Boxer Archie Moore played runaway slave Jim in Michael Curtiz’ 1960 movie ***The ***Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Huckleberry Hound was a cartoon character known for his Southern accent and off-key singing of My Darling Clementine. In Brazil the character was called Dom Pixote.
Blake Edwards Hollywood satire*** S.O.B.*** was inspired by his own travails after making the flop ***Darling Lili ***with his wife, Julie Andrews.
Blake Edwards was portrayed by John Lithgow in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, which starred Aussie Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush in the title role and South African Charlize Theron as Swede Britt Ekland.
The final episode of the British SF series Blake’s 7 deliberately killed off every character who ever starred in the show.
The character Henry Blake in the American series MAS*H was killed off by having the plane he was a passenger in shot down over the Sea of Japan.
Dr. Donald Blake was the Mighty Thor’s secret identity beginning with that Marvel Comics character’s debut in the August 1962 Journey into Mystery.
In “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, William Blake wrote “if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” “The Doors of Perception” was later an Aldous Huxley book about psychedelic drugs, and “The Doors” were still later a rock group that sometimes ingested psychedlic drugs.
Aldous Huxley’s 1939 novella After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, in which an incredibly rich American who lives in a palace in California with his much younger mistress obsesses over ways to achieve eternal or at least very very long life (centuries), was- like Citizen Kane two years later- inspired by the Hearst-Davies affair.
Ray Davies wrote the song “Session Man” partly as a swipe at Jimmy Page, who claimed to have played guitar parts of Kinks records that Ray insists were performed by his brother Dave.
Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella Swan in the Twilight series of movies, had one of her first movie roles in The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas
To tie things up: Led Zeppelin, led by Jimmy Page, recorded on Swan Song records, their own label.
The movie My Favorite Year depicts British movie star Allan Swann’s appearance on the “King” Kaiser Show. Swann (played by Peter O’Toole) was based on Errol Flynn, while the “King Kaiser Show” was based on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows.
Jerry Boyd, who worked as a corner man in the boxing world, wrote numerous short stories about boxing, using the pen name F.X. Toole. A devout Catholic, he took the initials “F.X.” from St. Francis Xavier, and “Toole” from the name of his favorite actor, Peter O’Toole. The OScar winning film “Million Dollar Baby” was based on one of his stories.
Peter, Paul & Mary performed for over 40 years together: from 1961 until Mary’s death in 2009. They broke up briefly (8 years from 1970-1978) but reunited for a protest concert in 1978 and continued touring together until 2009.
The city of Ephesus in Turkey contains many sites traditionally associated with first century Christianity including the house of the Virgin Mary and a church claimed to have been started by St. Paul, though some scholars believe the Temple of the virgin goddess Artemis at Ephesus (one of Strabo’s Wonders of the Ancient World) may explain why the Virgin Mary became associated with the city’s holy sites.
Kemal Ataturk won fame repelling the Allied invasion forces during World War I at Gallipoli. When the Ottoman Empire fell, he became head of state and helped give his country a military-tinged secular democracy; many in Turkey still revere him.
As part of Ataturk’s policy to create a Turkish identity, the capital had its name changed from Constantinople to Istanbul, a change that’s reflected in a popular song later covered by They Might Be Giants. It’s agreed, however, that this is nobody’s business but the Turks’.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s adopted daughter Sabiha Gökçen is recognized as the world’s first female fighter pilot, having flown in the suppression of the Dersim rebellion in 1937. The second Istanbul airport is named after her.
The other airport in Istanbul is named in honor of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and the first president of the Republic of Turkey.