Michael McKean and his former comedy partner and Laverne & Shirley co-star David Lander released an album in the 1970s called Lenny and the Squigtones that was a novelty hit. Most of the songs were originally sung in their stand-up act before the series but due to the family nature of the TV show the lyrics were cleaned up considerably for the album.
David Lander had the recurring role of Tim Pinkle in Twin Peaks.
The real name of advice columnist Ann Landers was Eppie Lederer, nee Friedman. Her twin sister Pauline wrote the Dear Abby column.
Ann Landers’ husband, Jules Lederer, founded the Budget Rent-a-Car company.
The Lederers’ daughter, Margo, was married to actor Ken (The White Shadow) Howard and still uses his surname professionally. An advice columnist herself, she is now the wife of surgeon Ronald Weintraub.
Memoirist Christopher Welles Lederer is the oldest daughter of Orson Welles’ three daughters (each with different mothers); based on her father’s affair with Geraldine Fitzgerald and the appearance fo Fitzgerald’s son, Sir Michael Edward Lindsay-Hogg, Baronet (pic), she believes he is her father’s illegitimate son and he recently took a DNA test to find out (results not yet made public).
Texas Governor “Big Jim” Hogg named his daughter Ima. An Urban Legend says another daughter was named Ura, but that is not true.
On Dukes of Hazzard “Boss” Jefferson Davis Hogg (and his twin brother Abraham Lincoln Hogg) were played by actor Sorrell Booke, a former Talmud scholar and OSS agent who was fluent in Japanese and wore a fat suit throughout the show’s run.
Though Boss Tweed is the name most associated with the Tammany Hall political machine in New York, Tammany actually became more powerful after he had gone to jail, with bosses like John Kelly, Richard Croker, Charles Francis Murphy (probably the most powerful of all the bosses, including Tweed), and Tim Sullivan dominating politics in New York City until after World War II, and was still a political force until about 1960.
New York City remained in British hands throughout the American Revolution, and was not returned to American control until after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. George Washington was inaugurated for his first term as President at Federal Hall in the city six years later.
There were several Treaties of Paris, including five which ended American wars and the Treaty of 1229, actually signed in Meaux, at which Raymond of Toulouse submitted to several punishments: agreeing to fight the Cathars, forfeiting his property, being whipped, and giving his daughter away to Alphonse of Poitiers (brother of Louis IX “the Saint”).
Louis is the most common name for French kings. It is the result of a long series of deformations of the Germanic name “Chlodowig”, meaning “glorious warrior” (or possibly “one who fights for glory”). Chlodowig became Clovis, then through Latin Clodovico, into Ludovicus, into Ludovic, into Louis.
The Sackett family figured prominently in 17 of Louis L’Amour’s Western novels.
Dorothy Lamour appeared in 7 “Road to” movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. In order the “Road” was to Singapore, Zanzibar, Morocco, Utopia, Rio, Bali and Hong Kong.
Freddie Mercury, the late singer of the rock group Queen, was born Farrokh Bulsara, on the island of Zanzibar. His family was Parsi Indian, and had emigrated to Zanzibar for his father’s career in the British Colonial Office
The Anglo-Zanzibar War lasted 38 minutes, the shortest war in history.
James Madison was the shortest man to serve as President of the USA. Abraham Lincoln was the tallest.
Best evidence (his uniforms, autopsy, and other sources) indicates that Napoleon Bonaparte was between 5’6 and 5’7, which for a western European of his time was average, neither tall nor short. There are several theories as to how it became erroneous “common knowledge” that he was of diminutive stature, but it was being reported even during his lifetime.
Jon Heder, who played the eponymous Napolean Dynamite, is 6’1" and the tallest of the four main characters in that movie.
Alfred Nobel supposedly founded the Nobel Prizes in response to a French obituary for him, which condemned him for the invention of dynamite.