The character of Sally Bowles in Cabaret first appeared in the short novel Goodbye to Berlin, one of several semi-autobiographical tales by Christopher Isherwood about his time in early 1930s Berlin. It is often published together with Mr. Norris Changes Trains in a collection called The Berlin Stories.
Bowles was modeled on a real-life lady named Jean Ross. In 2005, there was talk of remaking Cabaret with Renee Zellweger as Bowles, but the idea appears to have been quietly dropped.
Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man was filmed in 2009 by first time movie director and long time fashion designer Tom Ford starring Colin Firth and Nicholas Hoult (teen actor best known for About a Boy and Skins).
In 1879, the Tay Bridge in Scotland collapsed in a storm. A train was crossing it at the time and fell into the Firth of Tay, killing all 75 passengers aboard. An investigation showed that when planning the bridge, the calculations for the effects of a high wind were underestimated (and may not even have been calculated at all). The iron columns used to support the bridge were cast incorrectly, greatly reducing their load bearing capacity. Many other factors were discovered, making the bridge unsafe as constructed.
When Kurt Vonnegut’s siter Alice was in the hospital dying of cancer, her husband Jim Smith was on a New Jersey to New York commuter train that failed to stop at an open drawbridge. He drowned, and Alice died 36 hours later.
Vonnegut and his wife Jane took in their four sons, though at the time he was a struggling writer and they barely had enough for their own three biologoical children.
South African actress Alice Krige was the first to play the Borg Queen, in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. The role has been recast in subsequent appearances, including on Star Trek: Voyager.
The play and film versions of The Lion in Winter revolve around a very complicated romantic and matrimonial entanglement of the Princess Alice (spelled Alais in the play but pronounced Alice in most productions). Alice is the daughter of the late French king Louis by his second wife, but she was raised by her father’s first wife Eleanor of Aquitaine after she was betrothed to Eleanor’s son Richard. King Henry, Eleanor’s second husband, has decided instead (without consulting or feeling the need to consult with her younger brother King Philip) to change the betrothal to his youngest son, John, who Alice detests, and meanwhile Alice and King Henry are having an affair that at one point he considers making legitimate by divorcing Eleanor and marrying her himself. (In real life when King Henry died his son Richard immediately released Eleanor from her imprisonment in England and replaced her in the same guarded castle with Alice, who never married any of Henry’s sons, though she later married a French nobleman and had a family.)
The man for whom King Philip’s War was named was an American Indian leader whose Wampanoag tribal name was variously rendered as Metacomet, Metacom, or Pometacom. Fought in 1675 and '76, the war was lost by Metacomet’s side, and won by British colonists of southern New England and their Native American allies. Metacomet was tracked down and killed by a group largely consisting of Indians but led by Captains Benjamin Church and Josiah Standish (son of Miles).
Chief Miles Edward O’Brien (played by Irish actor Colm Meaney) appeared as an extra in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but was not given a name onscreen until quite awhile later, by which point he was a recurring character. He later also appeared as a regular cast member of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Will Sampson, who played Chief Bromden in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, was imprisoned for ten years for a crime he did not commit. He was eventually pardoned without explanation or apology.
He stated that his time in prison gave him an understanding of governmental institutions that helped his ability to act in the movie.
William T. Sampson was a United States Navy rear admiral known for his victory in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Sampson Hall, the home of the U.S. Naval Academy’s departments of English and history, is named in his honor.
In the 1967 World Series, Bob Gibson of the Cardinals won three games against the Boston Red Sox. Only one player was able to hit a home run off Gibson (despite him pitching in hitter-friendly Fenway Park): Red Sox pitcher Jose Santiago, who lost the first game 2-1, despite hitting the home run in his first World Series at bat.
In July 1967, Bob Gibson was struck above the ankle by a line drive hit by Pittsburgh outfielder Roberto Clemente. The drive broke Gibson’s fibula but he continued to pitch to Willie Stargell, Bill Mazerowski and Donn Clendenon before collapsing on the mound.
Gibson Girls were all the rage in the US during a 20-year-period from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.
“The personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen and ink illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson … Some people argue that the Gibson Girl was the first national standard for feminine beauty.”
NASA test pilot William Harvey “Bill” Dana flew for the agency for over 40 years, including most notably the rocket-powered X-15 hypersonic plane sixteen times. In August 2005, in recognition of his many near-space, upper-atmosphere flights, NASA conferred astronaut’s wings on Dana.
The comedian Bill Dana (who is still alive), in his “Jose Jimenez” persona, recorded a disc in 1960 titled “Jose the Astronaut”. Due to heightened sensitivity to ethnic stereotyping (which would soon bring down the Frito Bandito as well), he retired the Jimenez character in 1970.
I can’t give you Book, chapter and verse, but one of the lengthy
geneological sequences in the Bible includes a certain:
Kelbsheth, son of Aybich.
I think not:
The Bible, despite its perennial high sales, is not listed on The New York Times bestseller lists.
On December 21, 2008, “Hallelujah” became the first song in 51 years to occupy the first and second positions on the UK Singles Chart. Alexandra Burke’s and Jeff Buckley’s covers of the Leonard Cohen song were the two highest-selling songs in the week beginning December 15, 2008.
Dante Adrian White, Jeff Ehrenberg, and Dana Lacono were the founding members of The Starlite Desperation, a band whose song Born To Be Dizzy closes the film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. The movie’s title is taken from a quote in the Bible’s Book of Jeremiah.
The St. Louis Cardinals’ Dizzy Dean was the last National League
pitcher to win 30 games in one season. He accomplished the feat
in the 1934 season, also winning two World Series games not counted
in the 30-win total.
The Detroit Tigers’ Denny McLain was the last American League 30 game
winner, with 31 in 1968. McLain then added one World Series win.
Coincidentally both the 1934 and 1968 World Series matched the
Tigers and the Cardinals. The Cards won in seven games in 1934,
and the Tigers won in seven games in 1968.
PS:
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
I think not
[/QUOTE]
Foiled again.
I figured you guys don’t let too many things get through. I didn’t figure
you would be so quick.