June Carter was best known as a member of the Carter Family singing group and ex-wife of Carl Smith before marrying Johnny Cash, but she also studied acting with Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg, both of whom pronounced her a worthy pupil. She took to country/gospel singing and comedy because she had to help support her parents, who had sold more than a million albums but signed a contract early on that gave them a pittance in royalties, thus they were not wealthy (and health problems limited their ability to tour).
Lee Strasberg once claimed that of all the actors he had worked with, Marilyn Monroe stood out as second only to Marlon Brando.
Marlon Brando was a close friend of Wally Cox, who starred in the 1950s TV series *Mr. Peepers *and voiced the role of Underdog in the 1960s. The two rooomed together during their early days in New York City.
Marion Lorne, a stage actress from 1905 to the 1930s, came out of a years long retirement in the 1950s to appear as a supporting character in films and TV shows. She played English teacher Mrs. Gurney on Mr. Peepers, and because she was completely not used to the frantic and largely spontaneous nature of live television where scripts were often not finished until the day of shooting and then the actors might or might not stick to them (and were prone to forget lines or cues) she was, per her co-star Tony Randall, in a state of constant confusion and often not sure what her line was or when to say it. Her sweetness and befuddlement was so popular and endearing with the audiences that it became her stock character. She is best remembered as Samantha’s sweet but doddering Aunt Clara on Bewitched.
Marion Lorne won an Emmy posthumously for her work on Bewitched. Unlike many of the show’s other characters, the part of Aunt Clara was no recast. Instead, Alice Ghostley played a similar character, Esmerelda. Ghostley and Lorne appeared together in the 1967 movie, The Graduate.
Andy Hallett was a gofer for Joss Whedon’s wife, while he worked at nights as a singer. After Whedon saw him singing, he created the character “Lorne” specifically for Hallet, who had not acted before. He played the character for several years on Angel, eventually becoming a regular. The character name is probably a pun on the fact he was bright green.
Hollywood gossip has it that Jon Lovitz blames Andy Dick for getting Phil Hartman’s wife Brynn involved in cocaine after she had been sober for awhile; she eventually killed Hartman and then herself.
Cocaine was the first local anesthetic, being used as such from about 1884 onwards.
In the 1936 movie Anything Goes, alternative lyrics in the second verse of the song I Get A Kick Out of You were provided to replace a reference to the drug cocaine, which were not allowed due to the Hays Code.
The original verse goes as follows:
Some get a kick from cocaine
I’m sure that if
I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrifically, too
Yet, I get a kick out of you
Cole Porter changed the first line to:
Some like the perfume in Spain
Sherlock Holmes would, to divert himself between cases, occasionally inject himself with a seven percent solution of cocaine. This was much to the disapproval of his friend, roommate and physician, Dr. John H. Watson, late of Her Majesty’s Army and a veteran of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, in which he was wounded in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.
Thomas Watson, recipient of the first telephone call as Alexander Graham Bell’s laboratory assistant, later went on to found the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company in Quincy, MA, one of the largest shipyards in the US during WW2. He was not related to the Thomas Watson who built IBM into industrial dominance.
Bob Watson of the Houston Astros scored the 1 millionth run in MLB history on May 4, 1975.
The Houston Astros are the only sports franchise that changed their nickname to match their arena – the Astrodome.
On The Jetsons Astro’s first owner gave him the name Tralfaz, which Astro hated; like Scooby Doo Astro could speak but started most words with 'R’s.
“Robert gave Richard a rap on the ribs for roasting the rabbit so rare” can be shortended to “Bob gave Dick a poke in the side for not cooking the bunny enough.”
The term “bunny boiler”, for a stalking psycho ex-lover, comes from a scene in 1987’s *Fatal Attraction *in which Glenn Close, well, you can figure it out. The bunny in question belonged to her ex’s daughter.
John Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth and later a U.S. senator from Ohio, was born and raised in Muskingum, Ohio, and has now retired there with his wife, Annie.
In 1965, tomato juice was named the state beverage of Ohio.
The name Ohio comes from the Iriquois word for “great river.”
The Iroquois nation was a confederation of five Native American tribes: Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Mohawk. It allowed the groups to stop squabbling among themselves, turning them into a major power in the area.