The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You Quiz

Answer: Katherine Anne Porter

The eyes of the literary world were certainly upon this renowned author, best known for her short stories - something which can also be said about her second cousin once removed, William Sydney Porter (who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry). She was nominated three times for a Nobel Prize for Literature, but never won. 'The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter', published in 1966, won both a Pulitzer Prize and the U.S. National Book Award.

Callie Russell Porter was born in Indian Creek Texas in 1890, but moved to live with her paternal grandmother after the death of her mother when she was two years old. The time she spent with her grandmother (who dies when she was eleven) was clearly important in her life, as she adapted her grandmother's name (Catherine Ann) for use as an author. There isn't room here to detail her life - it involved a series of challenging situations on which she drew to provide the depth of insight she displayed in her writing. Her first collection of short stories, 'Flowering Judas and Other Stories' , was published in 1930. For the next thirty years she wrote highly acclaimed stories, but with limited sales. 'Ship of Fools', her only novel, was a best-seller, and adapted for the movies by Stanley Kramer. The film was the last one made by Vivian Leigh, with a stellar cast that included Jose Ferrer, Lee Marvin and George Segal. Porter finally had financial security, which lasted until her death in 1980.

Answer: Howard Hughes

Although he spent the last years of his life studiously avoiding the eyes of the world, Howard Hughes only managed to become the world's most notorious recluse. Before becoming known as an eccentric billionaire, he made his fortune not only through business investments, but also through his endeavours in such varied fields as aviation and aerospace engineering and film-making.

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was born in Humble, Texas in 1905. He showed talent as an engineer at an early age, and at 19, when he inherited the bulk of his inventor father's estate, he moved to California and started producing movies, including several that were nominated for Academy Awards, and a number that were controversial - among others, 'Scarface' (1932) worried the censors because of its violence and 'The Outlaw' (1943) caused concern because of the skimpy (for the time) costumes worn by Jane Russell. In 1932 he formed the Hughes Aircraft Company, and started designing airplanes - remember the H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose? - and setting air speed records in the planes built by his company. In 1938, he set a record for the fastest round-the-world flight in 3 days, 19 hours, 17 minutes; this was less than half the time taken by the previous record holder, Wiley E. Post. Hughes had (retrospectively) exhibited signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder from an early age, but by the 1960s he had started confining himself to hotel penthouses, moving his entourage from one to another apparently on a whim, with little clear reason for the steady moves. He died in 1976, on an airplane while flying from an internationally-situated hotel (different sources give different origins for the flight) to another in Houston, Texas.

Answer: Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)

Lyndon Baines Johnson captured the eyes of the world when he became the 36th President of the United States following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. As president, he drew the eyes (and often the wrath) of many because he was president during the escalation of the US involvement in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. While he successfully ran for election in 1964, he chose not to run again in 1968, recognising his growing unpopularity.

LBJ, as he was commonly known, was born in Stonewall, Texas in 1908, and died there in 1973. In the intervening 65 years, he had a distinguished political career, having first worked his way through university studies, and gaining a position as a teacher in 1930. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1937 until 1949 (and saw active duty during World War II while in that position), then in the U.S. Senate from 1949 until 1961, at which time he became the 37th Vice President of the United States, after losing the race for the Democratic nomination to JFK (another man of initials). While in the Senate, he held a number of positions, including Senate Minority Leader (1953-1954), Senate Majority Leader (1954-1960), and Senate Majority Whip for two. While many associate LBJ's presidency primarily with the Vietnamese War, he will be remembered for a number of significant domestic achievements, including his "war on Poverty", which was associated with a number of laws collectively referred to as the Great Society Laws. These included civil rights laws, introduction of Medicare and Medicaid, and financial support for education, the arts and public services. He also appointed Thurgood Marshall as the first Afro-American justice on the Supreme Court in 1967. The eyes of history may well judge him more generously than did the eyes of his contemporaries.

Answer: Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Darrow became infamous during the 1930s for an eye-catching (and headline-grabbing) series of crimes, carried out in several states over a period of nearly two years, in which a number of people died. The pair were killed after being caught in a police trap on a Louisiana highway in 1934. The car in which they died can still be seen on display at a casino near Las Vegas, and their exploits have been immortalised (and more than a little romanticised) in the media, including the 1967 movie 'Bonnie and Clyde', which starred Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

Born in Rowena, Texas in 1910, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker moved to Dallas at the age of four, when her father died. As a child, she wanted to be an actress. Just before her sixteenth birthday she married a schoolmate, but the marriage was less than successful, and they separated when he was imprisoned in 1929. In 1930 Bonnie met Clyde Barrow, and began an intense romance that was rudely interrupted when he was sent to prison (anyone else seeing a pattern here?) and resumed when he was paroled in 1932. Then began their criminal career, along with a small gang, of robbing small businesses and the occasional bank. These crimes involved the shooting of several people, both civilian bystanders and police officers, and the pair became a priority target for several law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Rangers and the FBI. The gang's pattern of hitting targets near state borders (so they could quickly cross into a different jurisdictions) combined with their moving between the residences of relatives helped a six-man posse predict their path, and ambush them on a rural road in Louisiana where a bloody shootout ensued. Sources differ as to the exact number of bullets, but it was a lot. Although Bonnie and Clyde had requested that they be buried together, they were interred in separate Dallas cemeteries, with hundreds (possibly thousands) of people attending each funeral. He was 25 years old, she was almost 24.

Answer: Babe Didrickson Zaharias

Babe Didrickson Zaharias was first known as a talented basketball player (who dropped out of high school to play the game) before gaining the eyes of the sporting world with her feats in track and field. She then moved on to become a professional golfer, the sport with which her name is now most closely associated.

Mildred Ella Didrikson, nicknamed Bebe by her Norwegian mother, was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1911. As well as her athletic prowess (in sports as diverse as baseball, diving, roller-skating and bowling), she exhibited skills in a wide range of other areas, including as a seamstress (she designed and made many of her golfing outfits), a singer, a vaudeville performer and a pool player. In the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, she won gold medals in the 80 metre hurdles (setting a world record) and the javelin (setting an Olympic record), and silver in the high jump (tying the world record). In 1935 she took up golf, and in 1938 she entered a men's PGA tournament, but failed to make the cut. During that tournament, she was in a grouping that included professional wrestler George Zaharias (the ring name used by Theodore Vetoyanis). They married in 1938, and she started using the name Babe Zaharias. Her success on the golf course is legendary, with far too many achievements to list in detail. She became one of the first female golf celebrities during the 1940s, and helped establish the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She also played in three more PGA tournaments, having won a qualifying tournament in order to do so each time, with a best result of 33rd place. She was the first woman to qualify for the US Open, but the officials decreed that it was open only to men. (No comment.) Despite battling colon cancer for the last years of her life, she was still a highly-ranked golfer at the time of her death in 1956.

Answer: Mary Martin

Mary Martin was the focus of all eyes in many stage performances over the years, including the part of Maria in the original Broadway production of 'The Sound of Music', for which she won a Tony Award, as well as the two listed above. She did not find as much success in films, and preferred to perform with a live audience. Her first break came in the 1938 Cole Porter musical 'Leave It to Me!', in which she sang the song 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy', which became her signature tune.

Mary Virginia Martin was born in Weatherford, Texas in 1913, and started performing at a young age. When she was only 16, she married Benjamin Hagman, with whom she had a son in 1931. Larry Hagman went on to become a star in his own right, but that is another story. Martin and Hagman were divorced in 1935, and she reverted to using her maiden name. Initially working as a singer, she moved on to Dallas, then Los Angeles, and finally New York. Her success in 'Leave It to Me' was only the beginning of a stellar stage career, much of it on Broadway, but also in other venues. After she originated the part of Nelly Forbush in 'South Pacific' on Broadway in 1949, she moved to London to perform it there. Possibly the role for which she achieved the most recognition was the part of Peter in 'Peter Pan' (1954), for which she won a Tony Award. She reprised the role for television, and gained an even larger audience than could be reached on the stage (as well as an Emmy). Her last major stage appearance was the 1966 musical 'I Do! I Do!' with Robert Preston. Mary Martin died of cancer shortly before her 77th birthday, in 1990.

Answer: Red Adair

Red Adair grabbed the eyes of worldwide media with his exploits in capping oil well fires, including an Algerian fire nicknamed the Devil's Cigarette Lighter in 1962, the Alpha Piper oil rig in the North Sea in 1988, and the oil fires in Kuwait after Operation Desert Storm in 1991. John Wayne portrayed him in the 1968 movie 'Hellfighters', which was loosely based on the 1962 Algerian fire.

Paul Neal Adair was born in Houston, Texas in 1915, and gained the nickname Red because of the colour of his hair. After working as a laborer on railways and in oilfields, in 1939 he joined a fire-fighting firm run by Myron McKinley which specialised in oil well fires. He returned to them after working in a bomb disposal unit during World War II, before setting up his own company in 1959, and surrounding himself with men who were as innovative and daring in their approach as himself. They specialised in capping oil well blowouts, and extinguishing oil fires, and had a trademark of wearing bright red gear, to remind everyone that this was Red's crew. In 1994, at the age of 79, he sold the company and retired, dying in 2004.

Answer: Walter Cronkite

The eyes of television news watchers were on Walter Cronkite for nearly twenty years, while he anchored the CBS evening news. He was known for ending each show by saying, "And that's the way it is, [date]." As the main CBS broadcast journalist in those years, he covered many memorable events, including the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and the landing on the moon in 1969.

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was born in St Joseph, Missouri in 1916, but was raised in Houston, Texas from the age of ten, and Texans claim him as one of their own. His interest in journalism was evident in high school, where he edited the school paper. At University of Texas at Austin, he both worked on the student newspaper and appeared in at least one play, foreshadowing his comfort with public performance which was so important in establishing his TV career. He dropped out of college to go to work as a journalist in 1935. During World War II he covered action in North Africa and Europe; afterwards he covered the Nuremberg trials, and had a posting in Moscow from 1946 to 1948. In 1950 he joined CBS, and his television career started to take off. If it happened between 1950 and 1981, he reported it, so I won't try to provide a detailed list!

One of my favourite incidents (as reported in his 2009 NY Times obituary, I was too young to have witnessed it myself) occurred while Cronkite was broadcasting 'The Morning Show' in 1954. He had to deliver a sponsor's ad, and corrected the Winston cigarette slogan ("Winston tastes good like a cigarette should") to be more grammatically correct ("Winston tastes good as a cigarette should"), much to the sponsor's displeasure. My mother used to foam at the mouth (well, not quite) whenever she saw or heard that slogan, and made sure we understood that it was bad English, which she found more offensive than the cigarette smoking itself, so I was tickled to find out that she was not alone in taking this position!

Answer: Gene Roddenberry

The eyes of the universe followed the exploits of the Starship Enterprise in 1966, as it embarked on a stated five-year mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before." Only three seasons were actually filmed of this series, now referred to as 'Star Trek: The Original Series', to distinguish it from the later members of the 'Star Trek' franchise. Gene Roddenberry originally managed to sell the show to the network by describing it as a Western in space, linking the concept of the show's structure to the highly successful 'Wagon Train'.

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was born in Houston, Texas in 1921. Despite the fact that his family moved to Los Angeles when he was only two years old, he is still claimed as a Texan by those who make lists of famous Texans. Since he was responsible for one of my favourite television shows, I am not going to argue, and he qualifies for this quiz. A short career as a police officer led to his being made a consultant on the television show 'Mr. District Attorney', for which he soon started writing scripts. From 1956 he became a full-time writer, and worked on a number of established television series, while also creating series of his own. Roddenberry was an avid reader of science fiction, and his concept for 'Star Trek' brought together a number of influences from the classic works in that field and some of the successful television techniques he had observed while writing for other shows. Despite his desire to move creatively beyond 'Star Trek', it ended up dominating the rest of his writing and producing career, and hundreds of fans attended his funeral in 1991.

Answer: Carol Burnett

Carol Burnett's talents as a singer, dancer, actress and comedian have caught the eyes of many as they were displayed on Broadway, in movies, and on television. 'The Carol Burnett Show' won 23 Emmy Awards, and featured an ensemble cast that included Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner and Vicki Lawrence. Every show closed with Carol tugging her ear, which was revealed to be a greeting to the grandmother who raised her because both of her parents were alcoholics, who could not cope with a child.

Carol Creighton Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1933, and moved to California with her grandmother to attend high school and study drama at UCLA. Her Broadway debut came in 1959, when she starred in the musical comedy 'Once Upon a Mattress', a performance which earned her a nomination for a Tony Award. This led to a contract on television in 'The Garry Moore Show', which gained her an Emmy and a contract for her own show. She moved back to Los Angeles to star in 'The Carol Burnett Show', and during its run also managed to appear in a number of movies, including 'Pete 'n' Tillie' (1972) with Walter Matthau. Later performances include the movie 'Four Seasons' (1981) with Alan Alda, and guest appearances on a number of hit television shows (everything from five appearances on 'Sesame Street' and 'The Muppet Show' through 'All My Children' and 'Desperate Housewives' to 'Law and Order: SVU').

Answer: Buddy Holly

In a career that was tragically cut short by a plane crash, Buddy Holly produced some of the best-known songs of the 1950s, both as a solo performer and as the lead singer of The Crickets. These include 'That'll Be the Day', 'Words of Love', Peggy Sue', Everyday', 'Oh Boy' and 'Not Fade Away', all released in 1957. Two British teenagers named John Lennon and Paul McCartney saw a performance on television, and studied his work in detail. When coming up with a name for their band, they are said to have chosen The Beatles as an etymological tribute to Buddy Holly and The Crickets. The eyes and the ears of many other musicians and fans have focused on them.

Charles Hardin Holley (the 'e' got lost along the way) was born in Lubbock, Texas in 1936, and nicknamed Buddy from an early age. His was a musical family, and performance was a regular part of family life. When he graduated from high school in 1955, he decided to become a full-time musician, and actually opened for Elvis in two concerts that year. Changing style from Country & Western to Rock and Roll, he got a contract with Decca (which is when Holley became Holly), but the contract was short-lived. He formed a band, to be called The Crickets, and started producing music with the sound he wanted. The results are legendary, and who knows what else he might have done had be not been aboard that fateful flight from Clear Lake, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota (en route to Moorhead, Minnesota) on February 3, 1959 - a date immortalised as "The Day the Music Died" in Don McLean's song 'American Pie'. When the plane crashed, Buddy Holly lost his life, along with Ritchie Valens, "The Big Bopper" (J. P. Richardson) and their pilot, Roger Peterson.

Answer: Lee Harvey Oswald

There is not room here to go into the myriad conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, which caught the shocked eyes of the world. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested as a suspect, and was shot dead on live television by Jack Ruby as he was being transferred between jails on November 24. Those facts are clear.

Lee Harvey Oswald was actually born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1939, but moved to a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas as a young child. In an unsettled childhood, he moved between the two cities several times, and even spent some time in New York City. He joined the Marine Corps in 1956, and received a hardship discharge in 1959 to enable him to care for his mother. A few weeks later he travelled to Moscow, and declared his desire to become a Soviet citizen. In 1961 he changed his mind, and applied for repatriation along with his new wife, Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova. They settled in Dallas/Fort Worth, but Oswald travelled quite a bit - to New York, to New Orleans, to Mexico - before taking up a job in the Texas School Book Depository, the building from which he is supposed to have shot JFK. And then things get even less clear.

Answer: Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin's musical performances, both live and in recordings, were certainly eye-catching. As a member of the 27 Club (musicians who died at that age), she left the world wondering what she might yet have produced, but with the memories of such hits as 'Me and Bobby McGee' (her only #1 hit) and 'Mercedes Benz'.

Janis Lyn Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1943, and is remembered by her parents as having been an unhappy child who never really fit in with the family. She expressed herself originally in painting, before exploring blues and folk music. In 1963 she left Texas to search for a more compatible place, moving to San Francisco, where she developed a reputation both as a musician and as a drug user. In 1965 she was persuaded to return home to Texas and clean up her act. In 1966 the psychedelic act Big Brother and the Holding Company invited her to join them, and she was into the high-pressure world of rock performance. An appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 was included in a film of the festival, and attracted a great deal of attention. The album 'Cheap Thrills' reached #1, but Joplin left the band before the end of 1968. She later performed with the Kozmic Blues Band and the Full Tilt Boogie Band, appearing with the former at Woodstock, where she followed Creedence Clearwater Revival on Saturday night. Her final album, 'Pearl', was released posthumously, following her death in 1970, probably from an overdose of heroin mixed with alcohol.

Answer: Nolan Ryan

If you're a baseball fan, you know about the impressive statistics associated with Nolan Ryan; if you're not, you will just find them to be a boring list of gibberish. A pitcher who was nicknamed The Ryan Express for the speed and accuracy of his pitching, he played for four different teams, and had his number retired by three of them. He retired with 5,714 strikeouts, over 800 more than the next player. He also gave up 2,795 bases on balls, leading in that (not so glorious) statistic by nearly 1,000. He is one of the few pitchers in the Hall of Fame who recorded more strikeouts than innings pitched in their career.

Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr. was born in Refugio, Texas in 1947. His father urged him to channel his urge to throw things at small targets into baseball, and he became a Little League player at the age of nine. Drafted by the New York Mets when he graduated from high school in 1965, he played for them until he was traded to the California Angels at the end of 1971. He played for them until he was released after the 1979 season. He signed as a free agent with the Houston Astros, and played for them until a contract dispute led to a 1989 move to the Texas Rangers, where he ended his MLB career after the 1993 season, at the age of 46. After his playing career, he moved into management, owning several minor league teams and becoming president of the Texas Rangers in 2008.

Answer: Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek's two most eye-catching film roles are probably as Carrie in 1976 and as Loretta Lynn in 1980. The former earned her an Oscar nomination, and the latter an Oscar victory as Best Actress, as well as a Grammy nomination for her performance of the film's title song.

Mary Elizabeth Spacek was born in Quitman, Texas in 1949, and almost immediately became called Sissy by her older brothers. Her cousin, Rip Torn, helped her get a place in Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, and she got a minor part in the 1972 film 'Prime Cut'. On the set of 'Badlands', her first feature role, she met Jack Fisk, whom she married in 1974. Some minor work followed before she was chosen to play Carrie in the 1976 film of the same name based on Stephen's King's first novel. As well as the roles previously mentioned, she has appeared in a number of films, including 'Raggedy Man' (1981), her husband's directorial debut; 'Crimes of the Heart' (1986), for which she earned an Oscar nomination; 'JFK' (1991), as the wife of District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner; and 'The Help' (2011).