Guess the celebrity

This short activity is useful as an ice- breaker. Students should guess the name of the hidden personality.

1)   ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________ is the archetypal kooky scientist who was clearly more than a little bit off and yet was brilliant as brilliant could be. ??????????? although a seemingly friendly, intelligent guy had quite a few skeletons in the closet. In 1901, ________________ and his first girlfriend, Mileva Maric, were on holiday in Italy. It ended when Mileva found herself with child and ________________ found himself with no money to support her and the new baby. The child, Lieserl, was born in 1902 and disappeared from ________________ letters to Mileva around 1903. It’s unknown what happened to the child, but she probably died of scarlet fever. Later in life, ________________ left Mileva in 1912 (and divorced her in 1919) and married his cousin Elsa Lowenthal soon after. In the latter marriage, ________________had numerous affairs during the marriage and well after Elsa’s death in 1936. Genius? Yes. Playboy? Definitely. (A. Einstein)

2)   Sir ________________is perhaps best known for his comedic films of the Roaring Twenties, and he certainly has tales to tell. ________________parents weren’t exactly role models–his mother had two illegitimate children from affairs and his father left the family when he was young. His mother eventually died of liver issues after becoming psychotic due to syphilis and malnutrition.His adult life was no less fascinating–________________ was once forced to pay child support for a child that wasn’t even his. When a young woman claimed that her child was ________________, blood testing determined that the child was not ________________, but the judge refused to have the test admitted into court, so he made ________________pay a substantial sum. Even after death, his story didn’t quite end. In 1977, ________________body was stolen for ransom, but it was recovered about two months later. (Charlie Chaplin)

3)   ________________ had just gotten a divorce, was on government aid, and could barely afford to feed her baby in 1994, just three years before the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, was published. When she was shopping it out, she was so poor she couldn’t afford a computer or even the cost of photocopying the 90,000-word novel, so she manually typed out each version to send to publishers. It was rejected dozens of times until finally Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, gave it a second chance after the CEO’s eight year-old daughter fell in love with it. (J. K. Rowling)

4)   ________________ of Great Britain was crowned in 1953. Her 60 years on the throne was celebrated in June 2012 with the Diamond Jubilee. She later became the longest-reigning monarch in British history. ________________ was born Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary on April 21, 1926, in London, England. At the time of her birth, most did not realize ________________ would someday become queen of Great Britain. Her father, Prince Albert, was the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. ________________ got to enjoy the first decade of her life with all the privileges of being a royal without the pressures of being the heir apparent. (Queen Elizabeth II)

5)   Born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, famed entrepreneur ________________ began to show an interest in computer programming at age 13. Through technological innovation, keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics, he and partner Paul Allen built the world's largest software business, Microsoft. In the process, ________________became one of the richest men in the world. In February 2014, Gates announced that he was stepping down as Microsoft's chairman. (Bill Gates)