Pakistani-Polish-American actor Danny Pudi stars as Abed on Community, who in turn starred as Christ and as Abed in a Charlie Kaufmanesque movie-within-a-movie in one episode.
Danny Aiello played Madonna’s dad in the video for “Papa Don’t Preach,” about teen pregnancy.
When Madonna was signed as Eva Peron in the film of Evita, she campaigned to cast Jeremy Irons as Juan Peron and Antonio Bandersa as Che. The latter got the role, but the former was not cast in favor of theatre icon Jonathan Price.
Jonathan Pryce starred as Trigorin, a talented but troubled writer, in a 1985 London stage revival of Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull.
(I saw him in it, just months after playing Trigorin myself in a college production. I met Pryce not long afterwards and told him how much I wished I’d seen his portrayal before I created my own.)
In a letter to A. S. Lazarev-Gruzinsky, Anton Chekhov wrote: “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” The quote has often been paraphrased, generally in a form such as “If you have a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must be fired by the end of the third.”
Over the course of three years, director Andre Gregory and a group of actors came together on a voluntary basis in order to better understand Anton Chekhov’s work through performance workshops. As a result, they filmed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), a performance of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya in their street clothes and without props in their NYC rehearsal site. An excellent film.
In his youngish days, Stanley Kubrick frequented the Chess and Checker Club of New York (generally referred to as “the fleahouse” due to its ambience and/or its proximity to Hubert’s Flea Circus) on West 42nd St, and a scene from “the Killing” was shot there.
Kubrick was working on “AI: Artificial Intelligence” at the time his death. The movie was finished by Steven Spielberg.
Christian Bale met Drew Barrymore on the set of ‘Empire of the Sun’, who was visiting her godfather, Steven Spielberg. He was thirteen and she was twelve. Later they would both admit to having a crush on one another at the time.
The American GI who offers Christian Bale’s character a Hershey bar in Empire of the Sun (eventually surprising him by giving him one) was played by Ben Stiller before he was famous.
Barbara Hershey changed her stage name to Barbara Seagull because of the death of a seagull in the filming of 1969’s “Last Summer”. She went back to her original name in 1974, following the end of her relationship with “Kung Fu” star David Carradine.
David Carradine’s death from hanging in a Bangkok hotel, where he was working on a movie ironically named Stretch, has been ruled as accidental self inflicted death from auto-erotic asphyxiation, though one of his several ex-wives has written a book claiming it was murder and his widow filed a lawsuit against the film company claiming it was negligence on their part that her 72 year old husband died naked in his hotel room closet with a rope around his neck.
Well, sorta, but not quite. I just saw this, and watched the “making of” DVD special feature. Kubrick did a LOT of preproduction work and had elicited several scripts from different writers, but he didn’t shoot any footage. That was all Spielberg.
Actor James Mason, who had played Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, visited the Overlook Hotel set of The Shining and chatted with Kubrick and lead actor Jack Nicholson.
James Mason named his daughter Portland after Portland Hoffa, the wife of comedian Fred Allen, who was one of James Mason’s best friends.
Guitarist Mason Williams, who was the head writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, wrote and recorded “Classical Gas” in 1968, and premiered it on the TV show. The orchestral arrangements were by veteran Hollywood TV composer/director Mike Post. The track won 3 Grammy Awards: Best Instrumental Composition, Best Contemporary-Pop Performance, Instrumental, and Best Instrumental Arrangement.
Most original pressings of the album Alone Together by Traffic alumnus Dave Mason were pressed on multicolored vinyl.
Steve Winwood formed the band Traffic
Steve Winwood’s big 1986 comeback song was “Back in the High Life Again,” with James Taylor providing backup vocals.
Miller Brewing Company’s oldest brand is “Miller High Life” pilsner, introduced in 1903. For many decades, it was advertised as “The Champagne of Bottle Beers”, due to its high carbonation and bubble content, although the word “bottle” has recently been omitted. It was originally sold in miniature champagne bottles.
Hillshire Farm (since 1934) Bear Brat (as in bratwurst) is made with Miller High Life beer. Coincidentally, I am heating some up right now.