Dancer and choreographer Martha Graham met both Helen Keller and Madonna.
I got that from a book called Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings that is all about meetings of famous people. It forms a chain; Madonna met Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson met Nancy Reagan, Nancy Reagan met Andy Warhol, etc. The end of the book even comes back to the beginning, so it forms a full circle.
He also wrote “Angel of the Morning,” which was a hit for both Merrilee Rush and Juice Newton.
And he would have become his own grandpa…
Completely off-topic, but I have to mention the WWII incident where a crew cobbled together a damaged DC-3 and a wing from a DC-2, and flew the resulting monstrosity to safety. Famously known as the DC-2½.
This is the plot in the movie ‘Susan Slade’ (1961) with Connie Stevens and Troy Donahue. I believe this kind of thing has been going on for centuries among all kinds of families. It’s only in recent decades it’s become acceptable to be a proud single mother, without the convoluted deception as practiced in the past.
My favorite factoid: Dr. Ruth Westheimer lived in Israel and as a young girl was trained to be a sniper. She said she could hardly lift a rifle, much less shoot it!
Nico was deaf in one ear.
Whoosh? Or was she maybe born with six but had surgery? Because I googled to see, and got this pic.
Creator of The Man Show and king of podcasting, Adam Carolla, set up the candeholders Sting knocks down in the video to Wrapped Around Your Finger.
He also lost his virginity to Molly Ringwald’s sister.
Beat you to it. Post #68.
Julia Child played professional basketball in a women’s league in Italy.
The name reminded me, and it’s off-topic, but the Blind Melon album Nico was named after singer Shannon Hoon’s death, and was named after his daughter, Nico Blue Hoon, who was born in 1995. Nico Blue Hoon and I have a mutual friend that I’ve known for damn near my whole life.
A lot of the technology and marketing around podcasts was made possible through the efforts of one of the original MTV VJs Adam Curry.
This might be straying a bit from the definition of a celebrity, but it’s still interesting. John Tyler, the 10th President of the U.S., who was born in the 18th century, has two grandsons who are alive in the 21st.
Pertwee was married to actress Jean Marsh (most notable for “Upstairs, Downstairs”) until 1960. She played a role on “Doctor Who” before his tenure (Sara Kingdom in “The Daleks’ Masterplan”) and one after (Morgaine in “Battlefield”).
Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys came home one day in the late sixties and found a bunch of hippie squatters there. The leader of these reprobates was a curiously charismatic fellow named Charles Manson. Dennis encouraged Charlie’s musical ambitions for a while; one Beach Boys song, “Never Give Up Your Love” was originally written by Manson under the title “Cease to Exist.” However, Dennis got so intimidated that he moved out of his house. Next he heard, Charlie and Company were on trial for murder.
According to Dan Savage, he was college roommates with Rick Santorum though I haven’t found anything to corroborate this.
And IIRC, part of the motivation for the murder spree, or at least the choice of targets, was that Manson believed that someone associated with Wilson who had thwarted his nascent music career lived at the Cielo Drive house.
[Karola] Ruth [Siegel] Westheimer was too small for any other duty, so she was trained as a sniper with the IDF.
one of the main reasons Lucille Ball wanted to do I love Lucy was to get Desi Arnaz off the concert tour road trips since he was known to cheat on her.
Nitpick: Dennis retitled CM’s song as “Never Learn Not To Love.” Now then:
1- That song, written by Chuck Manson, was released on the Beach Boys album 20/20.
2- Jim Gordon played drums on that album. Years later, suffering from schizophrenia, he murdered his mother. Despite his obvious insanity, legal technicalities mandated his conviction for murder.
3- Same album features the song “I Can Hear Music,” co-written by Phil Spector.
4- Also the song “Cotton Fields”, written by Leadbelly.
All of which makes 20/20 perhaps the only pop album with direct associations to four convicted murderers.
