Mozart’s librettist for The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte later moved to the U.S., became a naturalized citizen, died here and is buried in Queens: Lorenzo Da Ponte - Wikipedia
My favourite Indiana Jones trivia involves that most famous scene where Indy lazily shoots the swordsman after he demonstrates his amazing sword wielding skills.
Harrison Ford was very ill on that day and it was very hot out. He didn’t want to be involved in any long sword battle as was scripted. He’s the one who suggested to Speilberg that he just take out the gun and shoot him.
Funny how some of the most famous scenes in movies come about.
You remember those SNL sketches with the typical Bears fans? Where George Wendt was Bill Swearski? “Da Bears.”
One of the other guys at the table was played by Robert Smigel, in one of his rare regular on-camera appearances on the show.
“The most interesting thing about King Charles the First is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the beginning of his reign, but only 4 foot 8 inches tall at the end of it.”
- Monty Python
Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, former King of Naples and Spain, lived in exile in Bordentown, New Jersey, before returning home to die.
The room that is now the Union Oyster House Restaurant in Boston was the residence of Louis Philippe, later the last King of France, during the Reign of Terror.
In the 1971 movie “The Hospital,” Barnard Hughes playes one of the main characters, a patient.
In some puzzling casting, he also appears in a completely different role, with a hairpiece and fake mustache, that of Dr. Mallory, who is performing a hysterectomy.
There’s nothing to indicate that they’re supposed to be the same character, and that one is pretending to be the other. For whatever reason, he ended up laying this other minor, but memorable, character.
The middle name of Milhouse van Houten, Bart’s friend on The Simpsons, is Mussolini. Rainier Wolfcastle’s (the show’s Ah-nuld clone) is Luftwaffe. Lisa Simpson’s middle name is Marie.
Steven King’s The Colorado Kid was largely inspired by a real life Australian incident, The *Taman Shud *Case.
David Wells and Don Larsen both threw perfect games for the New York Yankees. Both attended Point Loma High School in San Diego.
AND was originally Capen’s Dry Goods Store, run by my mom’s family during the mid-1700’s … pretty innocent, huh? Except for the printing presses upstairs churning out The Massachusetts Spy.
Or a rabbit with glasses?
A good one for today: King County, which contains Seattle, Wash., was originally named for Franklin Pierce’s vice president, William Rufus King. The name was not changed, but the explanation for its origin was - it now named for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: King County, Washington - Wikipedia
Even weirder, Edwin Booth, John’s older brother, had saved Lincoln’s son, Robert, from being killed by a train a few years before the assassination.
In Arsenic and Old Lace, one of the tombstones in the graveyard is inscribed with the name “Archie Leach”, which was Cary Grant’s real name. John Cleese’s character in A Fish Called Wanda was also named Archie Leach.
Just read this on wiki, and thought it would fit great in this thread (check out the third paragraph under the “Pro Dubbing” heading)…
When the cartoon “The Flintstones” was dubbed into Hungarian, the entire dialogue was made to rhyme. Nifty, huh?
thwartme
John Ratzenberger was also in the first Superman movie, as one of the guys trying to regain control of the missiles Lex Luthor hacked into. In the IMDB listing, he has the same “name” for both roles: Controler #1.
He gets played for a fool by the women in both.
See post #107.
Cut his own throat, reportedly.
Lou Gehrig, baseball’s legendary first baseman, wound up dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. How weird is that.