It's How We Know Them Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mae West

Frank Wallace whose birth name was Frank Szatkus married Mae West, (who was born Mary Jane West), in 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mae West was originally in vaudeville prior to becoming an actress. She was best known perhaps for her bawdy sense of humor and double entendres and served as an early sex symbol.

She was often very controversial and was censored on a number of occasions, causing her once to quip, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."

Answer: Woody Allen

Woody Allen developed a persona as a "nebbish"; an intellectual nerd with insecurities and a painfully neurotic personality. Among some of his comedic works are "Take the Money and Run", "Bananas", "Sleeper" and "Love and Death".

Answer: Joseph Stalin

Upon the death of Vladimir Lenin, (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov), Stalin rose quickly to power by manipulations, murders, including "purging" much of the Old Bolshevik Guard, meaning those who had been involved in the overthrow of the Tsarist government during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The man known as 'Stalin' created the name for himself, implying that he was made of steel. Stalin died in 1953, but not until he had been responsible for the deaths of between 6 and 9 million of his countrymen.

Answer: Doris Smith

Doris Ione Smith played the role of Ellie May, but was billed in the opening credits as Donna Douglas. Her first marriage was to Roland Bourgeois, Jr. which ended in divorce with her son Danny being her only offspring. Later she married Robert M. Leeds, a director of "The Beverly Hillbillies". They too were divorced later.

She and her partner Curt Wilson once sued Walt Disney Pictures, Whoopi Goldberg and Bette Midler for plagiarism, claiming that there were over 100 similarities between the movie "Sister Act" and a book and screenplay that Douglas and Wilson had developed from it, called "A Nun in the Closet", which they owned.
They eventually lost the lawsuit.

Answer: George Eliot

While all of the women mentioned wrote under a man's name at times, author George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans works include "The Mill on the Floss", "Middlemarch" and "Silas Marner", among others. She, along with some of her contemporary authors, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, were Victorian writers whose works were set in England.

Because she was not considered to be a physically beautiful woman, she was not expected to have much chance of receiving a proposal to be married, so her father invested in her education. A higher education for women was a rarity in those days, but her father possibly felt that it would enhance her chances for an income later in life. In those days it was not uncommon for men to have adulterous affairs and her "husband" was no exception. After she was an adult she had a living arrangement with George Henry Lewes. He was a married man with three children when the two of them "set up housekeeping"; living together as man and wife.

Answer: Joseph Conrad

In 1888 when he was 20 years old, Joseph Conrad attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. This could have been due to an ongoing depressive state and the fact that he was in debt. Things improved, bit by bit, and in 1896 he married an English woman named Jessie George and sired two sons.

In 1914, the day that WW1 broke out, the family went to visit Krakow, Poland, and since they were only a few miles from the Russian border they risked being caught up in the battle zone. Conrad decided to take refuge with his wife and sons in a mountain resort town and eventually found their way to safety.

Answer: Desi Arnaz

Desi Arnaz played the role of Ricky Ricardo on the T.V. show "I Love Lucy". A band leader at the Tropicana Club, Ricky often had to deal with his no-talent wife, Lucy, (played by Lucille Désirée Ball) trying to horn in on his acts at the club. In real life, the two of them were actually married and had two children, Lucie Arnaz and her younger brother, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, or simply, Desi Arnaz, Jr.

The marriage was often a turbulent one and it finally ended in divorce in 1960, but not before we all learned to love Lucy and Ricky quite well ourselves.

Answer: Eva Peron

Eva or "Evita" Peron was born in 1919 as the youngest of five children who grew up in poverty in the agricultural area known as The Pampas. In 1945 she married Army Colonel Juan Perón and the following year he became president of the country. As First Lady she became powerful in assisting trade unions and spoke out in favor of labor rights. Both she and her husband were popular with working class citizens. Eva died in 1952 shortly after an unsuccessful bid for the vice presidency in 1951.

Answer: Pancho Villa

Francisco "Pancho" Villa was born in 1878. As an adult he became a military landowner in Chihuahua and helped lead the ouster of president Victoriano Huerta. Prior to his military successes he had been a bandit, a mule-skinner, (one who uses pack animals for transporting goods), a butcher, a bricklayer and a sharecropper.

He was a brilliant military tactician and as a result won much political support. His successes prompted the United States Army to study his tactics and Hollywood even struck up a contract with him agreeing to pay 50% of its profits just for being allowed to film his manoeuvres!

Answer: Ted Turner

Ted Turner founded the news venue of CNN after his success in establishing the television super-station WTBS in Atlanta, Georgia. He began his business media empire when his father died and Ted took over the billboard company, Turner Outdoor Advertising. Later he purchased the Atlanta Braves in 1976 and quickly promoted the team on his television station that broadcast across the country, billing them as "The Atlanta Braves: America's Team".