The Mammoth Book of Useless Information. Noel Botham
Читать онлайн книгу.
In the first Terminator (1984), Arnold Schwarzenegger had only seventeen lines of dialogue.
• The man who opened the world’s first movie theatre in Paris said, ‘The cinema is an invention without any commercial future.’
• In Camelot (1967), when King Arthur (Richard Harris) makes a speech praising his subjects and realm, he has a modern Band Aid plaster on his neck.
• Before he became a film actor, Humphrey Bogart, as the house player for an arcade, charged 50 cents a game to people who wanted to play chess.
• David Niven’s voice had to be dubbed on in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) by Canadian impersonator Rich Little. Niven was so ill while filming that he could not speak. It was his last role and he died the year the film was released.
• The 1999 movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut has the dubious distinction of containing the most swear words in any film – 399 – and the most offensive gestures – 128.
• The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Oscars, but star Alec Guinness’s name was mis-spelled as ‘Guiness’ in the titles.
• Al Capone is shown living in a sumptuous Chicago mansion in the film The St Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967). In fact, he lived in a small house in a working-class district of the city.
• Rock matriarch Sharon Osbourne keeps her hands soft with peanut oil – the same concoction she uses to stop the wooden countertops in her kitchen from drying out.
• Hollywood legend Zsa Zsa Gabor hosted the Rubik’s cube’s launch in America, beginning with a Hollywood party on 5 May 1980.
• US president Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine.
• When the decision was made in 1962 that cartoon family The Flintstones would have a baby, the child was originally going to be a boy. Later, they decided that a girl would make for better merchandising, such as dolls.
• US rapper Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs is such a fan of Al Pacino’s 1983 Scarface movie that he has watched it sixty-three times.
• Former TV Superman Dean Cain was a one-time football star in Buffalo, New York. The actor signed for the Buffalo Bills after leaving Princeton University but seriously injured his knee and had to retire before he had played a game for the team.
• Pop diva Jennifer Lopez demanded her on-set trailer on Shall We Dance? (2004) be stocked with diet cream soda, despite the fact that the drink is unavailable to buy where the movie was being shot in Winnipeg, Canada. Supplies had to be flown in from Seattle.
• One alternative title considered for sitcom Friends was ‘Insomnia Café’.
• American funnyman Jerry Seinfeld received £315,000 for a fifteen-minute gig in Las Vegas.
• Will Smith is currently the world’s highest-paid actor, taking home a massive $80 million a year.
• While attending America’s University of Iowa, actor Ashton Kutcher helped pay his tuition fees by sweeping floors at a local General Mills plant.
• Between takes on movie Shall We Dance?, Jennifer Lopez ate strawberry muffins and ice cream on an almost daily basis.
• US singer and actress Hilary Duff is set to launch a new line of canine clothing called Little Dog Duff, named after her own pooch Little Dog.
• Hard rocker Andrew WK has named his new album after his most loyal fans. The Party Hard star has named his album Wolf after the WK Wolves who follow him on tour.
• Australian pop beauty Holly Valance’s real surname is Vuckadinovic.
• Alexander star Colin Farrell often checks into hotels under the name Tom Foolery, while American Pie actress Tara Reid regularly adopts the moniker Strawberry Shortcake. The Truth About Love star Jennifer Love Hewitt dubs herself Winnie The Pooh.
• The Osbournes star Jack Osbourne has had ‘Mum’ tattooed in a heart on his left shoulder as a special thank-you to mum Sharon, who helped him battle his drug- and alcohol-abuse problems.
• American Idol bosses have banned wannabe pop stars from singing Alicia Keys’s ‘Fallin’’ in try-outs, because judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul are tired of the song.
• Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson failed her first driving test when she hit another car. She passed at the fourth attempt.
• Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney bought a couple of Charlie’s Angels star Lucy Liu’s arty collages when she had a brief stint with him on ER.
• Pop babe Beyoncé Knowles spends £4,000 a week on personal trainer Mark Jenkins in order to maintain her stunning physique.
• Rap mogul Russell Simmons and his wife have different refrigerators because the DEF JAM founder doesn’t want his vegan food mixed with her chicken, fish and dairy products.
• Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen’s triumphant concert at Boston’s Fenway Park on 6 September 2003 was the first rock show in the baseball stadium’s ninety-one-year history.
• Comedienne Ellen DeGeneres has had a ping-pong table installed on the set of her new chat show The Ellen DeGeneres Show to encourage her colleagues to play as hard as they work.
• British women have voted former Spice Girls singer Victoria Beckham as the most boring celebrity to socialise with.
• British singer Robbie Williams refuses to let his lack of a driving licence stop him splashing out on cars. The Los Angeles-based star, who has never passed a driving test, already has a Ferrari and a Jaguar – and now he’s looking at a £200,000 Lamborghini Diablo.
• Rappers 50 Cent and Eminem had very simple backstage requests at the MTV Music Video Awards; while other stars were demanding bowls of raw vegetables and expensive alcohol, the rap pair asked for four boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken and large portions of Mexican treats from Taco Bell.
• Wild-living rocker Ozzy Osbourne has installed a 20ft (12m) water jet at his Los Angeles home in order to deter potential thieves. It will soak anyone who comes near the house without an invitation.
• With an empire consisting of Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean John clothing, Blue Flame marketing and advertising, Justin’s restaurants and MTV show Making The Band 2, rap mogul Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, 32, has been ranked twelfth in Fortune magazine’s Under-40 list, which ranks those below the age of 40 who’ve become multimillionaires.
• Celebrity parents Will Smith, Madonna, Chris O’Donnell and Kevin Kline are among the many stars who have splashed out on Posh Tots’ mini mansions, castles and chalets for their children to play in. The prices for the little homes range from £29,375 to £54,693.
• The Karl Lagerfeld-designed Chanel dress that Sex in the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker wore to the 2003 Emmy Awards took 250 hours to make.
• US talk-show host Oprah Winfrey says her two favourite interviews of all time were with Sidney Poitier and Salma Hayek.
• Athens-born rocker Tommy Lee’s mother was Miss Greece in 1957.
• Actress Daryl Hannah’s brother Don is a skydiving instructor.
• Rocker Simon Le Bon often checks into hotels under the name Shake Yabooty, while rapper Wyclef Jean calls himself Dracula and US singer Brian McKnight opts for Albert Einstein.
• Michael Caine’s movie Secondhand Lions (2003) was made after the film script topped a magazine list of the ten best scripts never made into a film.
• US actress Drew Barrymore mixed together cream of mushroom soup and stuffing to make her vomit look authentic on the set of comedy