British actress Ethel Griffies is best remembered for portraying Mrs Bundy, an ornithologist in The Birds (1963). Griffies had appeared in over 100 movies up to that point, beginning in 1917, playing minor, often uncredited roles. One uncredited role was Mrs. Simpson in 1933’s Alice In Wonderland, which included Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and WC Fields in the cast. The movie mixed live action with animation but was a box office failure, and cast doubt on whether a live-action fantasy with strange-looking characters could be successfully presented on the screen before the success of The Wizard of Oz in 1939 changed that.
Each of those four changed their names to go into acting. Ethel Griffies was born Ethel Woods, Gary Cooper started life as Frank James Cooper, Cary Grant’s birthname was Archibald Alec Leach and W.C. Fields’s was William Claude Dukenfield.
W.C. Fields tried to have a portion of his estate used to establish the W. C. Fields College for Orphan White Boys and Girls, where no religion of any sort is to be preached." Apparently he was serious about it, and not just trolling from beyond the grave, as his secretary gamely fought for her employer’s wishes to be carried out. She succeeded, to a very small degree, in that a few thousand bucks were bequeathed to “some college in L.A. to benefit orphans.”
W.C. Fields, born William Claude Dukenfield, was called by his middle name growing up. His father James was born in Sheffield, England, and moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 12 or 13. He served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry regiment in the American Civil War and was wounded in 1863. Claude didn’t get along with his father and ran away from home several times, but they later reconciled.
During a 1974 episode of The Mike Douglas Show, Totie Fields (a Jewish American comedian) appeared with the rock band Kiss, who were making their first national TV appearance. Fields remarked that it would be funny if Gene Simmons was “just a good Jewish boy” under the makeup, and joked to Simmons that “you can’t hide the hook!” (referring to his nose).
In fact, Simmons was born in Israel, and his birth name was Chaim Witz; he and Fields became friends, and corresponded until her death in 1979.
There was no Vice President of the United States from Gerald Ford’s swearing-in as President after Richard Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 9, 1974 until Nelson Rockefeller was, pursuant to the 25th Amendment and after contentious Congressional hearings, sworn in on Dec. 19, 1974.
Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller served from 1974-1977. In 1979 he died aged 70 under mysterious circumstances after being found with a woman (Megan Marshack, a 25-year-old aide) in his NYC apartment. There was no autopsy.
While Marshack never outrightly discussed her relationship with Rockefeller, she seemingly addressed the rumors of their romance at the conclusion of her obituary, with a lyric from the 1975 musical A Chorus Line.
“Kiss today goodbye, the sweetness and the sorrow” she wrote. “A Chorus Line,” “Wish me luck, the same to you… (But I) won’t forget, can’t regret what I did for love.”
Nelson Rockefeller’s son, Michael Clark Rockefeller, was the heir apparent to the Rockefeller fortune - until he disappeared near Papua New Guinea in 1961. His last words were reportedly “I think I can make it,” referring to a treacherous three-mile swim from their capsized boat to an island known to be inhabited by tribes that practice cannibalism. It was presumed he either drowned or was killed and eaten by cannibals – except for a mysterious few frames of film that surfaced years later, that appear to show a white man of approximately Michael’s age hunting with the tribe that supposedly ate him.
Michael Clarke Duncan earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for The Green Mile. He was also in the movies A Night at the Roxbury and Armageddon.
Author Stephen King has said that Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are two of his favorite stories, as well as two of his favorite film adaptations. Coincidentally, both take place in prisons.
In Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption, Red, who is Morgan Freeman’s character, was jailed in cell number 237. This is the same number as the haunted room in Stephen King’s The Shining.
THX 1138 is the name of George Lucas’s first commercial film, as well as that of the film’s title character: a man in a dystopian future where people’s names are simply a series of letters and numbers. Lucas is said to have used his college phone number (849-1138) for the name (“849” corresponding to “THX” on a conventional phone dial).
Lucas regularly used the name/number, particularly “1138,” as an Easter egg in his later projects, for example:
- In American Graffiti, the license plate on John Milner’s car is THX 1138.
- In the original Star Wars, when Luke, Han, and Chewbacca go to rescue Princess Leia, they claim that they are doing a prisoner transfer from “cellblock 1138.”
- In the Prequel Trilogy, “1138” appears on the backs of several battle droids.
- Lucas named his audio company “THX Ltd.”
George Washington was voiced by American actor Josh Brolin in Ken Burns’s acclaimed recent PBS documentary, The American Revolution. John Adams was voiced by Paul Giamatti, who had also portrayed Adams in the 2008 HBO miniseries named after the second President.
(Not in play) In his novel The Shining, King was inspired to write after staying in Room 217 at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO. (217 was changed to 237 for the movie.)
In play:
Paul Giametti got his break in acting playing “Kenny ‘Pig Vomit’ Rushton” in Private Parts. His character was an amalgamation of bosses that Howard Stern met during his rise in radio, with Kevin Metheny often referred to by Stern as “Pig Virus” while working at WNBC in New York City.
According to some sources, mentions of Pig Latin exist as far back as the 1800s, and even by William Shakespeare.
At the turn of the 20th century, 50 percent of the students at public high schools in the U.S. were being taught Latin. By 1994, that number had dropped to 1.6 percent.
The term “Latin America” is broadly defined as describing all nations and territories south of the United States, which were colonized by European countries that spoke Romance (Latin) languages, and have a strong presence of the Roman Catholic church. (Quebec, the region of Acadia, and other French-speaking areas of North America are excluded from this characterization.)
There have been five warships to serve in the US Navy called USS America, the most recent of which is the first of a class of amphibious assault carriers; she was commissioned in 2012 and is still in service.
The U.S. Navy apparently failed to realize that the Village People song “In the Navy” was filled with gay subtext and thought it was an earnest recruitment song. They even commissioned a video with warships and planes. By the time anyone realized the mistake, the video was a hit with the gay community.
Pop diva Cher caused a stir when she appeared for the filming of her 1989 video “If I Could Turn Back Time” wearing a very revealing costume. Although the Naval liaison assigned to work with the production had seen and agreed to the storyboards, he informed the director that she must immediately change into a less offensive costume; the director replied, “You tell her that.” The video was filmed aboard the battleship USS Missouri, but MTV only aired it after hours due to public outcry.
