On Christmas Day in the Mo(u)rning Quiz

Answer: Charles Chaplin

Chaplin acted as writer, director, producer and star of the majority of his movies. Once sound came into the cinema's lexicon, he added the position of score composer to his many roles. Chaplin's greatest successes came in the silent era. His most popular character, the Tramp, stayed silent even after the advent of the talkies. Chaplin believed that the magic of the character would be lost if his voice were to be heard. The Tramp was finally retired after 1936's "Modern Times" and Chaplin embraced the talkies with his next film "The Great Dictator" in 1940.

Chaplin's time in Hollywood came to an abrupt end in 1953. Having long been a target for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, when Chaplin left the US for the UK premiere of the film "Limelight", FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, had his permit to return revoked, due to his alleged communist leanings. As a consequence, "Limelight" remained unreleased in the United States until 1972. Eventually in 1973, Chaplin won his first Oscar for best musical score for "Limelight", although he had received two honorary Oscars previously.

Answer: James Brown

Brown broke new musical ground in so many different ways that a few sentences here could never do his achievements justice. His music influenced countless future musicians across countless styles. His landmark singles include "I Got You (I Feel Good)", "Cold Sweat" (to many, the first ever funk record) and "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud".

As well as his remarkable achievements in music, Brown had an impressive record of social activism. He used his fame and box office draw to support community programs as varied as school drop-out prevention, civil rights and anti-violence. He was credited with helping to keep the peace on the streets following the assassination of Martin Luther King by performing a concert that was broadcast free on television.

Answer: Nicolae Ceausescu

Ceausescu made a swift rise through the ranks of the Romanian Workers' Party thanks to a spell sharing a prison cell with his predecessor as General Secretary, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Once he assumed power in 1965, Ceausescu became a popular leader both with his people and with the Western world. His moves to distance Romania from Soviet rule, by taking a back seat in the Warsaw Pact and establishing an independent foreign policy, saw him viewed by the West as a liberal. However, this was far from the truth. In contrast to the rest of the Eastern Bloc, Romania remained a staunchly Stalinist state and the secret police ruled with an iron rod.

By 1989, Ceausescu and his wife and deputy Prime Minister, Elena, were deeply unpopular throughout Romania. Their policies had left huge pockets of extreme poverty across the country, a severe orphan crisis and a disproportionately huge population of HIV-infected children. Though the rest of communist Europe was cascading towards revolution, Ceausescu remained oblivious to the possibility that Romania might follow suit.

On December 21st, Ceausescu spoke to a large crowd gathered in Bucharest's central square. He was responding to demonstrations in the city of Timisoara by attempting a show of mass support in the capital. When he was barracked by the crowd, his expression betrayed his surprise and encouraged the demonstrations to spread. The next day, Ceausescu fled the capital before being captured and handed over to the army. He was tried by a hastily arranged court on Christmas Day and sentenced to death. There was no shortage of volunteers for the firing squad and they were eager to do their job. The gunman opened fire on the Ceausescus before they were in position and blindfolded. Their dead bodies were shown to the nation on state television to confirm both their deaths and the death of Communist rule in the country.

Answer: Joan Miró

Though he is most associated with Surrealism, Miró's works embraced many different styles. His earliest works showed the influence of his friend, Pablo Picasso's Cubist style, as well as Dadaism and Fauvism. He signed the Surrealist manifesto in 1924 and was described by André Breton as "the most surrealist of us all", but he refused to be tied to the Surrealist label, believing it compromised his artistic freedom.

Having left Spain during the Civil War period to live in Paris, he returned when the Nazis invaded and settled in Mallorca. It was from this base that he expanded the media in which he worked, beginning with ceramics and bronze. In his later years, he demonstrated a preference for creating large public works, many of which were originally installed in public buildings in the United States.

The Joan Miró Foundation opened a centre in his native Barcelona in 1975 where a large collection of his works can be seen.

Answer: Young Tom Morris

The "Claret Jug", officially known as The Golf Champion Trophy, was commissioned for the 1872 Open Championship. Prior to this tournament, the winner of The Open was presented with the Championship Belt. Young Tom Morris's wins in 1868, 1869 and 1870 meant that he was presented with the Belt outright and a new trophy was required. The Claret Jug was never presented to Morris as it had not been completed in time for the 1872 tournament, but his name was engraved onto it subsequent to his victory.

As well as being the place where he died, St. Andrews was the scene for Morris's birth, in 1850. His father, Old Tom Morris, was the greenkeeper at the golf course from 1860 to his death in 1908.

Answer: Linus Yale, Jr.

Linus Yale, Jr. joined his father's lock shop in his late twenties. He quickly demonstrated a flair for mechanical invention, improving upon the designs his father had created. The pin-tumble design of lock was patented by Linus Yale, Sr. in 1848. In 1861, Yale Jr. patented his improved version and it is this latter version that is still used as the basis for many cylinder locks today.

Yale Jr. created the Yale Manufacturing Company in 1868 and it soon became the premier lock company in the US. Unfortunately, Yale did not get to see its great successes as he suffered a heart attack on Christmas Eve of the same year and died the next day. Though some sites list his date of death as December 24th, "Yale Genealogy and History of Wales" lists it as 25th December.

Linus Yale, Jr. was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.

Answer: W.C. Fields

An old vaudeville saying was "I'd rather be dead than play Philadelphia again." Fields was a native of Philadelphia and once quipped, in an interview with "Vanity Fair" said he wished his epitaph to read, "Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia."

Fields was a latecomer to the movies, making his debut when already in his thirties. His characters tended to be hen-pecked husbands with a sharp tongue who spent much of their time staring at the bottom of a bottle. In his vaudeville days, Fields had been teetotal, as he feared that drink would interfere with his ability to juggle. However, he always kept a bottle of alcohol at hand so that people would come and visit him in his dressing room. Gradually, the liquor became a regular part of his own intake and informed and inspired a lot of his best performances.

Answer: Eartha Kitt

When Kitt told Ladybird Johnson, wife of the President, "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot," it caused outrage amongst certain sectors of US society. Offers of work at home dried up and led to Kitt moving to Europe.

Orson Welles was the man who described Kitt as "the most exciting woman alive." He had cast her as Helen of Troy in his production, "Time Runs", which was based on Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus". The play raised Kitt's profile and enabled her to achieve significant success in the music charts.

She took over as Catwoman in TV's "Batman" from Julie Newmar. Given the descriptions of her feline grace that had been applied to her throughout her career, it seemed a role she was destined to play.

Answer: Otto Loewi

Loewi shared his Nobel Prize with Sir Henry Dale, an English pharmacologist whom he met in 1902, whilst working in the laboratory of renowned physiologist, Ernest Starling, the co-discoverer of human hormones. The discovery of acetylcholine was the culmination of work that had also seen Loewi discover the chemical transmission of nerve impulses in 1921. His work revolutionised the view of the human sympathetic nervous system.

Julius Axelrod won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970, also for work in the field of neurotransmission. Alois Alzheimer first described the disease of "presenile dementia" that would later bear his name. Sigmund Freud was the Austrian pioneer of psychoanalysis.

Answer: Dean Martin

Martin achieved success across an array of entertainment fields. He started out as a nightclub crooner in the 1940s. His profile grew after he teamed up with comedian Jerry Lewis in 1946. Their act grew into a hugely popular comedy double act and they were rewarded with their own radio show in 1949. A contract to make films in Hollywood soon followed and their partnership soon became the biggest draw in the US.

The act broke up acrimoniously in 1956. Though Martin initially struggled in the wake of Lewis's continued success, he re-positioned himself as a serious actor with some success. One of those successes, "Some Came Running", teamed him with fellow crooner, Frank Sinatra, for the first time. The pair became firm friends and this friendship formed the basis of the development of the Rat Pack, the group of friends who became the must-see performers in Las Vegas throughout the 1960s.