By Jeff Elder,Knight Ridder Newspapers

What movie star has won an Academy Award more times than any other?

Katharine Hepburn brought home the most little men – four. Can you name the movies for which she won? (See end of this item for the answers.)

Hepburn might win again this year, in a sense. Cate Blanchett is nominated for portraying the legendary actress in “The Aviator.”

Walt Disney won more Oscars than anyone, 26, including three Special Awards and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

Meryl Streep has the most acting nominations, 13. She’s won twice: for “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979) and “Sophie’s Choice” (1982). (Personally, I would’ve just given her an Oscar for that scene where she gets her hair washed by Robert Redford in 1985’s “Out of Africa.” That was magic.)

Ever feel bad for the people, like Streep on 11 out of 13 times, who don’t win on Oscar night? Well, Mark Berger doesn’t even know what it feels like to be denied the hardware. The sound man has been nominated four times, and every single time he’s taken the statuette home. Berger struck gold with “Apocalypse Now” (1979), “The Right Stuff” (1983), “Amadeus” (1984) and “The English Patient” (1996).

Kate Hepburn answer: She won early, for “Morning Glory” (1933). And she won relatively late, for “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), “The Lion in Winter” (1968) and “On Golden Pond” (1981).

This year’s Academy Awards will be aired Feb. 27. Source: Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts And Sciences

Why are some dishes called china as opposed to France or Ireland or England?

Fine china is typically porcelain, the white, translucent ceramic invented and mastered by the Chinese.

The sign of fine china is that it is so hard that it will produce a ringing sound when struck.

Pure white porcelain is made of a fine white clay called kaolin, combined with feldspar and flint or quartz.

Kiln firings bake glazes or enamels onto the surface. Much of this china is made in the city of Jingdezhen in China’s Jiangxi province.

Archaeologists have found the remains of porcelain dating back to the first century. By the end of the sixth century, porcelain dishes, impermeable, resilient and beautiful, were being made all over China.

Until the 15 century, with the exception of the highest classes, Europeans were eating out of wood, animal horn, leather, stoneware, and even yesterday’s bread.

Europe was shut out of china-making until about 1700, when King August the Strong of Germany made it his obsession to discover the process. But Europeans initially used a soft paste, which makes weaker porcelain.

So around 1750 the English began to use bone ash to strengthen their porcelain. This developed into what we now know as bone china.

Sources: National Gallery Of Art, Cleveland Museum Of Art, Wikipedia, American Heritage Dictionary

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A QUICK QUIZ

On “80s trivia

1. What “Rocky” movie boasted the immortal Mr. T and Survivor’s stadium-rock anthem “Eye of the Tiger”?

2. What spunky gymnast won five medals in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles?

3. Who was John Hinckley trying to impress by shooting Ronald Reagan in 1981?

4. In what novel did Jay McInerney employ the second-person narrative form?

5. What actress helped supply the voice of E.T.?

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ANSWERS:

1. “Rocky III”

2. Mary Lou Retton

3. Jodie Foster

4. “Bright Lights, Big City”

5. Debra Winger