Francis Ford Coppola was in the early stages of developing a script for a fourth Godfather film with Mario Puzo, which was to tell the story of the early lives of Sonny, Fredo and Michael. After Puzo’s death in July 1999, Coppola abandoned the project, stating he couldn’t do it without his friend.
In 1992, when Mario Cuomo was considering a run for President, a billboard in Albany, NY (the state capital) was put up with the words “Run, Mario, Run.” Much speculation was generated about what political organization was behind the billboard. All was revealed a week or two later when it was shown to be an ad for Super Mario Brothers.
Jeffrey Toobin in The Nine described Mario Cuomo’s on-again, off-again interest in being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court during Bill Clinton’s first term. Cuomo changed his mind at least three times, deeply frustrating the White House staff.
No American has won a Formula One race since Mario Andretti’s victory at the 1978 Dutch Grand Prix.
Richard Dreyfus played a Cheneyesque conservative candidate in The American President.
Richard Dreyfuss’s uncredited screen debut was as an assistant stage manager in Valley of the Dolls in 1967.
The soon-to-be-scrapped aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge was used for filming the sf ecological drama Silent Running, starring Bruce Dern.
In The Big Valley, Victoria was the only Barkley who was never shot throughout the run of the series. Heath was shot the most, and Nick has the distinction of being the only Barkley who was shot twice in the same episode.
Pierre Breton has written that of all the provincial capitals in Canada, Victoria was given the most by nature and had done the least with it, while Regina was given the least by nature and had done the most with it.
Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham is the only Spice Girl not to have had a British No. 1 single as a solo artist.
When the Spice Girls were first formed, their group name was Touch. Touch changed its name to The Spice Girls in November, 1994.
In Marvel comics, the quintuplet Stepford Cuckoos’ first names began with the letters S-P-I-C-E in an obscure allusion to the Spice Girls.
John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos tells an different type of alien invasion, where the aliens impregnate the women of a village, who give birth to blond, silver-eyed children with mysterious powers. It was made into the movie Village of the Damned and a sequel Children of the Damned.
Because his father worked at the US Embassy in Norway, John Kerry lived in Oslo a couple of years from the age of 13 and to this day still remembers some Norwegian.
His Majesty Harald V, the King of Norway, has official residences in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim.
Hell is a town near Trondheim.
ETA: Hell does freeze over, by the way.
In Dante’s Inferno section of the Divine Comedy, Lake Cocytus is the frozen lake of the ninth circle of Hell, where those who have committed treachery against God are punished.
Dante, South Dakota was founded in 1908 but originally called Mayo, after H.T. Mayo, owner of the local general store. However, in 1910 when the railroad came to the town, officials balked at building a depot in a town named Mayo (a name which for unclear reasons, railroad officials found undignified). The railroad requested citizens rename the town. H.T. Mayo replied that he didn’t care what they renamed it, sarcastically suggesting, “You can call it Dante’s Inferno for all I care.”
Born in 1910, Jacques Cousteau performed a science experiment in his high school, which resulted in the accidental breakage of seventeen windows.
Jacques Who was a horse that ran on the New York racing circuit in the 1970s. Owned by Jacques Wimpfheimer (whence his name), he was a fan favorite for two reasons: he was a very light gray,* which made him stand out in a race, and he had a penchant for finishing second (13 out of 39 races in 1973) and not first.
*Some thought he was white, but actual white thoroughbreds were extremely rare at the time.