37 thoughts on “Today’s Quiz”

  2. Hi, Boa.

    No. 9. looks like a redhead to me. Is there any chance that she is a certain well-known Warrior Queen who is celebrating her birthday today?

  7. Well number 10 is definitely David Bowie, check out the different colour eyes..
    Gotta love the freckles on number 9! That has to be Boadicea!
    Not sure which one it is but there has be Elvis in this lot…any guesses?
    The link is today is their lucky day, BIRTHDAY!!!

  12. Normal service will be resumed as soon as Boadicea reattains a state of sobriety. 😀
    It was a great Birthday dinner with #1 daughter, aka starlettejuly.

  15. FEEG

    Unmistakable!

    7. Shirley Veronica Bassey, DBE (born 1937 in Cardiff), is a Welsh singer who found fame in the late 1950s and has continued a successful career since then worldwide. She is best known for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979), and is a UNESCO Artist for Peace. She was born the last child of Eliza Jane (née Start) and Henry Bassey, of paternal Nigerian and maternal English descent. She grew up in the working-class dockside district of Splott. After leaving Splott Secondary Modern School at the age of fourteen, Bassey first found employment packing at a local factory while singing in local public houses and clubs in the evenings and weekends. In 1953, she signed her first professional contract, to sing in a touring variety show Memories of Jolson, a musical based on the life of Al Jolson. She next took up a professional engagement in Hot from Harlem, which ran until 1954. By this time Bassey had become disenchanted with show business, and had become pregnant at 16 with her daughter Sharon, so she went back to waitressing in Cardiff. However, in 1955, a chance recommendation of her to Michael Sullivan, a booking agent, put her firmly on course for her destined career. He saw talent in Bassey, and decided he would make her a star. Bassey currently resides in Monte Carlo.

  17. John M

    I thought that Araminta’s post and the freckles would give it away – and I guessed that you would work out who it was! Well done!

  18. Papaguinea

    I’d not have recognised Wm Hartnell from this photo!

    3. William Henry Hartnell (1908 –1975) was a British actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the lead role of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who. Hartnell was born in St Pancras, London, England, the only child of Lucy Hartnell, an unmarried mother. He was raised partly by a foster mother, though he did spend many a happy childhood holiday in Devon with his mother’s family of farmers, where he learned to ride a horse. Hartnell never discovered the identity of his father despite his efforts to trace him. He left school without any prospects, and dabbled in the commission of petty crimes. Through a boys’ boxing club, Hartnell met the art collector Hugh Blaker, who would become his unofficial guardian and arrange for him initially to train as a jockey (horses were his first love) and help him enter the Italia Conti Academy. Theatre being a passion of Hugh Blaker, he paid for Hartnell to receive some ‘polish’ at the Imperial Service College, though Hartnell found the strictures too much and ran away. Hartnell entered the theatre in 1925. At the outbreak of the Second World War Hartnell served in the Tank Corps, but was invalided out after eighteen months as the result of suffering a nervous breakdown, and he returned to acting. After living at 51 Church Street, Isleworth, next door to Hugh Blaker, the Hartnells lived on The Island, Thames Ditton. Then in the 1960s they moved to a cottage in Mayfield, Sussex, where he would live for the rest of his life.

    10. David Robert Jones, known as Davie Bowie, (1947) is an English rock musician, and singer who has also worked as an actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for five decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s, and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work. David was born in Brixton, London. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, located near the border of the south London areas of Brixton and Stockwell. A neighbour recalled that “London in the forties was the worst possible place, and the worst possible time for a child to grow up in.” Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler. In 1953, the family moved to Bromley.

  19. Tocino

    I knew those Ipads were more trouble than they were worth!

    6. Elvis Aaron Presley (1935 – 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the “King of Rock and Roll” or simply “the King”. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954 when Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, eager to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience, saw in Presley the means to realize his ambition. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Prescription drug abuse severely compromised his health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at the age of 42. Presley’s ancestry was primarily a Western European mix—Scots-Irish, with some French Norman; one of his great-great-great-grandmothers was Cherokee.

    5. Ron Moody (born Ronald Moodnick, 1924) is an English actor. Moody was born in Tottenham, North London, the son of Kate (née Ogus) and Bernard Moodnick, a studio executive. Of Russian Jewish descent,[4] he is a cousin of director Laurence Moody and actress Clare Lawrence. His surname was legally changed to Moody in 1930.[3] He trained to become a sociologist at the London School of Economics, but began appearing in shows and later decided to become a professional actor.

  20. Araminta

    🙂

    2. Dennis Yeats Wheatley (1897 –1977) was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world’s best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s. Wheatley was born in South London to Albert David and Florence Elizabeth Harriet Wheatley (née Baker). He was the eldest of three children of an upper middle class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. He was a soldier during the First World War but was gassed in a chlorine attack at Passchendaele and invalided as a second lieutenant of the Royal Field Artillery after service in Flanders, on the Ypres Salient, and in France at Cambrai and St. Quentin. He assumed management of the family wine merchant business during 1919, but during 1931 after a decrease of business due to the depression, he began writing and married his second wife. During the Second World War, Wheatley’s literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He was given a commission directly into the JP Service as Wing Commander, RAFVR and took part in advanced planning for the Normandy invasions. His first novel published, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published during 1933, being reprinted seven times during seven weeks. He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. During the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II of England, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile. During his study of the paranormal, though, he joined the Ghost Club. Two weeks before his death during November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.

  22. Araminta

    Spot On!

    1. William Wilkie Collins (1824 – 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was hugely popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work. Collins was born in London, the son of a well-known Royal Academician landscape artist, William Collins. Named after his father, he swiftly became known by his second name (which honoured his godfather, David Wilkie). From the ages of 12-15 he lived with his parents in Italy, which made a great impression on him. At the age of 17 he left school and was apprenticed as a clerk to a firm of tea merchants, but after five unhappy years, during which he wrote his first novel, Iolani, he entered Lincoln’s Inn to study law. (Iolani remained unpublished for over 150 years until 1999.) After his father’s death in 1847, Collins produced his first published book. In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens. They became lifelong friends and collaborators. Collins became an editor of Dickens’ Household Words, several of Collins’ novels were serialized in Dickens’ weekly publication All the Year Round, and Dickens later edited and published them himself. Collins’ younger brother Charles Allston Collins married Dickens’ younger daughter Kate. Collins suffered from a form of arthritis known as “rheumatic gout” and became severely addicted to the opium that he took (in the form of laudanum) to relieve the pain. As a result he experienced paranoid delusions, the most notable being his conviction that he was constantly accompanied by a subjective doppelgänger he dubbed ‘Ghost Wilkie’. His novel The Moonstone prominently features the effects of opium and opium addiction. Collins never married, but lived, on and off from 1858, with a widow, Mrs. Caroline Graves, and her daughter, Elizabeth (whom Collins called “Carrie”). He also fathered three children by another woman, Martha Rudd, whom he met after Mrs. Graves left him to marry. Mrs. Graves returned to Collins after two years, and he continued both relationships until his death in 1889.

  23. Afternoon all and Happy Birthday to the Charioteer-in-Chief.

    No. 8 George W. Bush?

    OZ

  27. Hiya, Toc. Oh well, if we have to Google it………! It appears Moira Shearer was born on 17th January, so I wasn’t a million miles adrift. Smiley.

    OZ

  29. Toc – the NSW has been occupying my attention of late. 🙂 I would post a photo of my New Year’s Eve “salmon and gammon” buffet (a bit like Aussie surf ‘n’ turf), but fear I wouldn’t get the size right and have Bearsy and Soutie shouting at me as a result.

    Have you booked your holidays yet? There’s still a chilly one in the fridge for you.

    OZ

  31. If you pass though Singapore, treat yourself to a night at the Mandarin Hotel, Orchard Road. Mrs. Toc will love it too (unless, but a big hint – you hide your credit cards), especially when you order her a bowl of Laksa for breakfast.

    Is No. 8 Gypsy Rose Lee?

    OZ

  32. Drat = too, too late to this one. But is no 8 a Kennedy? Sorry can’t be more specific. Probably not anyway! 😉

  33. Tocino

    Finally surfaced after a surfeit of champagne!
    8. Commander Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (1942) is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestsellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking has a neuro-muscular dystrophy that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed.

  34. OZ

    Good to see you!

    4. Gypsy Rose Lee (1911 – 1970) was an American burlesque entertainer, famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author and playwright, whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy. Born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, she was initially known by her middle name, Louise. Her sister, Ellen Evangeline Hovick (better known as actress June Havoc), was born in 1913. After their parents divorced, the children supported the family by appearing in vaudeville where June’s talent shone, while Louise remained in the background. At the age of 15 in December 1928, June eloped. Louise’s singing and dancing talents were insufficient to sustain the act without June. Eventually, it became apparent that Louise could make money in burlesque, which earned her legendary status as a classy and witty strip tease artist. Initially, her act was propelled forward when a shoulder strap on one of her gowns gave way, causing her dress to fall to her feet despite her efforts to cover herself; encouraged by the audience response, she went on to make the trick the focus of her performance. Her innovations were an almost casual strip style, compared to the herky-jerky styles of most burlesque strippers (she emphasized the “tease” in “striptease”) and she brought a sharp sense of humor into her act as well. She became as famous for her onstage wit as for her strip style, and—changing her stage name to Gypsy Rose Lee—she became one of the biggest stars of Minsky’s Burlesque, where she performed for four years. She was frequently arrested in raids on the Minsky brothers’ shows.

  36. Not a bunch I would actually like to admit had the same birthday!
    Bad news really as spousal unit is the beginning of next week and detestable stepson was the 5th!
    Ouch!
    All Capricorns I suppose.
    MMMMM.

  37. Sorry I missed this. Lunch took precedence. Aquarians are up next – as Backside reminds me evry day.

Add your Comment