Famous Richards and Dicks
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50 free Famous Richards and Dicks trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Richard has been a name for monarchs, presidents and movie stars for the best part of a thousand years, and its short form, Dick, has travelled just as far. There was a Richard on the English throne during the Crusades and another in the White House during Watergate. There are Dicks in Disney musicals, in the vice presidency and on the starting grid of a cartoon road race. This quiz covers both names across film, television, music, history, science, sport and books. Some questions give you a clue and four people who share the name, so you have to tell one Richard from another. Others start with a famous Richard or Dick, such as Nixon, Branson, Burton, Wagner, Attenborough, Dawkins, Cheney or Van Dyke, and ask what he did, who he worked with or what he left behind. A handful of fictional Dicks from comic strips, cartoons and English folklore round things out. It suits pub quiz hosts looking for a themed round, anyone throwing a party for the Richard or Dick in their life, and general knowledge fans who like their subjects mixed. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Richard Nixon's 1952 televised speech defending a campaign fund is named after which pet?
Checkers
Checkers was a cocker spaniel sent to the Nixon children, and Nixon vowed to keep the gift whatever his critics said. About 60 million Americans watched or listened.
Q 02Dick Van Dyke played both Bert the chimney sweep and an elderly bank chairman in which musical film?
Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins credited its ancient banker, Mr. Dawes Senior, to Navckid Keyd, a scramble of the actor's own name. Heavy costuming made him look far older.
Q 03Which Beatle was born Richard Starkey and spent two years of childhood in a tuberculosis sanatorium?
Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr took the stage name from the rings he wore, and because it sounded country-and-western. After his hospital stay he skipped school to drum along to music on biscuit tins.
Q 04Richard III, the last English king killed in battle, was found in 2012 buried under what?
A car park
A car park in Leicester had covered the lost Greyfriars church where he was hastily buried in 1485. DNA from descendants of his sister Anne helped confirm the bones were his.
Q 05Which actor starred opposite Julia Roberts in both Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride?
Richard Gere
Richard Gere composed and performed the piano theme he plays in Pretty Woman. The role brought him his second Golden Globe nomination.
Q 06Dick Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old lawyer on a Texas ranch while hunting which bird?
Quail
Quail were the quarry when Cheney's shotgun blast hit Harry Whittington in the cheek, neck and chest. Whittington survived, with about 30 pellets left in his body.
Q 07Stephen King published Thinner under which pen name, exposed by a bookstore clerk in 1985?
Richard Bachman
Richard Bachman's Thinner sold 28,000 copies at first, then ten times as many once the secret was out. A Washington clerk had noticed how alike the two writers' styles were.
Q 08Richard Harris played which Harry Potter character in two films before Michael Gambon took over?
Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore was a part Harris said he took only after his 11-year-old granddaughter threatened never to speak to him again. Chamber of Secrets was his final film.
Q 09Which American Bandstand host, dubbed America's oldest teenager, fronted New Year's Eve from Times Square?
Dick Clark
Dick Clark earned the oldest-teenager tag for his youthful looks and his teenage audience. He first produced New Year's Rockin' Eve in 1972 and also hosted five versions of Pyramid.
Q 10Which actor won an Academy Award as Richard Williams, tennis-coach father of Venus and Serena?
Will Smith
Will Smith won Best Actor for King Richard, a film Venus and Serena Williams themselves helped make as executive producers.
Q 11Richard Branson's Virgin label made its debut in 1973 with which Mike Oldfield album?
Tubular Bells
Tubular Bells sold slowly until its opening piano motif turned up in the horror film The Exorcist. The surge laid the financial foundation for the whole Virgin Group.
Q 12Richard the Lionheart was fatally wounded by which weapon while besieging a French castle in 1199?
A crossbow
A crossbow bolt left a wound that turned gangrenous. As a final act of mercy he forgave the shooter, said by some chroniclers to be a boy, and sent him away with 100 shillings.
Q 13Dick Grayson, son of acrobats called the Flying Graysons, becomes the partner of which superhero?
Batman
Q 21Richard Burton twice married and twice divorced which screen star, his partner in eleven films?
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor was his second and third wife, and their turbulent romance kept him in the headlines. Despite seven Academy Award nominations, Burton never won.
Q 22Richard Attenborough, older brother of naturalist David, won the Best Director Academy Award for which biopic?
Gandhi
Gandhi also won him the Best Picture award. His own screen career began in 1942 with an uncredited part as a sailor deserting his post in In Which We Serve.
Q 23Which actor chased UFOs in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and won an Academy Award for The Goodbye Girl?
Richard Dreyfuss
Batman takes him on as the first Robin after Dick asks to become his aide, and the pair are known as the Dynamic Duo. In 1984 Dick grew up into the hero Nightwing.
Q 14Dick Dastardly schemes his way through Wacky Races alongside which dog with a wheezy, snickering laugh?
Muttley
Muttley's rasping laugh is heard most often when his master's schemes fail. Voice actor Don Messick reused the same snicker for several other cartoon dogs.
Q 15Which actor produced, directed and played the title role in the 1990 film Dick Tracy?
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty arrived after the project had passed through directors including Steven Spielberg and John Landis. The film won three Academy Awards, among them Best Makeup.
Q 16In English folklore, Dick Whittington rises from poverty to Lord Mayor of London thanks to which animal?
A cat
A cat makes his fortune when it is sold to a rat-infested country. The real Richard Whittington was of high birth and probably never owned one.
Q 17Legend says highwayman Dick Turpin rode 200 miles overnight from London to York on a mare with which name?
Black Bess
Black Bess and the ride were made famous by novelist William Harrison Ainsworth almost 100 years after Turpin was hanged. The ride itself never happened.
Q 18Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries blares from attacking helicopters in which Vietnam War film?
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now has its helicopters play the music as they attack a Vietnamese village. The piece is the prelude to the third and last act of Wagner's opera Die Walküre.
Q 19Which composer wrote Also sprach Zarathustra, whose fanfare is the main theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss titled the fanfare Sunrise in his programme notes. The film used a 1959 Vienna Philharmonic recording conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
Q 20Which composer set Oscar Hammerstein's words to music in Oklahoma!, South Pacific and The Sound of Music?
Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers was the first person to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony, and he added a Pulitzer Prize as well. His earlier lyricist was Lorenz Hart.
Richard Dreyfuss was 30 when The Goodbye Girl made him the youngest Best Actor winner up to that time, beating a mark Marlon Brando had held since 1955.
Q 24Which stand-up comedian teamed with Gene Wilder in the comedies Silver Streak and Stir Crazy?
Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor made four films with Wilder in all, and in 1998 he received the very first Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Q 25Television producer Dick Wolf is best known for creating which long-running drama franchise?
Law & Order
Law & Order ran from 1990 to 2010 and was revived in 2022. Wolf is also co-creator of the FBI franchise.
Q 26Dick York and later Dick Sargent each played Darrin Stephens, husband of Samantha, in which sitcom?
Bewitched
Bewitched changed its leading man in 1969, when Dick Sargent replaced an ailing Dick York for the final three seasons.
Q 27Surf guitarist Dick Dale's Misirlou revived his career when it was used in which Quentin Tarantino film?
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction led to four new albums and world tours for Dale. A left-hander, he played a right-handed guitar flipped over, without restringing it.
Q 28Which American high jumper won 1968 Olympic gold by going over the bar back-first?
Dick Fosbury
Dick Fosbury began experimenting with the style at 16 in high school. Sprinting in on a curve and leaping backward kept his centre of mass lower than older techniques did.
Q 29Which NASCAR driver won a record 200 Cup races and seven Daytona 500s driving the number 43?
Richard Petty
Richard Petty also holds the marks for most wins in a season, 27, and most in a row, ten. His seven championships were later matched by Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson.
Q 30Which bongo-playing Nobel physicist dunked O-ring material in ice water at the Challenger disaster hearings?
Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman clamped a sample of the seal material and dipped it in ice-cold water during a televised hearing, showing that it lost its resilience in the cold.