One Hundred - Not Out! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Songwriter

Israel Isidore Beilin was born in the Russian Empire on 11 May 1888. His family emigrated to America five years later, and settled in New York City with a new name - Baline.

At the age of eight, the boy started contributing to the family's income by selling newspapers, then he started receiving pennies when singing some of the popular songs of the era. He managed to get a job as a singing waiter and taught himself to play the piano when the restaurant was closed, then he began writing his own songs. A spelling error, in 1907, on the first to be published ("Marie From Sunny Italy") gave his name as I. Berlin.

Berlin's first marriage ended in tragedy. His wife, Dorthy, died of typhoid fever contracted in Havana on their honeymoon. More than ten years later, Berlin fell in love with an Irish Catholic heiress - Ellin Mackay. Although her mother wanted her to follow her heart, her father strongly disapproved of the match, and tried to prevent the romance, but failed. The couple eloped and had a simple civil ceremony in 1926. The marriage lasted until her death in 1988. Berlin, himself died the following year, on 22 September, at the age of 101.

Berlin wrote over a thousand songs in nearly sixty years. Naming just two titles - "White Christmas" and "God Bless America", makes one see why Jerome Kern wrote, 'Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music'.

Answer: Author

Beverly Atlee Bunn was born on 12 April 1916 in rural Oregon, USA. When she was six years old, the family moved to Portland, Oregon. After struggling in her early years at school, she gained a BA in English and qualified as a librarian. She met her future husband, Clarence Cleary, while studying at Berkeley in California. Her Presbyterian father disapproved of her marrying a Roman Catholic, so the couple eloped, eventually setting up home, after World War II, in California.

Cleary's career as a writer began when she was asked to write books which had relevance to modern children. Her response was to write the first of a series of six books about about Henry Huggins, and his dog Ribsy. His friend Beezus had a little sister, Ramona, who was to become the heroine of another series of eight books.

Cleary has won many awards, including the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association in 1975 and the Newbery Medal in 1984. In 2000 she was named as a Library of Congress Living Legend in the writers and artists category. She died in March 2021 at the age of 104.

Answer: Judge

Alfred Thompson Denning was born on 23 January 1899 in Whitchurch, Hampshire. He won a scholarship to Andover Grammar School, where he won prizes for English essays. He decided he wanted to study mathematics, but many of the teachers had enlisted to fight in World War I, and the replacements couldn't teach him, so he taught himself, and then gained a place to read mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He also taught himself enough Greek to pass the necessary exams for matriculation at the university. Following a break in his studies to serve as a soldier in the war, Denning completed his course at Magdalen, taking first class honours. He accepted a job as a teacher at Winchester College, where he taught geology (which he read up the night before each lesson) as well as mathematics. Denning was bored with teaching, and, after visiting the Assize Court in Winchester, he returned to Magdalen where he took a first in Jurisprudence in only one year.

Denning was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, and then called to the Bar in 1923. He received a steady stream of work, and became a King's Counsel fifteen years later. He was appointed as a High Court Judge in 1944, as a Lord Justice of Appeal and a Privy Councillor in 1948, and a Law Lord in 1956. He became Master of the Rolls in 1962, a role which he fulfilled for the next twenty years. While remaining a member of Lincoln's Inn throughout his career, Denning was also granted honorary admission to the other three Inns of Court in 1972 (Middle Temple), 1979 (Gray's Inn), and in 1982 (Inner Temple); he was the first person to gain that distinction.

He continued lecturing and giving legal advice during his retirement. In an interview given in 1990 he said, "People say I am eccentric and frail. Well, I may be frail in body and hearing, but I hope my state of mind is as alert as ever it was and I am going to speak my mind as freely as I have ever done. I am a common man and I speak for the common people of England and from the letters I receive, the great majority agree with me." He died in March 1999 six weeks after he celebrated his 100th birthday.

Answer: Illustrator

Kathleen Hale was born in Scotland on 24 May 1898, but she was brought up in Manchester. Her father died when she was five, and she lived with relations while her mother worked to support the family. Hale's headmistress at the Manchester High School recognised the girl's artistic talent, and encouraged her.

She attended art classes in Manchester before taking a course at Reading from 1915 to 1917. After leaving Reading, Hale moved to London where she had a variety of jobs, including working as Augustus John's secretary, before managing to support herself as an illustrator and artist. She was part of a Bohemian art group known as Fitzrovia.

Hale married Dr. Douglas McLean in 1926 and they moved to South Mimms in Hertfordshire after they started a family. It was here that Hale created what is probably her best remembered character - Orlando the Marmalade Cat. He featured in bedtime stories for her children; later the stories were published by Puffin Books, starting in 1938. She produced a total of nineteen stories about Orlando over the following thirty-four years, as well as two others about Henrietta the Hen.

Throughout her life, Hale continued to sell paintings and drawings. She was awarded an OBE in 1976. Her autobiography, "A Slender Reputation", was published in 1984. She died at a nursing home in Clevedon, Somerset in January 2000.

Answer: Entertainer

Leslie Townes Hope was born on 29 May 1903 in Eltham in south-eastern England. Along with his parents and six brothers, Hope moved to Chicago in 1908. Aged twelve, Hope earned pocket money by busking, and he also won a prize for impersonating Charlie Chaplin. After leaving school, he worked, amongst other things, as a boxer, a butcher's assistant, a lineman, and in the motor trade, before deciding on a career in show business.

Hope and his girlfriend worked together in vaudeville until, according to Hope's website, her mother saw the act, and 'the curtain fell on the act'. Undeterred, Hope carried on finding engagements and performing wherever he could. Hope's first radio broadcast was in 1934, and he had regular radio shows for almost twenty years, from 1937 to 1956. Hope's career in films began with a series of short films in the mid 1930s. His first full length film was "The Big Broadcast of 1938" in that year. He went on to appear in more than sixty other films, finishing with an uncredited role as himself in "That Little Monster" in 1994. However he may well be best remembered for the series of seven "Road to ..." films between 1940 and 1962, in which he co-starred with Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour. Hope was also a tireless worker for the United Services Organisation; he traveled all over the world entertaining American troops beginning in 1941. In 1997 the US Congress passed a resolution making him an Honorary Veteran for his services. Hope was a host at the Academy Awards nineteen times; although he never won a competitive Oscar, and frequently joked about it, he did receive five honorary Oscars. Hope also appeared in many television series from the 1950's to the 1990s; his Christmas specials filmed in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971 are among the top most-watched programmes.

Hope was a sports fan. He owned part of the Cleveland Indians baseball team and the Los Angeles rams football team. However, possibly his greatest love was golf. He has played all over the world with many different people. In 1960, he started a pro-am charity golf tournament, which has raised millions of dollars. Hope played a round of the tournament with former Presidents Bush and Ford and President Clinton in 1995. Hope is quoted as saying, "Golf is my profession. I tell jokes to pay my green fees."

Following a brief first marriage to a former dance partner, Hope married Dolores Reade in 1934. Despite his reputation for extra-marital affairs the couple remained together until his death, making it the longest Hollywood partnership at the time. Together they set up a charitable foundation, which carried on after they both died. Hope died from pneumonia in his California home two months after his 100th birthday. Dolores died eight years later, aged 102, making her another centenarian; they were one of few couples who both reached that age.

Answer: Artist

Anna Mary Robertson was born in the town of Greenwich in the south west part of New York state on 7 September 1860. Her father was a farmer, and she was one of ten children. She enjoyed creating pictures as a child, using home-made colours and white paper, which her father sometimes bought for his children at 1 cent a sheet, because he liked to see them drawing. She went to work on a neighbouring farm at the age of twelve, and stayed there for fifteen years, only leaving when she married one of their hired men - Thomas Salmon Moses in 1887.

The couple worked on various farms in Virginia before returning to New York in 1905. Throughout her life, Moses enjoyed creating pictures using house paint on fireboard, or embroidery, or quilting. She developed arthritis in her seventies, which made sewing difficult, so, at her sister's suggestion, she took up painting. She painted rural scenes from her earlier years from memory. She always painted cheerful pictures; she is quoted as saying, "What's the use of painting a picture if it isn't something nice?". Her early paintings were sold in a local store for $3 or $5 according to size. A New York art collector saw them there, and bought them all to exhibit in New York. As she became more well known, her paintings fetched up to $10,000.

Moses received various awards and acclamations. She appeared on various television shows, and wrote her autobiography, "My Life's History" in 1952. The Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, declared her 100th birthday 'Grandma Moses Day'. She died a year later, in December 1961. However she remained popular, and her painting, "Fourth of July" was used on a postage stamp in 1969.

Answer: Architect

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho was born in Rio de Janeiro on 15 December 1907. Speaking about his name, he said, "my name ought to have been Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares, or simply Oscar de Almeida Soares, but the foreign surname prevailed and I am known simply as Oscar Niemeyer". The foreign surname to which he refers, comes from his great great great grandfather, who was a German soldier who settled in Portugal. He studied architecture at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio, and gained his BA in 1934.

Niemeyer started work in his father's typography office before going on to work as a draftsman in the studio of Gregori Warchavchik and Lúcio Costa. It was here that he became involved with Le Corbusier's design for the headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Health, an early example of Brazilian Modernism. In 1940 Juscelino Kubitschek, then Mayor of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, asked Niemeyer to design Pampulha, a new northern suburb for the city. Niemeyer said, "[it] was the starting point of this freer architecture full of curves ... It was in fact, the beginning of Brasília". Juscelino Kubitschek, as President of Brazil in 1956, decided that he wanted a new capital city in the centre of the country, which would be free from corruption. Lúcio Costa designed the layout, and Niemeyer was appointed to design the buildings, including the National Congress, a cathedral, and many residential buildings designed on socialist principles where ministers and ordinary workmen would live side by side.

Niemeyer was a member of the Brazilian Communist party, which resulted in him living in exile for twenty years. He had been offered teaching posts in the USA, but was unable to take them up because he couldn't get a visa due to his political views. While living in Paris he carried on working as an architect, but he also designed some furniture, much of which was used in Communist Party headquarters in many different countries. Niemeyer returned to Brazil in 1985, and set up a studio in Rio de Janeiro, where he carried on working for most of the rest of his life. The Niemeyer Sphere in Leipzig in Germany was designed in 2011 and completed in 2020, nearly eight years after he died in December 2012.

Niemeyer received many accolades during his life including the International Lenin Peace Prize in 1963, the Russian Order of Friendship in 2007, and being created Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II in 1990. Hermann Meier, a Swiss composer, dedicated a piece for strings, brass, pianos to Niemeyer in 1967. When Brasilia was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, Niemeyer was the first living architect to achieve that distinction.

Answer: Aviator

Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith was born on 18 January 1888 in Kensington, London; Octave because he was the eighth child, and Thomas, after his father, because he was the first boy in the family. As a young man, Sopwith enjoyed sailing, motorcycling, and ice skating. He was part of the British gold medal winning team in the first European ice hockey championships in 1910, and won medals for motorcycle trials. He went on to compete in the Americas Cup twice, narrowly losing on one occasion. He also tried hot-air ballooning, going so far as to buy his own balloon.

After returning from a sailing trip, Sopwith took a ride in an aircraft, and 'caught the flying bug'. In 1910 his first attempt at flying ended, as did so many at the time, in a crash. But he bought another aircraft and gained his pilot's licence a month later. Less than a month after that, he won a competition for flying a British aeroplane the longest distance from Britain to the continent. He invested the winnings in starting a flying school at Brooklands. He then began to design and build his own aircraft. World War I created an enormous demand for aeroplanes, and his Sopwith Camel became famous. He had built 18000 machines by the end of the war. However, there was much less demand for them after hostilities ceased, and he was forced to close his company. At about the same time, Sopwith received a CBE in 1918 for his service during the war.

Joining forces with Harry Hawker, an Australian test pilot, Sopwith started a new company. In 1936, he designed the Hawker Hurricane, which went on to become one of the mainstays of the Battle of Britain during World War II. He had also acquired the Gloster company, and designed the first British jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, which was used to combat the V1 'Doodlebug' bombs towards the end of the war. In the 1960s, the Hawker company went on to develop the vertical take off and landing Harrier 'jumpjet', which saw military service for over thirty years. He was knighted, in 1953, for his services to British aviation. He continued to work with the Hawker company until 1980.

Sopwith's 100th birthday was celebrated with a flypast of military aircraft over his home. He died less than a month after his birthday the following year.

Answer: Explorer

Freya Stark was born on 31 January 1893 in Paris, where her parents were both art students. She spent most of her childhood in northern Italy, where she spent a lot of time reading due to illness. She became fascinated by the orient after receiving a copy of "One Thousand and One Nights" for her ninth birthday. After working as a VAD during World War I, Stark studied Persian and Arabic at London University.
It was in 1927 that Stark began the first of her travels, to French-controlled Lebanon and Syria, where she was arrested as a spy, but released after three days. She also traveled to remote parts of western Persia (now Iran) and found the Valleys of the Assassins; she received an award from the Royal Geographical Society for those explorations. She then traveled into southern Arabia, but the expedition had to be cut short because she caught dysentery and measles, and had to be taken back to Aden. During World War II, Stark worked for the British government in Yemen, Aden, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine, enlisting support for Britain. In 1947, Stark married Stuart Perowne, under whom she had worked in Aden at the beginning of the war. The couple separated after five years, and Stark resumed her travels, visiting Turkey. Her last journey was to Afghanistan in 1968, when she was 75 years old.

Throughout her life, she wrote extensively about her travels. She also wrote several volumes of autobiography and had many volumes of letters published. Following her retirement from traveling, she settled in Asolo in northern Italy, where she carried on with her writing. In the New Year Honours of 1972, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. It was in Asolo that Stark died in May 1993.

Answer: Dancer

Edris Stannus was born on 6 June 1898 in County Wicklow in Ireland. Her mother was a glassmaker and her father an officer in the British Army. The family moved to England seven years later and settled in Kent. Edris began ballet lessons at the age of ten, and studied at the Lila Field Academy in London. She changed her name to Ninette de Valois when she started performing professionally.

De Valois danced with the Beecham Opera at the Royal Opera House, and later with the Ballet Russes under Diaghilev. She then established ballet schools in both London and Dublin. However her aim was have a ballet school which would train dancers for a national ballet company; this was achieved when she founded the Sadlers Wells Ballet School. In 1956 a royal charter was granted and the Royal Ballet Company and School were created. The first English ballet, 'Job', was created by de Valois in 1931. She went on to collaborate with Frederick Ashton for more English ballets including 'The Rake's Progress in 1935 and 'Checkmate' in 1937.

De Valois received many honorary degrees, awards and honours including becoming a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1951, and the Erasmus prize for exceptional contribution to culture in 1974. She died in March 2001, at the age of 102.