Socially Distant Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bobby Fischer

In 1956 at just the age of 13, Bobby Fischer won "The Game of the Century", which pitted him against one of America's strongest chess masters in Donald Byrne. And he won it convincingly. Two years later he became the youngest person to become a grandmaster. He won the World Chess Championship in 1972 against Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match that embodied the Cold War. But when the time came to defend his title in 1975, Fischer had issue with the format and refused to play. The title went to the USSR's Anatoly Karpov, by default.

Fischer removed himself from public life until 1992 when he emerged from his isolation to play a 'rematch' against Boris Spassky. Fischer won the game, but by virtue of it being held in Yugoslavia (a country under US sanctions) he broke the law, and the government issued a warrant for his arrest and revoked his passport. Fischer eventually found a haven in Iceland, where he was granted citizenship and lived out his remaining years.

Answer: Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was known for his exploration of Naturalist and Impressionist art in his early years and for his move into Symbolism and Expressionism. His most famous work was "The Scream", which he painted in 1893 at the age of 30. After living in Berlin for nearly a decade, it was in 1908 that Munch experienced a breakdown and subsequent convalescence that encouraged a measure of social isolation. His difficult childhood and anxiety born of a worry over a family genetic condition combined with excessive drinking. He returned to Norway and recovered and continued to paint and explore new mediums (photography).

During his last years (mid 1920s until his death in 1944) Munch rarely left his home in Oslo, although he continued to work. He left an incredible legacy of art in his long life (he was 80 years old at his death). His works were donated to his home city, and they now reside in the Munch Museum at Tøyen - a collection of approximately 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings, and 18,000 prints.

Answer: Bettie Page

During the prime of her career, Bettie Page had a longevity envied by her peers, being in demand through much of the 1950s. Her willingness to bare all in "Playboy" and other photo shoots kept her in the public eye, but she never participated in anything explicit.

After converting to Christianity, she no longer sought publicity, but pursued education in Bible college and opportunities to work in Christian mission work. It was after her hospitalization for schizophrenia that Page learned of the newfound revival in her legacy.

In the latter years of her life, she involved herself to her resurgence, ensuring her story was told from her perspective. She passed away in 2008 at the age of 85 after suffering a major stroke.

Answer: Ted Kaczynski

Despite his promising life and career beginnings, Ted Kaczynski resigned from teaching (in 1969) and endeavoured to live a simple, self-sufficient life in the wilderness (in 1971). While learning basic survival skills and living 'off the grid', Kaczynski found his previously unspoiled and idyllic surroundings being destroyed by progress and development. He decided that the only way to fight the trend was through violence, which began with acts of sabotage and escalated to bombings.

He earned the nickname 'Unabomber' from the FBI case identifier UNABOM (University and Airline Bomber). In 1996 Kaczynski was indicted for ten counts of illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs, and three counts of murder. In 1998 Kaczynski pled 'guilty' to all charges and was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences, without the possibility of parole.

Answer: Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo was brought to America in 1925 after Louis B. Mayer, chief executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, saw her in her first (Swedish) film. By the time Garbo did two films in Hollywood she had achieved international stardom, and would quickly become MGM's biggest female star. Her first talkie was in 1930, and her subdued, melancholic acting translated well into the new medium. She earned three Oscar nominations during her career, but as her star declined in the late 1930s, she finally decided to retire from acting (and public life) in the early 1940s.

As she told her biographer, "I was tired of Hollywood. I did not like my work. There were many days when I had to force myself to go to the studio... I really wanted to live another life." Garbo never married, and lived alone for most of her adult life, until her death in 1990.

Answer: Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould was truly a master of his craft, and his craft was music and not necessarily the piano. As he once stated, the piano "is not an instrument for which I have any great love as such ... I have played it all my life, and it is the best vehicle I have to express my ideas." While he was an amazing musician, Gould grew to despise the idea of performing, considering it a hedonistic pursuit.

They correlated with his general outlook on interacting with people, and he preferred to live a private life.

As documentary filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon said, "No supreme pianist has ever given of his heart and mind so overwhelmingly while showing himself so sparingly." At just the age of 50, Gould passed away after experiencing a massive stroke.

Answer: Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent was designing dresses for his mother and sisters before he received any formal training in his chosen field, and at the age of 17 he moved to Paris to enroll at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. The 1950s established Saint Laurent as an innovative and popular designer within the House of Dior, but late in the decade he fell out of favour with his employer. When he was conscripted by the army for the Algerian War of Independence, it was used as an excuse to fire him. After less than three weeks in the military, Saint Laurent suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized, where he was 'treated' with electroshock therapy and was administered large doses of sedatives and psychoactive drugs. This experience adversely affected his later life and problems with addiction.

In spite of his personal problems, Saint Laurent went on to have a successful, influential career with his own label (YSL). But the pressures and the addictions eventually caught up with him and he sold his line, withdrawing from public life in stages until his passing in 2008 from brain cancer.

Answer: Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee's famous 1961 novel, of course, was "To Kill a Mockingbird", which was based on her own childhood experiences and observations of life in the town of Monroeville, Alabama, with all its racial and class attitudes. Her 2015 sequel "To Set a Watchman" was actually the original draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird" that Lee later revised for publication late in life. She never expected her novel (and the subsequent 1962 film) to achieve the success (and controversy) that it did, and in the aftermath, she was inundated with letters and offers for interviews and other public appearances. It proved to be too much, and she withdrew from public life, to the point that she even employed her own sister as her lawyer, to act as her representative.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" won Lee the Pulitzer Prize of 1961, and has continued to be a bestseller in the decades that have followed, with more than 30 million copies sold.

Answer: Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a self-taught Serbian engineer and inventor who came to America in 1884 as part of Edison Machine Works in Paris, but branched out on his own soon after arriving. He experienced many ups and downs in his business efforts and attempts to cajole patronage for supporting his inventive efforts, and while he achieved some successes (patents for his alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC), he would always parlay his funds into more research and experimentation.

This eventually led to an end for his efforts, and he lived in a state of perpetual indebtedness. Tesla passed away in 1943 at the age of 86, found in his hotel room two days after being hit by a car on the streets of New York.

Answer: Howard Hughes

Howard Hughes was the son of a successful inventor and businessman, so he already had an example of how to 'get ahead' in business and how to pursue his projects. Sadly, his parents both passed away while he was still a teenager, leaving Hughes his businesses to manage. While doing so, he also decided to move to the west coast and the film industry. Hughes financed his own movie efforts, with mixed success, but eventually parlayed his finances into RKO Pictures, which he took over in 1948. During the same time, Hughes started the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932 and pursued many aviation speed records while building the company.

Hughes was famous for his eccentric ways, many of which were explained as a likely reaction to allodynia, a condition where one experiences pain from things that wouldn't normally cause pain. He spent money lavishly, living in hotel suites for most of his life (renting a whole floor) and on one occasion even purchased the whole hotel when the owners wanted him to leave. The strange habits of his life (severe obsessive-compulsive disorder) only got stranger as time passed.

And if you didn't get the reference in the question, Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Howard Hughes in the 2004 film "The Aviator".