50 Fun Facts About Famous People Named Brian

Queen guitarist Brian May completed a PhD in which science in 2007, having started the research back in 1971?

Astrophysics had to wait while Queen conquered the charts. His famous guitar, the Red Special, was built at home with wood from an 18th-century fireplace.

Who voices Brian Griffin, the martini-loving talking dog in Family Guy, using his own normal speaking voice?

Seth MacFarlane created Family Guy and also voices Peter, Stewie and Quagmire, but Brian is the only one he plays in his everyday voice.

Which rock star founded HandMade Films to pay for Monty Python's Life of Brian after EMI pulled out?

George Harrison, the former Beatle, put up the money simply because he wanted to see the film, and he turns up in it briefly as Mr Papadopoulos.

Brian Wilson produced, arranged and mostly composed which landmark 1966 Beach Boys album, with lyricist Tony Asher?

Pet Sounds was made after he withdrew from touring, following a breakdown in late 1964, so that he could concentrate on writing and recording.

Which name is shared by the actor who played Logan Roy in Succession and a physicist who presents BBC science series?

Brian Cox the actor was the screen's first Hannibal Lecter, in Manhunter. Brian Cox the physicist played keyboards for the pop group D:Ream before turning to science.

Which actor played Brian O'Conner, the undercover cop who befriends Dominic Toretto, in the Fast & Furious films?

Paul Walker died partway through filming Furious 7, so his brothers Cody and Caleb stood in to help complete his remaining scenes.

Beatles manager Brian Epstein first saw the band play a lunchtime show in 1961 at which Liverpool venue?

The Cavern Club visit led him to offer to manage them within a month, and he soon talked the group into suits, ties and a synchronised bow.

Which shock rocker behind the album Antichrist Superstar was born Brian Hugh Warner in Canton, Ohio?

Marilyn Manson built the stage name from two opposite American icons: the film star Marilyn Monroe and the cult leader Charles Manson.

Brian Johnson, once of the Newcastle band Geordie, replaced the late Bon Scott in 1980 as singer of which group?

AC/DC put him straight to work on a comeback album recorded in the Bahamas, which went on to sell an estimated 50 million copies worldwide.

In John Hughes's The Breakfast Club, Anthony Michael Hall's character Brian is the detention student given which label?

The brain ends up writing the detention essay on behalf of the whole group. Rearrange the letters of Brian and you get his label.

Brian Jones, who drowned in his swimming pool at 27, founded and named which British blues-rock band in 1962?

The Rolling Stones dismissed him in June 1969, after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had taken over the songwriting, and he died less than a month later.

Figure skater Brian Boitano, the 1988 Olympic champion, is hailed as a hero in a song from which cartoon's 1999 film?

South Park also drew him as a cartoon superhero. His real duel with rival Brian Orser at the Calgary Games was dubbed the Battle of the Brians.

Which instrument, reputedly once owned by High King Brian Boru, is the model for Ireland's coat of arms?

A harp at Trinity College Dublin carries his name, although it was made some four centuries after he died. It is also the model for the Guinness trade mark.

Brian Lara made Test cricket's first score of 400 in 2004, batting against England for which team?

West Indies fans had already seen the Trinidadian set the first-class record too: 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994.

Brian De Palma, director of Carrie and The Untouchables, made which 1983 gangster film about Tony Montana?

Scarface is counted among his cult classics, while his biggest commercial hit was the first Mission: Impossible film, which started a long franchise.

In Gary Paulsen's novel Hatchet, teenager Brian Robeson must survive alone in the wilderness after which disaster?

A plane crash leaves the 13-year-old beside a remote lake after his pilot dies of a heart attack in mid-flight. The book was a Newbery Honor winner.

Brian Baumgartner played accountant Kevin Malone for nine seasons in which workplace sitcom?

The Office brought him two Screen Actors Guild Awards with the rest of the cast, and he later hosted two podcasts looking back on the series.

Which actor played Brian Flanagan, a business student who takes up bartending to pay his way, in the film Cocktail?

Tom Cruise had one of the highest-grossing films of 1988 with it, even though critics panned the film and it won the Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture.

Brian Clough, sacked by Leeds United after only 44 days, went on to win two European Cups managing which English club?

Nottingham Forest were in the Second Division when he arrived. He had already made Derby County champions of England for the first time in their history.

Brian Williams was suspended in 2015 over an embellished Iraq War story while anchoring which network's Nightly News?

NBC took him off the flagship broadcast for good and moved him to its cable channel, where he went on to host the late-night politics show The 11th Hour.

Brian Mulroney, who struck a free trade deal with Ronald Reagan's United States, was prime minister of which country?

Canada saw the agreement grow into NAFTA once Mexico joined. In nine years in power he also brought in the goods and services tax.

Brian Austin Green, later married to Megan Fox, played David Silver throughout the 1990s on which teen drama?

Beverly Hills, 90210 cast him because producer Aaron Spelling thought the teenager and the character had such similar personalities.

Singer Brian Littrell and his cousin Kevin Richardson both found fame in the 1990s as members of which boy band?

Backstreet Boys fame took both cousins a long way from Lexington, and in 2015 they entered the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame together.

The TV film Brian's Song tells of dying NFL running back Brian Piccolo's friendship with which teammate?

Gale Sayers and Piccolo became the first interracial roommates in NFL history. Piccolo, played in the 1971 film by James Caan, died of cancer at 26.

Brian Henson, son of Kermit the Frog's creator Jim Henson, made his feature directing debut with which 1992 film?

The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first film in the series made after his father died, and it is dedicated to him. Michael Caine plays Scrooge.

Producer Brian Grazer founded Imagine Entertainment in 1985 with which director of Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind?

Ron Howard and Grazer started the company after the success of their mermaid comedy Splash, and in 2002 they shared the Oscar for Best Picture.

Brian Selznick's illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret was filmed as Hugo in 2011 by which director?

Martin Scorsese made it his first film shot in 3D. The book had already become the first novel to win the Caldecott Medal, a prize for picture books.

Brian O'Driscoll captained Ireland in 2009 to a first Grand Slam in 61 years in which rugby union tournament?

Six Nations success capped a career that brought him 46 tries for his country, a national record, and 141 Test caps in all.

Hall of Fame linebacker Brian Urlacher spent all 13 of his NFL seasons with which team?

Chicago Bears fans watched him win a Rookie of the Year award after going ninth in the 2000 draft, then Defensive Player of the Year in 2005.

In the children's TV series The Magic Roundabout, Dougal is a dog and Ermintrude a cow, but what is Brian?

A snail in the English version, he was called Ambroise in the French original. The rabbit of the group is Dylan, a guitar-playing hippy.

Brian Chesky co-founded which company after renting out sleeping space on his San Francisco living-room floor?

Airbnb is short for the original name, AirBed & Breakfast. The first guests came during a design conference, when the city's hotels were hard to book.

Brian Acton co-founded which messaging app with Jan Koum in 2009, five years before Facebook paid $19 billion for it?

WhatsApp kept him until 2017, when he left to start the Signal Foundation, which backs a rival private messaging service.

Brian Jacques was a Liverpool milkman when he wrote which first novel about the heroic mice of a woodland abbey?

Redwall grew out of stories he read to children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, a stop on his round, and began as an 800-page handwritten manuscript.

Writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli created which teenage successor to Peter Parker as Spider-Man?

Miles Morales first appeared in 2011, more than a decade after Bendis had started writing the Ultimate Spider-Man comic in 2000.

Footballer Brian Laudrup, younger brother of Michael, helped which country win the 1992 European Championship?

Denmark's triumph helped him to fifth place in FIFA's player of the year ranking, and both brothers later made Pelé's list of the greatest living footballers.

Brian Tyree Henry, an Oscar nominee for Causeway, played the rapper Paper Boi in which FX comedy-drama series?

Atlanta made his name after a Broadway debut in the original cast of The Book of Mormon, and he went on to play Phastos in Marvel's Eternals.

Brian Kernighan, co-author of the classic book on the C language, coined the name of which operating system?

Unix is not his only mark on computing: he is the K in the AWK language and in K&R C, the nickname of the book he wrote with Dennis Ritchie.

Brian Shaw of Colorado won which televised competition four times between 2011 and 2016?

World's Strongest Man was a long way from his first sport: he excelled at basketball as a student at Fort Lupton High School.

Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt showed that the universe's expansion is speeding up by measuring which distant objects?

Supernovae served him as cosmic distance markers, and the result earned him a share of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Brian Setzer led a swing revival orchestra in the 1990s after fronting which 1980s rockabilly band?

Stray Cats hits such as Rock This Town revived rockabilly, and his seventeen-piece big band later won a Grammy with a cover of Jump, Jive an' Wail.

Which member of Monty Python played the title role, Brian Cohen, in the 1979 film Life of Brian?

Graham Chapman turned down a career as a doctor, having trained at Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital. He also took the lead as King Arthur in Holy Grail.

Brian Dennehy, a two-time Tony winner, played the sheriff who hunts John Rambo in which 1982 action film?

First Blood gave him his breakthrough as Will Teasle. On stage he was once described as perhaps the foremost living interpreter of Eugene O'Neill.

In Dexter's first season, Dexter Morgan's long-lost brother Brian Moser is revealed as the murderer with which nickname?

The Ice Truck Killer earned the name because his victims' bodies were kept chilled before they were found. He enters the story under the alias Rudy.

Brian Herbert has co-written many prequels and sequels to which science-fiction saga created by his father, Frank?

Dune kept growing after its creator died in 1986: his son and Kevin J. Anderson began with the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy in 1999.

Fantasy artist Brian Froud was the conceptual designer of which 1986 Jim Henson film starring David Bowie?

Labyrinth was the last feature film Henson directed, and it reunited the two men after their work together on The Dark Crystal.

Brian Hyland was 16 when he topped the US chart in 1960 with a novelty song about which item of clothing?

A bikini, yellow with polka dots, to be exact. He followed it with the ballad Sealed with a Kiss, a number three hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

R&B singer Brian McKnight reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 with which 1999 ballad?

Back at One remains his highest-charting song. His first 16 Grammy nominations all ended without a win, one of the longest such runs.

Brian Doyle-Murray co-wrote which 1980 Harold Ramis comedy, in which he appears with his younger brother Bill?

Caddyshack also gave him the part of Lou Loomis, who runs the caddie shack, and the brothers later reunited in Scrooged and Groundhog Day.

Defenseman Brian Leetch was playoff MVP in 1994 as which NHL team ended a 54-year wait for the Stanley Cup?

New York Rangers fans saw him become the first American-born winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy, after a seven-game final against Vancouver.

Brian Eno, a former Roxy Music keyboardist, composed the brief start-up sound for which operating system?

Windows 95 owed its jingle to a musician who later admitted he wrote it on a Mac. His album Music for Airports is credited with coining the term ambient music.