Tom Clancy Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Who was Tom Clancy?
A: Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. was an American novelist best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War.

How many of his novels were bestsellers?
A: Seventeen.

When was Clancy born?
A: He was born on April 12, 1947.

Where was he born?
A: At Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Where did he grow up?
A: He grew up in the Northwood neighborhood in northeast Baltimore.

He was the second of three children to whom?
A: Thomas Clancy.

Who did his father work for?
A: He worked for the United States Postal Service.

Who was his mother?
A: Catherine Clancy.

Where did she work?
A: In a store's credit department.

His mother worked to send him to what private Roman Catholic secondary school taught by the Jesuit religious order (Society of Jesus)?
A: Loyola High School in Towson, Maryland, the suburban county seat of Baltimore County.

When did he graduate?
A: In 1965.

He then attended what?
A: The associated Loyola College (now Loyola University Maryland) in Baltimore.

When did he graduate?
A: In 1969 with a bachelor's degree in English literature.

While at Loyola University, he was president of what?
A: The chess club.

He joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps; however, he was ineligible to serve due to his what?
A: His myopia (nearsightedness), which required him to wear thick eyeglasses.

After graduating where did he work?
A: He worked for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1973, he joined the O. F. Bowen Agency, a small insurance agency based in Owings, Maryland, founded by whom?
A: His wife's grandfather.

In 1980, he purchased the insurance agency from his wife's grandmother and did what in his spare time?
A: He wrote novels in his spare time.

While working at the insurance agency what did he write?
A: He wrote his debut novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984).

Clancy's literary career began in 1982 when he started writing The Hunt for Red October, which in 1984 he sold for publishing to the Naval Institute Press for how much money?
A: $5,000.

Deborah Grosvenor, the Naval Institute Press editor who read through the book, said what later?
A: That she convinced the publisher: "I think we have a potential best seller here, and if we don’t grab this thing, somebody else would."

She believed Clancy had what?
A: An "innate storytelling ability and his characters had this very witty dialogue".

The publisher requested Clancy to cut numerous technical details, amounting to about how many pages?
A: 100.

Clancy, who had wanted to sell 5,000 copies, ended up selling how many?
A: Over 45,000.

After publication, the book received praise from whom?
A: President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan called the work "the best yarn", subsequently boosting sales to what?
A: 300,000 hardcover and 2 million paperback copies of the book, making it a national bestseller.

The book was critically praised for it’s what?
A: Its technical accuracy, which led to Clancy's meeting several high-ranking officers in the U.S. military.

Clancy's fiction works, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989), and The Sum of All Fears (1991), have been turned into what?
A: Commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck as Clancy's most famous fictional character, Jack Ryan.

His second most famous character, John Clark, has been played by what actors?
A: Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber.

All but two of Clancy's solely written novels feature whom?
A: Jack Ryan or John Clark.

The Cold War epic Red Storm Rising (1986) was co-written (according to Clancy in the book's foreword) with whom?
A: With fellow military-oriented author Larry Bond.

The book was published by Putnam and sold how many copies within its first year?
A: Almost a million.

By 1988, Clancy had earned $1.3 million for what?
A: The Hunt for Red October and had signed a $3 million contract for his next three books.

By 1997, Penguin Putnam Inc. (part of Pearson Education) reportedly paid Clancy $50 million for what?
A: World rights to two new books and another $25 million to Red Storm Entertainment for a four-year book/multimedia deal.

Clancy followed this up with an agreement with Penguin's Berkley Books for what?
A: 24 paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries Tom Clancy's Net Force aired in the fall/winter of 1998.

In 1993, Clancy joined a group of investors that included Peter Angelos, and bought what?
A: The Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs.

In 1998, he reached an agreement to purchase who?
A: The Minnesota Vikings, but had to abandon the deal because of a divorce settlement cost.

The first NetForce novel, titled Net Force (1999), was adapted as a 1999 TV movie starring whom?
A: Scott Bakula and Joanna Going.

The first Op-Center novel (Tom Clancy's Op-Center published in 1995) was released to coincide with what?
A: A 1995 NBC television miniseries of the same name starring Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars.

Clancy wrote several nonfiction books about what?
A: Various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces (see nonfiction listing, below).

He also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following what?
A: Premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy's works.

With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger (2003), Clancy introduced whom as main characters?
A: Jack Ryan's son and two nephews; these characters continued in his last four novels, Dead or Alive (2010), Locked On (2011), Threat Vector (2012), and Command Authority (2013).

In 2008, the French video game manufacturer Ubisoft purchased what?
A: The use of Clancy's name for an undisclosed sum.

Based on his interest in private spaceflight and his US$1 million investment in the launch vehicle company Rotary Rocket, Clancy was interviewed in 2007 for what documentary?
A: The documentary film Orphans of Apollo (2008).

A long-time proponent of conservative and Republican views, Clancy dedicated books to whom?
A: American conservative political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan.

A week after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, on The O'Reilly Factor what did Clancy suggest?
A: Clancy suggested that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for the attacks due to their "gutting" of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Clancy's first wife, Wanda Thomas King, was a nursing student who became what?
A: An ophthalmologist.

They married in 1969 and had how many children?
A: Four.

The couple separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated when?
A: In December 1996.

Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997, which became final when?
A: In January 1999.

On June 26, 1999, Clancy married whom?
A: Freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997.

Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn and a family friend of whom?
A: Colin Powell, who originally introduced the couple to each other.

They remained together until when?
A: Clancy's death in October 2013.