Frank Gorshin won pop culture immortality in the Sixties for appearing as a black-and-white alien official on Star Trek, and as The Riddler on Batman.
While attempting to drive from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles for 39 hours without sleep, Frank Gorshin drifted off at the wheel, suffered a fractured skull, and went into a coma. Although he did not die, the part he had been attempting to audition for (Officer Ruby in Run Silent, Run Deep) ended up going to Don Rickles.
Side note: We visited the “Hanoi Hilton” prison last year, where McCain was held. It’s a museum now, and they have the flight suit he was wearing when captured and his parachute on display.
In play: Pittsburgh is one of the few American cities to be spelled with an H at the end of a -burg suffix. (There is, for example, a Pittsburg, Kansas.) While briefly named “Pittsburg” from 1890-1911 following a declaration by the US Board on Geographic Names, the “Pittsburgh” spelling, which was first officialized by Pennsylvania in 1794, was officially restored after a public campaign by the citizens of the city.
Chatham University in Pittsburgh is the oldest women’s college west of the Appalchains. Their most famous graduate is ecologist Rachel Carson.
Chatham Manor, an 18th century Georgian mansion near Spotsylvania built by the maternal grandparents of Robert E. Lee’s wife, is one of three Virginia mansions known to have been visited by both Lincoln and Washington: the other two are Mt. Vernon and Berkeley Hall. Chatham served as the HQ of several Union generals during the war.
Lin Tse-Hsu, whose opposition to the opium trade in Canton helped bring on the Opium War, is honored by a statue in Chatham Square in New York City’s Chinatown.
Will Smith’s character in the movie I Am Legend lives in a heavily-fortified house adjoining Washington Square Park in New York City.
While he was starring in the hit TV series Alias Smith & Jones, actor Peter Duel committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Tommy Lee Jones appears as a U.S. Army colonel in the new movie Captain America. He was Al Gore’s college roommate.
Non fictional characters Tommy Lee Jones has played include Oliver V. “Mooney” Lynn and Ty(rus Raymond) Cobb.
Ty Cobb disdained the home run after the lively ball was introduced, thinking it was dull baseball. Toward the end of his career, he grew tired of people saying his main flaw was that he didn’t have any power. Tired of this, he announced to reporters on May 5, 1925 that he was going to swing for the fence. He set a record that day for total bases with three home runs, a double, and two singles. The next day, he had two more home runs and a single, setting the AL record for most HRs and total bases in two consecutive games. The next day, he went back to his usual style.
Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated for his only full term as President on March 4, 1925, having come into office two years earlier upon the death of Warren G. Harding. Although Coolidge could probably have been easily reelected in 1928, he chose not to run, and was succeeded by Herbert Hoover. Hoover thus got stuck with the Great Depression.
Former Dallas Cowboys running back Calvin Hill played on a famous late-60’s Yale University football team with quarterback (and BMOC) Brian Dowling, immortalized as “B.D.” in Garry Trudeau’s comic strip “Doonesbury”, which he started while a student there at the time
The 16th century theologian John Calvin was born Jean Chauvin (Cauvin in some sources), a surname shared with Nicolas Chauvin whose zealous love for Napoleon and for Bonapartism in the 19th century led to the word chauvinist. (There is some debate as to whether Nicolas Chauvin was a real or fictional character.)
Napoleon Dynamite actress Tina Majorino also starred in Waterworld, the infamous waterlogged Costner epic. She plays the child who has the map to dry land tattooed on her back.
The Epic That Never Was documents the attempts of Sir Alexander Korda to film an adaptation of I, Claudius in 1937. It included interview with many of the cast, as well as a look at the footage that had been shot. The film was shut down after star Merle Oberon was injured in a car accident.
The Kurwood Derby was a magical hat featured on the TV cartoon Rocky and His Friends. The derby would make its wearer the smartest person in the world.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that the wizard Gandalf’s eyebrows extended beyond the brim of his hat. As big and bristling as Ian McKellen’s eyebrows were in the Peter Jackson movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings, they didn’t stick out that far!
Frida Kahlo’s most famous physical characteristic was her thick unibrow; apparently Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky and her various other lovers weren’t turned off by it.
Manuel Joseph “Jungle Jim” Rivera led the American League in stolen bases in 1955. He finished second in the junior circuit’s SB race each of the preceding three and following three seasons, thus compiling a seven-season run ('52-'58) of being in either the top or runner-up position.