Problem: Frances Burney (13 June 1752 - 6 January 1840), also known as Fanny Burney and after her marriage as Madame d'Arblay, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King's Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to the musician and music historian Dr Charles Burney (1726-1814) and his first wife, Esther Sleepe Burney (1725-1762). The third of her mother's six children, she was self-educated and began writing what she called her "scribblings" at the age of ten. In 1793, aged 41, she married a French exile, General Alexandre D'Arblay.

Frances was the third child in a family of six. Her elder siblings were Esther (Hetty) (1749-1832) and James (1750-1821), the younger Susanna Elizabeth (1755-1800), Charles (1757-1817) and Charlotte Ann (1761-1838). Of her brothers, James became an admiral and sailed with Captain James Cook on his second and third voyages. The younger Charles Burney became a well-known classical scholar and the namesake of The Burney Collection of Newspapers. Her younger sister, Susanna, married in 1781 Molesworth Phillips, an officer in the Royal Marines who had sailed in Captain Cook's last expedition; she left a journal that is a principal eye-witness account of the Gordon Riots. Her younger half-sister, Sarah Harriet Burney (1772-1844), also became a novelist, publishing seven works of fiction of her own. Esther Sleepe Burney also bore two other boys, both named Charles, who died in infancy in 1752 and 1754.  Frances Burney began composing small letters and stories almost as soon as she learned the alphabet. She also could be found often with her brothers and sisters creating plays; both writing and acting them. The Burney family had many close friends, one of whom was a writer called Samuel Crisp, nicknamed "Daddy Crisp". He was almost like a second father to Frances, and was a strong influence on her early years of writing. Burney scholar Margaret Anne Doody has investigated conflicts within the Burney family that affected Burney's writing and her personal life. Doody alleged that one strain was an incestuous relationship between her brother James and their half-sister Sarah in 1798-1803, but there is no direct evidence for this and it is hard to square with Frances's affection and financial assistance to Sarah in later life.  Frances Burney's mother, described by historians as a woman of "warmth and intelligence", was the daughter of a French refugee named Dubois and had been brought up a Catholic. This French heritage influenced Frances Burney's self-perception in later life, possibly contributing to her attraction and subsequent marriage to Alexandre D'Arblay. Esther Burney died in 1762 when Frances was ten years old, a loss which she felt throughout her life.  Frances's father, Charles Burney, was noted for his personal charm, and even more for his talents as a musician, a musicologist, a composer and a man of letters. In 1760 he moved his family to London, a decision that improved their access to the cultured elements of English society, and as a consequence their own social standing. They lived in the midst of an artistically inclined social circle that gathered round Charles at their home in Poland Street, Soho.  In 1767 Charles Burney eloped to marry for a second time, to Elizabeth Allen, the wealthy widow of a King's Lynn wine merchant. Allen had three children of her own, and several years after the marriage the two families merged into one. This new domestic situation was unfortunately fraught with tension. The Burney children found their new stepmother overbearing and quick to anger, and they took refuge from the situation by making fun of the woman behind her back. However, their collective unhappiness served in some respects to bring them closer to one another. In 1774 the family moved again to what had been the house of Isaac Newton in St Martin's Street, Westminster, London.

Who were some of the members of Burney's family?

Answer with quotes: Her elder siblings were Esther (Hetty) (1749-1832) and James (1750-1821), the younger Susanna Elizabeth


Problem: Merman was born in her maternal grandmother's house located at 359 4th Avenue in Astoria, Queens in New York City in 1908, though she would later emphatically insist that it was actually 1912. Her father, Edward Zimmermann (1879-1977), was an accountant with James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry-goods company, and her mother, Agnes (Gardner) Zimmermann (1883-1974), was a teacher. Edward Zimmermann had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and his wife was Presbyterian.

Merman was married and divorced four times. Her first marriage, in 1940, was to theatrical agent William Smith. They were divorced in 1941. Later that same year, Merman married newspaper executive Robert Levitt. The couple had two children: Ethel (July 20, 1942 - 1965) and Robert, Jr. (born August 11, 1945) Merman and Levitt were divorced in 1952. In March 1953, Merman married Robert Six, the president of Continental Airlines. They separated in December 1959 and were divorced in 1960.  Merman's fourth and final marriage was to actor Ernest Borgnine. They were married in Beverly Hills on June 27, 1964. They separated on August 7 and Borgnine filed for divorce on October 21. Merman filed a cross-complaint shortly thereafter charging Borgnine with extreme cruelty. She was granted a divorce on November 18, 1964. Borgnine later told fellow actor Frank Wilson that he spent most of his short marriage arguing with Merman. By the end, he recounted how she came back from a film one day and said, "The director said I looked sensational. He said I had the face of a 20-year-old, and the body and legs of a 30-year-old!" Borgnine replied, "Did he say anything about your old cunt?" "No," replied Merman, "he didn't mention you at all."  In a radio interview, she said of her many marriages: "We all make mistakes. That's why they put rubbers on pencils, and that's what I did. I made a few lulus!" In her autobiography Merman (1978), the chapter entitled "My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine" consists of one blank page.  Ethel Levitt, her daughter, died on August 23, 1967, of a drug overdose that was ruled accidental. Her son Robert, Jr. was married to actress Barbara Colby who was, while estranged from Robert, shot and killed along with her boyfriend in a parking garage in Los Angeles in July 1975 by apparent gang members who had no clear motive.

Who did she marry first?

Answer with quotes:
Her first marriage, in 1940, was to theatrical agent William Smith.