40 Fun Facts About Famous Rogers

Roger Federer, once a ball boy in his hometown of Basel, won eight men's singles titles at which Grand Slam tournament?

Wimbledon was also where Federer won the junior title in 1998, five years before he took his first major there at the age of 21.

Roger Moore's seven James Bond films began in 1973 with which adventure, which has a Paul McCartney theme song?

Live and Let Die made Moore the third actor to play Bond in the Eon series, after his 1960s television run as Simon Templar in The Saint.

Which British actor plays private detective Eddie Valiant in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Bob Hoskins played the detective for director Robert Zemeckis, who was hired on the strength of Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future.

Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile in May 1954 on the Iffley Road track in which English city?

Oxford hosted the run, with two fellow athletes setting the pace for him, and Bannister went on to a career as a neurologist.

Roger Waters was the bassist and main lyricist of which band behind The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall?

Pink Floyd was co-founded by Waters in 1965, and he became its conceptual leader after songwriter Syd Barrett left in 1968.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination for playing Mister Rogers in the 2019 film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood?

Tom Hanks plays the children's television host as a cynical magazine journalist profiles him, a story inspired by a real 1998 Esquire article.

Kenny Rogers topped the US pop chart in 1983 with Islands in the Stream, a duet with which country star?

Dolly Parton joined Rogers on a song written by the Bee Gees, and it gave each of the two singers a second pop number one.

Ginger Rogers danced through nine 1930s RKO musicals, including Top Hat and Swing Time, with which partner?

Fred Astaire was her partner in all nine, yet Rogers won her Best Actress Oscar without him, for the 1940 drama Kitty Foyle.

Roy Rogers, the singing film star billed as the King of the Cowboys, rode which palomino horse in his Westerns?

Trigger was foaled in California in 1934 under the name Golden Cloud, and Rogers renamed the colt when he acquired him.

Roger Maris hit 61 home runs for the New York Yankees in 1961 to break which player's single-season record?

Babe Ruth had hit 60 in 1927, when teams played 154 games a season, so the longer 1961 schedule made the new mark controversial.

Steve Rogers, the frail recruit who becomes Captain America, is played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by which actor?

Chris Evans plays the hero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who reached cinemas in a 1944 serial as the first Marvel character adapted outside comic books.

Buster Crabbe, star of the 1939 film serial Buck Rogers, had already played which other comic strip hero in two serials?

Flash Gordon began as the best-known imitator of the Buck Rogers newspaper strip, so Crabbe ended up playing both the 1929 original and its rival.

Roger Clemens, the pitcher nicknamed Rocket, won which baseball award seven times, more than anyone else in history?

His first Cy Young Award came in 1986, when Clemens was also named league MVP and struck out 20 batters in a single game.

Roger Staubach, quarterback of two Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl winners, won the 1963 Heisman Trophy at which school?

Navy kept Staubach after graduation too: he served as an officer, including a tour of duty in Vietnam, before his professional career began.

Roger Goodell, who began as a league office intern in 1982, became commissioner of which sports league in 2006?

The NFL took Goodell on under commissioner Pete Rozelle, and he rose to chief operating officer before getting the top job.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins won Oscars for Blade Runner 2049 and which Sam Mendes war film built from very long takes?

1917 was filmed in long takes so that the whole story appears to unfold in just two continuous shots, and it reunited Deakins with Mendes.

Queen drummer Roger Taylor wrote which 1984 hit, which the band played in its Live Aid set the following year?

Radio Ga Ga began when Taylor heard his small son say a similar-sounding phrase about a song on the car radio that the boy disliked.

Roger Daltrey, who played the title role in the 1975 film Tommy, is the lead singer of which British rock band?

The Who released Tommy as a rock opera album in 1969, and Daltrey's lead in the film version earned him a Golden Globe nomination.

Humorist Will Rogers, born in the Cherokee Nation in 1879, is celebrated as the Favorite Son of which US state?

Oklahoma did not yet exist when Rogers was born in Indian Territory, and he died in a 1935 plane crash in Alaska with aviator Wiley Post.

Roger Williams, a minister expelled from Puritan Massachusetts, founded a 1636 settlement that grew into which colony?

Rhode Island began as Providence Plantations, which Williams set up as a refuge offering what he called liberty of conscience.

Roger Sherman, the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States, represented which state?

Connecticut also names the compromise Sherman proposed at the Constitutional Convention: seats by population in the House and an equal vote for every state in the Senate.

Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the 1857 Supreme Court opinion denying citizenship to Black Americans in which case?

Dred Scott v. Sandford was decided 7–2, and Taney hoped the ruling would settle the national argument over slavery for good.

Roger Corman directed which 1960 horror comedy about a blood-drinking plant, later a stage musical?

The Little Shop of Horrors had its interiors shot in two days on sets left standing from another film, and Jack Nicholson has a small early role.

Roger Ailes, a media adviser to Republican presidents, was the founding chief executive of which cable channel in 1996?

Fox News was created by Rupert Murdoch, who hired Ailes from CNBC, and it launched in October 1996 to 17 million cable subscribers.

Roger Penrose, a 2020 Nobel laureate for work on black holes, proved famous singularity theorems with which physicist?

Stephen Hawking shared the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics with Penrose for the theorems, which carry both of their names.

Roger Hargreaves launched which children's book series in 1971 with a character who has long, bendy arms?

Mr. Men began with Mr. Tickle, and after Hargreaves died in 1988 his son Adam carried on writing and illustrating new books.

Country singer Roger Miller, of King of the Road fame, voiced a rooster minstrel in which 1973 Disney animated film?

Robin Hood includes three songs that Miller wrote and performed himself in character as the minstrel Allan-a-Dale.

Striker Roger Milla, aged 38, scored four goals and danced by the corner flag at the 1990 World Cup for which nation?

Cameroon became the first African team to reach a World Cup quarter-final, and Milla scored again at the 1994 tournament at the age of 42.

Which actor plays homicide detective Roger Murtaugh opposite Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs in all four Lethal Weapon films?

Danny Glover played the cautious family man from 1987 to 1998, and Damon Wayans took over the part for the later television series.

Who voices Roger, the grey space alien living with the Smiths in American Dad!?

Seth MacFarlane also designed the character, who crashed at Roswell in 1947 and moved in after rescuing Stan Smith at Area 51.

Advertising executive Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a nonexistent agent named Kaplan in which Hitchcock thriller?

North by Northwest stars Cary Grant as Thornhill, an innocent man pursued across the United States by a mysterious organization.

Roger, a quiet boy who kills Piggy with a boulder, is a character in which novel about stranded schoolboys?

Lord of the Flies gives Roger its darkest moment: the boulder he drops kills Piggy and also smashes the conch shell.

French director Roger Vadim's 1956 debut And God Created Woman made an overnight star of which actress, then his wife?

Brigitte Bardot had married Vadim at 18, but the two separated in the year the film came out and divorced the year after.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano designed which inside-out Paris building, with its pipes and structure on the outside?

The Pompidou Centre design was chosen from 681 competition entries, by two architects in their thirties who believed they had no chance of winning.

Roger II, a Norman count, was crowned on Christmas Day 1130 as the king of which Mediterranean realm?

Sicily was only part of it: Roger II was also Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and from 1148 he was styled King of Africa as well.

Roger Bacon, the medieval English scholar nicknamed Doctor Mirabilis, was a friar of which religious order?

Franciscans counted Bacon among their friars, and his Opus Majus, sent to the pope in 1267, holds what is usually taken as Europe's first description of gunpowder.

Roger Mortimer, lover of Queen Isabella, helped depose which English king before ruling the country for three years?

Edward II was allegedly murdered at Berkeley Castle on Mortimer's orders, and his son Edward III later had Mortimer hanged at Tyburn.

Rogers Hornsby batted .424 in 1924, a modern National League record, while playing second base for which team?

The St. Louis Cardinals won the 1926 World Series with Hornsby, the only player ever to hit 40 home runs and bat .400 in the same year.

Roger Zelazny, a six-time Hugo Award winner, wrote which fantasy series about a royal family who travel between worlds?

The Chronicles of Amber grew partly out of Zelazny's fascination with Tarot cards, which became the Trump deck his royal family uses to travel.

Roger Sterling, name partner at the Manhattan advertising agency Sterling Cooper, is a character in which TV drama?

Mad Men cast John Slattery as Sterling, whose name comes first on the door because his father was the agency's senior founding partner.