Since 1975, one actress has been stealing the stage and the screen; proving that age has nothing on ability. Though an American, this actress is world renowned as she has won numerous awards all over the world for the variety of roles that she has played throughout her lengthy acting career, not to mention her many nominations! She was born Mary Louise Streep on the 22nd of June, 1949, in Summit, NJ to Mary and Harry Streep. She soon became accustomed to the nickname Meryl (which is somewhat of a combination of her first and middle names).

After high school, she attended Vassar College, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Drama. Streep briefly attended Dartmouth as well, but later graduated from Yale School of Drama with her Masters in Fine Arts Degree.

Starting out as many actors do, on the stage, she got her first taste of true acting in 1971 while playing the role of Imogene Parott in Trelawney of the Wells.  She met her first fiancé, John Cazale, while performing in Measure for Measure.  Shortly afterward, she landed a role alongside Cazale in The Deer Hunter, which premiered in 1978. Cazale died of bone cancer in March of that same year.

Streep buried herself in her work after Cazale’s death. However, in late 1978, she married sculptor Don Gummel. As gathered from Streep’s own quotes throughout the years, she had obviously developed the theory that life is too short; a theory which many realize much too late in life. Perhaps this is why she married so quickly after Cazale’s passing. Regardless of reason, the marriage has withstood the tests of time for nearly 31 years.  The pair has four children, Henry, Mamie, Grace and Louisa.

Streep’s work has been continuous throughout the years, but her best known role is likely that of Sophie Zawistowski, a surviving woman of the Polish Holocaust. Though Streep has stated time and time again that she cares nothing about fashion, her role as the editor-in-chief of Runway Magazine, Miranda Priestly, in the movie The Devil Wears Prada forced her to act otherwise. This 2006 film became number 2 on Streep’s list of highest grossing films; with the first being the 2008 film adaptation of Broadway hit Mama Mia! Both of these films garnered worldwide appreciation; allowing Streep to once again earn new fans the world over.

Streep currently has two films in production mode. Surely, her obsession with perfecting her roles will continue to entertain fans for years to come.

Find out more about Meryl Streep by playing the Meryl Streep quiz, Meryl Streep quizzes and Meryl Streep trivia games at MastersOfTrivia.com.

There are few musical artists in the last century which have been as important as Paul McCartney. Popular music in the last fifty years can almost all be directly traced to the music created by Paul McCartney and his three band mates in the most famous pop band of all time, The Beatles. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr completed the rest of the group. The music created by this band completely revolutionized the popular music industry, and is not only among the most influential, but also the most covered music that has ever been created.

Paul McCartney’s story starts in Liverpool in 1940. From humble beginnings in a poor, working class town, he has gone on to become the person who is generally considered to be the most successful musician of all time. He has sold over a hundred million singles, and has over 60 gold records. During those early years in Liverpool he met George Harrison in 1954, and a few years later he would meet John Lennon. Once these three began to play music together, history began to unfold in front of them.

In 1962 the band would take its legendary form after the firing of Pete Best and the hiring of Ringo Star. On October 5th, 1962, “Love Me Do” was released, and after that The Beatles quickly shot to international stardom to become the most successful band of all time.

Despite having written some of the most famous songs of all time with The Beatles and John Lennon, such as “Yesterday” “All you Need is Love”, and “ Hey Jude”, McCartney proved himself able to go on and have a vital and thriving solo career after the break-up of the band in the early seventies.

Although performing and writing music has remained an important part of Paul McCartney’s career in the last several years, but he has increasingly focused his attention on his political causes and a variety of causes. He has publicly promoted the vegetarian lifestyle for many years now and fights extremely hard for animal rights. One of the most common places to find Paul McCartney over the last several years has been playing at a variety of benefits and aid concerts to raise money for various international causes. His vast amount of star power has been one of the major contributing factors to many concerts and benefits being able to raise huge amounts of money for a wide variety of causes.

To find out more about Paul McCartney, visit Fun Trivia and play the Paul McCartney trivia games and Paul McCartney quizzes.

Igor Stravinsky was born in 1882 and raised in St. Petersburg where his love for music was kindled at the age of 8 after seeing a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, “The Sleeping Beauty”. Throughout his life, Stravinsky would travel the world. This included spending significant portions of his life and career in places such as Switzerland, France, and finally in the United States where he would live out the rest of his life. During his time living in the U.S. he resided in the Los Angeles area but later chose to make the move to New York City, where he passed away in 1971.

The work of Stravinsky has continued to be influential and important in the realms of composition and classical music, and is broken into three large categories of work. The Russian period is generally thought to consist of the work which he created between the years of 1908 and 1919. Significant work from this period included three ballets that he composed; which include L’Oiseau de Feu, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring.  This period is also noted for a riot which was caused by the premiere of the first of those ballets in 1913.

The next period in his career was significantly longer, and runs from roughly 1920 to 1954. This period is characterized by his attention which was turned to the music of the classical period.   He spent time working with the material of Mozart and Bach. The music he wrote in this period was characterized of sparser arrangements than that of his earlier work, which typically employed extremely large and full orchestras, as opposed to the Neoclassical work which was much more typically using wind orchestration with a piano, as well as choral arrangements.

The final period of his career started in 1953, and is known as the serial period. He turned to a type of composition which included dodecaphony. This is a twelve tone method that was created by Shoenberg.  Interestingly enough, these two lived very near to each other during this period in L.A., but they never became friends or spent much time together. The compositions from this time such as Cantata, Septet, and Three Songs from Shakespeare were composed with serial techniques which were NOT twelve-tone based.

Stravinsky contributed many innovations to the field and his particular use of rhythm and of the large orchestra were both considered innovations of the time. His compositional techniques during all of his significant musical periods have provided significant influence on both his contemporaries and on those who have come afterwards.

Learn more about Stravinsky by playing Igor Stravinsky Trivia, the Igor Stravinsky Quiz and Igor Stravinsky Quizzes at MastersOfTrivia.com.