When I Was Old Trivia Quiz

Answer: Robert Heinlein

Whilst in high school I was given the option to read Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" but chose "Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham instead. It wasn't until I made the mistake of seeing the 1997 movie "Starship Troopers" that I turned to reading Heinlein - surely the book had to be better than the movie! The book was so good that I turned to "Stranger in a Strange Land" to find out what I'd missed out on all those years before.

Heinlein was the biggest selling science fiction author for many years. He had such technical mastery of his craft that he could, as one critic said, "write the story while walking backwards in high heels". He also used his novels to raise awareness of a wide range of social issues such as the power of governments to repress nonconformist thought and the debt that individuals owe to society. Whilst this made people think it also polarised readers and many of his books were still able to raise controversy fifty years after they were published. "Starship Troopers", published in 1959, is good case in point with its views on militarism, utopianism, racism and fascism. Whilst battling emphysema his heart failed him in May of 1988 and the world lost one of its vocal thinkers.

Answer: Vincent Lingiari

The Wave Hill Cattle Station is situated in harsh country about 600 kilometres south of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. The operation employed the local indigenous people, the Gurindji, of which Vincent was a leader. In comparison to the non-indigenous workers Vincent and his crew were paid poorly with wages that amounted to little more than rations and were forced to work in much harsher conditions. In 1966 Vincent organised a walk-off (strike) in protest against these realities. However, what was initially a call to employee rights soon became a movement that demanded a return of traditional lands to indigenous owners. The strike lasted eight years until the government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act of 1976 which effectively passed the freehold title, including the power to negotiate mining and development on these lands, back to indigenous Australians.

Sadly, the first time I'd ever heard of Vincent and his campaign came after his passing when his struggle was beautifully captured in the song "From Little Things Big Things Grow" by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody:

"Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land
And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony
And through Vincent's fingers poured a handful of sand"

The tall stranger was Gough Whitlam, Australia's Prime Minister in the day and the pouring of sand signified the passing over of the land.

Answer: Nico

I was about seventeen years old when I first listened to, and was blown away by, Lou Reed's "Transformer" album. This led me to explore Reed's earlier work, which led to The Velvet Underground and Nico.

Nico was born Christa Päffgen and adopted the working name Nico from an ex-boyfriend, film-maker Nikos Papatakis. Tall with pale skin and stunningly beautiful it led her into modelling in her mid teens and eventually attracted the attention of Federico Fellini who gave her a small part in his 1960 classic film "La Dolce Vita". Her extensive travels would eventually lead her to New York and a meeting with Andy Warhol where she became one of his clique of "Superstars" - a group of personalities that he would incorporate into his social sphere and then promote. The Velvet Underground were the centrepiece of Warhol's programme "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable", an extravaganza that incorporated music with dance and film. He suggested that the band record their 1967 debut album using Nico as their chanteuse. The union was a "one-off" and not a happy one at that though a number of the band members, in particular John Cale and Lou Reed, would be present at and assist her with her future recordings. Between 1967 and 1985 she would record six albums that ranged in style and would be an influence to a number of artists such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Patti Smith, Morrissey and Björk.

Answer: Enzo Ferrari

During our school athletics meetings we'd nickname runners according to their speed and running styles. The quickest were always Ferraris, I kept getting nicknamed "Tank".

A young Enzo Ferrari had a close friendship with a World War I flying ace named Francesco Baracca who presented Enzo with a necklace that bore a prancing horse emblem at its end, for good luck. Baracca was shot down and killed shortly afterward. As a mark of respect for his friend Ferrari decided that his emblem should be attached to his own work in the future.
Ferrari's initial passion was with racing and he achieved success despite not being willing to push his vehicles to their limits for fear of engine damage. In 1929 he put together his own racing team which would become the frontline racing team for the Alfa Romeo stable. After leaving Alfa in 1939 he set up his own operation, Auto Avio Costruzioni in Modena. His desire to build racing cars, however, was stymied by the government which needed to use his factories for the war effort. After the war the firm was to have great success with its vehicles but Ferrari was forced to endure both personal and business turmoil. His eldest son, Dino, died of muscular dystrophy in 1956 and six of his drivers were killed in the period between 1955 and 1965. At one point he contemplated selling half the company to Ford but withdrew at the eleventh hour when he realised he would lose control of the decision making. Today the company's cars are seen as toys for the wealthy but in racing circles the engineering and design in their products are held in the highest esteem.

Answer: Gert Frobe

"No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die". This classic retort is uttered by Frobe's Goldfinger, from the eponymous 1964 film, in response to Bond's "Do you expect me to talk" as a red-hot laser beam moved inevitably toward Bond's manhood. To me it remains the best line uttered in a "James Bond" movie, even better than "Bond, James Bond".

Most know him (Frobe) solely for this role but forget his work as Peachum in the play "The Threepenny Opera" (1956) and as Baron Bomburst in the 1968 musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". He would get lost amongst a bevy of high-list actors in all star productions such as "The Longest Day" (1962) and "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" (1965). Frobe saw out his final years with a series of advertisements promoting Mercedes Benz motor cars until a heart attack took his life at age 75.

Answer: William McMahon

Sir William McMahon became Prime Minister of Australia in 1971 after a Liberal Party "spill" saw him take the job from John Gorton. I recall his tenure in the job for three reasons (a) the spill (b) he lost the only election he ever contested as leader of the Liberal Party, ending the longest continuous government in Australia's history at the time and (c) upon his rise to Prime Minister he attended a dinner with President Nixon at the White House and his wife, Sonia, who appeared at the function wearing a dress that was split along the sides and arms all the way to her neck, held together by rhinestones. When that photograph was flashed around the globe everyone suddenly knew where Australia was on the map.

McMahon's timing on reaching the top position was lousy. After 22 years in power the party appeared unfocussed and its main rival, the Labour Party led by Gough Whitlam, looked, each day, a more viable option. By the time the election was called McMahon, in the electorate's eyes, "did not look or sound like a Prime Minister". His party was defeated easily. McMahon battled cancer in his later years leaving behind his wife Sonia and three children, one of whom is Julian who rose to fame as an actor and a model, best known for his work as Cole Turner in the US TV drama Charmed (2000-03), and Christian Troy in the medical drama Nip/Tuck (2003-10).

Answer: Felix Wankel

In 1972 I watched a local man by the name of Ralph Sarich win "Inventor of the Year" on an (Australian) ABC television show called "The Inventors" with his concept of the orbital engine and the orbital combustion process engine. In the course of following his story the name Felix Wankel surfaced a number of times and it drove me to find out more about him.

Felix lost his father in World War I. The outcome of this was that his widowed mother could not afford to send him to university or fund him through an apprenticeship. Felix, however, was a man of great intelligence with a wonderful spatial imagination and was able to teach himself about machines. At seventeen he told friends that he would build a car with "a new type of engine, half turbine, half reciprocating. It is my invention!". Five years later he'd conceived the Wankel engine and five years beyond that he gained his first patent. WWII interrupted his progress and, by 1945, he found himself in a French prison camp. In 1951 he received support from the Goetze AG company and by 1957 he'd put together his first running prototype. In the 1960s the term Wankel would become the generic term for the rotary engine and it received worldwide attention in 1968 when the NSU Ro 80 with its 115-horsepower engine with two rotors became the first German car to win "Car of the Year". His company would secure licensing agreements with Daimler-Benz, General Motors and Toyota and make him a very wealthy man. He passed away at the age of 86 without ever having secured a driver's licence. This was not due to a fear of motor vehicles but his near-sightedness.

Answer: Kim Philby

As a kid I was bombarded with spy stories about "James Bond", "Matt Helm" and "Our Man Flint" and thought of spying as a glamorous thing until I read the Philby story and the damage that it did. Philby was a member of the notorious "Cambridge Five" who was born into privilege. He would claim that his higher class would ultimately be a help rather than a hindrance to his activities. Philby was recruited by the KGB early in his career after having fallen for a young Communist named Litzi Friedmann in Austria and then spent a number of years diligently climbing up the ranks of British Intelligence. At the height of his treachery, he claimed, he was walking out of work with a briefcase stuffed full of documents every day. Philby was eventually posted to Washington D.C. and, during this period, the work of two of his associates, Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean, came under scrutiny. When the pair defected to Russia the spotlight fell on Philby. Philby denied any involvement in spying and was eventually cleared of being the "third man" in this affair. However, the accusations saw him lose his position in intelligence and he would, as a result, lose contact with Russian intelligence. Later, while posted in Beirut, the 1961 defection of Anatoliy Golitsyn to the West would once again place suspicion at Philby's feet. In January of 1963 he managed to "disappear" in Beirut and make his escape to Moscow.

Philby died of heart failure in Russia in 1988, and was accorded a hero's funeral by the State and, posthumously, be presented with a number of medals and awards.

Answer: Hal Ashby

Getting my driver's licence in the mid 70s enabled me to see films at the drive-ins (remember them?) and one of the earliest that I saw was "The Last Detail" starring Jack Nicholson. It's humour was crass but it had me in stitches. It was directed by Hal Ashby and from that moment on I took special interest any time a film of his was released.

Ashby directed his first film in 1970, "The Landlord". This was soon followed by "Harold and Maude" (1971) and "The Last Detail" (1973) both of which earned him critical acclaim and award nominations. Success came on the heels of these and soon he was offered the opportunity to direct classic films such as "Shampoo" (1975), which starred his friend Warren Beatty and won an Oscar and "Bound For Glory" (1976), the Woody Guthrie story that earned six Oscar nominations and won three. His most acclaimed and successful film, "Coming Home" (1978), followed. It won three Oscars and Hal received a nomination as Best Director. "Being There" (1979) was his last film of note. At this point he fell prey to his drug habits, became eccentric in his behaviour and, sadly, found himself unemployable. As successful as he was as a film director, his sole (personal) success at the Oscars was in winning the 1968 Academy Award for his Film Editing on "In the Heat of the Night".

Answer: Roy Orbison

"Mystery Girl" was the last studio album that Roy Orbison released and one of the last vinyl records that I purchased before turning my energies to buying compact discs.

Roy Orbison's voice was distinctive and held an innate ability to convey great passion. His songs could be complex and his ballads, especially, were emotional and, at times, touched on a darker side. Some of his compositions, such as "Oh, Pretty Woman", "Only the Lonely" and the unforgettable "Crying", were amongst the most recognisable songs of the 20th century. Orbison broke the mould for performers in the 1960s. While most jumped and pranced across the stage he would stand still. While others wore exotic costumes and clothing he wore a plain suit with shirt and tie... oh I shouldn't forget those dark glasses. While many felt they needed to portray or deliver a strong masculine persona Orbison exuded vulnerability. His career enjoyed a revival in the 1980s as a member of The Travelling Wilburies and it was through this collaboration that led to the creation of the "Mystery Girl" album, which produced the hit single "You Got It". Orbison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen who, in his acceptance speech paid him the following tribute in reference to his own album "Born to Run" "I wanted a record with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector - but, most of all, I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison. Now, everyone knows that no one sings like Roy Orbison."