Those We Lost in 2010 Pt III Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rue McClanahan

McClanahan was the third star of "The Golden Girls" to pass away in consecutive years, following Estelle Getty in 2008 and Bea Arthur in 2009. The show, which ran for seven years between 1985 and 1992, was the story of three older women, Blanche, Rose and Dorothy, who shared a house in Miami. The three were later joined by Dorothy's mother, Sophia.

The show was a huge success, both in terms of ratings and critical responses. It was a hit in countries around the world and made stars of all of its cast.

Answer: Marvin Isley

Marvin Isley's time in The Isley Brothers saw them score top ten hits such as "Fight the Power" and "Harvest For the World". After forming Isley-Jasper-Isley in 1984, he recorded "Caravan of Love", which hit number in the US R&B charts and number one in the UK charts when covered by The Housemartins.

It would be the band's biggest hit before they split in 1988. In 1997, after rejoining The Isley Brothers, Marvin would suffer severe complications with his diabetes that led to him having both legs amputated. Further complications from the disease would eventually lead to his premature death in 2010.

Answer: Beryl Bainbridge

Beryl Bainbridge's upbringing was a mixture of darkness and light. The light came from her relationship with the mother whom she adored, the darkness from her relationship with the father of whose demise she dreamed regularly. The darkness that was to see her fail to complete her schooling after expulsion at age 14, was also to feed into her earliest writings. Her first completed novel, "Harriet Said ...", was rejected by dozens of publishers due to its unsympathetic central character and dark themes. It was eventually published in 1972, five years after she had a novel published for the first time: "A Weekend with Claud".

Though initially operating outside the mainstream, by the end of her life Dame Beryl, as she had become, was lauded by the literary world and was considered a national treasure. She was a judge for the Booker prize, a prize she surprisingly never won, and had seen her novel, "An Awfully Big Adventure" made into a film starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman.

Answer: American Splendor

Pekar was played in the 2003 movie by Paul Giamatti. Pekar appeared as himself alongside Giamatti in several scenes. The movie was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2004 Oscars.

The comic was inspired by Pekar's philosophy that 'you can do anything with words and pictures'. Having admired the work of Robert Crumb and having become friends thanks to their mutual love of jazz, Pekar showed his idea for a comic book based around his everyday life to Crumb, who agreed to part-illustrate it. Crumb also showed it to other comic book artists who also agreed to contribute. And so 'American Splendor' was born.

Answer: The black box flight data recorder

Warren's father was killed in a plane crash in 1934 and no doubt this inspired his search for a means of fully investigating similar incidents. His idea for the flight data recorder came while he was working in the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne. During an investigation into a series of crashes of the Comet aircraft in 1954, he thought it would be illuminating to hear the conversations of the pilots immediately prior to the crash.

His idea was initially regarded as interesting but unimportant by his bosses but, by 1960, Australia had become the world's first country to require the black box to be fitted to all commercial aircraft as standard.

Answer: Snooker

Opinions on Alex Higgins vary widely depending on who you are talking to. For snooker's fans, he was one of the most exciting players ever to pick up a cue. For the game's administrators he was a right royal pain in the backside. His talent was indisputable, as his two world titles attest to, but there is equally no doubt about his capacity for courting controversy. Twice banned from the game, in 1986 and 1991, for violent attacks on match officials, his career came to a similar end in 1996 when, after defeat in a minor tournament, he was found on the floor outside a nightclub, claiming to be the victim of assault by a bouncer. Two years later he was diagnosed with the cancer that would ultimately claim his life.

Despite his troubles, his lasting legacy to the game was his style of play, one that inspired a generation of players behind him and led to the growing and enduring popularity of the sport in the UK and beyond.

Answer: Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal achieved success early with her stage performances. Her Tony for her performance in Lillian Hellman's "Another Part of the Forest" came when she was just 21 years old. Hollywood came calling almost immediately and Neal embarked on her film career. It failed to ignite initially and Neal soon returned to the New York stage where she had enjoyed her early successes. However, Neal continued to be offered movie roles and finally in 1957 she garnered positive reviews for her performance in Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd". Six years later came her Academy Award-winning performance.

In the intervening years, Neal and her husband, Roald Dahl, had suffered two great tragedies. Firstly, their son Theo was run over by a taxi cab in New York, leaving him severely brain damaged. Two years later, their seven-year-old daughter, Olivia, died from the measles. As if this was not enough for the couple to deal with, in 1965 Neal suffered three strokes that left her blind and unable to speak. Thanks to a tortuous rehabilitation regime devised by her husband, Neal recovered enough to resume her acting career in 1968 in "The Subject Was Roses", a role for which she received her second Oscar nomination.

Answer: The first FIFA World Cup final

Varallo was the youngest player at the inaugural FIFA World Cup in 1930. The Argentina team reached the final with Varallo playing a part in three of the four qualifying games, scoring one goal. Argentina lost the final 4-2 to the host country, Uruguay. Varallo would play a total of 16 games for Argentina in his international career, scoring seven goals.

The first modern Olympic games were contested in 1896, 14 years before Varallo was born. Argentina didn't compete in the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France in 1924, nor in the first Cricket World Cup final, contested between Australia and the West Indies in 1975.

Answer: Eddie Fisher

The marriage to Elizabeth Taylor badly damaged Fisher's reputation and career. When Taylor's husband, and Fisher's best friend, Michael Todd, was killed in a plane crash, Fisher divorced his wife, Debbie Reynolds and proposed to Taylor with what seemed indecent haste. Executives at NBC and RCA records certainly seemed to agree, as his TV show was cancelled and his record contract ended shortly afterwards.

He would never have a top 40 hit again, but his association with Taylor allowed him to claim acting roles in films such as "BUtterfield 8" (1960).

Answer: Tony Curtis

The early film career of Tony Curtis was nothing much to look at, unless you liked looking at him. However, he soon tired of the pretty boy roles and sought out more challenging parts that would demonstrate his acting abilities. When these abilities came to the fore, many were surprised by just how good he was.

Although it was not a box office success, the role that first showcased Curtis' talent was that of Sidney Falco, the obsequious press agent prepared to do the dirty work to win the favour of Burt Lancaster's monstrous newspaper columnist, J.J. Hunsecker, in "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957). The film was the first in a run of films that are nowadays considered Curtis' best. The next year, he starred alongside Sidney Poitier in the Oscar-winning "The Defiant Ones", earning a Best Actor nomination in the process. Another year on and he delivered what is probably his most beloved role, that of the cross-dressing gangster, Joe, in "Some Like It Hot", a film that frequently features highly in lists of the best films of all time.

Curtis continued to win big screen roles throughout the 1960s in films as diverse as "Spartacus" (1960) and "The Boston Strangler" (1968) but from the 1970s, Curtis' biggest roles came in TV shows such as "The Persuaders". Curtis was married five times and had six children, including the actress Jamie Lee Curtis.