This may be more Cafe Society, but since it’s by definition pointless I’ll keep it here. What are some celebrity tidbits you like to share that you rarely have the opportunity to. I’ll keep it to celebrities (which can include politicians, scientists, etc.) to keep it from being too broad.
Warning: You don’t have to hyperlink to your statement unless it’s really far out, but cite rules apply.
A few:
I thought this was an urban legend until I looked it up: In February 1969, Candid Camera host Allen Funt boarded a plane to Miami. It was hijacked by Cuban terrorists who demanded it land in Havana. The passengers on the plane cheered the hijackers and even laughed and applauded when they became furious because they knew Funt was on board. Funt was by far the most terrified person on the flight because he knew for a fact it was real. (Mini-cite from Vanderbilt News Archive.)
In the play and film versions of GYPSY, Mama Rose is portrayed as a loving but neurotically driven sexy stage mother who travels for years with her two daughters and her boyfriend Herbie. The real life Mama Rose was a very small (under 5 feet) lesbian who travelled with her girlfriend and had a violent streak. June really did elope at 13 as she did in the play, but in real life she came back home and Mama pointed and fired a pistol at her new son-in-law’s head. Fortunately for him, the safety was on.
When her daughters gave her a large apartment she converted it into a boarding home for lesbian professionals. She was implicated in the death of her lover there but it was ruled a suicide. Gypsy delayed publication of her autobiography until after her mother’s death because she knew that Mama would sue.
My favorite is about James Brown (The King of Soul). He was sent to prison for some illegal business transaction. The prison had a rule that a prisoner was allowed to have no more than $15.00. The guards searched his cell and found $30,000.00. He probably was just insuring he didn’t have to worry about dropping his soap in the shower.
Fannie Flagg’s real name is Patricia Neal. She changed it because of the actress. She used to have a flag with a baby-bottom on it (a “fanny flag”) at her house in Fairhope, Alabama.
Patricia Neal had an abortion by Gary Cooper early in her career and suffered major depression about it for many years. She’s an anti-abortion activist today because of it. (She also comes across as still extremely bitter over her divorce from Roald Dahl, who remarried a much younger woman, though she admits he was very fair in the divorce settlement [she receives a portion of his royalties].)
Speaking of royalties, one reason for Redd Foxx’s dire straights in later years was that he gave his wife his residuals from Sanford rather than part with the cash he had on hand. In so doing he held onto a few hundred thousand dollars and gave away millions and millions. Chris Rock said that one of his worst moments was when he was a young comic and got to meet Foxx (whom he idolized) and Foxx, being hospitable, offered him some pure cocaine he kept in a carved crystal hand grenade in his dressing room- Rock doesn’t do drugs and it was very disillusioning.
Maurice Evans, perhaps best remembered as Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes or Samantha’s dad on Bewitched, had a near phobia of poverty. Consequently he owned apartment buildings, laundromats, a small chain of dry cleaners in England and other odd scattered investments that made him one of the wealthiest English entertainers. His best friend was Helen Hayes and they owned adjoining homes in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
My great-aunt, Mary McDougal Axelson, was a scriptwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s and '40s. She told me many interesting things about the stars. One of the strangest stories was this:
The lovely and gracious actress Loretta Young adopted a little girl named Judy. It was common knowledge in Hollywood that Judy was actually Loretta Young’s own natural child, and that Judy’s father was Clark Gable. The pretense of the “adoption” was a ruse to avert scandal.
Another little-known fact about Loretta Young is that she had a colostomy. When she appeared in form-fitting gowns, the gowns were specially designed to conceal the outline of the colostomy appliance.
Brad Pitt when to Kickapoo High School.
I’m not sure why I cannot forget this but cannot recall where I need to be later on in the day without writing everything down.
He was also a journalism professor. He dated Ava Gardner in the 1960s and during one of their many fights he punched her in the eye so hard she had to have surgery. A bit later he had a broken leg, supposedly from slipping in the shower or down a staircase or some other at-home accident, but many believed it was a gift from (Ava’s ex) Frank Sinatra and friends.
Cary Grant took approximately 100 LSD trips as part of his psychotherapy (LSD was legal until October 1966).
Like Maurice Evans, W.C. Fields was very afraid of being poor and, as a vaudevillian, opened a new bank account in the city where he was performing so that he didn’t have to keep his wages in his hotel room.
Johnny Carson’s first guests when he took over the Tonight Show were: Groucho Marx, Rudy Vallee, Joan Crawford, Mel Brooks, and Tony Bennett. It kind of puts Leno and his “Dancing Itos” to shame.
When Paul McCartney was recording his first solo album, he booked time at Abbey Road under the name of Bill Martin, so nobody, particularly the John and/or George, who had sessions going on in other rooms at the same time, would know.
Billy Joel performed in bars under the name of Bill Martin. This one is just a coincidence.
Early in The Beatles’ career, they all affected stage names. Paul’s was Paul Ramon. Ten years later, he had a boat, called Ramon. The year after that, he did an album called “Ram”, containing a song called “Ram On.” A now-famous punk group took their name from Paul’s stage name - The Ramones.
I’ll admit, I have no citation to back this bit of trivia up, it was related to me orally, so it may just be an urban legend, but…
In the early 1960s (before either of them were famous), Janis Joplin went out on a date with William Buckley. When asked about his date with her, Buckley merely stated that she was a ‘perfect lady’ on their date.
In 1927, an actress named Peg Entwistle married a man named Robert Keith. The marriage was brief as he failed to mention to her that he had been married before and had a six-year-old son.
Five years later, depressed over her failed career, she climbed to the top of the famous “Hollywoodland” sign overlooking Hollywood, and jumped to her death. She became known as the “Hollywood Sign Girl” until her body was identified.
Ironically, the day after her death, a letter arrived at her home informing her that she had won the lead role in a play at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, playing the part of a woman who was driven to suicide.
He was only briefly her stepson, but Brian Keith found more lasting fame later as “Uncle Bill” in the show Family Affair. In 1997, diagnosed with a terminal lung disease, he killed himself . . . 10 weeks after his daugher killed herself.
Two others: James “Scotty” Doohan, recently deceased, lost part of a finger on D-Day. And Jason Robards, while serving in the Navy, was stationed aboard a ship that returned to Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, a day after it was attacked.
A story from my own family: Back in the '50s my uncle Johnny met Rosemary Clooney at a hotel in Dothan, AL when she in town to perform at a festival. They got to talking and he asked her out on a date. Now, this was unusual because although my uncle was a very good-looking man, he was also very shy…so shy that when it came time to actually go on the date, he lost his nerve. My uncle stood up Rosemary Clooney!
Then again, she may have stood him up as well, but we’ll never know that for sure.
I’ve come across this tidbit in a few trivia books: Before filming began on “The Girl from Petrovka”, Anthony Hopkins searched everywhere in London for the book the movie was based on by George Feifer. He eventually gave up and while waiting for a train he found a copy of the book laying on a bench. A couple of years later, while filming “A Bridge Too Far” he met Feifer. Feifer talked about how he had lost his own copy of his novel after lending it to a friend who never gave it back. Hopkins showed him his own copy and it turned out to be the same one.
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