Post a true but little known fact about someone famous, living or dead -- Part 10

[red dog 1]

Last edited Sat Mar 21, 2020, 03:55 PM - Edit history (1)

John Wayne credited his walk, talk, and persona to his acquaintance with Wyatt Earp.
The "Duke" had lost his football scholarship to USC after he broke his collarbone in a bodysurfing accident and had to drop out of college, because he couldn't afford the tuition.
Actor Tom Mix was USC football fan and friend of the USC football coach.
He gave John Wayne a job as an extra, and, through him, Wayne subsequently met Wyatt Earp, who was a close friend of Tom Mix.






More true but little known facts about someone famous, living or dead, Part 9:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181259008

[First Speaker]

1. Bob Hope boxed professionally as a young man...

...under the name "Packy East".

[katusha]

2. Mel Brooks was a combat engineer in Patton's army. n/t

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

3. Yul brynner raised performing pigeons

Yul Brynner, actor, The King and I, owned Roller pigeons, known to take private helicopter to view aerial performance of his pigeons.

[Midnightwalk]

4. Keith Barrenger

He was in my math class.

[red dog 1]

5. John Wayne got the nickname "Duke" from when he was a little kid walking to school.

His huge Airedale, Duke, used to come along with him, and a fireman at the firehouse he would walk by gave him the nickname "Little Duke" (as opposed to "big" Duke, the dog.
Wayne later changed his nickname to just "Duke"

[red dog 1]

7. Grateful Dead co-founder Ron "Pigpen" McKernan was the band's original front man,

as well as playing harmonica, organ and piano.

[red dog 1]

8. John Lennon could not read music.

[red dog 1]

9. Bobby Darin worked on Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign

He was at the Ambassador Hotel with RFK the night he was assassinated.

Bobby Darin died at age 37.

[red dog 1]

10. Bobby Darin was a member of the Brill Building gang of struggling songwriters.

(in New York City)

[red dog 1]

11. At age 14, Robert Mitchum was arrested in Savannah, Georgia for vagrancy,

and put on a chain gang
(He later escaped & returned to his family in Delaware)

[red dog 1]

12. Steve McQueen had pleural mesothelioma, an incurable type of Cancer

[red dog 1]

13. Harlan Ellison once had a job driving a nitroglycerine truck in North Carolina

[red dog 1]

14. Patti Smith once danced off a high stage in Tampa, Fla. & fell 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit

[red dog 1]

15. After getting out of the US Army, John Prine moved to Chicago & became a mailman,

writing and singing songs as a hobby.

[red dog 1]

16. Roger Ebert was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism

[red dog 1]

17. The FBI's file on Abbie Hoffman reportedly was more than 13,000 pages long.

[red dog 1]

18. I'm not famous, but here's a little known fact about this thread

I'm apparently the only one who wants to "post a true but little known fact about someone famous"

[red dog 1]

19. Robert Mitchum was a successful singer and songwriter

He had an excellent singing voice and put out two albums.
He also wrote "The Battle of Thunder Road"

[red dog 1]

20. Does anyone else care to "post a true but little known fact about someone famous"?

Or should I just let this thread "die"?

[red dog 1]

24. Never knew that, thanks.

[red dog 1]

25. Singer-Songwriter Iris Dement was the youngest of 14 children

[Wolf Frankula]

26. Wyatt Earp was a consultant for several silent cowboy movies.

Wolf

[red dog 1]

27. Wyatt Earp and Tom Mix were close friends

[red dog 1]

29. Tom Hanks' movies have grossed nearly $10 billion worldwide.

[red dog 1]

30. By the age of 10, Tom hanks had lived in 10 different houses.

(His family moved often)

[red dog 1]

31. Joe Biden was a standout halfback and wide receiver on his high school football team.

He helped lead a perennially losing team to an undefeated season in his senior year.

[Wolf Frankula]

32. Bela Lugosi was actually born in Transylvania.

Bela Blasko (his original name) was born in Lugos, now part of Romania, then in the Austro-Hungarian part of Transylvania.

Wolf

[red dog 1]

39. That's very interesting

(I didn't know that)

[red dog 1]

33. Wilson Pickett's mother used to beat him

(once with an iron skillet)

[red dog 1]

34. Frank Sinatra's version of "My Way" set a record for length of time on the U.K.'s top 40

75 weeks, from April 1969 to September 1971.

[red dog 1]

35. The Peter Gold hit song "Never Let Her Slip Away" was about comedian Laraine Newman (SNL)

[red dog 1]

36. Major League Baseball retired number 42 for all major league teams in honor of

Last edited Tue Apr 28, 2020, 08:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Jackie Robinson, who wore # 42...(This has never been done before or since)

[jmowreader]

85. Wayne Gretzky's 99 was also retired league-wide

When Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson's number, they allowed every player who was still wearing the number to continue to use it until the end of his career. The last player in baseball to wear 42 was Mariano Rivera of the Yankees.

[red dog 1]

88. It was the only time it was ever done in major league baseball

[red dog 1]

37. Quentin Tarantino's very first job was as an usher at an adult movie theater in Torrance, CA.

[red dog 1]

38. John Kerry's net worth is around $250 million

[smirkymonkey]

54. John Kerry lives two blocks away from me in Boston.

I never see him though. I have before, but not in a long time.

[red dog 1]

55. He would have defeated George Bush in 2004 were it not for GOP dis-info "Swift-Boat" lies.

[smirkymonkey]

56. I agree. That was absolutely soul crushing. It was the first time i truly

realized what the republicans were capable of. I was pretty much shell shocked. I couldn't go to work the next day. I was just numb. I got the feeling that he didn't believe it either but he knew that it was bigger than him and there was no point in trying to fight it.

We need to trounce them so badly this time and after that, we need to bring them all to justice and reform our political process so that we are never this vulnerable again.

[red dog 1]

59. Republicans can only steal elections that are close.

Obama proved this in 2008 and 2012.

[red dog 1]

40. Some weeks before murdering John Lennon, Mark David Chapman told his wife that he had been

obsessed with killing Lennon.
Chapman showed her the gun and bullets, but she did not inform the police or mental health services.
(Wikipedia)

[red dog 1]

41. Andrew Strong, who played Deco Cuffe in "The Commitments," went on to tour with musicians like

The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Adams and others.

[red dog 1]

42. When he was just starting out in Deuuth, Minnesota, Bob Dylan was notorious for stealing

prized records from his friends.
"He stole a bunch of them," said one acquaintance, Paul Nelson.
"He'd come along and take about 20 or 30 of them..But Bob had impeccable taste..He took the best."

[red dog 1]

43. Besides having his own film company, Frank Sinatra also had his own:

- private airline
- missile-parts firm
- real estate holdings across the nation
- a personal staff of 75 people

[red dog 1]

44. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Neil Young twice

In 1995 as a solo artist and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

[red dog 1]

45. At one time, Joe Biden worked as a public defender.

[CottonBear]

46. Samuel Jackson worked with one of my high school classmates in Hollywood.

He, of course, is an actor, and she was in the production/executive side of the business.
They didn’t know at the time that they were from the same city!

[red dog 1]

47. Billy Bob Thornton has a phobia about antique furniture and certain types of silverware

[red dog 1]

48. Patti Smith once danced off a high stage in Tampa, Fla. & fell 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit

[red dog 1]

49. Jerry Garcia was named after composer Jerome Kern

[red dog 1]

50. Randy Quaid has acted in more than 90 films.

Also, he's s a first cousin, twice removed, of Gene Autry.

[Efilroft Sul]

51. Former boxing champion Michael Moorer was the colorful Hobo Bird in my 1st grade spring concert.

We grew up together and are still friends via the dreaded Facebook.

[red dog 1]

52. Playwright Sam Shepard used to play drums for The Holy Moly Rounders

[Manifestor_of_Light]

71. Holy Modal Rounders.

"Modal" refers to music using modal scales. Common in folk music and ethnic music in many places.

[red dog 1]

72. Thanks for catching my mistake

It was the Holy Modal Rounders"

[Manifestor_of_Light]

74. No problemo.

I am no expert on music theory.

[red dog 1]

75. Me either!

I heard about the Holy Modal Rounders in Patti Smith's 2010 book, "Just Kids" (Great book)

[red dog 1]

53. A short time before his death, Jimi Hendrix was heading out of a music hall up some steps

where he encountered a young girl on the stairway who was too shy to go into the hall, even though she had an invitation.

Hendrix talked briefly with the girl and told her that he was actually very shy around a lot of people too, contrary to what his fans thought.

The girl was Patti Smith.

[struggle4progress]

57. Harry S Truman's middle name was S

Ulysses S. Grant's middle name was Ulysses

[red dog 1]

58. John Lithgow joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in 2016

[red dog 1]

60. When he was very young, Jimi Hendrix carried around a broom wherever he went, even

when he went to school, because he wanted a guitar so bad.

[red dog 1]

61. After Jim Morrison died in 1971, "The Doors" continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973.

[Wolf Frankula]

62. Grace Slick's maiden name is Grace Wing

She went to Finch College with Tricia Nixon.

Wolf

[red dog 1]

63. Beyonce Knowles is worth between $450 million and $500 million

[red dog 1]

64. John Wayne wore a wig.

And he was afraid of horses.

[red dog 1]

65. Paul Robeson was an All-American college football player in both his junior and senior years

Football coach Walter Camp, who invented football's line of scrimage and the system of downs, considered Robeson "the greatest end ever"

[red dog 1]

66. Jay Leno has Mandibular Prognathism, which is the reason for his prominent jaw.

In the book "Leading with My Chin," he says he is aware of surgery that could reset his mandible, but does not want to endure a prolonged healing period with his jaws wired shut.

[red dog 1]

67. Unlike Archie Bunker, Carroll O'Connor was a highly educated and cultured man, and taught

English before he became an actor.

[red dog 1]

68. At age 26, Vincent Van Gogh became a missionary in Belgium.

[red dog 1]

69. It's quite possible that Van Gogh didn't shoot himself

A well-researched biography of van Gogh called:
"Van Gogh: The Life"
by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

In a short chapter at the end of the 900-page book, the authors make the case that
Vincent Van Gogh "was shot by a 16-year-old boy named Rene Secretan, who had a history of tormenting the troubled artist."
The bullet entered Van Gogh's upper abdomen from an oblique angle - not straight on as might be expected from a suicide.

"So you have a couple of teenagers who have a malfunctioning gun, you have a boy who likes to play cowboy, you have three people probably all of whom had too much to drink."

So "accidental homicide" was "far more likely" than suicide.

[red dog 1]

70. Tony Dow, who played Wally on "Leave It To Beaver," had no acting aspirations when he

auditioned for the role.
He was at the studio that day while accompanying a friend who was auditioning for the role of "Johnny Wildlife"

[red dog 1]

73. Elvis Presley had singer Jackie Wilson moved from a substandard convalescent home to

"a more appropriate facility" and paid all the expenses.

[red dog 1]

76. Keith Richards got his first guitar from his maternal grandfather, Gus Dupree, who toured Britain

with a jazz big band "Gus Dupree and His Boys"

His grandfather "teased" the young Richards with a guitar that was on a shelf that Richards couldn't reach at the time.
Finally, Dupree told Richards that if he could reach the guitar, he could have it, which he eventually did.

[red dog 1]

77. Joni Mitchell wrote two songs about her affair with playwright Sam Shepard

[red dog 1]

78. In their early days, Keith Richards & Mick Jagger did mostly old blues songs and didn't write their

own songs much.

At one point, their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, locked Jagger and Richards in a kitchen in order to force them to write a song together, even suggesting what type of song he wanted.
"I want a song with brick walls around it, high windows and no sex."

The result was "As Tears Go By' which Richards & Jagger both agreed was not "suitable" for The Rolling Stones.
Richards said of the song: "What a terrible piece of tripe!"

Oldham subsequently gave the ballad to Marianne Faithful, and it became a hit song for her.

[red dog 1]

79. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have been friends since childhood.

[red dog 1]

80. Actor Jason Lee was once a proffesional skateboarder.

[red dog 1]

81. In 1975, lead vocalist Nick Gelder left the Canadian pub band, "Sweeney Todd" to start a solo career

He was replaced by then 15-year-old Bryan Adams.

[Bucky]

82. Mamie Eisenhower was the first woman to ever ride in a tank

[red dog 1]

83. Harry Truman is the only president since William McKinley who did not earn a college degree.

[red dog 1]

84. Arlo Guthrie was born in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

[jmowreader]

86. Thomas Edison did not electrocute an elephant to "prove" the dangers of AC current

An elephant WAS electrocuted but it wasn't because of Edison's evil intent.

Reality time.

Topsy was the "house elephant" of Coney Island's Luna Park. They got her from Forepaugh Circus, who sold her because she killed a spectator. They eventually realized the elephant was too dangerous to deal with and made plans to euthanize her. Their original idea was to hang the elephant in a public spectacle, and charge admission. The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made two objections: that it was wrong to turn the death of an animal into a public spectacle, and that they didn't think you even could hang an elephant to death. (Thirteen years later, the town of Erwin, Tenn., hanged an elephant from a railway crane. The town is still taking shit from tourists over that one.) Luna Park's Plan B: wrap a rope connected to an overhead steel framework around her neck, feed Topsy a pound of cyanide secreted in carrots, then electrocute her by connecting her feet to the city electric grid. Strangely enough, the SPCA thought this was just fine.

[red dog 1]

87. I'll bet the SPCA today wouldn't think that was "just fine"

Or the Humane Society of the United States, or PETA, or other animal rights groups.

(What a truly horrible and cruel thing to do to a defenseless animal)

[jmowreader]

89. These days, they wouldn't have to do it that way

In theory, they could order a case of euthanasia solution from a veterinary supply company and prepare the mother of all lethal injections. Problem is, then you'd have to deal with four tons of meat that would kill any scavenger that attempted to eat it. They'd be more likely to just haul it to the nearest Army base and have them kill it with a .50-caliber machine gun.

[red dog 1]

90. I wonder what exactly happened when she "killed a spectator" while she was in the circus.

Did the spectator get too close?
Was her trainer mean to her?
Was she always "dangerous"?
Most elephants are not dangerous, except when protecting their babies.

[red dog 1]

91. Donald Sinclair, who was the inspiration for the John Cleese character, Basil Fawlty, was a

Lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy, and served on two British ships that were sunk by the Germans during WW 2.

[red dog 1]

92. After forming a band in high school, Bob Dylan's group performed "Rock & Roll is Here to Stay"

(at the high school talent show) so loud that the principal had to cut the power to the microphone.

[red dog 1]

93. At the age of nine, Steve McQueen left home to live on the streets.

(His new step-father beat him)

[red dog 1]

94. Ringo Starr us worth between $350 million and $400 million.

[red dog 1]

95. According to Cadet Bone Spurs' niece, Mary Trump, in her new book,

"Too Much and Never Enough: How My family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man"
On the night of her father's heart attack at Fred and Mary Trump's mansion, (he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance), Fred & Mary, his parents, just sat in the living room and did nothing.
Meanwhile, his younger brother Shitler and his sister Elizabeth "went to the movies"

(From transcript of Democracy Now, July 10, 2020 interview with David Cay Johnston)

[red dog 1]

96. In 1993, each member of the Monty Python troupe had an asteroid named after them

[red dog 1]

97. Besides being an actor, Robert Mitchum was also a director, author, poet, composer and singer.

[red dog 1]

98. Donald Trump is afraid of sharks.

[red dog 1]

99. Lindsay Lohan is a redhead

[red dog 1]

100. Unlike what was portrayed in "Walk the Line," Johnny Cash was in no way responsible for his older

brother Jack's death from being seriously injured while he was operating a table saw at his job.

[EX500rider]

101. Claudette Colbert was a dirty old lady!

lol, met her backstage at the National Theater in DC in 1979 when she was in a play with Rex Harrison and she invited me to Barbados where she lived, I was 17 or 18, she was 76ish.

[red dog 1]

102. In 2016, Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Katherine Clark began a sit-in demanding House Speaker

Paul Ryan allow a vote on gun safety legislation.

Speaker pro tempore Daniel Webster ordered the House into recess, but Democrats refused to leave the chamber for nearly 26 hours.

[red dog 1]

103. One time, Bob Dylan waited until some friends were away, then went over to their house and

helped himself to nearly 100 of their record albums.

Documented in Martin Scorsese's documentary "No Direction Home" (2005)

[drmeow]

104. Not a little know fact

but I went to high school with Marc Cherry, who created Desperate Housewives. I still have the good luck card he gave me my freshman year for opening night of the first play I got a part in - I had to hit him in the stomach for my part!