David Bowie had a small part as an English hitman in the 1985 Jeff Goldblum/Michelle Pfeiffer noir spoof Into the Night. John Landis, the director, also appeared as an Iranian gangster.
John Landis began his career in the mail room at 20th Century Fox. At the age of 18, he spent his own money to travel to Yugoslavia to work as a production assistant on Kelly’s Heroes in 1970. He stayed in Europe, and found work as an actor, extra and stuntman in many Spanish/Italian “spaghetti” westerns
John Landis and several other codefendants were acquitted of involuntary manslaughter for the on-set deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two young Asian-American actors in 1982. The three were killed when a helicopter crashed during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie.
Since Rod Serling had passed away from lung cancer (*four *packs a day, by some accounts), the familiar opening voiceover for Twilight Zone: The Movie was done by Burgess Meredith, who had starred in four of the most famous episodes of the TV series.
Burgess Meredith also played The Penguin in the television series Batman from 1966 to 1968, and in the 1966 film based on the TV series. His role as the Penguin was so well-received, the show’s writers always had a script featuring the Penguin ready whenever Meredith was available. He and Cesar Romero (the Joker) are tied for number of appearances on the show.
The Batmobile in the TV series was actually the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, with black paint and some doodads added by auto customizer George Barris. The Futura played a prominent part in the 1959 movie It Started with a Kiss, starring Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford. For the movie, it was painted red, as the white pearlescent finish did not photograph well.
Quentin Reynolds was a notable war correspondent and author. In addition his is writing, he was known for a successful libel suit against the Hearst newspapers after columnist Westbrook Pegler made some serious an completely unsubstantiated allegations. Pegler said that Reynolds and his girlfriend made a habit of appearing nude in public (this was in the early 1950s); that on the way to Heywood Broun’s funeral Reynolds had proposed marriage to the widow, Connie Broun; that Reynolds had been a profiteer during World War II; that while working as a war correspondent in London, Reynolds had been a coward; and more.
Reynolds won the biggest libel settlement to date in the suit. It was dramatized in the play A Case of Libel.
In 1956, Eddie Heywood made the number two spot on the Hit Parade, with his piano solo rendition of “Canadian Sunset”/
Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods are an American pop music group, known mainly for their 1970s hit singles, “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” and “Who Do You Think You Are”. They were first discovered while touring with The Osmonds in the early 1970s.
When newscaster Sam Donaldson appeared on Don Imus’s morning radio program, Imus played Kinky Friedman’s classic song “Asshole from El Paso,” as Donaldson was born there. Donaldson later joked that he consulted with his lawyer about suing Imus, but the lawyer said “Truth is a legal defense against charges of libel.”
Longtime White House correspondent Sam Donaldson’s 1987 autobiography was titled Hold On, Mr. President!, although he insisted he’d never actually said that.
“Happy Birthday, Mr. President” is a song sung by actress and singer Marilyn Monroe on May 19, 1962, for President John F. Kennedy at a celebration of his 45th birthday at Madison Square Garden. She continued the song with a snippet from the classic song, “Thanks for the Memory”, for which she had written new lyrics specifically aimed at Kennedy.
*Thanks, Mr. President
For all the things you've done
The battles that you've won
The way you deal with U.S. Steel
And our problems by the ton
We thank you so much
The Monroe Calculating Machine Company was a maker of adding machines and calculators founded in 1912 by Jay Randolph Monroe. Now known as Monroe Systems for Business and headquartered in Bristol, Pennsylvania, they continue to manufacture and sell calculators.
Marilyn Monroe was found dead at age 36 in her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, on August 5, 1962. The event that has become the center of controversy and occurred less than three months after she sang for JFK’s birthday. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office recorded cause of death as “acute barbiturate poisoning,” resulting from a “probable suicide.”
Thomas Tsunetomi Noguchi is a former Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner for the County of Los Angeles, who served in that position from 1967 to 1982. Known as the “coroner to the stars”, he determined the cause of death in many high-profile cases of the 1960s and the 1970s. He is most famous for performing autopsies on Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate, Gia Scala, William Holden, Natalie Wood, and John Belushi. He is said to have been the inspiration for the TV series “Quincy, M.E.” , which starred Jack Klugman.
In regard to the autopsy of William Holden we have this from Wikipedia:
Hedviga Golik died in her apartment in Zagreb, Croatia in 1966 while sitting in her chair watching television. Her body was not found until years later, the number of years differ in different reports, but some say 42, some say 35.
Hedviga is a Slovak cognate of the German name “Hedwig”, which is derived from Germanic roots for “battle” and “war.”
Although there are also cognates for “Hedwig” in Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Slovène and Swedish, there does not appear to be an English cognate.
Ninja’ed
Apart from being Sweden’s capital, Stockholm houses many national cultural institutions. The Stockholm region is home to three Swedish World Heritage Sites – spots judged as invaluable places that belong to all of humanity: The Drottningholm Palace, Skogskyrkogården (The Woodland Cemetery) and Birka.