Trivia Bits by Paul Paquet

You know that Denzel Washington played Malcolm X in the movie of that name. In that film, Al Freeman Jr. played Elijah Mohammad, Malcolm's mentor. And as it happens, Freeman played Malcolm X himself in the TV mini-series "Roots: The Next Generations." Malcolm X was also played by Morgan Freeman on TV in 1981's "Death of a Prophet" and by James Earl Jones and Mario Van Peebles in Muhammad Ali biopics. And Jones, by the way, played Alex Haley himself in "Roots: the Next Generations."

Although Hamlet is considered one of the great roles of the theatre, Laurence Olivier is the only person to win an Oscar for playing Hamlet. But there have been many other versions. A recent one, starring Ethan Hawke, even set the "to be or not to be" speech in the "action" section of a Blockbuster Video, which is pretty clever. Incidentally, many of the men who have played Hamlet have also been close in age to the women who have played his mom. Mel Gibson is just nine years younger than Glenn Close, for example.

People are very particular about the people who play Sherlock Holmes, even more so than they are about the various James Bonds. No doubt, for some people, Robert Downey Jr. will be the definitive Holmes, or perhaps even the wonderfully named Benedict Cumberbatch. But for most us, the real Sherlock Holmes is Jeremy Brett, who played him from 1984 to 1994. He also auditioned twice for the role of James Bond, as it happens. Of course, if you're on the other side of the age continuum, your Holmes may well be Basil Rathbone.

Heath Ledger won an Oscar for playing the Joker, a role that has traditionally offered actors a license to chew scenery like it was bubblegum. Jack Nicholson devoured the screen in the first Batman movie, and Cesar Romero played him on TV, but there was also a cartoon version of Batman. And there, the Joker was voiced by Mark Hamill, most famous as Luke Skywalker. In fact, Hamill has had something of a career renaissance doing cartoon voiceovers.

Gary Coleman's death in 2010 was another sad chapter in the history of the "Diff'rent Strokes" kids. Robbed blind by his parents, he ended up working as a security guard and launched a quixotic run for the California governorship. His co-star, Todd Bridges, had a series of problems with guns, drugs and the law, having been accused of trying to kill an Los Angeles drug dealer. And Dana Plato ended up playing a lesbian in a soft-core porn film and trying to rob a video store before dying of a drug overdose in her 30s. Sad, sad and more sad.

Charlie Chaplin was a great artist, but he was also consumed by a form of pedophilia called phebophilia, which is an overwhelming attraction for teenage girls. He married and divorced two underage girls. One of them, Lita Grey, he married because she was pregnant. Their divorce proceedings revealed many of Chaplin's minor kinks. And he nearly went to prison over Joan Barry, a woman in her early 20s with whom he had sex after crossing a state border, which used to be a crime for unmarried people.

TRIVIA

1) In what movie does Robert De Niro kill one of his minions with a baseball bat?

A) "Analyze This"

B) "The Godfather Part II"

C) "Goodfellas"

D) "The Untouchables"

2) Laurence Olivier has played what role, which better suited another Laurence, named Fishburne, who played him much later?

A) King Lear

B) Macbeth

C) Othello

D) Romeo

3) In 1984, Christopher Lambert played what role, made famous decades earlier by two Olympic swimmers?

A) Dracula

B) Flash Gordon

C) Lone Ranger

D) Tarzan

4) What tomato salad is named for the peninsula that represents the toe of the boot of Italy?

A) Caesar salad

B) Calabrese salad

C) Tuscan salad

D) Parmesan salad

5) What soft drink company welshed on its promise to give every American a free can if Guns N' Roses released Chinese Democracy in 2008?

A) Canada Dry

B) Dr. Pepper

C) Fanta

D) Mountain Dew

6) A mountain named for scientist James Clerk Maxwell has been called "the only man on" what planet, whose features are mostly named for women?

A) Neptune

B) Pluto

C) Uranus

D) Venus

ANSWERS

1) De Niro uses the bat in "The Untouchables," in which he plays Al Capone.

2) The two Laurences have both played Othello (even though only one of them is black).

3) Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weismuller both played Tarzan.

4) Calabrese salad is named for the toe of Italy's boot.

5) Dr. Pepper's website crashed within days of the album's release.

6) The mountain is on Venus and includes the planet's highest point.

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 13

Some TV and movie stars sing on hit records. Others have criminal records. For example, in 1970, Suzanne Somers was arrested for passing bad checks. Larry King was accused of larceny after siphoning off cash intended to fund the New Orleans DA's office investigation of the JFK murder. And in 1977, Tim Allen

sold $43,000 in cocaine to an undercover agent in Kalamazoo. He served a reduced prison sentence when he agreed to turn in his drug-dealing buddies.

Today we look at the unhappy history of celebrity stalkers. Robert Bardo became obsessed with young actor Rebecca Schaeffer. He hired a private investigator to find out where she lived and shot her to death, leading the LAPD to set up a Threat Management Unit to deal with stalkers. Bardo was inspired by Arthur Jackson, a stalker who used DMV records to find Theresa Saldana, whom he stabbed repeatedly. The story also ends badly for stalkers. Margaret Ray stalked David Letterman for years before lying down in front of a train in Colorado in 1997.

Before Mickey Mouse — and before he knew much about intellectual property laws — Walt Disney created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1928 for Universal. When he and Universal parted company, Disney lost Oswald, which always rankled the company he founded. But in 2006, Al Michaels wanted to be released from his contract at ABC, owned by Disney, to join NBC, owned by Universal. So Disney traded Michaels for Oswald.

British post-punk group Joy Division's music wasn't especially joyful. And the origin of the name is even less so. As the story goes, the Nazis plucked the prettiest women from concentration camps and employed them in brothels for preferred soldiers. This was known (supposedly) as the Joy Division. After lead singer Ian Curtis hanged himself, the remaining members of the band reformed themselves. And to keep that Neo-Nazi theme going, they became New Order.

Henry James proofread the galleys for the 1903 edition of "The Ambassadors," which had been serialized in North American Review. Unfortunately, NAR had edited it down, and James wanted to restore the original version for the book. In the ensuing chaos, he didn't notice that the publisher had accidentally switched chapters 29 and 28, a mistake left uncorrected for nearly half a century. Even so, he considered it his best work.

Tim Harper was a campus reporter for the Drake University Times-Delphic in Iowa, when he broke the biggest story of his career on Sept. 17, 1969. Except that none of it was true. That year, Paul McCartney was out of the public eye, as he mulled the pending dissolution of the Beatles. Rumors spread that he had died. Soon, fans were finding "evidence" in the band's album cover art and lyrics, particularly on the newly released "Abbey Road" album. Ironically, Paul McCartney has a 50/50 shot of becoming the last living Beatle.

TRIVIA

1) In 2008, WBQC-TV became WKRP-TV to promote its new digital TV signal. What city is it in?

A) Albany, N.Y.

B) Cincinnati

C) Indianapolis

D) St. Louis

2) What state's Office of Homeland Security adopted as its top priority not loose nukes or lone wolves but instead "stressing the dependence on Almighty God"?

A) Alaska

B) Florida

C) Kentucky

D) Utah

3) Ever wonder what happened to Hannah Montana's mom? She'd died in a plane crash but was played in flashback by whom?

A) Holly Hunter

B) Diane Lane

C) Brooke Shields

D) Marissa Tomei

4) In the Hitchcock movie "Rebecca," who plays Rebecca?

A) Olivia De Havilland

B) Joan Fontaine

D) Vivien Leigh

D) Nobody

5) Who played both Victoria Grant and Count Victor Grezhinski ... in the same movie?

A) Julie Andrews

B) Linda Hunt

C) Hillary Swank

D) Tilda Swinton

6) In 2006, fans erected a 15-foot statue of Shakira in Barranquilla, where she grew up.

Where would you have to go to see it?

A) Brazil

B) Colombia

C) Mexico

D) Puerto Rico

ANSWERS

1) WKRP is in Cincinnati, just like the TV show, although, ironically, reruns of "WKRP in Cincinnati" aired on WGN America at the time.

2) As written, the Kentucky law puts Homeland Security's religious duties above all else, including actual homeland security.

3) Brooke Shields played Hannah Montana's mom.

4) Nobody played Rebecca.

5) Julie Andrews played the male and female roles in "Victor/Victoria."

6) Shakira is from Colombia.

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 20

There is an Agnostid trilobite called Han solo. This fact is so awesome. Officially, it got that name in honor of China's Han dynasty because its fossil was found in Hunan Province. And it is the sole surviving member of the Diplagnostidae. But who's kidding whom? The "Star Wars" Han Solo was named for the space swashbuckler who shot Greedo first. Harrison Ford also has a spider named for him, Calponia harrisonfordi, as well as an ant, Pheidole harrisonfordi. This is because of his work in conservation.

One of the stranger movies for your watch list is "JCVD," which stands for Jean-Claude Van Damme, who is in the movie ... and who plays himself. Or, at least, a version of himself. Here, he is an over-the-hill action star struggling with custody issues and an old drug abuse problem who ends up in a bank as it is being robbed. Not only is the movie post-modern and intertextual, but Van Damme is quite good in it, improvising many of his lines. Yes, really. He is quite good in it.

In 1997, special-effects people re-edited old movie footage so that Fred Astaire appeared to be dancing with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. Even though he was dead. Creepy. His widow approved, and it no doubt made her a chunk of change. In 2007, Orville Redenbacher was brought back to CGI life in 2007 to sell popcorn, and last year, Charlize Theron appeared in an ad for J'Adore perfume, along with Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Marlene Dietrich. Super creepy.

As a child star, Alicia Foster was billed as Jody Foster, then Jodi Foster, and finally Jodie Foster. Why? Her estranged brother, Buddy, says the name "Jodie" honors their mother's lesbian lover, Josephina Dominguez. Hence, Jo D. He also said Jodie Foster is gay as well. She called the book a "cheap cry for attention and money filled with hazy recollections, fantasies and borrowed press releases." She is, in fact, very private about her sexual orientation. So far. Ahem.

When the Beatles started their careers, the U.S. versions of their albums would be a couple tracks shorter than the British versions. This left behind enough unreleased content to create a whole new U.S. album, which was called "Yesterday and Today." The Beatles did not like their albums being butchered this way, which may be why the original cover art depicts them hacking up bloody dolls in butchers' gowns. It was replaced with a shot of the band posed around a steamer trunk. It sold poorly.

Governor Edwin Edwards was eventually sent to prison on racketeering charges. Rumors about the Louisiana leader had swirled for years, so much so that when he ran in 1991, supporters were encouraging Louisianans to "vote for the crook." And they did, too. That's because thanks to Louisiana's oddball open primary system, the GOP candidate opposing the Democrat was David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who, weirdly, was endorsed by civil rights hero James Meredith.

TRIVIA

1) A nerdy trio called The Lone Gunmen got their own spinoff. From what TV show?

A) "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

B) "Twin Peaks"

C) "Xena: Warrior Princess"

D) "The X Files"

2) In 1983, what singer got re-addicted to painkillers after he was nearly disemboweled in a drunken fight with an ostrich?

A) Johnny Cash

B) Alice Cooper

C) Keith Moon

D) Frank Zappa

3) By what name do you better know the silver screen comedy team of Dino Crocetti and Joseph Levitch?

A) Abbott and Costello

B) Laurel and Hardy

C) Hope and Crosby

D) Martin and Lewis

4) Ramon Estevez's two sons also became actors: Emilio and Carlos. Dad changed his name. So did one of my sons but the other didn't. What did two of them change their name to?

A) Bridges

B) Ferrer

C) Fonda

D) Sheen

5) When Cambridge University banned dogs from student dorms, what future poet kept a pet bear instead?

A) Lord Acton

B) Lord Byron

C) Lord Nelson

D) Lord Tennyson

6) Because of a 1562 ordinance against public ostentation, what city's gondolas are black?

A) Athens, Greece

B) Lisbon, Portugal

C) Stockholm

D) Venice, Italy

ANSWERS

1) The Lone Gunmen were spun off from "The X Files."

2) Johnny Cash once fought an ostrich.

3) Dino Crocetti and Joseph Levitch were really Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

4) Martin Sheen's sons are Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen.

5) Lord Byron had a bear.

6) Venice has black gondolas.

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 27

Brian May, the guitarist for the rock band Queen, literally built his own guitar, called the Red Special, designed for its feedback qualities. But that's just the beginning of his scientific enterprises. He has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and co-authored a paper titled "An investigation of the motion of zodiacal dust particles-1. Radial velocity measurements on Fraunhofer line profiles." It's about reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the solar system.

"Blade Runner" became a cult hit, although some fans, included its own director, Ridley Scott, disliked it. But Scott eventually released a director's cut, which dropped the cumbersome narration that the studio insisted on. It also dropped the happy ending, which the studio also insisted on (and which recycled unused footage from "The Shining.") The director's cut also had a more unambiguous answer to the question of whether Harrison Ford's character was a replicant.

A lot of Canadians write for network TV, and a lot of them star in it. But there are also Canadian characters. The best example on TV now is Cobie Smulders' Robin character from "How I Met Your Mother," who used to a Canadian teen pop star. But there's also Dave on "NewsRadio" (played by Dave Foley) and Ron on "Undeclared" (played by Seth Rogen). All of these actors are Canadian as well. To this list, you can add Megan on "Mad Men," Spence on "The King of Queens," and Todd on "Samantha Who?"

Standing outside Robert E. Lee's house in Arlington, Va., and looking over at Washington, D.C., John Kennedy said, "Oh, what a beautiful sight. I could stay here forever." Today, he is buried at that spot. The reason Robert E. Lee's house is there, by the way, is because Lee used to own Arlington. The land was taken from him while he was off trying to tear the country apart, and it was used to bury the Union soldiers, whom Lee's side was killing. Arlington is also the final resting place of many American heroes, military and otherwise.

The wooly mammoth was the first extinct animal to have its genome sequenced. Before you get too excited, though, that doesn't mean we're around the corner from cloning one. Cloning is hugely complicated, even under the best of circumstances, and in this case, would-be cloners would be dealing with very old genetic material. That's probably a good thing, because we sequenced a human being all the way back in 2003.

In "Spellbound," the Alfred Hitchcock movie set in an insane asylum, Salvador Dali designed a dream sequence featuring giant floating eyeballs. Dali was also involved in "Destino," a collaboration with Walt Disney. But his most critically acclaimed cinematic work was probably Luis Bunuel's surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou." Although just 17 minutes long, the film was notorious for an opening scene in which a human eye is cut open with a razor blade. Oh, that Dali! What a scamp!

TRIVIA

1) What winter pear has the same name as a region in the Loire valley?

A) Anjou

B) Bartlett

C) Bosc

D) Concorde

2) What planet's day is only a half-day or so longer than Earth's?

A) Jupiter

B) Mars

C) Mercury

D) Venus

3) Do you remember "Samantha Who?" Probably not. She was Samantha Newly, the Chicago Realtor with amnesia. She was played by Christina Who?

A) Christina Aguilera

B) Christina Applegate

C) Christina Milian

D) Christina Ricci

4) Considered too techy for a general audience, Tom Clancy got his first book published by a company that specialized in boating books. What book was it?

A) "Clear and Present Danger"

B) "The Hunt for Red October"

C) "Patriot Games"

D) "The Sum of All Fears"

5) In 1999, a high school in Foxworth, Miss., banned what Ray Bradbury book about book-banning because of an errant blasphemy?

A) "Animal Farm"

B) "Atlas Shrugged"

C) "Brave New World"

D) "Fahrenheit 451"

6) What country calls itself Lyoveldio Island, or just "Island" for short?

A) Malta

B) Iceland

C) Ireland

D) Singapore

ANSWERS

1) The pear is an Anjou.

2) A day on Mars is a lot like a day on Earth, as far as length goes.

3) Christina Applegate was Samantha Who?

4) Tom Clancy's first book was "The Hunt for Red October."

5) A Mississippi high school banned "Fahrenheit 451."

6) Iceland is the Island.

TRIVIA FANS: Send the trivia questions you've always wanted answered, or original TriviaBits ideas of your own, with your full name and hometown, to Paul Paquet at paul@triviahalloffame.com or visit him online at www.triviahalloffame.com.

Paul Paquet has been writing trivia since the early 1990s, and has written roughly 100,000 questions. For more, visit triviahalloffame.com or e-mail him at paul@triviahalloffame.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 PAUL PAQUET

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