Share true trivia you find interesting about famous people of your choosing

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Title says it all. Be prepared to cite if requested but don’t feel obliged when posting. It can be anybody famous at all, from Lindsey Lohan to Genghis Kahn to King Tigleth Pileser to Marcel Marceau and back again. I’ll start- no particular order whatever, but to the best of my knowledge these are true and I can cite:

Abraham Lincoln- he was a passionate lover of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but none more than Macbeth. He could recite most of it from memory, and frequently would at any or no provocation.

The bed he died in had probably been slept in recently by John Wilkes Booth, who frequented that boarding house when in D.C. due to its proximity to the theater.

He was so devastated by the death of his son Willie of typhoid while he was in office that he frequently visited Willie’s tomb to commune with him. That may not be strange, but the fact he had the slab removed and the coffin opened at least twice while he was doing was considered odd by people concerned for his sanity (and life- he had gone through at least two suicidal depressions). His wife preferred to remain at home and conjure her dead sons at seances held in the Blue Room of the White House; her “official” spirit guide was the Emperor Constantine (according to her favorite channeler).

He was the only president ever to actually be within firing range during a battle while president. It was in July 1864 when Jubal Early attacked D.C… Lincoln rode out to the battle lines and stood on a parapet to see the rebels. Men were felled around him (though its doubtful the rebs knew who he was). Future SCotUS justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was present and screamed at him “GET DOWN YOU DAMNED FOOL!”, and Lincoln did. (When asked later if he had any idea that was Lincoln he was yelling at, Holmes said “Of course. That’s why I was yelling at him to get down.”)
CELEBRITY GENEALOGY

Geraldo Rivera was Kurt Vonnegut’s son-in-law in the 70s. (Kurt despised him til his dying day.)

Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson are descendants of Edward Rutherford, youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence and the man who sings *Molasses to Rum to Slaves * in 1776.

Timothy Leary’s second wife divorced him, married a former Buddhist monk named Frank Thurman, and had a daughter named Uma.

George Washington was a descendant of King Edward III (making him about 9 millionth in line to the British throne).

Rip Torn and Sissy Spacek are first cousins, as are Henry Winkler and Richard Belzer, and further south so are Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, and Jimmy Swaggart.
GAY CELEB TRIVIA: John Inman, who portrayed Mr. Humphries on Are You Being Served?, is an excellent textbook case in the reasons why gays should continue the fight for marriage.
He lived with his male partner for more than 30 years. When same-sex marriage was recognized in England he and his partner were among the first to marry. Inman was terminally ill with liver disease at the time and died a few months later.
In his will he left the bulk of his estate- approximately $5 million USD- to his lover.
What’s this got to do with gay marriage then?
England’s inheritance taxes are about 40% on estates of the size of Inman’s, but there is an exemption for a spouse. Had Inman died a year earlier, his lover would have had to pay almost half the estate to the government; he was protected not because Inman had a will and not because they had lived together openly for 35 years, but because of a little piece of paper they’d gotten about a year before.

Raymond Burr’s estate was an enormous mess. He left a vast fortune in assets (vineyards, islands, royalties and copyrights and residuals, all kinds of real estate interest and intellectual properties, etc.) and a vast fortune in debts (he was a notorious spendthrift as well as notoriously generous- some said overly generous [medical bills and vacations and even the occasional house and cars for fans over the years]). He left his estate in a very straightforward will to his longtime lover Robert Benevides (they were together almost 40 years), yet during the auctions and constant accountings and the nightmare of assessing the estate for debt and asset et al Benevides was also having to pay a fortune to lawyers to fight a niece and nephew Burr had almost no relationship with who challenged the will. (IANAL but can’t help but think that had there been a marriage of course it would have been much more quickly dismissed.)
Ultimately Benevides and accountants won the case, made the estate solvent again by selling off most of it, but they were able to keep the winery. (Burr and Benevides also raised award winning orchids, several of them named for best friend actress Barbara Hale and her character Della Street.)

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FATHERHOOD TRIVIA
B.B. King is the father of 15 acknowledged children by 15 women.

Dr. Julio Iglesias y Puga, a leading figure in the world of gynecology and the father of the singer and grandfather of Enrigue Iglesias, died in 2005 at the age of 90. He was survived by three sons: Julio, Jr. and his full brother- both then in their early 60s- and a third son Jaime, who was 2 years old. Dr. Iglesias was 90. Seven months after his death his wife gave birth to their daughter, Ruth.

Other ancient fathers (though not quite that old):

Charlie Chaplin (kids in his 70s)
Charles Lindbergh (illegitimate family in his 60s)
Jacques Cousteau (illegitimate family in his 70s)
James “Scotty” Doohan (his youngest child at 80)
Saul Bellow (84)
Rupert Murdock (2 kids in his 70s)
Nick Nolte (has a newborn at 66)
Michael “Dumbledore” Gambon (married for 50 years, but just had a baby with his girlfriend)
Anthony Quinn (kids in his late 70s/early 80s)
Tony Randall (probably the most famous- 76 and 78)
Strom Thurmond (74)
Bernie “Love Boat’s Doc” Kopell- kids in his late 60s/early 70s
Alphonse D’Amato- new father at 73

Okay, you take over- don’t feel compelled to be as longwinded though most certainly feel welcome to, and it can be any famous person so long as you think the trivia’s interesting.

2

Sampiro, I love you but that “y” has been in disuse for ages.

Julio Iglesias was a football player before he became a singer. The OP is the first time I’ve ever seen him called “Jr.” He’s only been married once; was famous for his string of beautiful live-in girlfriends; has been living with the mother of his second pile of kids (five I think? I know there’s twins), who is Dutch, for several years (AFAIK they’re not married, every reference to them I’ve seen in Lecturas included the question “when do you plan on tying the knot?” and the answer “we’re not”).

The former Mrs. Iglesias, Philiphine Isabel Preysler, had three children by him (Chabeli, Julio Jr and Enrique); shortly after their annulment (on grounds of “inmaturity of the bride,” who’d been 17 at the wedding) she married a Marquis; she later divorced the Marquis and had this second marriage annulment on grounds of “the bride doesn’t believe in the sacramental sanctity of marriage;” when it was published that her new love and next husband was the Socialist Minister of the Treasury it was quite a scandal (as Mr HateTheRich was marrying the Spanish equivalent of Ivana Trump). She wanted to have a third church wedding, but was refused, see reason for second annulment. Her reasons to want a church wedding, as stated on TV, were “but they’re so much prettier than civil ceremonies!”

3

Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were roommates at Harvard (Lowell House, IIRC).

4

Here’s one I learned recently and found interesting. One of Jon Voight’s brothers, James Wesley Voight, is better known as the songwriter Chip Taylor. His two best-known songs are “Wild Thing,” which was famously covered by the Troggs and was performed live by Jimi Hendrix in a performance in which he set fire to his guitar, and “Angel of the Morning,” which was a hit twice, first for Merrilee Rush, then later by Juice Newton.

5

Wester novelist Zane Grey
Actor Kurt Russell
Former NY Governor Mario Cuomo
Country singer Charlie Pride
Game show host Bert Convy

What’s their Common link?
(scroll down)

They were all minor league baseball players

6

Cookbook author Peg Bracken once co-wrote a newspaper column called “Phoebe, Get Your Man” with Homer Groening. Homer’s son Matt went on to bigger fame.

J D Salinger once dated Oona O’Neil, daughter of Eugene. She later married Charlie Chaplin.

Erma Bombeck and Phil Donohue lived across the street from each other for five years before either one was famous. Their friendship lasted the rest of their lives, and Donohue spoke at Bombeck’s funeral.

7

Vivien Leigh hated doing kissing scenes with Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind…she thought he had very bad breath.

8

John Tyler was President of the United States from 1841 to 1845. His youngest daughter, Pearl, died in 1947 - more than 100 years after her father was in office.

9

Donald Duck’s middle name is “Fauntelroy.”

10

Thomas Pynchon was good friends with songwriter & author Richard Farina, who was married to and sang with Joan Baez’s younger sister Mimi. Pynchon was the best man at their wedding, and later spoke at Richard’s funeral.

11

Ernest Borgnine served in the Navy from 1935-1941. Then re-enlisted after Pearl Harbor. He made it to GM1, and then got out and ended up drifting into an acting career. His Broadway debut was for the play Harvey where he was the first actor in the role of the nurse.

He continued to be active with supporting veterans and service member family issues through his acting career, and in 2004 he was made an honorary CPO by the senior enlisted man in the Navy. (MCPON)

12

Hedy Lamarr patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance back in WWII, right in the middle of her career as a famous (and sexy!) actress.

13

Speaking of the Baezs and Farina, Joanne’s other sister Pauline co-wrote “Pack Up Your Sorrows” with Farina (and you thought is was some traditional folk song).

14

Sampiro notwithstanding, it’s threads like these that make me miss Eve. :frowning:

15

Speaking of Ernest Borgnine - he was married to Ethel Merman for about 23 seconds. That always struck me as a match made somewhere other than Heaven.

16

The novelist Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, of Québécois parents who had settled in Lowell, Massachusetts (as many Québécois did in those days). His father Léo-Alcide Kerouac was a relative of Brother Marie-Victorin (né Conrad Kirouac), one of Canada’s most important botanists and the driving force behind the Jardin botanique de Montréal (the world’s second largest botanical garden); while his mother, Gabrielle Lévesque, was second cousin of Quebec premier René Lévesque.

17

Martha Stewart’s personal assistant is Susan Spungen, sister of the late Nancy Spungen.

Kurt Vonnegut’s brother Bernard was a world reknown physicist who discovered the process of cloud seeding.

When Kurt & Bernard’s sister Alice was in the hospital dying of cancer, her husband James Smith was on a commuter train that fell off a bridge into a river, killing him. When Alice died 36 hours after the accident, Kurt and his wife Jane adopted three of their children.

18

Winstead “Doodles” Weaver, vocalist with Spike Jones and his City Slickers (perhaps best known for his horse-racing commentary to the William Tell Overture), was the uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver.

Judith Kliban is the widow of cartoonist B. Kliban. She is also the widow of actor Bill Bixby.

19

James Woods may have been on the same flight as some of the Sept 11 hijackers during one of their practice runs.

20

Samuel Beckett and Andre The Giant were neighbours in France. Beckett supposedly used to give a young Andre a lift to school the odd time.