“Follow the Drinking Gourd” is an American folk song first published in 1928, and popularized by Pete Seeger and The Weavers. The Drinking Gourd is another name for the Big Dipper constellation. Folklore has it that fugitive slaves in the United States used it as a point of reference so they would not get lost. According to legend, the song was used by a conductor of the Underground Railroad, called Peg Leg Joe, to guide fugitive slaves by giving them map directions in a form they could remember easily.
A recent controversy erupted in Wellington, New Zealand when the producers of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” changed the line in Joseph’s (who was a slave before being thrown in prison) most famous song Close every Door" from “Child of Israel are never alone” to “Children of kindness are never alone.” Lyricist Tim Ricenever approved of the changes, and no one seems to be able to explain why the line was changed.
The first reggae song to reach #1 in the UK was 1969’s “Israelites”, by Desmond Dekker and the Aces. It was written almost two years after Dekker first made his mark with the “rude boy” song, “007 (Shanty Town)”.
Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir
So that every mouth can BE fed
Poor me Israelites, ah
Developed by Israeli Defense Forces Major Uziel (“Uzi”) Gal, more than 10 million Uzi machine guns have been built since 1948.
The film of Jesus Christ Superstar was shot in Israel (primarily at the ruins of Avdat, Beit Guvrin National Park, and Beit She’an) and other Middle Eastern locations in 1972. King Herod’s song from the musical references thre of Jesus’s miracles: turning water into wine, walking on water, and the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.
Masada, Israel, one of Israel’s most popular tourist attractions, is an ancient fortification in the Southern District of Israel situated on top of an isolated rock plateau, akin to a mesa. It overlooks the Dead Sea and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Herod the Great built palaces for himself on the mountain and fortified It between 37 and 31 BCE.
Anglo-Irish actor Peter O’Toole played a Roman general in the 1981 ABC-TV miniseries Masada. He was nominated for an Emmy but did not win.
Peter O’Toole was nominated eight times for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but never won a competitive Oscar. In 2002, the Academy gave him an Honorary Award for his entire body of work and his lifelong contribution to film. He has been called the unluckiest Oscar nominee in history especially considering his losses to what have been seen as less deserving performances, such as Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins in 1964’s My Fair Lady and Cliff Robertson in Charly, 1968.
Peter O’Toole played a larger-than-life Hollywood legend, loosely based on Errol Flynn, in My Favorite Year, at one point shouting gleefully, “I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star!”
Peter O’Toole attended a Catholic school where the nuns beat him in an attempt to correct his left-handedness.
Peter O’Toole and Peter Finch were once turned down at a pub in Ireland because it was past the drinking hour. They bought the pub for the night and drank until dawn, since it was their own private club.
Peter O’Toole is one of at least six actors to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films.
Peter O’Toole was nominated as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968).
Bing Crosby was nominated as Father O’Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945).
**Al Pacino **was nominated as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Paul Newman was nominated as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986)
Cate Blanchett was nominated as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).
Sylvester Stallone was nominated as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015).
Furthermore, O’Toole is the only one of these six who was nominated for playing the same character (at two different stages in his life) in films that were not a prequel or sequel to the other.
When Peter O’Toole played T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, his first starring role, there were comments on his facial resemblance to Lawrence as well as the physical differences. O’Toole was tall, 6’2", while Lawrence was short, 5’5".
T E Lawrence and D H Lawrence, often confused with each other, lived remarkably contemporaneous lives, from the late 1880s to the early 1930s, dying young in their mid 40s. T E, the Arabia hero, died in a motorcycle crash, and D H, the novelist, of tuberculosis.
Peter O’Toole’s performance as “T.E. Lawrence” in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is the #1 ranked performance of all time in Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
Peter O’Toole was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Lawrence of Arabia, but he lost to Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird (which could have and would have happened to anybody).
Peter O’Toole could play the bagpipes. During his youth he was a member of an Irish pipe band. He is seen playing the bagpipes in two of his films: Kidnapped (1960) and Brotherly Love (1970).
In the 1967 James Bond movie Casino Royale Peter O’Toole’s portrayal of the Scottish Piper is uncredited
The actor Peter Lorre began his life and career in Austria-Hungary, then starred in the German film M in 1931, directed by Fritz Lang, in which he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls. He moved to England and then the United States in 1933 due to his being Jewish and his first English language film was Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Alfred Hitchcock once said, “The people in my movies do not call the police because that would be no fun.” He was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in a recent biopic.