Christmas quiz questions: Big names we lost in 2021

Many famous faces shuffled off this mortal coil this year. Can you name them for one last send-off?

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1. The above are four giants of American politics who died this year. Can you name them?

2. Who in January died in California, nearly 12 years into a 19-years-to-life prison sentence for second-degree murder and using a firearm in commission of a crime?

3. Both members of a popular TV double act died this year; both had been in the same profession in the 1960s and 70s before their moves into television. Who were they?

4. Who died in February, six months after being personally knighted by the Queen at Windsor Castle?

5. Why did fans of the television programme Give Us a Clue have a double reason to be sad this year?

6. Maki Kaji, who died in August, was the “godfather” of which game? He did not invent it, but did much to popularise it around the world.

7. Who died in November, having been in a wheelchair since a car crash in 1986?

8. Which actor, who died in December, once recalled that when presented to the Queen at the Prince of Wales’s 50th birthday, wanted to say to her: “I’m just a little gay Yid from somewhere called Sea Point on the other side of the world. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know what I am. I am an impostor.” He managed to restrain himself.

9. Three Jamaican legends of reggae died this year. Who?

10. Which comedian, who died in July, was once described as “the Bernard Manning of Brooklyn”?

Tap here for answers

1. Walter Mondale, who served as vice-president and was an unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate (died in April); Donald Rumsfeld (secretary of defense, died June); Colin Powell (secretary of state, died October); Bob Dole (leader of the senate and unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, died December).
2. Phil Spector; he was 81.
3. Saint and Greavsie: Ian St John, who died in March, and Jimmy Greaves, who died in September.
4. Captain Sir Tom Moore, who died aged 100.
5. The programme’s stalwarts Una Stubbs and Lionel Blair both died, Stubbs in August, Blair in November.
6. Sudoku.
7. Sir Frank Williams, motor racing team principal.
8. Sir Antony Sher.
9. Bunny Wailer (March), Lee “Scratch” Perry (August) and Robbie Shakespeare (December). Alvin Patterson, percussionist with the Wailers, also died, in November.
10. Jackie Mason.

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