Remembering Talent Lost in the 2020s (1) Quiz

Answer: Lawyer and jurist

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, née Joan Ruth Bader (1933-2020), was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for 27 years. She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University, where she met her future husband Martin Ginsburg, who became a famous tax attorney and who always supported Ruth in her profession. Despite graduating with excellent grades, she struggled to work as a lawyer because she was both a wife and a mother.

In 1980, she was named by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993, by President Bill Clinton. She was the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor. She fought for gender equality under the law and battled sexism in her own life and career.

Answer: Literary author

David John Moore Cornwell (1931-2020), was a British author, better known by his pen name, John le Carré. He worked during the 1950s and 1960s for the Security Service (MI5) and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and is best known for his numerous spy novels.

Most of John le Carré's novels refer to espionage during World War II. His most famous book was his third novel "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963). Following the success of this book, he left MI6, in order to be a full-time author. David John M. Cornwell had to adopt a pen name, John le Carré, because people belonging to the Foreign Office staff were forbidden to publish under their own names.

Answer: Fashion designer

Pietro Costante Cardin (1922-2020), known as Pierre Cardin, was born in Italy but his family, who lost all their fortunes during World War I, moved to Saint-Étienne, France, in 1924. His father wanted him to study architecture, but from childhood he showed interest in dressmaking. In 1945, Cardin went to Paris to study architecture. In Paris, he worked with Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior in their studio.

In 1950, Pierre Cardin founded his own fashion house, and in 1953 he joined the Chamber Syndicale, which brought together the haute couture designers. He became famous for his avant-garde style and Space Age design; at this time he created the uniforms for Pakistan International Airlines, introduced from 1966 to 1971, and the spacesuits for NASA in 1970. Its geometric motifs did not take into account the female forms, creating practically unisex clothes. Cardin did not limit himself to producing clothes, but also furniture, perfumes, and cosmetics, reaching into the area of industrial design. The Pierre Cardin brand was licensed for many products, which in a way contributed to eroding it, but made Pierre Cardin a lot of money.

Answer: Soccer player

Diego Armando Maradona Franco (1960-2020) was a soccer player and coach. He is considered one of the greatest players in the history of this sport for his vision of the field, ability to dribble and control the ball, and creating many opportunities for goals, both for himself and for others.

His 21-year professional career was not limited to Argentina; he also played in Barcelona and Seville, Spain, and Napoli, Italy. He participated as a player of Argentina's national team in four FIFA World Cups, having won the 1986 cup. In addition, he was the coach of the Argentina Football Team and teams for the United Emirates, Mexico, and Argentina. His career and his life were troubled with ups and downs due to his involvement with drugs.

Answer: Artist, large-scale installations

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935-2020) was born in Bulgaria and at the age of 6 began to take drawing and painting lessons, influenced by his mother, and later sculpture and architecture classes. When the Hungarian Revolution broke out, in 1957, he went to Prague, Vienna, Geneva, and Paris where he engaged with other artists. At this time he met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, who was born in 1935 - the same day that Christo was born - and passed away in 2009. She became his wife and partner in creating monumental works of art for 51 years. Starting in 1994, the couple officially used both names together, with equal rights to their works.

The couple's works altered urban settings and landscapes with creative, flashy, volatile interventions. The works lasted as long as the exhibitions lasted. Among his numerous works can be cited: "The Gates", in New York, "The Pont Neuf Wrapped", in Paris, and "The Floating Piers", on Lake Iseo, Italy.

Answer: Cartoonist and humorist

Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón (1932-2020), better known as Quino, was an Argentine-Spanish cartoonist well known in South America, Asia, and Europe. His uncle was an illustrator, which perhaps influenced his vocation for cartooning at an early age. He entered the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Mendoza, but left it to start his career as a cartoonist. In the 1950s his cartoons appeared regularly in several Argentine magazines.

"Mafalda" is the best-known strip created by Quino. The strip features Mafalda, a six-year-old girl, who is very insightful, worried about the world's problems, and always with a serious and naive attitude. The strip ran from 1964 to 1973. Mafalda has appeared in books and two animated cartoon series and has been translated into many languages and into Braille. Mafalda appeared on special occasions, such as in 1977 to illustrate the Declaration of the Rights of the Child for UNICEF, and in 2020 in a campaign to raise awareness of COVID-19.

Answer: Musician, composer

Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator and trumpeter. His father was a musician and taught him to read music and play various instruments from childhood. He studied at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome. At the age of 20, he began writing music for theater, voice, and for piano. He composed soundtracks for radio, TV, and film, and also wrote songs for pop artists, such as Paul Anka. He composed the score of more than 400 films for cinema and television and is considered one of the greatest soundtrack composers of all time.

In 1954, Morricone began making musical arrangements as a ghostwriter for films by famous composers. The year 1961 marked his debut in the film "The Fascist" and in 1964, there was a turning point in his career when he associated with director Sergio Leone, a former schoolmate. In 1967, he started his collaboration with Hollywood directors. In the 1980s, Morricone began a long and successful association with Giuseppe Tornatore that lasted until his death. The first film of this association was "Cine Paradiso" (1988), a film that was a worldwide success and is worth watching or revisiting.

Answer: US Air Force officer

Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager (1923-2020), known as Chuck Yeager. In 1941, he began his career with the United States Air Force during World War II as an aircraft mechanic and then as a pilot. He had numerous victories as a flight officer. On October 12, 1944, he shot down five enemy aircraft in a single mission, earning the status of "ace in a day".

After World War II he became a test pilot and flew many types of aircraft. On October 14, 1947, flying an experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1, he became the first pilot in history to officially exceed the speed of sound. From that date on, he broke other speed and altitude records.

He participated in World War II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and is estimated to have piloted over 360 types of aircraft. After 30 years of service, he retired and continued as a consultant pilot for the U.S. Air Force for two decades.

Answer: Actor

Carl Adolf von Sydow (1929-2020) best known as Max von Sydow, was a Swedish-French actor. After completing his two years in Swedish military service, where he adopted the name Max, Sydow studied at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm from 1948 to 1951, and began acting in theater. In 1955, he went to the Malmô City Theatre, whose director was Ingmar Bergman. The first of the eleven films in which Sydow acted under the direction of Bergman was "The Seventh Seal" (1957), in which he portrays the disillusioned knight Antonius Block, who plays a game of chess with Death; it was a famous moment in the history of cinema.

He made his international debut playing Jesus in the film, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965), by director George Stevens. His last work was "Echoes of the Past", where he acted as one of the last survivors of the Kalavryta massacre that took place in 1943 Greece, but the film was released only in November 2021, after his death. He acted in over 150 films and television series and also had a prolific career in theater.

Answer: Mathematician

The American Katherine Johnson (née Coleman, 1918-2020) showed at an early age her penchant for mathematics. In 1937, she received a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and French from West Virginia State University. In 1939, she was selected to enroll in a graduate program at the same university; she was one of the first three African American students to participate in the program.

In 1953, Katherine joined a group of African American women who performed the complex mathematical calculations essential to the success of the early U.S. space program. They worked at a unit named the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)'s West Area Computing, and they were known as "West Computers". Despite the importance of the work developed, they were segregated, not being able to frequent the restaurants and restrooms of the other employees. Racial segregation was banned in 1958 when NACA was incorporated into the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

At NASA Katherine was a member of the Space Task Group; in 1960 she coauthored a paper about calculations to place spacecraft into orbit; it was the first time that a woman in her division was credited in a research report. She was part of several NASA programs, including the 1969 Apollo 11 mission program, which sent the first three men to the Moon. She retired in 1986 after more than 30 years of work.

Margot Lee Shetterly's book "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematician Who Helped Win the Space Race" (2015) is about the "West Computers" Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. Based on the book a film was released in 2016. Katherine Johnson co-authored a book named: "My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir", which was released in 2021, after her death.