Remember Me? -C- Trivia Quiz

Answer: James Cagney

After making it to Broadway, Cagney shoved a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in the film 'The Public Enemy' (1931). He made a series of cheap, quick but popular 'tough guy pictures', but proved depth and sensitivity of his acting playing Bottom in a 'Midsummer Night's Dream' (1935) and in 'Angels with Dirty Faces' (1938) was cast alongside Humphrey Bogart.

Cagney tried his hand first at romance, then comedy, where he revealed a masterful sense of timing. His popularity was ensured when, drawing on his hard background, he played George M Cohan in 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'.

In the 1950s he tried directing, while also continuing to act in 'Man of a Thousand Faces' (1957) and appearing in 'One, Two, Three' (1961). His final film was 'Ragtime' (1981) before his death five years later.

Answer: Maria Callas

She almost single handedly revived the early nineteenth century operatic repertoire with her performances of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. Her first professional appearances were in Athens, where she concentrated on Verdi and Wagner, but her powerful, expressive, and wide ranging voice and extending repertoire took her to La Scala, Milan, with additional seasons in London's Covent Garden and the New York Met in the mid 1950s.

Despite her intelligent musicality, Callas was an inconsistent and occasionally unreliable performer; her famous liaison with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis coincided with a vocal crisis that effectively ended her career.

She died of a heart attack in 1977.

Answer: Pierre Cardin

Cardin moved to Paris in 1945 to work with Elsa Schiaparelli a then leading designer. Cardin was always an innovator with his first collection in 1957 introducing the world renowned bubble skirt, whilst in 1964 his collection featured cat suits and helmets, which was called 'space age'. During the 1960s he raised hemlines to four inches above the knee, while necklines plunged to the waist both at the back and front. Cardin was particularly associated with the use of knitted fabrics and spiral dresses.

Answer: Andrew Carnegie

The classic 'rags to riches' story was lived by Andrew Carnegie. He worked his way up in the US as a bobbin boy in a textile mill to a railway supervisor. Carnegie however, made his fortune from speculation and iron, seeking the total integration of the mining, shipping, smelting and production of steel in America.

He sold the Carnegie Steel Company in 1901 to GI Pierpont Morgan for $480 million, and distributed his wealth in the US and UK through the creation of endowments and trusts in the areas of education, world peace and teacher training.

Answer: Howard Carter

In November 1922, after many seasons of largely unrewarded work at the Valley of the Kings near Thebes (Luxor) in Egypt, Howard Carter located the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Most of the valley's tombs had been robbed in ancient times, but the tomb of Tutankhamen had preserved intact - the greatest treasure ever recovered by an archaeologist.

The find so caught the public imagination that he and his sponsor Lord Carnarvon, can be said to have begun the modern popularisation of archaeology.

Answer: Neville Chamberlain

Although an able and energetic minister of the interwar years, both as Minister of Health and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain was more often portrayed as either a naive peace lover who trusted Hitler or as a 'guilty man' unwilling to confront aggressors. Research into his life shows that his policy as Prime Minister (1937-1940) was driven by the strategic imperative to avoid war on European, Mediterranean, and East Asian fronts simultaneously, and the diplomatic need to maintain unity between Britain and the self governing Dominions. Nevertheless revelations that Chamberlain became almost obsessive about appeasement and sought to manipulate public opinion by management of the press continued to raise questions about his judgement.

In 1940 Chamberlain was held accountable for the failure to push back German forces in Norway. In parliament he was told in no uncertain terms to go, and after a back bench revolt Chamberlain had to stand down and Winston Churchill came to the fore. After a brief bout of illness, Chamberlain died of bowel cancer on 9 November 1940 at the age of 71.

The harsh verdicts on Chamberlain that became conventional wisdom, especially in the summer of 1940 generally overlook the situation that he inherited when becoming Prime Minister.

Answer: Ty Cobb

Cobb was indeed known as the 'Georgia Peach', but there was nothing sweet or fuzzy about him. He was a ferocious competitor and that spirit made him arguably the greatest baseball player of all time and one of the least popular. He was known to incite opposing players with his acid tongue and his vicious spikes up slides.

As a member of the Detroit Tigers he won twelve American League batting titles in thirteen years, including a remarkable nine in a row. Three times he hit over .400. His lifetime batting average of .367 which until the start of the 2008 Major League Baseball season still stood and remained unlikely to ever be surpassed.

Despite his apparent poor qualities on the field, he was in later life a generous person; he donated money to charities such as the hospital he built in his home town, and he started a scholarship fund open to everyone. He was regarded in his playing time as a racist, but despite this, both his charitable contributions were open to all and he did embrace the inclusion of black players in the baseball leagues.

Answer: Joseph Conrad

Teodor Josef Korzeniowski, born in Ukraine, adopted the name by which he was known on the publication of his first book, 'Almayer's Folly' in 1895. He had begun writing while still working as a seaman, eventually becoming a master mariner, a life which provided the settings for most of his fiction and from which he retired to full time writing in 1894. He had become a British subject in 1886. A masterly novelist, his work remained unpopular for some years, despite the publication of, among other works, the classics 'The Nigger of the Narcissus' (1897), 'Lord Jim' (1900), 'Nostromo'(1904) and 'The Secret Agent'(1907), one of his political novels.

During this period he also co-authored 'The Inheritors'(1900) and 'Romance' (1903) with Ford Maddox Ford, and short stories, including the powerful 'Heart of Darkness'(1902), the major inspiration for the film 'Apocalypse Now'.

Popular and hence financial success eventually came with 'Chance' (1913), followed by other works, none of which were considered his best novel.

This author is one of my personal favourites and I urge anyone who plays this quiz to pick up one of his masterpieces and read.

Answer: Walter Cronkite

Indeed Cronkite dropped out of college to cover the fighting in World War II for United Press International. He also reported on the Nuremberg War Trials after the war and in 1950 joined CBS news as a correspondent. For 19 years he was anchor for CBS Evening News (1962-1981) and became one of the most familiar and respected people in American public life.

He also published books in international relations and current affairs. Since he left CBS in 1981 he continued to write books, gave lectures and narrated documentaries.

Answer: Marie Curie

Due to a lack of educational facilities in Poland, she moved to Paris in 1891 and graduated in physics from the Sorbonne in 1893. She decided to study the rays given off by uranium and its ore.

Working with her husband Pierre, whom she married in 1895, she isolated polonium and radium in 1902. For their work on radioactivity they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics on 1903, along with Henri Becquerel.

After Pierre's accidental death in 1906, she took over his professorship in physics at the Sorbonne. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911 for her discovery of polonium and radium, and became the first person ever to be awarded two Nobel Prizes.

With the outbreak of war in 1914 she instigated X-ray services in military hospitals. She eventually died of cancer, brought on by exposure to the radioactive elements with which she worked.