SSS Puzzle

[Pastor Fireball]

Now to fill up some holes and tie up some loose ends...

19. One of his greatest victories came when his troops used homemade ropes to climb down the steep side of Mount Vesuvius and attack the unsuspecting enemy in the rear.
SPARTACUS? HANNIBAL?

SPARTACUS is correct.

72. She is the most recent female astronaut.

Not sure if this is the correct answer, but SANDY MAGNUS was on the last U.S. space shuttle mission.

74. La Toya Jackson’s future husband, Jack Gordon, was convicted of trying to bribe him; when FBI agents arrived in his office to arrest Gordon, Gordon tried to strangle him.

HARRY REID, back when he was the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

78. In her best known film role, she became familiar with a playlist; in her best known TV role, she became familiar with a menu.
THE GIRL FROM "NICK AND NORA'S INFINITE PLAYLIST" AND "TWO BROKE GIRLS"

Her name is KAT DENNINGS.

83. In 2006, he sold his kidney stone to an online casino for $25,000, using the money to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity.
WILLIAM SHATNER?

I was right on this one all along. Now I remember that this fact was mentioned in his Comedy Central Roast a few years ago.

84. This country singer’s life sounds like something out of a country song: six marriages, a bankruptcy, and affairs with an All-Pro quarterback and a U.S. senator.
LORRIE MORGAN?

Yes, this one is correct. This is another clue that showed up in some form in one of my games. She was married to to Sammy Kershaw and was romantically linked to Troy Aikman and Fred Thompson.

[macrae1234]

62. Nearly half a century before his actual death, he became seriously ill while visiting China, and the Japanese press mistakenly reported he had died; ironically, this “news” reached Britain the day before the report of his divorce from his first wife, leading to some juicy speculation.

Bertram Russell

[silverscreenselect]

This puzzle is somewhat similar to an earlier one I did, but I added a variation you'll need to figure out to eliminate some dead ends. Last week, someone made a comment that I thought was going to lead to the Tangredi. If you look at that comment and the other answers to the puzzle, you should be able to figure out one match right away that will lead you to a couple of others fairly quickly.

[franktangredi]

This puzzle is somewhat similar to an earlier one I did, but I added a variation you'll need to figure out to eliminate some dead ends. Last week, someone made a comment that I thought was going to lead to the Tangredi. If you look at that comment and the other answers to the puzzle, you should be able to figure out one match right away that will lead you to a couple of others fairly quickly.

Any chance that this is the comment?

This was a high-level WWTBAM question many years ago... MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE.

[Pastor Fireball]

Any chance that this is the comment?

This was a high-level WWTBAM question many years ago... MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE.

The very first Tangredi puzzle I wrote was on high-level WWTBAM questions. I highly doubt that Steve is doing that here. Not enough of these names were either the names of contestants or subjects of high-level questions.

That is, unless everything here relates to high-level questions from the last three seasons of WWTBAM, which I have not watched one single minute of.

[Pastor Fireball]

Last week, someone made a comment that I thought was going to lead to the Tangredi. If you look at that comment and the other answers to the puzzle, you should be able to figure out one match right away that will lead you to a couple of others fairly quickly.

Any chance that comment could be Smiler's mention of Maria Tallchief being the key to solving a Tangredi from many years ago?

[franktangredi]

Last week, someone made a comment that I thought was going to lead to the Tangredi. If you look at that comment and the other answers to the puzzle, you should be able to figure out one match right away that will lead you to a couple of others fairly quickly.

Any chance that comment could be Smiler's mention of Maria Tallchief being the key to solving a Tangredi from many years ago?

That comment was today, not last week, so it can't be what sss was referring to.

[Pastor Fireball]

Last week, someone made a comment that I thought was going to lead to the Tangredi. If you look at that comment and the other answers to the puzzle, you should be able to figure out one match right away that will lead you to a couple of others fairly quickly.

Any chance that comment could be Smiler's mention of Maria Tallchief being the key to solving a Tangredi from many years ago?

That comment was today, not last week, so it can't be what sss was referring to.

I was thinking outside the box... literally. I was referring to the stand-alone Maria Tallchief thread that Smiler posted on Friday.

[silverscreenselect]

Last week, someone made a comment that I thought was going to lead to the Tangredi. If you look at that comment and the other answers to the puzzle, you should be able to figure out one match right away that will lead you to a couple of others fairly quickly.

Any chance that comment could be Smiler's mention of Maria Tallchief being the key to solving a Tangredi from many years ago?

That comment was today, not last week, so it can't be what sss was referring to.

I honestly don't think I can remember enough high level questions to construct a puzzle around. The comment I was referring to won't give you the Tangredi, but it will give you one of the pairs that should lead you to a couple of the other pairs fairly quickly. There's a big clue to the Tangredi itself in one of the answers that I thought someone would have picked up on by now.

[Estonut]

Here's a consolidation (if you find it to be inept, then do your own damn consolidation instead of whining).

If you're also going to intentionally skip over the contributions of anyone you don't like, then, yes, it's inept, and you'd have no business doing consolidations for the good of the group.

[Pastor Fireball]

I honestly don't think I can remember enough high level questions to construct a puzzle around. The comment I was referring to won't give you the Tangredi, but it will give you one of the pairs that should lead you to a couple of the other pairs fairly quickly. There's a big clue to the Tangredi itself in one of the answers that I thought someone would have picked up on by now.

Well, you did a Silver puzzle a few years back. We have Grace METALious here. I'm wondering if our theme could be other metals in names (such as Gold, Goldberg, etc.)

[smilergrogan]

These two were wrong:

32. He was offered a role in The Shining but refused it unless Stanley Kubrick, who directed him previously in his best role, would agree to film his scenes in less than 100 takes; when Kubrick refused, Scatman Crothers was cast instead.
WOODY STRODE?
SLIM PICKENS

67. He is the most recent head coach to have a losing season at the same school the year after playing in the BCS Championship Game.
GENE CHIZIK
MACK BROWN

[smilergrogan]

I think we identified both wrong definites and all three wrong single question answers from last time, so I removed the questions for all those. With Mack Brown and Bertrand Russell (maybe), we now have two repeated last names as well as several repeated first names, so that may mean neither name is part of the Tangredi.


Back by popular demand, the SSS Puzzle. First, you must identify the 100 famous people from the following clues. Then, you must match these people up to form 50 pairs according to a Tangredi, or principle which you must discover for yourself. There are some alternate pairings possible, but many of these will not allow you to solve the entire puzzle. I think you'll be able to get a general idea of the Tangredi fairly quickly, but the sooner you figure out exactly how it works, the sooner you will eliminate a lot of potential dead ends. Unlike some of my puzzles, there is absolutely no significance to the number of clues, or pairs, in this puzzle.

1. LINCOLN CHAFEE
2. MICKEY MANTLE
3. JACK RUBY
4. JOHN DINGELL

5. This actor turned down Don Johnson’s role in Miami Vice; ironically, in his breakthrough film a few years earlier, he played an actor who played a detective on a popular TV series.
TOM BERENGER?

6. This reporter first gained widespread recognition for covering Barack Obama’s presidential campaign for Fox, and, shortly before Obama’s inauguration, became Fox’s White House correspondent.
MAJOR GARRETT?

7. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
8. BILLY MARTIN
9. STEVE WOZNIAK

10. One of his earliest acting roles was as a boy needing a liver transplant on an X-Files episode remarkably similar to the current TV series, Touch.

11. REDD FOXX
12. NORMAN VINCENT PEALE
13. JIMMY DEAN
14. MAY ROBSON

15. Producer Joseph Levine signed this actor to a seven-year contract shortly before the actor’s breakthrough picture, but when Levine saw the finished picture, he fired the actor, who would soon become one of the world’s leading sex symbols, because he thought the actor’s onscreen acting style was too gay.
MICHAEL CAINE?

16. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES
17. EUGENE DEBS
18. ALBERT HOFFMAN
19. SPARTACUS
20. MORRISSEY

21. He moved from New York to Seattle to start his business because he realized that, by locating the business in Washington, fewer of his customers would have to pay sales tax.
JEFF BEZOS?

22. ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
23. KATHY IRELAND
24. BERRY GORDY
25. BRIAN KEITH
26. JOE PERRY
27. SAM HOUSTON

28. This model-turned-actress got her first major role because the film’s producers thought she looked like Cybill Shepherd, but when they publicized her best-known modeling assignment in connection with the film, the client fired her and her modeling career essentially came to an end.

29. MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE
30. SAMUEL BECKETT
31. GRACE METALIOUS
32. SLIM PICKENS
33. ROBERT MONTGOMERY
34. GEORGE MASON
35. JAMES COOK
36. VIRGINIA MAYO
37. JIM MCGREEVEY
38. OZZIE SMITH
39. PAUL VON HINDENBURG

40. As a young man, he worked as a reporter at a Raleigh TV station managed by family friend Jesse Helms, who nominated him for the Freedoms Foundation Leadership Award for his work with Vietnam vets; later he would publicly condemn Helms at a gay pride parade on the steps of the North Carolina State Capitol.
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN?

41. ELI LILLY
42. DAN GLICKMAN
43. PERNELL ROBERTS
44. LYNN SWANN

45. She has more Billboard 100 hits than any female singer other that Aretha Franklin.
MARIAH CAREY? JANET JACKSON? RIHANNA? KATY PERRY? CELINE DION?

46. MICKEY WRIGHT
47. BRAD DEXTER

48. He and Mickey Spillane were the first two celebrity spokesmen for Miller Lite Beer.
BUBBA SMITH? ROSEY GRIER?

49. This horror writer’s best known short story concerns a clergyman who is driven mad, and eventually to suicide, by a ghostly, blaspheming monkey that only he can see.

50. JOHNNY MERCER
51. BILLY SOL ESTES
52.ROSIE O'DONNELL
53. LOU HOLTZ
54. KEITH OLBERMANN
55. WERNER HERZOG
56. JIM MCKAY
57. WALT KELLY
58. KERMIT THE FROG
59. BRADLEY MANNING
60. JOAN MIRO
61. JAMIE OLIVER

62. Nearly half a century before his actual death, he became seriously ill while visiting China, and the Japanese press mistakenly reported he had died; ironically, this “news” reached Britain the day before the report of his divorce from his first wife, leading to some juicy speculation.
BERTRAND RUSSELL?

63. e.e cummings
64. JOSEPHINE BAKER
65. ALAIN DELON
66. GERALD FORD
67. MACK BROWN
68. WILLARD SCOTT
69. MEG RYAN
70. KURT RUSSELL
71. ALGER HISS

72. She is the most recent female astronaut.
SANDY MAGNUS?

73. TOM SEAVER
74. HARRY REID

75. This composer’s best known work was originally commissioned and performed as a ballet by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, but it became a big success a year later when first performed in the U.S. as an orchestral piece (as it’s almost always performed today) by Arturo Toscanini.
RAVEL? ARAM KHACHATURIAN? AARON COPLAND?

76. JAMES LONGSTREET
77. MARGARET MITCHELL
78. KAT DENNINGS

79. During his career, which included 17 wins over world champions and 10 world titles, this boxer’s fights made more money on pay-per-view, than any other boxer in history.

80. MOSS HART
81. JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
82. JOHNNY CARSON
83. WILLIAM SHATNER
84. LORRIE MORGAN
85. THOMAS CHIPPENDALE
86. CHRISTINE KEELER
87. ANDY ROBUSTELLI

88. Last year, this reality series host and his film crew were granted access to the Pentagon’s War Room, the first non-reporter to be allowed to film there.

89. ED GEIN
90. JERRY BROWN
91. DICK CHENEY
92. ALAN TRAMMELL
93. MARTIN SHEEN
94. ABRAHAM LINCOLN
95. GENE RODDENBERRY
96. GEORGE GERSHWIN
97. WILL ROGERS
98. ANDY KAUFMAN
99. PEGGY NOONAN
100. JOHN C. CALHOUN

[silverscreenselect]

All of your definite answers are correct. One guess with a single answer is wrong. Two guesses with multiple answers do not contain the correct answer among the guesses.

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

And, again, there's one big clue to the Tangredi itself among the names listed. Once you figure out the first couple of matches, that name should lead you to the general idea of the Tangredi very quickly.

[smilergrogan]

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

I have to assume this refers to removing the questions, so something must be buried in the questions, as in Frank's Maria Tallchief puzzle.

And, again, there's one big clue to the Tangredi itself among the names listed. Once you figure out the first couple of matches, that name should lead you to the general idea of the Tangredi very quickly.

e.e. cummings stands out.

[franktangredi]

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

I have to assume this refers to removing the questions, so something must be buried in the questions, as in Frank's Maria Tallchief puzzle.

I completely missed that earlier post about Maria Tallchief, in which Smiler exactly duplicated my earlier Tangredi.

Ballerina remembered by me, if aT ALL, CHIEFly for unlocking a long-ago Tangredi.

I remember at the time making a similar comment to the one SSS made about the removal of the clues.

[smilergrogan]

That would be one heck of a spooky coincidence if the one person who would remind me of that puzzle happened to die two days after sss posted a similar puzzle!

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

I have to assume this refers to removing the questions, so something must be buried in the questions, as in Frank's Maria Tallchief puzzle.

I completely missed that earlier post about Maria Tallchief, in which Smiler exactly duplicated my earlier Tangredi.

Ballerina remembered by me, if aT ALL, CHIEFly for unlocking a long-ago Tangredi.

I remember at the time making a similar comment to the one SSS made about the removal of the clues.

[franktangredi]

That would be one heck of a spooky coincidence if the one person who would remind me of that puzzle happened to die two days after sss posted a similar puzzle!

Cue Rod Serling.

Obviously, sss wouldn't duplicate that Tangredi, and he thinks at least one of the pairs should be obvious. It also bears a resemblance to one of his own puzzles, not just one of mine. No a-ha moment yet.

[silverscreenselect]

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

I have to assume this refers to removing the questions, so something must be buried in the questions, as in Frank's Maria Tallchief puzzle.

You didn't only remove questions.

[smilergrogan]

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

I have to assume this refers to removing the questions, so something must be buried in the questions, as in Frank's Maria Tallchief puzzle.

You didn't only remove questions.

Ok, maybe this refers to the comment I added saying that last names may not be part of the Tangredi due to having two Browns and Russells on the list? So that would mean each pairing must involve one last name, so that one of the Browns and one of the Russells (or more likely neither), plus the several without last names would be used in another capacity.

[mellytu74]

Although in terms of solving the individual clues you've made great progress in the last day or so, you've taken a step backwards in terms of figuring out the easier matches, which is going to be a prerequisite to figuring out the Tangredi.

I have to assume this refers to removing the questions, so something must be buried in the questions, as in Frank's Maria Tallchief puzzle.

You didn't only remove questions.

Also gone is MARILYN CHAMBERS as a possibility on the Cybill Shepherd question.

Are we looking at a (Whitaker) Chambers / Alger Hiss connection?

14. (MARK) ROBSON directed Peyton Place, written by 31. GRACE METALIOUS

Who knows?

[macrae1234]

75. This composer’s best known work was originally commissioned and performed as a ballet by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, but it became a big success a year later when first performed in the U.S. as an orchestral piece (as it’s almost always performed today) by Arturo Toscanini.
RAVEL? ARAM KHACHATURIAN? AARON COPLAND?
I believe this refers to Ravel's Bolero

[macrae1234]

45. She has more Billboard 100 hits than any female singer other that Aretha Franklin.
MARIAH CAREY? JANET JACKSON? RIHANNA? KATY PERRY? CELINE DION?
I think this is Dionne Warwick

[macrae1234]

28. This model-turned-actress got her first major role because the film’s producers thought she looked like Cybill Shepherd, but when they publicized her best-known modeling assignment in connection with the film, the client fired her and her modeling career essentially came to an end.
I change my mind this might indeed be Marilyn Chambers

[Pastor Fireball]

One guess with a single answer is wrong.

That would be one of the answers that I offered:

72. She is the most recent female astronaut.
SANDY MAGNUS?

The correct answer is LIU YANG, who became the first Chinese woman in space last year.