Isaac Watts, the “Father of Hymnody”, wrote over 750 hymns in his lifetime. One of them, “Against Idleness and Mischief” was used as the source of Rev. Dodgson’s parody, “How Doth the Little Crocodile” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Isaac Asimov, in addition to his extensive science fiction writing, also passionately loved Shakespeare, and wrote several fascinating commentaries on the Bard’s plays.
Shakespeare in Love (1998) has the most Oscars ever won (7) without winning the Best Director award.
The fictional “Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter” by Shakespeare figured in the movie, one of many to have a play-within-a-play format. Shakespeare’s “Gay Boys in Bomdage” figured only in a Monty Python sketch.
In 1979, Ethel Merman released a disco LP entitled “The Ethel Merman Disco Album.” Despite it not even charting on the Billboard charts and many people’s skepticism about the then 71-year-old veteran performing her Broadway hits to a disco beat, it was a smash hit, being played in Studio 54 regularly, with live appearances by Merman, herself. It also became a staple period album for the majority of the gay community.
Ethel Merman was born Ethel Zimmerman.
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman.
The Zimmerman Telegram was one sent by Arthur Zimmerman, Foreign Secretary of the German Empire in 1917 to the German ambassador in Mexico. Zimmerman suggested that the ambassador contact the Mexican government with the proposal that if the US was thinking of going to war with Germany, that Mexico form a military alliance with Germany. In exchange, the Germans would let Mexico win back the territories taken from them in the Mexican War. The telegram was decoded and its contents leaked, causing outrage and becoming a factor in the US entering World War I on the Allied side.
Arthur Godfrey was known for finding and grooming young, undiscovered talent but insisted on loyalty and absolute control over their careers. One of his bigger finds, singer Julius LaRosa, was unceremoniously fired by a very gracious-sounding Godfrey – on the air – simply because the up-and-comer found himself an agent. Godfrey’s popularity soon declined after the incident, his “nice guy” public image irreparably damaged. And he was thought to have been at least the partial inspiration for the character of Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes in Elia Kazan’s film A Face in the Crowd (1957), the character being a popular TV personality whose folksy image covered up the fact that he was a vicious, manipulative bully privately.
One of the “What ifs?” of history is, what if Arthur, Prince of Wales, hadn’t died young, but instead had inherited the throne from his father, Henry VII, and had a successful marriage with Katherine of Aragon, with lots of kids? Without the dispute over a request for a royal annulment, would England have rejected the Reformation and stayed loyal to the Pope?
And what would have happened to Arthur’s younger brother, Henry, Duke of York? Would he have entered the church, as his father planned? Would he have become a typical Renaissance prince of the church, highly learned and witty, living the good life, with discreet mistresses and “nephews”? Could he even have become Pope Henry, keeping the English in the Church?
Dick York, the original Darren on Bewitched, was left impoverished in 1976 after a real estate investment failed and was on welfare for a time.
“Tumbledown Dick” was the nickname of Richard Cromwell, who was briefly the Lord Protector of England after his father Oliver died.
James Cromwell is the only actor ever to utter the words “Star Trek” on Star Trek itself. In the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), his character Zefram Cochrane says to the crew: “And you’re all astronauts, on some kind of … star trek?”
Sulu is in the captain’s chair in Star Trek (TOS) once, when he’s knocked there by a (temporarily) insane Spock in the episode “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”
While attending Yale, Benjamin Spock was a member of the school’s rowing team, which competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics and won the Gold Medal.
The closing words of Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn” are:
“‘beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”
The phrase has inspired generations of critics to kill thousands of trees.
Ahem Still in play: While attending Yale, Benjamin Spock was a member of the school’s rowing team, which competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics and won the Gold Medal.
John Keats was one of the great Romantic poets of the early 19th century. He was a good friend of the English painter, Benjamin Haydon, who acted as a mentor to him. In 1816, Haydon made a life mask of Keats.
Three years later, in 1819, Keats had one of his most productive years, writing his Great Odes, including the “Ode to a Grecian Urn”. The closing words of the Ode are:
“‘beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”
The phrase has inspired generations of critics to kill thousands of trees.
A young Benjamin Franklin ran away from a hated apprenticeship in Boston to settle in Philadelphia.
The Franklin’s Tale is a traditional story of courtly love, two gentlemen pursuing the same lady, and a bit of wizardry, but also has the somewhat unusual theme (for that time) of marriage in equality tossed in.