Fay Wray was the best known person ever to come from Cardston, Alberta (I’ve actually been there), founded as a Mormon settlement in 1887 for the purpose of being beyond the reach of US authorities. It is the home of the first Mormon temple outside the US, as well as of the Remington Carriage Museum.
The TV show Remington Steele has the world’s biggest hole in its plotline. If Laura Holt is such a hotshot detective, how come she can’t figure out who the hell he is.
Pierce Brosnan had to turn down the role of James Bond, due to his “Remington Steele” commitment.
In Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa Maas (wife of Mucho Maas) is named executor of the will of her old boyfriend Pierce Inverarity and stumbles upon what might be a grand conspiracy involving mail delivery.
Songwriter and novelist Richard Farina became good friends with Thomas Pynchon while they were Cornell students. The friendship continued until Farina’s untimely death.
Pynchon remained lifelong friends with Farina’s widow Mimi Baez (Joan’s younger sister) untl her death.
Dennis Farina, who more often in his career played gangsters, played a tough-as-nails Chicago cop in the 1986-1988 TV show Crime Story.
Mimi Farina was the sister of Joan Baez.
Joan of Arc was called “of Arc” because that was her last name (“D’arc” in French). Her father was Jacques D’arc.
Jacques d’Amboise, an American ballet dancer, played brother Ephraim in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a musical based on the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women. He is the father-in-law of Broadway performer Terrence Mann, who shares a name with the fictionalized J.D. Salinger character played by James Earl Jones in the film Field of Dreams.
J.D. Salinger dated Oona O’Neill before Oona (whose name pops up in more than its share of crossword grids) married Charlie Chaplin.
Oona O’Neill was the daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill, who won Pulitzer Prizes for Anna Christie and Strange Interlude, and received a Nobel Prize for literature.
France has the most Lit Nobel laureates.
Andre Geim, Nobel Prize winner in physics is the first to win, as an individual, both a Nobel Prize (together with Konstantin Novoselov, for experiments with the substance graphene) and an Ig Nobel Prize (shared with Sir Michael Berr) for using magnets to levitate a frog.
After Steve Winwood left Traffic to join Blind Faith, the other members of the group – Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood – joined up with Mick Weaver to try to record together. The group was called Mason, Capaldli, Wood, and Frog, the last being Weaver’s stage name “Wynder K. Frog.” The name was shortened to “Wooden Frog,” but the group broke up before recording anything. Capaldi and Wood rejoined Winwood to reform Traffic, and Mason went solo. Weaver recorded two albums as Wynder K. Frog.
Stevie Wonder, scored four #1 songs in a row on the US charts, two solos and two with other singers:: “Ebony and Ivory” (with Paul McCartney) , “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” “Part-Time Lover” & “That’s What Friends Are For” (with Dionne Warwick & Elton John).
Stevie Wonder performed at a recent White House salute to Motown. President Obama, the First Lady and their daughter Sasha Obama were among the audience, as were Vice President and Dr. Biden, and Mrs. Obama’s mother.
Wow. Did they make the frog swallow another magnet or a hunk of iron to get it to float in the air?
There were a number of non-number-ones in between these, so while he did score four in quick succession they weren’t consecutive.
(Since the last two posts were not part of the domino chain).
The Four Seasons attempted to record an album of Bob Dylan songs, but were unhappy with the results. Frankie Valli, as a joke, sung “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” in a falsetto as a joke. The album was abandoned, but a record executive liked the recording and wanted to release it. Since for contractual reasons, it couldn’t be credited to either Valli or the Four Seasons, they used the name “The Wonder Who?” The song reached #12 on the charts. In January 1965, the top forty also included songs by Valli (as solo) and by the Four Seasons, giving Valli the three simultaneous hit singles under three different names. “The Wonder Who?” released three more singles, but none were successful.
Actor Joe Pesci played a key role in getting Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons together, when they were all still street punks in Newark. He had known Valli (then Frankie Castelluccio), Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi since childhood, and introduced them to Bob Gaudio to get them to form the group. As a gesture to his friends, Pesci’s character in Goodfellas was named Tommy DeVito.