Band manager Sandy Pearlman came up with the group’s two names. Soft White Underbelly was taken from a Winston Churchill speech which used the phrase as a metaphor for Italy’s status in Europe during World War II. In Pearlman’s poetry, the Blue Öyster Cult was composed of aliens who were secretly guiding Earth’s history. The phrase is an anagram of Cully Stout Beer, but whether this is coincidental or a reflection of one band member’s beverage of choice depends on which version of the origin tale one believes.
Blue Point Oysters are the same species as any other US oyster (as is all east coast US oysters). They got their name from a small town called Blue Point on Long Island and acquired a cachet when NYC upscale restaurants started using the name for their oyster dishes. Oysters were a mainstay of NYC cuisine in the 19th century, for both upper class and lower, until overfishing and pollution destroyed the beds and made it expensive.
Capt. James West (played by Robert Conrad in the TV series Wild Wild West) served as an U.S. Army Intelligence officer under the command of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War, and continued serving Grant after he became President.
In an interview a couple of years ago, Robert Conrad referred to Chicago Mafioso Michael Spilotro as having been his best friend since childhood before the mobster and his brother Tony.were slain in 1986 and dumped in a cornfield near Morocco, Indiana.
Joseph von Sternberg’s “Morocco” (1930) was Marlene Dietrich’s American screen debut and the only job for which she received an Oscar nomination.
In cartoons featuring Secret Squirrel, the rodent’s sidekick was Morocco Mole (voiced by Paul Frees as a Peter Lorre imitation).
The “Road” movies were a series of comedies starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour as they traveled to exotic locales around the world parodying popular film genres of the time. The movies were** Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1946), Road to Rio (1947), Road to Bali (1952)**, and The Road to Hong Kong (1962)
The Singapore Sling was invented in the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. (The wife and I have actually had Singapore Slings in that bar. They serve you free baskets of peanuts in the shell, and you are supposed to toss the shells on the floor. This is a five-satr place too, mind you.)
Can’t resist a double whammy: The Raffles Hotel is reputedly where the sole surviving wild tiger in Singapore was shot and made extinct. Some stories place this event in the Long Bar. Others inside the Billiard Room. Raffles itself claims the tiger had escaped from enclosure at a nearby “native show” and been chased underneath the hotel’s Bar & Billiard Room (a raised structure) and shot to death there on August 13, 1902.
Raffles the gentleman thief, portrayed on screen by Ronald Colman and David Niven, among others, was created by E.W. Hornung, who was married to Arthur Conan Doyle’s sister.
Paul Hornung was the only player from a losing team to win the Heisman Trophy. He accomplished the feat in 1956 for a 2-8 Notre Dame team, whose poor defense overcame his ability running, passing, punting, and kick-returning. Hornung and Green Bay Packers backfield-mate Jim Taylor became the first backfield for the New Orleans Saints expansion team, after their NFL heyday was past.
Alex Karras became a successful actor after his appearance as himself in the movie Paper Lion, based upon George Plimpton’s adventures trying out as a QB for the Detroit Lions. Ironically, Karras was not on the Lions roster the year Plimpton was at training camp; he and Paul Horning had been suspended indefinitely from football for betting on it. Plimpton did include several stories about Karras in his book, though. He and Horning were reinstated the next season.
George Plimpton’s four children included twins, Laura and Olivia, born when he was almost 70; Laura Plimpton is also the name of Martha Stewart’s sister. Actress Martha Plimpton is not George’s daughter but is the daughter of Dexter actor Keith Carradine; Free Carradine is the son of David Carradine by actress Barbara Hershey, though at the time of his birth she went by the name Barbara Seagull.
Keith Carradine appeared on Criminal Minds twice as Frank Breitkopf, a really psychotic serial killer who tortured his victims to death and then made wind chimes from their ribs and other crafts from other bones.
Criminal suspects are entitled to indictment by a grand jury for Federal offenses, according to the U.S. Constitution, but are not entitled to indictment in state cases unless that right is provided under the applicable state constitution.
Nova Scotia abolished the grand jury option in 1984, thus bringing an end to the practice in its last Canadian stronghold.
The 100 rescued miners from the disaster in the Dominion Steel and Coal Mine in Springhill, Nova Scotia in 1958 became national celebrities in Canada in the same way as the 33 Chilean miners are now. An attempt to capitalize on the media attention given them was made by Georgia’s segregationist Governor Marvin Griffin to help promote Jekyll Island as a resort, by inviting them and their families to stay there. Only when it was too late to back out did he discover that the biggest media darling of them all, Maurice Ruddick, was black. The attention given to the segregated housing the Ruddick family was given may have contributed to the end of segregation itself.
The Dionne Quintuplets, born in Callender, Ontario in 1935, were national celebrities in Canada. Four months after they were born, the Ontario government intervened and, put them under guardianship. The stated reason for removing the quintuplets from their parents’ legal custody was to ensure their survival into healthy toddlers. The government realized the massive interest in the sisters and developed a tourist industry around them. The girls were made wards of the provincial government.
The original lyrics to the now standard “Hooray for Hollywood” has a reference to the Dionne quintuplets:
“You could be papa Dionne
You’re name in neon
If you believe it you could.”
This (and several other verses) were quietly dropped from the song, which is rarely played today with lyrics.
“Hooray for Hollywood” was written by Savannah born songwriter Johnny Mercer, whose grandfather built the block long mansion Mercer House that was restored by speculator and antiques dealer Jim Williams. Williams’s killing of his lover at Mercer House, followed by his precedent setting four separate murder trials for the killing, were a major plotline in the runaway bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Erected in 1923, the landmark Hollywood sign originally read “Hollywoodland.” Its purpose was to advertise the name of a new housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Over time, the sign, which was originally meant to be temporary, sustained a wide array of damage and deterioration. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce began a contract with the City of Los Angeles Parks Department to repair and rebuild it. The contract stipulated that “Land” be removed to spell “Hollywood” and reflect the district, not the Hollywoodland housing development.