In 2000, Stewart Copeland joined with Les Claypool of Primus and Trey Anastasio of Phish to create the band Oysterhead
Betsy Ross was the name the seamstress traditionally credited with sewing the first U.S. flag is best known by to history but it was only her name for less than three years (1774-1777). She was widowed and remarried twice during the Revolution and by late 1783 her full name was Elizabeth Griscom Ross Ashburn Claypool.
Baseball Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn played 15 seasons in the majors, but in only 4 of those seasons did his team have a winning record. He also held the distinction of being the lone All-Star Game representative for the hapless 1962 New York Mets.
Three members of the 1962 Mets played for pennant-winning New York Mets teams: Ed Kranepool (1969 and 1973), Al Jackson (1969, though traded away in June), and Bob Miller (appeared in one game in September of 1973, but not eligible for the World Series roster).
The rock band Yo La Tengo takes its name from an incident involving the 1962 “Can’t anybody here play this game?” Mets. Quoth Wiki:
Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn are wrongly hanged as cattle rustlers, in the movie version of The Ox-Bow Incident.
Quinn Martin (producer of television shows which featured the voice-over “This has been a Quinn Martin production”) was born Irving Martin Cohn in New York. His adopted first name came from his friends’ mispronunciation of his original surname as “Co-in”.
Disc jockey Frank Gallop spoofed Lorne Greene’s hit single “Ringo” with the novelty song “The Ballad of Irving.” Irving was a Jewish cowboy, and the 142nd fastest gun in the West.
Lorne Green’s birth name was Hyman Green and his family and childhood friends called him Chaim, which means life. The song L’Chaim in Fiddler On the Roof was sung in the film version and on stages in London, on Broadway, and in numerous tours by the Israeli actor Chaim Topol.
After Bonanza ended its run, Lorne Greene took the title role in a crime drama called Griff. The series lasted for thirteen episodes.
Rotund Hoss Cartwright, on the Western Bonanza, rode an unfortunate horse with the equally unfortunate name “Chubby.”
Dan “Hoss Cartwright” Blocker was partial owner of the Bonanza steakhouse chain and his Tudor style mansionis now the home of Rob Zombie.
The 2006 movie The Quick and the Undead was touted as being a “zombie western.”
The film I Walked with a Zombie is loosely based upon the book Jane Eyre – showing the trend of mixing zombies with literature (e.g., Sense and Sensibility with Zombies) is not a new one.
Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala in the Star Wars prequels) has been cast as Elizabeth Bennet, the lead female role, in the upcoming movie version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
The current bestselling novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
David Hunter, abolitionist Union General, rode Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural train from Springfield, and later the train bearing Lincoln’s body back to Springfield.
While two of her sisters lived in Springfield, many of Mary Todd Lincoln’s siblings and half-siblings sided with the South; there was much criticism when her half-sister Emilie Helm, widow of a Confederate general killed at Chickamauga, moved into the White House during the Civil War.
Deep Purple’s first hit single in the United States was a cover of “Hush,” originally written and sung by Joe South.
Sinead OConnor appeared in the movie “Hush-a-Bye Baby” about a pregnant, Irish girl who writes letters to her boyfriend (who is in prison), but they don’t let the boyfriend get the letters because she writes in Irish.