After Great Britain declared war in 1939, David Niven was one of the first actors to go back and join the army. Although he had a reputation for telling “good old stories” over and over again, he was totally silent about his war experience. He said once: “I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.”
David Niven’s first wife, an English socialite named Primula Rollo, is one of the few people in history ever to die from a ‘Hide-and-Go-Seek’ accident. It was at a party of the home of Tyrone Power, a game of Hide & Go Seek was called, she hid in what she thought was a dark closet but was actually a basement staircase, and was fatally injured when she fell down.
David Niven won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Separate Tables, even though he was only on-screen for 16 minutes. It’s the shortest role ever to win Best Actor. The shortest Oscar role of all went to Beatrice Straight in Network, who won the Best Supporting Actress for just under six minutes of screen time.
MASH*'s David Ogden Stiers, whose last name is pronounced “styers,” was a high-school classmate of Roger Ebert.
David Ogden Stiers voiced characters in the Disney cartoons Lilo and Stitch, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas.
Ogden Nash once wrote:
“The trouble with a kitten is that,
eventually it becomes a cat.”
He also wrote (as part of a longer poem)
“Use the word affidavit in a sentence.
‘Saul was the king before David, and Solomon was the king affidavit.’”
Isaac Asimov once remarked that he tried to write a limerick similar to Ogden Nash’s because Nash made it look so easy. He found out “It’s only easy if your name is Ogden Nash.”
Isaac Asimov once, on a dare, wrote a very short story during an appearance on a TV talk show.
“The Chipmunks” was a derogatory name given to a group of New York based sportswriters in the 60s who liked to add humor and irreverence to their reporting. It included George Vecsey, Steve Jacobson, and Stan Isaacs (Isaacs worked for Newday, where Isaac Asimov’s brother Stanley worked as publisher for many years).
The Isaac Asimov story written on a talk show was “Insert Tab A Into Slot B.”
Asimov wrote the 350-word story (and later admitted to having thought about it beforehand) on August 21, 1957.
The “South Park” episode “The Succubus” features Chef’s father (also voiced by Isaac Hayes) telling the boys about his encounter with the Loch Ness Monster:
Chef’s Father: Say, would you crackers like to hear about the time we met the Loch Ness Monster?
Stan: [impatiently] No, that’s okay.
Chef’s Father: Ooh, it must have been about seven, eight years ago. Me and the little lady was out on this boat, you see, all alone at night, when all of the sudden this huge creature, this giant crustacean from the Paleolithic Era, comes out of the water.
Chef’s Mother: We was so scared, Lord have mercy, I jumped up in the boat, and I said, “Thomas, Thomas, what on earth is that creature?”
Chef’s Father: It stood above us looking down with these big red eyes…
Chef’s Mother: Oh, it was so scary!
Chef’s Father: …and I yelled, I said, “What do you want from us, monster?” And the monster bent down, and said, “I need about tree-fitty.”
[long pause]
Kyle: What’s tree-fitty?
Chef’s Father: Tree dollars, and fitty cents.
Chef’s Mother: Tree-fitty.
Stan: He wanted money?
Chef’s Father: That’s right. I said, “I ain’t givin’ you no tree-fitty, you goddamn Loch Ness Monster! Get your own goddamn money!”
Chef’s Mother: I gave him a dollar.
Chef’s Father: She gave him a dollar.
Chef’s Mother: I thought he’d go away if I gave him a dollar.
Chef’s Father: Well, of course he’s not gonna go away, Mary! You give him a dollar, he’s gonna assume you got more!
Born in San Antonio, Henry Thomas, best known as the little boy in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame on March 7 of this year, in Austin.
George Henry Thomas was probably the most prominent Virginian to remain loyal to the Union when the Civil War broke out. The major general won fame as “the Rock of Chickamauga,” standing firm with his troops during that battle when much of the rest of the army retreated in disorder.
George Harrison was the first musician of the pop era to introduce the sitar when he played it on “Norwegian Wood” from the The Beatles’ album “Rubber Soul” (1965). This was the first time the Indian instrument had been played on a pop single. Rivals The Rolling Stones soon followed with sitar accompaniment on their hit “Paint It Black” (1966).
“Back in Black” is a pipe tune written by a member of the Victoria (Australia) Police pipe band, celebrating the band’s return to fiscal solvency after an expensive trip to the Worlds piping completion in Scotland.
Scotland Yard’s name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance to the police station, and over time the street and the Metropolitan Police became synonymous.
The Banqueting House, designed by Inigo Jones, is the only remaining section of the Palace of Whitehall, the rest of which burned to the ground in 1698. Before the fire it had grown to be the largest palace in Europe, with over 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican and Versailles.
January Jones, aka Betty Draper on Mad Men, was named after January Wayne, a character in Jacqueline Susann’s potboiler Once Is Not Enough.