able to re-invent herself, adapting to changing times and taste. Trained in classical dance, she found success in recording, films, personal appearences, and just being Madonna.

She starred in "Evita"(1996)(Don't Cry For Me, Argentina). "Like a Virgin"(1984) was one of her early hits; Breathless Mahoney was her film role in "Dick Tracy"(1990).

Answer: Persecution of Protestants during her reign

Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and became queen in 1553 after the failed attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. Her main objective was to force England to adopt Roman Catholicism. During her five year reign over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake.

Her unpopular marriage to Philip of Spain failed to produce an heir although she did suffer a false pregnancy. On her death in 1558, as per Henry VIII's will, Elizabeth I ascended to the throne and promptly reversed the draconian anti-Protestant laws.

Answer: Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania and lived in Oakland but her family spent much time in Europe. She was educated at Radcliffe and attended John Hopkins where she was mentored by the psycholgist Willam James. Her research study was into the mystery and the use of 'the stream of consciousness' that was to play a major role in her novels, poetry, and essays. Marcel Proust and James Joyce are two examples of this literary techiques.

In 1903 she and her brother Leo took up residence at 27 rue de Fleurus, a home that began a four decade residence and focal point for a long list of people at her Saturday solons, including Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse to name a few - and, of course, her co-hostess and life partner Alice B. Toklas.

Much of her writing is in the stream of consciousness style and is at once idiosyncratic, playful, repetitive, and humorous. Her most famous quotes are "A rose is a rose is a rose" and "There is no there there".

She has been criticized for her alliance with the Vichy government during World War Two and her paise of some other despots but generally this was done in fear of reprisals because of her Jewish background.

James Thurber had this to say about her writing: "Anyone who reads at all diversely during these bizarre 1920s cannot escape the conclusion that a number of crazy men and women are writing stuff which remarkably passes for important composition among certain persons who should know better... (She)arrives at the conviction that it is a marvellous and painstaking achievement in setting down approximately 80,000 words which mean nothing at all."

Answer: Moms Mabley

Born Loretta Mary Aiken, Moms (1894-1975) had a difficult life. She had been raped and had two children by the time she was fifteen, who were given out for adoption. Seeking a new life she ran away and joined a traveling minstrel show. Eventually she became a star of the so-called "Chitlin' Circuit", a vaudeville that catered to black audiences.

At the peak of that career she was earning $10,000 a week. It was the advent of television that brought Moms to the attention of a wider audience. Her television appearences were 'edgy' but not as risqué as her stand-up act.

Much of her humor centered on her appreciation for younger men.