50 Fun Facts About Famous Pauls

Which Paul formed the band Wings with his wife Linda and guitarist Denny Laine in the early 1970s?

Paul McCartney had already written Yesterday for the Beatles, one of the most covered songs in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions.

Paul Revere, famous for his 1775 midnight ride, made his living in Boston in which trade?

Silversmith Paul Revere was also an engraver, and his best-known print shows the Boston Massacre of 1770. In 1800 he became the first American to roll copper into sheets for ships.

Which Paul, the star of Cool Hand Luke, co-founded a food company that gives its profits to charity?

Paul Newman started Newman's Own in 1982 with the writer A. E. Hotchner, beginning with a homemade salad dressing.

In American folklore, the giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan is accompanied by Babe, which kind of blue animal?

An ox named Babe is Paul Bunyan's pet and working animal, and one tall tale says the pair's footprints created the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota.

Which Paul played Phoebe's husband Mike Hannigan in Friends before becoming Marvel's Ant-Man?

Paul Rudd first played the shrinking hero Scott Lang in Ant-Man in 2015, and he co-wrote the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, was born in which country?

Poland was the birthplace of Karol Wojtyła, who grew up in the town of Wadowice and became the third longest-serving pope in history.

Which Paul flew to Johannesburg in 1985 to record with South African musicians for the album Graceland?

Paul Simon made the trip in secret with his engineer Roy Halee, and Graceland went on to win the 1987 Grammy for Album of the Year.

Paul the Octopus won worldwide fame in 2010 by picking the winners of matches at which event?

FIFA World Cup predictions made Paul an animal oracle: he chose the winner of all seven of Germany's matches, then correctly picked Spain to win the final.

Which Paul, once a rigger on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, played the outback hero of Crocodile Dundee?

Paul Hogan won a Golden Globe for the 1986 comedy and earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay.

London's St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666, was designed by which architect?

Christopher Wren gave the cathedral its high dome in the English Baroque style, and the building was completed in 1710.

Which Paul played Brian O'Conner in the Fast & Furious franchise, starting with the 2001 original?

Paul Walker died before Furious 7 was finished, so his brothers Caleb and Cody stood in for him to complete the film.

The apostle Paul, then known as Saul, was blinded by a bright light while travelling to which city?

Damascus was where he was heading to arrest Christians, and in that city a disciple named Ananias restored his sight.

Aaron Paul won three Emmy Awards for playing Jesse Pinkman in which crime drama series?

Breaking Bad ran on AMC from 2008 to 2013, and Paul returned to the role in the 2019 Netflix film El Camino.

Paul Atreides, whose family is sent to govern the planet Arrakis, is the hero of which novel?

Dune's hero was played by Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch's 1984 film, and Timothée Chalamet took the part for director Denis Villeneuve.

Which Paul starred in the wine-country comedy Sideways and won an Emmy in the title role of HBO's John Adams?

Paul Giamatti reunited with Sideways director Alexander Payne for The Holdovers, which brought him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

The Les Paul, a solid-body electric guitar first sold in 1952, is made by which company?

Gibson named the guitar after Les Paul, the musician who had hand-built a solid-body prototype nicknamed The Log.

Sean Paul, who topped the US Hot 100 in 2003 with Get Busy, comes from which country?

Jamaica's capital, Kingston, is where he was born Sean Paul Henriques, and he topped the US chart again with Temperature.

Pilot Paul Tibbets gave which name to the B-29 bomber he flew over Hiroshima in 1945?

Enola Gay became the bomber's formal name on 5 August 1945, the day before the mission, in honour of the pilot's mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.

French composer Paul Dukas wrote The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which Disney's Fantasia made famous with which character?

Mickey Mouse plays the apprentice, and Walt Disney bought the music rights in 1937 for a stand-alone short that grew into the full film.

Designer Jean Paul Gaultier created the cone bra worn on the 1990 Blond Ambition tour by which singer?

Madonna was already a customer: she wore a Gaultier skirt with men's suspenders to the 1985 premiere of Desperately Seeking Susan.

Which comedian plays Paul Blart, the Segway-riding security officer of the 2009 comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop?

Kevin James also co-wrote the film with Nick Bakay, and the pair teamed up again to write the sequel.

In Misery, novelist Paul Sheldon is held captive by obsessive fan Annie Wilkes, a role that won which actress an Oscar?

Kathy Bates was a stage actress little known to film audiences, and her win made Misery the first film of a Stephen King novel to take an Academy Award.

Folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary released a 1963 children's favourite about a magic dragon with which name?

Puff began as a poem by Leonard Lipton, a fellow student of the trio's Peter Yarrow at Cornell, and Yarrow set it to music.

John Paul Jones, born John Baldwin, played bass and keyboards from 1968 to 1980 in which English rock band?

Led Zeppelin's bassist took his stage name as a session player, after a friend saw a poster for the 1959 film John Paul Jones.

Which actor played death row officer Paul Edgecomb in the 1999 film The Green Mile?

Tom Hanks was meant to play the elderly Edgecomb too, but make-up tests could not age him convincingly, so Dabbs Greer took those scenes.

Saint Paul, the capital of Minnesota, forms the Twin Cities with which larger neighbour?

Minneapolis sits beside a capital that was first known as Pig's Eye, after the tavern of a bootlegger nicknamed "Pig's Eye" Parrant.

J. Paul Getty, who had a pay phone installed at his mansion Sutton Place, made his fortune in which industry?

Oil made Getty one of the richest men alive, yet he was famously reluctant to pay the ransom when his grandson was kidnapped.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen owned the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and which NFL team?

Seattle Seahawks owner Allen was also a part-owner of the Sounders, the same city's Major League Soccer club.

Which Paul created the character Pee-wee Herman with the Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings?

Paul Reubens launched The Pee-wee Herman Show on stage in 1981, after a failed audition for Saturday Night Live.

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre became the first person to voluntarily decline which award in 1964?

Nobel Prize in Literature winners rarely say no, but Sartre said he always declined official honours because a writer should not become an institution.

Which Paul returned to Manchester United from Juventus in 2016 for what was then football's record transfer fee?

Paul Pogba had left United for Juventus on a free transfer in 2012, so the club paid about £89 million to bring back a player it had let go for nothing.

Which Paul, nicknamed The Truth by Shaquille O'Neal, was named MVP of the 2008 NBA Finals with Boston?

Paul Pierce earned the nickname in 2001 by scoring 42 points against O'Neal's Lakers, and he averaged 22 points a game in the 2008 Finals.

Which Paul, an Ottawa-born teen idol, wrote the English lyrics of My Way for Frank Sinatra?

Paul Anka also wrote the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and the Tom Jones hit She's a Lady.

Which Paul performed with the rock band Kiss as the Starchild, with a star painted over his right eye?

Paul Stanley first played with Gene Simmons in a band called Wicked Lester, and after it fell apart the two answered an advert placed by drummer Peter Criss.

Which Paul directed the violent science fiction hits RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers?

Paul Verhoeven, a Dutch filmmaker, also directed the thriller Basic Instinct, then went home to make Black Book, which the Dutch public voted the best Dutch film ever made.

Which Paul, who began his career in his father's bakery, became a judge on The Great British Bake Off in 2010?

Paul Hollywood served as head baker at a number of British and international hotels before television made him a household name.

Which Paul was Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012 and was elected Speaker of the House in 2015?

Paul Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, accepted Romney's invitation in front of a battleship that shares his home state's name, the USS Wisconsin.

Which Paul gave up a career as a Paris stockbroker to paint and spent his later years in Tahiti?

Paul Gauguin went to the French colony seeking a refuge from Western civilization, but his later years on the island and in the Marquesas were marked by ill health and money troubles.

German president Paul von Hindenburg reluctantly appointed which politician as chancellor in January 1933?

Adolf Hitler got the post even though Hindenburg was ideologically opposed to Nazism and had twice dissolved the Reichstag in 1932.

NBA star Chris Paul, called CP3 because he shares initials with his father and brother, played which position?

Point guard Chris Paul led the NBA in assists five times and in steals six times, and he won two Olympic gold medals.

The Krugerrand gold coin shows Boer statesman Paul Kruger on one side and which antelope on the other?

Springbok, South Africa's national animal, appears on the reverse in mid-leap, and the coin's name joins Kruger to the rand, the national currency.

Physicist Paul Dirac's equation joining special relativity to quantum mechanics predicted the existence of what?

Antimatter became real in 1932, when Carl Anderson observed the positron, the electron's antiparticle that Dirac's work had predicted.

Paul Brown, the coach the Cleveland Browns were named after, later co-founded which other NFL team?

Cincinnati Bengals co-founder Brown later admitted that a tale linking the Browns' name to boxer Joe Louis was false, made up to deflect attention from himself.

Paul Bryant, the college football coach nicknamed Bear, won six national championships at which university?

Alabama had him as head coach for 25 years, and the nickname went back to a carnival promotion where he agreed to wrestle a captive bear at the age of 13.

Which Paul, born in Aix-en-Provence, painted five versions of The Card Players and many views of Mont Sainte-Victoire?

Paul Cézanne asked farmers and day labourers who worked the fields near the Jas de Bouffan estate to sit as his card players.

Paul Thomas Anderson directed Daniel Day-Lewis as silver miner turned tycoon Daniel Plainview in which 2007 film?

There Will Be Blood is loosely based on a 1927 Upton Sinclair novel, which a homesick Anderson bought in London because he was drawn to its cover.

Bass-baritone Paul Robeson, for whom the role of Joe was written, sang Ol' Man River in which musical?

Show Boat brought him a major success at its 1928 London premiere, and his version of its best-known song became the benchmark for later singers.

Paul Winchell, a ventriloquist who patented an artificial heart, first voiced which Winnie-the-Pooh character?

Tigger kept Winchell's voice until 1999, and the actor also spoke for the cartoon villains Dick Dastardly and Gargamel.

Saxophonist Paul Desmond composed the jazz standard Take Five, first recorded in 1959 by which pianist's quartet?

Dave Brubeck gave Desmond the job after drummer Joe Morello challenged him to write a piece in five-four time, and it appeared on the album Time Out.

French poet Paul Verlaine ended a stormy affair in 1873 by wounding which younger poet with a revolver?

Arthur Rimbaud was ten years his junior, and the pair had roamed England and Belgium together before the shooting, which put Verlaine in prison.