Arts and Literature Trivia Questions and Answers.

Arts and Literature trivia questions and answers.

What best-selling author opened the first Saab auto dealership in the United States?
A: Kurt Vonnegut.

What was the inspiration for the title of the long-running TV mystery series Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury?
A: The 1961 movie Murder She Said, which was based on the Agatha Christie mystery "4:50 from Paddington."

What is the first name of mystery writer Georges Simenon's celebrated Inspector Maigret?
A: Jules.

What book was the best-seller of the year in America in 1794?
A: Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, which had been published in England the year before--three years after his death.

According to Howland Owl, the scientierrific genius of the Pogo comic strip, what would you get if you crossed a geranium plant and a baby yew tree?
A: A yew-ranium bush.

To whom did writer John le Carre dedicate his 1991 spy thriller The SecretPilgrim?
A: To actor Alex Guinness, who portrayed spymaster George Smiley in the TV versions of le Carres earlier books Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People.

What are the names of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona?
A: Valentine and Proteus.

What was the name of Tarzan's pet chimpanzee in Edgar Rice Burroughs's books about the King of the Apes?
A: Nkima. The chimp was renamed Cheeta for Johnny Weissmuller's film debut as Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932.

What famous American author's grandfather was the model for Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem The Last Leaf, about an aged survivor to the Boston Tea party?
A: Herman Melville's grandfather; Major Thomas Melvill. (Melvill was the original spelling of the family name.)

What cultural phenomena did psychiatrist Fredric Wertheim ink to juvenile delinquency in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent?
A: Comic books. His book led to Senate hearings and the establishment of the Comics Code Authority, which banned "all scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, and masochism."

What artist had his wife pose for the face of Christ in his painting of the Last Supper?
A: Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. The title of the painting is Sacrament of the Last Supper.

Where was the sprawling family estate of early American novelist James Fenimore Cooper?
A: In Cooperstown, New York--it was the setting of his Leather Stocking Tales and is today the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. William Cooper, the writer's father and one oft he Wealthiest landowners of his time, purchased the Cooperstown site in 1785.

The novella Pal Joey by John O'Hara consists of a series of letters written by nightclub singer Pal Joey--to whom?
A: Pal Ted, a bandleader.

To whom did French painter Edgar Degas write, "Most women paint as though they are trimming hats...not you"?
A: American artist and Degas disciple Mary Cassall.

What was the name of the parrot that taught Dr. Dolittle to talk to the animals?
A: Polynesia. The doctor's other pets in the popular series of children's books by Hugh Lofting were his duck, Dab Dab; his owl, Too Too; his baby pig, Gub Gub; his monkey, Chee Chee; and his dog, Jib.

What French novelist inadvertently provided actress Ruth Davis with her stage name, Bette Davis?
A: Honore de Balzac. Davis took her stage name from the title of his 1840 novel Cousin Bette.