Lights, Action, Deadline


How do you spell Star Reporters?


Published: Sep 06 2013, 01:01:am



                                                                           THE PRESS GANG
IN REAL LIFE, AMBITIOUS Canadians made their way to London to become newspaper-owning Press Lords. A dodgy lot for the most part, they included Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), from Maple, Ontario, Toronto's Roy Thomson (Baron Thomson of Fleet) and the Montreal-born Conrad Black (Baron Black of Crossharbour). Reel life attracted another kind of ambitous Canadian to Hollywood: actors. Once there, they sometimes played reporters. From the brief descriptions given below, name the the performers playing the newshounds:

     1.  Complete with trenchcoat and cynical asides, reporter Jack Burden recorded the rise and fall of Broderick Crawford's Louisiana Governor Willie Stark. All the Kings's Men won 1949's Best Picture Oscar; the Vancouver-born actor who played Burden was a Best Supporting Actor nominee.

     2. In a throwback to 1970s cinema's infatuation with investigative reporting, State of Play (2009) features this London, Ontario-born actress in the part of Della Frye, a political blogger for a Washington newspaper. She assists a traditional print newsman, Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), as he ferrets out a scandal involving Homeland Security.

     3. Re-edited for North American release in 1956, Godzilla, King of the Monsters told the story of the iconic Japanese monster's rampage as seen through the eyes of United World News foreign correspondent Steve Martin. The English-speaking reporter was played by an actor born in New Westminster, B.C., a performer who would reprise the role 29 years later in Godzilla 1985.

     4.  A hero of yesteryear, The Green Hornet was the secret identity of newspaper publisher Britt Reid, who fought crime with the assistance of his faithful valet, Kato. In 2011, when the character made his first feature-film appearance, a Vancouver-born actor played the role.

     5. Though she wasn't the first to play Clark Kent's Daily Planet colleague Lois Lane, this Yellowknife, NWT-born actress made the role her own in Superman, the Movie (1978) and in its 1980, 1981 and 1987 sequels.

     BONUS QUESTION 1: The part of Lois Lane has become a Canadian franchise. Name the Edmonton, Alta.-born actress who played the part of Clark Kent's Daily Planet soulmate during seven seasons of television's Smallville (2004-11).

     BONUS QUESTION 2: Name the Smithers, B.C.-born actress who plays Flash Gordon's partner, TV news reporter Dale Arden. Together, they challenged the rule of Ming, the merciless ruler of the planet Mongo in the imaginative, single-season television series Flash Gordon (2007-08).

 
 
THE PRESS GANG (Answers)
     1. John Ireland
     2. Rachel McAdams
     3. Raymond Burr
     4. Seth Rogen
     5. Margot Kidder
Bonus answer 1.  Erica Durance
Bonus answer 2.  Gina Holden

The above is an original reelingback.com Quiz by Michael Walsh, first published Friday, October 4, 2013.


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