|
|
Click HERE or Refresh to see more random facts.
- Felix the Cat is the first cartoon character to ever have been made into a balloon for a parade.
- According to one source, Americans buy about 5 million things that are shaped like Mickey Mouse, or have a picture of Mickey Mouse on them, in the course of one day.
- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were all avid collectors and players of marbles. In their day, marbles were called "small bowls" and were as popular with adults as with children.
- Pepin the Short, King of the Franks from 751 to 768 AD was four feet six inches tall. His wife was known as Bertha of the Big Foot.
- George Washington's face was badly scarred from smallpox.
- King Alfonso of Spain (1886 to 1931), was so tone-deaf that he had one man in his employ known as the Anthem Man. This man's duty was to tell the king to stand up whenever the Spanish national anthem was played, because the monarch couldn't recognize it.
- Gerald Ford was one of the members of the Warren Commission appointed to study the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- Bette Davis was born Ruth Elizabeth Davis in Lowell, Massachusetts, on April 5, 1908.
- She passed away from cancer October 6, 1989.
- Bette Davis appeared in more than 100 films between 1931 and 1989. She made her first film called Way Back Home in 1931.
- She was 5' 3 1/2" tall.
- Lucille Ball was her classmate at John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School.
- In the 1950's she suffered osteomyelitis of the jaw and had to have part of her jaw removed.
- Joan Crawford and Davis had feuded for years & during the making of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Bette had a Coca-Cola machine installed on the set due to Joan Crawford's affiliation with Pepsi. (Joan was the widow of Pepsi's CEO.) Joan got her revenge by putting weights in her pockets when Davis had to drag Crawford across the floor during certain scenes.
- On her tombstone is written "She did it the hard way."
- Bette was married four times, her last to actor Gary Merrill which lasted ten years, longer than any of the previous three.
- The only role she didn't get that she wanted in 1939 was Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind." Warners wouldn't loan her to David O. Selznick unless he hired Errol Flynn to play Rhett Butler, which both Selznick and Davis thought was a terrible choice.
- Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
- Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest.
- Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokesmodel.
- Tennis pro Evonne Goolagong's last name means "kangaroo's nose" in Australia's aboriginal language.
- When he was a child, Blaise Pascal once locked himself in his room for several days and would not allow anyone to enter. When he emerged, he had figured out all of Euclid's geometrical propositions totally on his own.
- Meg Ryan turned down plum lead parts in the films "Steel Magnolias," "Pretty Woman," and "Silence of the Lambs." A few years after her rejection of "Silence of the Lambs," which earned Jodie Foster a Best Actress Oscar, Ryan disclosed to Barbara Walters in a television interview that she had felt the role "was dangerous and a little ugly. I felt it was too dark - for me."
- By age 16, Andre the Giant (who's real name is Andre Russimof) was 6'10' tall. He had a rare glandular disorder that made his body continue to grow. Even as he died, his body was still growing.
- The first U.S. president to use a telephone was James Garfield.
- Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky was financed by a wealthy widow for thirteen years. She stipulated that they never meet and they didn't.
- In her entire lifetime, Spain's Queen Isabella (1451-1504) bathed twice.
- Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, second president of the US, and mother of John Quincy Adams, who became the sixth US president in 1825. Her grandson, Charles Adam, also aimed to be president, but failed to get his party's nomination.
- Before he pursued his acting career, Jack Nicholson worked as an office boy in MGM's cartoon department.
- Charles Dickens worked in a shoe polish factory at age 12.
- Marvin Hamlisch became the youngest pupil ever at the Julliard School of Music - at age 7.
- At age 13, Carl Sandburg quit school to work as a day laborer.
- Herman Melville shipped aboard the whaler "Acushnet," at age 21. He later wrote a book from the experience.
- Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to the poor in India, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
- When 7-year-old Shirley Temple’s life was insured with Lloyd’s, the contract stipulated that no benefits would be paid if the child film star met with death or injury while intoxicated.
- Noah Webster was referred to as "the walking question mark" during his student days at Yale.
- Frank Sinatra was once quoted as saying rock 'n' roll was only played by 'cretinous goons'.
- Grover Cleveland, the 24th president of the US, worked briefly as an executioner before becoming president. He hung at least two convicted criminals.
- The music hall entertainer Nosmo King derived his stage name from a 'No Smoking' sign.
|
