The Mega Book of Useless Information. Noel Botham
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also find casts of Groucho Marx’s cigar, Betty Grable’s legs, Jimmy Durante’s nose, Trigger’s hooves, Harold Lloyd’s glasses and Whoopi Goldberg’s braids.
• Between 1990 and 1995, Holocaust films won four out of five Best Documentary Oscars.
• The Hollywood sign originally read ‘Hollywoodland’.
• Star Wars character Yoda was originally called The Critter.
• John Wayne made an album entitled America, Why I Love Her.
• In Superman, when Superman discovers Lois Lane’s body he lets out a scream, revealing his tooth fillings. Not very in keeping with his invincible image.
• Tom Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones.
• Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and Burt Lancaster all started out as waiting staff.
• Bruce Willis recently played with his band at the opening of a branch of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
• Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell had a car stolen from their drive and didn’t notice for three days.
• Sergeant Bilko’s first name is Ernest.
• Paramount is the only major studio still based in Hollywood.
• After breaking up with his fiancée Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp had his tattoo ‘Winona Forever’ changed to ‘Wino Forever’.
• Mickey Rooney’s real name is Joe Yule Jnr.
• Bix Beiderbecke was the first white jazz musician.
• The melody of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ was composed by Mozart.
• The real name of Batman villain The Penguin is Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.
• A total of 364 gifts are given by the lover in ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ song.
• Sting’s real name is Gordon Sumner.
• Contralto is the lowest female singing voice.
• Engelbert Humperdinck’s real name is Arnold Dorsey.
• Hank Williams was known as the ‘Drifting Cowboy’.
• Kazatsky is a Russian folk dance characterized by a step in which a squatting dancer kicks out each leg alternately to the front.
• The taboo against whistling backstage comes from the pre-electricity era, when a whistle was the signal for the curtains and the scenery to drop. An unexpected whistle could cause an unexpected scene change.
• ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is ranked the most difficult national anthem to sing.
• The Writers’ Guild of America Registration Office states that approximately 20,000 movie scripts are registered with the Guild each year and that, of these, less than one per cent are picked up by a studio and made into a film.
Roger Moore is the only English actor to have played the role of James Bond. Sean Connery is Scottish, George Lazenby is Australian, Timothy Dalton is Welsh and Pierce Brosnan is Irish.
• The names of the six Gummi bears are Gruffi, Cubbi, Tummi, Zummi, Sunni and Grammi.
• Whistler’s best-known painting, often called Whistler’s Mother, is actually titled Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother.
• The names of Popeye’s four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye and Poopeye.
• The Pac Man video arcade game featured coloured ghosts named Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde.
• The Marlboro Man has appeared in more advertisements than any ad figure in history.
• The Hitchcock film North by Northwest (1959) takes its name from a Hamlet quote: ‘I am but mad north-northwest.’
• Elizabeth Hurley checks into hotels under the name Rebecca de Winter.
• Braveheart (1995) director/producer Mel Gibson was investigated by RSPCA inspectors, who refused to believe the horses on the film weren’t real but mechanical.
• An Oscar statuette is 34.3 cm tall.
• On the set of The Usual Suspects (1995), Kevin Spacey glued his fingers together to keep his left hand consistently paralysed.
• Jane Seymour’s real name is Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg.
• Hollywood actor Tony Curtis is great friends with Harrods owner Mohammed Al Fayed.
• The Roosevelt Hotel, in Hollywood, is apparently haunted by the ghost of Marilyn Monroe.
• Thora Birch, the actress who played Janie in American Beauty (1999), was only 17 during filming and so her nude scene had to be filmed in the presence of her parents and child labour representatives.
• Doris Day’s dog was named after the beer Heineken.
• The Oscar award ceremony has never been cancelled.
• Both Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole have been Oscar nominated a record seven times without winning.
• Disney Studios has the record for the biggest global box-office year of all time, grossing over $3 billion in 2003.
• Marilyn Monroe’s ex-husband Jo DiMaggio had fresh roses delivered to her crypt three times a week for 20 years after her death.
• The real names of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were Dino Paul Croccetti and Jerome Levitch.
• ‘Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn’t amount to much.’ Peter Ustinov on Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
• A few witty remarks from comedienne actress Mae West:
‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.’
‘When I’m good I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.’
‘There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out.’
‘When choosing between two evils, I always like to pick the one I’ve never tried before.’
• Inscription on Rodney Dangerfield’s tombstone: ‘There goes the neighbourhood.’
• The most copied noses in Hollywood are those of Heather Locklear, Nicole Kidman and Catherine Zeta Jones.
• The longest film title was Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D released in 1991.
• Pete the Pup, a pit-bull mix that appeared in the Our Gang shorts, had a fresh circle drawn around his right eye before every shoot.
• Only 3 dogs have a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame: Strongheart, Rin Tin Tin and Lassie.
• Cary Grant had been offered the role of James Bond, 007, and refused it before the producers offered it to Sean Connery.
• Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
• Actor Bill Murray doesn’t have a publicist or an agent.
• During The Empire Strikes Back’s famous asteroid scene, one of the deadly hurling asteroids is actually a potato.
• Rocker Ozzy Osbourne has had two smiley face tattoos etched on his kneecaps so he can talk to them when he’s feeling lonely.
• Oasis singer Liam Gallagher has received the top prize in Nuts magazine’s ‘man boobs’ awards.
• The sound effect for the light sabres in