Something prompted me to look up singer Cass Elliot**, who died at age 32 in a London hotel room. What I didn’t know is that Keith Moon died in the same room and at the same age four years later.
**Also, despite popular rumors at the time, she did not choke on a ham sandwich. The first responding doctor mentioned to the press that a partially-eaten sandwich at the scene may have been a factor. The coroner report, however, stated unequivocally that it was a heart attack and that no food was found in the airway.
Could have been worse. Dad was thinking of naming me after his father, Hoyt.
Even though, at 55, Hoyt doesn’t seem all that bad a name, but as a teenager in the 80s it likely would have been the social death of me. Not that my social life needed any more killing, tbh.
In 1942, all paper currency in the Hawaiian Islands was recalled and replaced with notes that had the word HAWAII overprinted on them. In the event the islands were captured the Treasury Dept. could declare all of those notes worthless.
Not a hotel room, but an apartment ( Flat 12, 9 Curzon Place) belonging to Harry Nillson. Due in no small part to the bad mojo of his London digs, Nillson moved to LA permanently and the property was bought by Pete Townsend to keep it out of the hands of ghouls enchanted by its notoriety.
Ross Bagdasarian is from an Armenian family and married Armenouhi “Armen” Kulhanjian. People probably better known him as David Sevile, of “Witch Doctor” and the Chipmunks fame.
Interesting random fact from Wikipedia:
Shana Alexander, writing for Life magazine in 1959, noted that Bagdasarian was the first case in the “annals of popular music that one man has served as writer, composer, publisher, conductor and multiple vocalist of a hit record, thereby directing all possible revenues from the song back into his pocket.” Alexander also found it remarkable that Bagdasarian "can neither read nor write music nor play any musical instrument in the accepted sense of the word.
Shana Alexander quoted above is remembered as the liberal viewpoint against James J. Kilpatrick on 60 Minutes first seasons, parodied by SNL’s original casts’ “Jane you ignorant slut.” Alexander’s father was a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith who wrote “Ain’t She Sweet” inspired by her when a baby.
I suspect that Lando Calrissian got his faux-Armenian name as a sort-of tribute to producer Howard Kazanjian. He produced The Empire Strikes Back, but didn’t get screen credit for it. He replaced producer Gary Kurtz partway through production. He’d already been executive producer for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Spanish Inquisition did not officially end July 15, 1834 and in fact, the Inquisition had someone executed only 8 years before that. And Jews could not legally practice their religion in Spain (although it was allowed it was still technically illegal) until December 16, 1968 when the Alhambra Decree was officially revoked.
He is also cousins with Pulitzer Prize winning playwright William Saroyan. Together, they wrote his first hit, “Come On-a My House,” making Saroyan one of the few Pulitzer Prize winners with a number one single.
I happened to be in an Armenian shop (in the US) and asked the guy. Apparently yes, romanization of Armenian names varies quite a bit, but the -yan and -ian endings are the same in Armenian.
