Schindler’s Ark, a Booker Prize-winning novel published in 1982 by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally, was later adapted into the film Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg.
Steven Spielberg made a brief cameo appearance in The Blues Brothers as the Cook County clerk.
In Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, after the initial scene one of the title characters gets off the train. To do so he has to squeeze past a plump gentleman attempting to board with a cello. The cellist is played by the famous director himself, making a cameo appearance.
Noted film director Alfred Hitchcock once said, “The characters in my movies do not call the police because that would be no fun.”
The screen play to Hitchcock’s The Birds was written by Evan Hunter, who would later write a book about the experience entitled Hitch and Me. And a series of mysteries under the nom de plum Ed McBain, where people do call the police when they find a dead body.
The game Angry Birds, released in December 2009, was the very first game launched for Apple’s iOS platform. It is now available for Android, Windows Phone, and Symbian, and to date over 12 million copies of the game have been sold.
The Bob Marley and the Wailers song “Three Little Birds” is often thought to be named “Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright,” which is actually the song’s chorus, but the phrase “three little birds” does appear in the verses.
Bob Marley died at the very young age of 36, of a malignant melanoma that included a lesion underneath his toe nail. His last words to his son Ziggy were, “Money can’t buy life.”
Toenailing is a popular technique that carpenters use regularly to fix two timbers together by slanted application. The fasteners (nails or screws), used in pairs, are driven in on opposing angles. The angled nailing makes later dismantling difficult or destructive.
Karen Carpenter’s solo album, titled Karen Carpenter, was released in 1996; thirteen years after she died.
Karen Carpenter’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was awarded posthumously in October 1983, eight months after she died. Now, posthumous nominees must have been deceased for five years prior to nomination, and up to one posthumous star is awarded each year. A relative of the nominee must attend a presentation ceremony within five years of being nominated.
Two days ago, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced this year’s posthumous award, to Selena, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, who died in 1995.
A cult-classic film about Karen Carpenter’s death was made with Barbie dolls as the actors…
“Superstar”, the barbie doll film of Karen Carpenter now exists only in bootleg versions, besides the official one in the Museum of Modern Art, which it not legally permitted to show. All other copies were destroyed, in compliance with asuccessful lawsuit filed by the Carpenter family. However, clips from the film are on YouTube.
At the urging of John Wayne, Karen Carpenter (born 1950) audtioned for the 1969 movie True Grit’s role of Mattie Ross. The role went instead to Kim Darby (born 1947).
“True Grit” is a beautiful little book written by Arkansas author Charles Portis. Running only 215 pages, it was originally published as a serial in Saturday Evening Post in 1969. It should be required reading in every school. Find it and read it. Portis and baseball Hall of Famer Lou Brock were born six years apart in El Dorado, Arkansas.
The World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest is held annually in Stuttgart, Arkansas.
Bodega Bay in Sonoma county, California, where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds, is actually a great wintering spot for ducks, shorebirds and loons. The story by Daphne du Maurier on which the film was based was set in Cornwall, England.
The word bodega comes from the Spanish word for grocery store, la bodega. The town of Bodega Bay, CA, is the site where the first Russian structures were built in present-day California, in 1809.
There is an unmarked line north of San Francisco that the Catholics and the Orthodox missions agreed not to cross, thus never encroaching on each other’s territory. There was northward expansion of Catholic missions from Mexico, as the Russian missionaries were expanding southward from Alaska. There is no historical account of whether they ever met, but apparently an awareness of each other and a mutual respect for their influence…
First Nations in western Canada nicknamed the US - Canada boundary as the “Medicine Line” because it had the apparently magical ability to keep US troops from crossing it.