Quote: Nawth Chaucka “Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s attorney for his assisted-suicide trials was Geoffrey Feiger, whose brother is Doug Feiger. Doug Feiger and his friends are known as The Knack, who recorded ‘My Sharona’.”
Here in Michigan, this is wonderful on so different levels. Geoffrey Feiger has run, unsuccessfully, for governor once and is making sounds like he might to run again. He’s also started showing up in commercials as a “if you know you’re right, but big business says you’re screwed, hire me!” type attorney.
Also, didn’t it come out a few years ago that one of the songs on the POTIF’s list (he listens to while he jogs) is “My Sherona”?
Also, a small bit of Star Trek trivia. I remember reading somewhere (sorry, no cites) that Gene Roddenberry had studied history & was appreciative of the role the Scots had had in naval history (ship development, etc), & so wanted a Scottish engineer. (This is where “Scotty” came from). I seem to remember reading this “way back when…” Can anyone help me remember where this bit of trivia came from?
I’ve had a buttload of classes on the works and life of Friedrich Nietzsche, and my professor loved telling us bizarre anecdotes about his life.
In 1889 Nietzsche’s descent into madness was brought to a rousing conclusion when he saw a master whipping his horse and threw himself in the middle to intervene in the crueltly (incidentally, there is a scene similar to this in ‘‘Crime and Punishment’’ and Nietzsche loved Dostoevsky, I wonder if he weren’t inspired in this way…)
Anyways, our Nietzsche became catatonic, most likely from syphilis. His evil bitch sister from hell promptly highjacked his work and used it as Nazi propoganda which is one of the major reasons he is so strongly associated with fascism (ftr, Nietzsche HATED fascism and thought Jews were one of the most superior races in existence.)
One of her money-making deals on the side was to dress the catatonic Nietzsche in long, flowing white robes, prop him up in his study and charge people money to come gawk at him. Once a group of distinguished gentlemen were passing through the hall and his sister complemented one of the parties on his recent book publication.
According to those present, Nietzsche broke his catatonic state for the last time in his life. He turned to the man, gazed at him sadly, and said, ‘‘I once wrote books.’’
Dr. Ruth Westheimer was a deadly accurate sniper for the underground Jewish military organization Haganah. But she gave it up after her legs severely injured from cannon ball shrapnel on her 20th birthday.
Schlockmeister Jerry Springer used to be a political campaign aide for Robert Kennedy and later became a popular and inspiring politician in the Cincinnati area before it was uncovered that he had hired a prostitute. After which, he was actually able to win back his seat and public favor by owning up to his mistakes and basing his campaign on honesty. In fact, before his show became the circusy spectacle it’s now known for, it’s earliest incarnation was a more serious politically-oriented format which featured guests like Jesse Jackson and Oliver North.
Fact: Michael Naismith (of the Monkees) met with Douglas Adams (of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe) at Mr. Naismith’s home in Arizona, thinking to produce a Hitchhiker movie. cite:
**The Salmon Of Doubt [Hitchhiking The Galaxy One Last Time] **Adams, Douglas
The composer Jerome Kern was friends with theatrical producer Charles Frohman, and traveled with him from time to time to the United Kingdom, where both men frequently worked (Frohman as a theatre owner/producer, Kern as a song interpolator). As part of this, both men booked passage on the last voyage of the Lusitania.
Kern overslept and failed to board the ship. Frohman went down with the ship.
I doubt the phrase “evil bitch sister from hell” has ever been as richly deserved- at least not by non-royalty anyway. Her contributions to the Third Reich may even have continued afterher death and the death of the Reich.
In 1887 she and her husband Bernhard Förster (a radically anti-Semitic schoolteacher) founded Nueva Germania, envisioned as an Aryan paradise for pureblood Germans in the midst of the Paraguayan jungle. The outcome was a bit more like Jonestown meets Deliverance- a complete financial and agricultural disaster (resulted in Förster’s suicide just 2 years after the colony was formed- a decade before his brother-in-law’s death) but a few die hards stuck it out and remain there to this day, becoming increasingly more inbred and backward until finally they started intermarrying with native Paraguayans but (as cultists will usually find a way to make a radical change to survive) somehow finding a way of working intermarriage with Spanish-Indian natives into their “pure blood” ideology. (We’re talking, incidentally, about a “Westboro Baptist Church” style extended clan and mini-cult, incidentally, not a big community.)
They assisted the fatherland after WW2 (by which time Elizabeth was dead) by helping Nazi war criminals escape from and to Argentina. Among others they’re believed to have aided is Josef Mengele. (OTOH, they’re also claimed to have aided Martin Bormann, who it’s now pretty sure through DNA testing died in Berlin in the last week of the war in spite of the claims of Patton author/biographer Ladislas Farago that he met Bormann in Nueva Germania.)
Speaking of Patton, his mother, Ruth Wilson Patton, was an heiress who owned tens of thousands of acres in the San Bernadino Valley that had been passed down through her maternal line from a Spaniard officer, Don Jose Yorba, whose royal land grant included almost all of what’s now Orange County, CA, and who managed to hold onto his lands after the Mexican War. Patton’s wife, Beatrice Banning Ayers, inherited millions from her father, a third generation Boston textiles millionaire. The bequest from his mother and his wife’s wealth made Patton probably the richest man in the U.S. Army (probably in the top 1% of the top 1% of the U.S. in general).
Patton’s namesake grandfather, Col. George S. Patton, was a Confederate infantry officer killed in battle at Winchester, VA. He had direct ancestors who were officers in every major war, their tales in the family perhaps inspiring some of his notions of being a reincarnation of various warriors throughout history.
It’s well known that Patton died from injuries received in a Jeep accident. Less well known is that his wife Bea died while horseback riding several years later (1953- she was 67). Though he was a legendary womanizer Patton was very devoted to her and I think would probably have been delighted that she died with her riding boots on.
Sampiro, since you bring him up, is there any truth, do you know, to the rumors that Patton was convinced he was the reincarnation of Hannibal? I’ve encountered the claim/accusation in many places, but none that I’d call authoritative.
Any standard book on Ayn Rand will tell you these but…
Her real name was Alyssa Rosenbaum. She chose Rand because her typewriter was a Remington-Rand (maybe that’s reversed) model & she decided Remington was too long. (She noted that when choosing pseudonyms, “authors and criminals always keep their initials.”) She met her husband Frank O’Connor when he was an extra in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1920s KING OF KINGS and she was part of DeMille’s typing pool. She did support a charity for girls coming to Hollywood to start careers in the film business because she received needed help from them when she arrived. And she loved cats.
I do know that when he was a boy (according to biographers according to his conversations) when an animal on the family’s estate would die or at slaughtering time he would take a picnic lunch and eat while in smelling distance/sight of its decomposing corpse. He did this to accustom himself and his stomach to the smell of a battlefield.
His children went to see the George C. Scott movie (which made the bones of both Coppola and his assistant George Lucas) in order to gain information for the lawsuit they’d filed against the author/the director/the studio/the catering service/everyone associated with the project. After seeing the movie they dropped the lawsuit: they loved it and thought it handled him very fairly. They said GCS hit bullseyes throughout and only his voice was totally off (Patton had a much higher squeakier voice) but as Patton hated his voice and would have given millions to sound like GCS they thought this change was for the better.
Speaking of GCS- during his affair with Ava Gardner while they were playing Abraham and Sarah in The Bible they got into a fight so bad that he damaged her retina and required surgery. She hid the (smallish) scar with makeup and veils. According to one (admittedly very gossipy) biography of her, she had to call Frank Sinatra to keep him from having the everloving crap beaten out of Scott- and she did it mainly so the picture would stay on schedule.
The role of Hagar (the “surrogate mother” in the Abe/Sarah relationship for those not into genesis) was played by Zoe Sallis, who in real life was the longterm concubine of the film’s director, John Huston. In a weird “art imitating life imitating art” thing, Sallis and Huston had a son, Danny (most recently seen as Sam Adams in the John Adams miniseries) early in their relationship while Huston was still married to Ricki Soma (Anjelica Huston’s mother). The Hustons did not divorce, remained married until Ricki’s death, frequently lived and traveled together (sometimes separated but usually on good terms), and Ricki accepted Danny very much as a member of the family.
It was the least she could do really: John always included the son she had from an extramarital fling in all family activities as well.
At one time the family lived in a castle in Ireland. Anjelica Huston discussed how odd it was not being able to get into a college due to missing credits from being homeschooled (back before that was as much a term). The admissions officer asked her favorite subjects and she told him “philosophy and French”. Asked how she learned them she told him “a private tutor”. Asked his name she told him, a bit hesitantly, “Jean Paul Sartre”. The admissions officer basically told her to get out of his office and come back when she was ready to be serious. (She, of course, was serious; Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were frequent visitors to the family’s homes and had their own cottage at the Irish castle.)
In his last years John lived in a luxurious home on an island in Mexico, mainly because it was about the only place he could afford a luxurious home (he’d spent most of his money before he ever made it). He was hooked up to oxygen tanks and dying of smoking related causes and was asked to make a Yul Brynner style commercial on the dangers of smoking to be aired after his death. He agreed.
In every take he went off book. I’m paraphrasing, but it would be exchanges like the following:
“Had I never smoked a cigarette I’d still be alive and making movies… well, alive anyway… probably… the movies depend on…”
CUT!
“Cigarettes kill. By the time you see this they’ll have killed me. Well, probably. I can’t know for certain till I die…”
CUT!
“Cigarettes kill. One way or the other. If you have to smoke, stick to cigars. There’s nothing like a Cuban right after…”
CUT!
Until it was scrapped.
Anjelica, telling this story on an interview, was asked if he was intentionally fecking with the director. She said “I seriously doubt it… that was just Dad.”
The paternal grandfather of famed aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was a Swede named Ole Lindbergh. Not long before Ole emigrated to the United States, he had changed his name. (As I understand, this is a fairly frequent practice in Sweden, due to the fact that some surnames are extremely common. The government supposedly encourages people with very common names to change them, in the interest of reducing errors in IDing people).
Ole chose the name Lindbergh simply because he liked it.
What had Ole’s surname been? What surname would his famous grandson Charles, the hero of the Atlantic, would have become known by if Ole hadn’t changed it?
IIRC, Katherine Hepburn did not attend Spencer Tracy’s funeral.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for missing her obviously beloved’s final goodbye, or applaud her for staying away to avoid embarrassing the widow. Probably both.
Baseball player Jimmie Reese was probably most famous for having been Babe Ruth’s roommate, but Reese himself always joked that, due to Ruth’s active social life, he merely roomed with Ruth’s luggage.
Sorry.