# What famous figures were you most surprised to discover were huge assholes? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 6, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109 "2009-04-06T05:46:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/41 "2009-04-06T17:49:03Z")
[QUOTEBeware of Doug And that’s nothing. You should read what he thought of Mel Blanc. QUOTE] Of course, you must remember, we only have Mel’s word for that. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/42 "2009-04-06T17:55:44Z")
Nice guy [Charles Kuralt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kuralt#Posthumous_controversy) had a whole second family that nobody knew about until after he died. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/43 "2009-04-06T17:55:56Z")
> [@WolfpackJeep](#): > > If I recall, this included the public electrocution of various dogs and cats (and wasn’t an elephant involved too?) to demonstrate the dangers of AC. The elephant was executed for killing a man. I’ve read that he tried to insert the slang word “Westinghoused” into the vernacular to mean executed by electrocution. “They Westinghoused a guy at Sing Sing today.” ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/44 "2009-04-06T17:57:37Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > And that’s nothing. You should read what he thought of Mel Blanc. He was drawn to voice his opinion of Blanc. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/45 "2009-04-06T18:02:32Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Nice guy [Charles Kuralt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kuralt#Posthumous_controversy) had a whole second family that nobody knew about until after he died. I remember hearing a bit about this, and it reminds me about Charles Lindburgh. Apparently he (Lindburgh) had a second family (wife and several children) in Germany, and was also a Nazi apologist to some degree… I had not heard about any of this until just a few years back. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/46 "2009-04-06T18:04:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > John Scopes was also a eugenicist with some racist views. Here’s a [link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Biology) to some passages from the textbook, _A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems_, he was arrested for teaching evolution from. What does the content of the textbook have to do with Scopes? It was an assigned textbook. It’s not as if he selected it personally. Harry Caray always affected a jovial bonhomie when the microphone was on, but by most accounts he was a thoroughly unpleasant person when it was off. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/47 "2009-04-06T18:13:05Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Martin Luther was also a virulently anti-Jewish bastard whose ideas led to the persecution and massacres of thousands of Jews, some of whom were probably my ancestors. "He advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews’ property and money, smashing up their homes, and ensuring that these “poisonous envenomed worms” be forced into labor or expelled “for all time.” He also seemed to sanction their murder, writing “We are at fault in not slaying them.” > > He was an evil cocksucker, and right now he is roasting in hell for what he did. I read that he was very ill before he died - I hope he was in excruciating pain. (Jewish doctors probably could have helped him, since the Jews actually gave a shit about education and learning at a time when everyone else was illiterate. But I doubt he would have accepted their help, being that they were an evil, filthy race and all [despite the fact that they survived the Black Plague in far higher numbers than the Christians because of the revolutionary, ingenious Jewish practice of _taking a fucking bath._]) > > Hey, it’s my humble opinion. Martin Luther was a villain of history, a total bastard and an unspeakably evil piece of shit - EVERY BIT as evil as Adolf Hitler. Fuck him. I can agree with your distaste for Martin Luther but many of the other “facts” of your post are widely inaccurate. There were many literate, educated people who weren’t Jews. Believe it or not there are smart and educated people throughout history who weren’t Jews, including in the 1500s when Martin Luther lived. A great portion of them were clergymen, but there were even prominent lay scientist and thinkers as well. Also considering modern scientists are not even sure as to what the Black Death was (although they have some good guesses) I don’t think we can say with anything approaching certainty that bathing would have affected it one way or another. If it was _Yersinia pestis_ then I’m not sure how bathing would have helped, that particular bacteria is spread by rodents with evidence that it specifically is spread from rodents to humans by fleas. Essentially if you lived in an area with rats, you were in trouble. “Area with rats” was more or less synonymous with “everywhere” during the middle ages as rats were notoriously widespread and difficult to control (and the critters do pretty well today, actually.) Even ignoring how much of a difference bathing would have made, it’s worth noting that people in the Middle Ages liked bathing and they liked being clean. Up until the mid-13th century or so public bath houses remained very popular as they had been throughout classical antiquity. The clergy preached against bath houses not because they were against being clean, but because bath houses were often the site of prostitution and other vices. Evidence points to the people who could bathe, did. Some of the poor didn’t have access to baths but it certainly was not out of preference for dirtiness. Keep in mind that the Black Death affected the Muslim world as well, in which bathing was important and widely practiced. There have been historical observations about lower mortality rates of segregated Jewish populations through various epidemics in European history. I don’t know that the Black Plague is one of those epidemics, even though Christians massacred a great many Jews because of the belief that Jews created the epidemic by poisoning Christian wells, lots of Jews died from the plague as well. In 1666 in Worms more Jews died during the outbreak of the plague than in the previous ten years combined, in 1492 in Vienna the Jews had to work to dramatically expand their cemetery to hold all of the corpses of Jews who had died from the plague. What most likely has accounted for historically lower mortality amongst Jewish populations when it comes to various outbreaks (cholera, typhoid et cetera) is that traditionally in European cities the Jews lived in segregated ghettos and had their own water supply. This isolation lead to less contact with the majority of the city’s population and thus less opportunity for disease to spread. Another key factor was most Jewish communities of the time were very proactive about making sure their dead were buried very quickly, the Christians would often leave the poor and the destitute piled high and these rotting corpse piles were a horrifying source of disease. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/48 "2009-04-06T18:20:03Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > He was drawn to voice his opinion of Blanc. aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggh:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/49 "2009-04-06T18:30:25Z")
I was going to say Luther as well, even though I am not and never have been a Protestant. Nevertheless, I also think Argent Towers post went too far. It seems to lay responsibility for the Holocaust on Luther. While Luther’s anti-Semitism speaks for itself and may be seen as a step on the road to what would eventually happen in Germany, I don’t think it can be said that Luther led directly to the Holocaust. Nazi anti-semitism differed in important ways from Luther’s. Lutherans in places such as the U.S. did not support Germany’s racial policies. Hitler was never a Lutheran or even a protestant. The Nazis did take advantage of Luther’s writings by republishing them, but it seems more like they used them to support their case rather than as inspiration in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Algorithm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/algorithm/32/12204_2.png) [@Algorithm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algorithm)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/50 "2009-04-06T18:39:26Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Cite on Newton? He was kind of a weirdo, but I’ve never heard of him being an asshole. An excerpt on Newton which I keep saved in a text file for just this type of situation: > [@](#): > > A more serious dispute arose with the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. Both Leibniz and Newton had independently developed a branch of mathematics called calculus > … > Leibniz made the mistake of appealing to the Royal Society to resolve the dispute. Newton, as president, appointed an “impartial” committee to investigate, coincidentally consisting entirely of Newton’s friends! But that was not all: Newton then wrote the committee’s report himself and had the Royal Society publish it, officially accusing Leibniz of plagiarism. > > Still unsatisfied, he then wrote an anonymous review of the report in the Royal Society’s own periodical. Following the death of Leibniz, Newton is reported to have declared that he had taken great satisfaction in “breaking Leibniz’s heart.” …from some book I had some time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/51 "2009-04-06T18:40:55Z")
Mother Teresa (I was too little to understand all of the controversy surrounding her when she first became famous) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/52 "2009-04-06T18:50:51Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Mother Teresa (I was too little to understand all of the controversy surrounding her when she first became famous) I don’t know if you could call he an “asshole” for being hardcore against abortion as it was part and parcel of her faith. The interesting thing to me is that (if IIRC) by some accounts based on her letters to friends she had several crises of faith during her life as a Nun and came close to (privately) renouncing her belief in God. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/53 "2009-04-06T19:04:31Z")
If illegitimate family qualifies for the thread I’ll add actress Loretta Young. Onscreen and offscreen she was the goodie goodie Catholic school girl who made people pay fines if they swore on the sets of her movies and spoke out against immorality in film. Off-screen, among other things, she had affairs with married men including Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable, having a baby with the latter whom she told the world (and the child) she adopted. She later disinherited her daughter when the daughter came forward with the story of her paternity, which she did largely because her mother wouldn’t admit it. (She sought no part of Gable’s estate.) A story about Young I always thought was funny though it may be apocryphal and the actor in the story varies: she kept a famous swear jar on the set of her movies and TV shows and if you used an expletive you had to put in a dollar. The proceeds were given to charity. One day an actor (by some accounts Robert Mitchum) got frustrated with her and said “goddam it!” (or something like) and she told him “Put $5 in the swear jar right now!” The actor took out his wallet, dropped in a wad of bills (way in excess of $5) and said “Here… you f_cking c_nt!” and stormed off the set. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/54 "2009-04-06T19:09:03Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > I remember hearing a bit about this, and it reminds me about Charles Lindburgh. > > Apparently he (Lindburgh) had a second family (wife and several children) in Germany, and was also a Nazi apologist to some degree… > > I had not heard about any of this until just a few years back. I live in Englewood, New Jersey where Anne Morrow grew up and the Lindberg kidnapping took place. I’ve read several of Anne Morrow Lindberg’s books. I’ve never heard about Charles Lindberg’s other [children](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#Children_from_other_relationships) until this minute. Ignorance fought ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/55 "2009-04-06T19:09:50Z")
I don’t know if anybody’s surprised, but Glenn Beck’s a huge asshole. What irks me are his crocodile tears for the country and his teary glurgey farewell to Mormon leader Gordon Hinkley last year (Beck never met Hinkley, and the man was 97 years old and had been sick for years- this isn’t exactly a close friend or mentor dying in his prime) then turning around and [mocking Obama’s aunt’s limp](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/03/glenn-beck-mocks-obamas-a_n_182933.html) (in a story about her illegal immigrant status- the limp has nothing to do with the non-story) and other such juvenile and hateful antics and ill informed rants (Beck: at least learn the difference twixt Tiny Tim and Oliver Twist you maroon). In a weird way I sometimes feel I’m more protective of Christianity than most fundamentalists are and my hatred of Beck is in part due to the fact that he and his ilk have turned more people away from Christianity (including the good aspects) than any Muslim or atheist who ever lived. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/56 "2009-04-06T19:10:12Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Blimey. No wonder somebody shot him. Martin Luther wasn’t shot. He was nailed to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church. By Harlan Ellison. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/57 "2009-04-06T19:12:48Z")
> [@Algorithm](#): > > An excerpt on Newton which I keep saved in a text file for just this type of situation: > …from some book I had some time ago. Okay, I’ll agree that’s assholish. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/58 "2009-04-06T19:20:15Z")
“Colonel” Harlan Sanders- one of the greatest images in 20th century Americana, the feisty old man in the string tie and white suit. In person he was a foul mouthed (KFC had to have him carefully watched during his personal appearances), belligerant, and impossible to work for control freak who would go into rants about how the products at the restaurant tasted like “owl shit” and sludge and wallpaper. His obstinance and “I’m gone do it my way come hell or high water” also cost him a huge fortune: he was so convinced the restaurant chain was going to fail that he took a $2 million payoff for his recipe and likeness and refused to consider taking stock or a percentage in the chain even when George and his partners BEGGED him for his own good to take it. His secretary did take an early stock option for nowhere near as much and ended up earning millions, while Sanders would have earned in the tens or hundreds of millions if he’d listened to all of his advisors and family. I was surprised to read about one of my favorite character actors, Randy Quaid, who is apparently borderline nuts and not in a pleasantly eccentric way. In a play he appeared in that premiered in Seattle but was slated for Broadway he was so hated that _every member of the cast_ signed statements against him accusing him of physical and verbal abuse and some of them actually got restraining orders against his wife. The ordeal earned him an $81,000 fine from Actor’s Equity Assn as well as a lifetime banning (in consideration of which he’d be a fool to pay the $81K since I don’t think they can legally enforce the fine on a non-member). [Cite](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2004172263_webquaid08.html). He also wears [fur coats](http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/library/quaid.jpg)- I’ve nothing ethical against it, but it makes him look like a pimp. And he also screwed over a lot of people he owed money to on a self financed film (‘NEVER put your own money in the show’) by conveying his personal assets to his kids and declaring bankruptcy some years ago. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/59 "2009-04-06T19:33:14Z")
Martin Luther didn’t start off as such and extreme anti-Semite. He was, of course, concerned about their immortal soul but didn’t hate them. He figured that his new take on Christian theology, which did away with much of the hypocrisy or the Roman Church, would be the thing that would make Jews see the light and convert en mass thus heralding the Second Coming. As he grew older, he became increasingly enraged that almost no Jewish people converted and he started publishing his ugly pamphlets. Many of his closest associates were horrified by them and tried to get him to stop to no avail. Luther’s antisemetic writings are the root of modern (i.e. mid-20th Century) Western European Antisemitism. It was nearly always used as one of the justifications for the anti-Jewish laws that started with the rise of Nazism. I don’t believe in Hell but if there is one, it’s only logical that Luther is well down in the depths of the place. Starting in about the 80’s, American (and probably other) Lutheran Church bodies have denounced these writings and apologized but that didn’t come easy. I remember (and can’t find a cite) that in the mid-90’s one of the larger Lutheran groups held a vote amongst their clergy about whether _On Jews and their Lies_ should be considered official Church doctrine. Much was made of the fact that the vote went towards rejecting it…65% to 35%. I was a little put off that if I met a Lutheran minister at the time, there was a one in three chance that he, at some level, supported that document. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109/60 "2009-04-06T19:50:44Z")
Well, there’s Ed Zotti, of course. Just kidding; he’s not exactly a “famous figure”. I loved Errol Flynn’s movies; still do, even though he really was an asshole. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-famous-figures-were-you-most-surprised-to-discover-were-huge-assholes/492109.md?page=4)