My Dinner with ... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain's first major work was "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". He is better known for his tales of the Mississippi, but before his Tom and Huck adventures, he wrote "Innocents Abroad" and "Roughing It", non-fiction works describing his travels abroad and to the American west. Later in life, he embarked on a world speaking tour to pay off debts.

Stevenson also did a bit of traveling, but he actually died in 1894 so a conversation with him would have been a bit one-sided.

Answer: Benjamin Disraeli

Although baptized as a Christian in his teens, Disraeli's Jewish heritage made him an unlikely participant in British politics. He twice occupied the office of Prime Minister and became a member of the House of Lords after receiving the title, Earl of Beaconsfield. He was also a prolific writer with several of his books being romance novels.

There was a nice mini-series on Disraeli in the 1970s (shown on Masterpiece Theatre in the United States) -- it featured a young Ian McShane as Disraeli ... enough said!

Answer: Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon is probably best known for "Werewolves of London" ("I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's...") in the 1970s, but his fans know that he put out quirky and thought-provoking music throughout his career. He was also popular with other musicians and celebrities, including David Letterman who had Zevon fill in as bandleader for Paul Schaffer when the latter was absent from the Letterman show. In late 2002, after Zevon was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, Letterman devoted an entire show to him. It was during this show that Zevon offered his advice on life -- "enjoy every sandwich". He died in September 2003, and the world is a little less interesting without him in it.

Incidentally, if you visit a Trader Vic's, on their menu you'll notice that their pina colada is listed as "a werewolf's favorite".

Answer: Richard Francis Burton

Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) had an outstanding gift for languages and was able to pass himself off as a native throughout the Middle East and India. He wrote many books on his adventures, including narratives of his undercover pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina. He had an interest in the sexual customs of these cultures, and his erotic translations of books such as "The Arabian Nights", "The Kama Sutra" and "The Perfumed Garden" were considered too scandalous to be published for the Victorian public, especially following the passing of the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. They were published by a private society on the understanding that the circulation would be limited.

He also explored areas of eastern and central Africa along with John Speke. One expedition was to find the source of the Nile. Burton fell ill, and Speke continued and was credited with the discovery of Lake Victoria as the source. Burton and others, including David Livingstone, disputed the findings, but the source was eventually confirmed (although you could get technical and consider the tributaries that feed into Lake Victoria, but I digress...)

Interesting bit of trivia -- Richard Burton's portrait hangs on the wall in Professor Higgins' study in the film, "My Fair Lady" -- a tribute no doubt to his linguistic skills.

In case you're wondering -- John Wesley Powell explored the Grand Canyon... in Arizona...

Answer: Orson Welles

As so often is the case, Welles wasn't truly recognized as a genius until after he was gone (the low-cost wine commercials probably didn't help). Nowadays, "Citizen Kane" regularly tops best picture lists, and films such as "The Third Man" and "A Touch of Evil" get their share of accolades. During his prime, he was famously demanding and difficult to work with, and thus he had trouble securing funding for his projects.

He was, however, known for his loyalty to his friends (Joseph Cotten and Akim Tamiroff, for example, were invited to work on several of his projects), and his ego was offset by a self-deprecating sense of humor.

He died on October 10th, 1985 -- the same day as Yul Brynner, with whom he co-starred in "The Battle of Neretva".

Answer: John Lennon

It's truly amazing that the Beatles were able to create so much timeless music in the short time that they were together. But the breakup wasn't pretty and while there was plenty of finger pointing, it was John Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, who took the brunt of it. John's devotion to Yoko was actually touching, and it's one of the things that I find most interesting about him.

She was the frequent inspiration for his music, from "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (which contains the "eating chocolate cake in a bag" line) to "Woman" (a love song on the last album to be released before his death).

Another frequent topic of his songs was the desire for a better world -- "Imagine", in particular, highlights his views. It was a tragic loss when he was gunned down on December 8, 1980 -- many of us in the United States had the news given to us by Howard Cosell on "Monday Night Football".

Answer: Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States, and at the time, the youngest President to take office. Whether you liked his policies or not, you'd have to agree he was a man of action -- he accomplished more in his lifetime than most men. He was a mass of contradictions, however. He was an early conservationist -- he set aside over 180 million acres of land for national forests, parks and wildlife preserves, more than the combined total of all of his predecessors, yet he was also an avid hunter (the Teddy Bear story allegedly results from his refusal to shoot an injured bear -- he requested that the bear be put down, so it all ended the same for the bear). He won the Nobel Peace Prize (the first U.S. President to do so) for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese war, and yet he paraded the U.S. Navy around the world and had no problem bullying other nations to the benefit of the U.S. His life story is an entertaining read!

He also dedicated the Grand Canyon as a National Monument in 1908.

Answer: Graham Chapman

Actually, I'd love to have dinner with all of these brilliant men, but it's Graham Chapman, the first Python to shuffle off this mortal coil and join the choir invisible. In his Monty Python days, he frequently played authority figures -- the Colonel, Mr. Neutron, Brian Cohen -- with the latter role in "Life of Brian" ruffling a few feathers. He was the police officer investigating Whizzo Chocolate Company's "Crunchy Frog" confections, and King Arthur, riding on an imaginary horse to the accompaniment of coconut shells. Incidentally, if you visit Doune Castle in Scotland, where many of the scenes for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" were filmed, they have coconut shells available to enhance your tour.

After his death in 1988, fellow Python John Cleese delivered a memorial eulogy in which he declared him an Ex-Chapman, and in the late 1990s, the Pythons performed a live show in Aspen, Colorado, with Graham Chapman in tow -- in an urn...

Answer: Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron wrote an amazing amount of fabulous poetry in his short life. "Don Juan", "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", "She Walks in Beauty", and "So We'll Go No More a Roving" are some of his best known works. Although an English poet of Scottish heritage, Byron spent much of his adult life abroad, particularly in Italy and Greece. It was in Greece that he died of illness while fighting on behalf of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, a friend of Byron's, also died young. He drowned when his schooner, the "Don Juan" sank in a storm.

Answer: Thomas More

Looking at my list of dinner guests, I couldn't help noticing that several of them were "bad boys" so I had to invite someone more saintly to my last dinner. Whether you agree with his religious views or not, he was a man who was committed to his faith, to the point that it cost him his life. He was an early supporter of equality in education, and he was essentially a humanitarian man -- well, except for that "burning heretics at the stake" thing. His book, "Utopia", presented his vision for a perfect world -- somewhat like John Lennon's "Imagine", although More's version did have religion. Thomas More was canonized in 1935.


Well I'm full! If you'd like to read more about these fascinating men, please see these sources:

www.online-literature.com; The Official Web Site of Mark Twain: http://www.cmgww.com/historic/twain/index.php; http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/scrapbook/index.html; http://www.britannia.com/bios/disraeli.html; http://www.victorianweb.org/history/pms/dizzy.html; http://www.warrenzevon.com/; "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton" by Edward Rice (1990); http://burtoniana.org/; http://www.wellesnet.com/; "Orson Welles" (volumes one and two) by Simon Callow (1997/2006); http://johnlennon.com; http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/; "Theodore Rex" by Edmund Morris (2001); http://pythonline.com; "The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons" by the Pythons and Bob McCabe (2003); http://www.internationalbyronsociety.org/; http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/morebio.htm; http://www.apostles.com/thomasmore.html