Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
Winston Churchill had a learning disability.
In her first job, actress Anne Heche worked as a dinner theater singer in high school to earn money to help her family.
Actress Sandra Bullock’s mother is a European opera singer.
Courtney Cox was dubbed TVs Hottest Babe by American Playboy Magazine.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes
Actress Debra Winger helped to perform the voice of E.T. in the movie E.T.
Thomas Edison couldn't read until he was twelve years old and had a very difficult time writing even when he was older.
Michael Jackson has won the most grammies with a total of eight.
Don Johnson has been involved in four feature moves as the Music Director.
Marvin Gaye, marketed as Motown’s lover man as he sang soulful romances, often beat the women he loved and forced them into degrading sexual acts. All this ended, after he attacked his father who then shot and killed him in 1984.
As a teenager, actor-writer Matt Damon, earned extra cash by being a sidewalk break-dancer.
Jamie Lee Curtis says plastic surgery makes her look weird and claims it is the worst thing she’s ever done.
Keenan Ivory Wayans is from a family of 11 children. Three brothers, Damon, Marlon, and Shawn, and sister Kim are also in show business.
Hitler ordered tanks to be made in Michigan and told the company to not worry about sending them to Germany, he'd 'pick them up on his way through Detroit.
Actor Richard Gere was considered to play the role of John McClane in the movie Die Hard. Instead, Bruce Willis played the part.
John Holmes, star of 2,500 pornographic movies was the main suspect in the Laurel Canyon murders in the hills above Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. In what is thought to have been a drug-related murder, four people were beaten to death with a steel pipe on July 1, 1981. Authorities were unable to prove Holmes was behind the atrocity. He died in 1988 from AIDS-related complications.
Sarah Bernhardt, regarded as France's greatest actress, was disabled by a knee injury. Though her leg was amputated in 1914, she continued starring on stage until just before her death in 1923.
Actress Kate Winslet, at age 11, appeared in a television cereal commercial frolicking with a honey monster.
Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer is the most aired video in MTV history.
Canadian actress Joanna Gleason the daughter of Monty Hall.
Actress Michelle Pfeiffer was the first choice to play Clarice Starling in the movie Silence of the Lambs. She turned down the role because she found it too scary.
Kim Basinger once threw her modeling portfolio off the Brooklyn Bridge.
George Clooney is terrified of earthquakes.
Albert Einstein had a learning disability and did not speak until the age of three. When he got to school he a very difficult time in math it was very hard for him to express himself through writing.
When Bugs Bunny first appeared in 1935, he was called Happy Rabbit.
Hollywood box office star, Tommy Lee Jones, appeared in the soap opera One Life to Live as the character of Mark Toland, who was involved in blackmail, numerous affairs and was wanted for murder. Jones spent four years on the soap opera.
The Carpenters signature song, We've Only Just Begun, was originally part of a television commercial for a California bank. The music played in the background of a scene in which a newlywed couple had, of course, just begun their lives together. Richard Carpenter saw the commercial and sculpted it into the classic song that we know today.
Actress Liv Tyler first realized she might be singer Steve Tyler’s daughter at the age of 11 when she went to a Steve Tyler concert and realized how much she looked like him.
Actress Brooke Shields’ grandfather, Francis X, was a tennis champion.
Beethoven, the composer, was deaf.
Mel Blanc holds the distinction as the most prolific (most projects) actor ever, with 836 film efforts.
Johnny Mathis’ 1958 album, Johnny’s Greatest Hits, was the first Greatest Hits album ever marketed, spending three weeks at #1 and 490 consecutive weeks on Billboard’s Pop Album chart. That’s almost 9 ½ years!
Singer Mick Jagger was once a porter at a mental hospital.
David Letterman started his TV career as a weekend weathercaster at an Indianapolis station.
98% of today’s popular movies have characters that use drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.
Julia Roberts is a vegetarian.
Chastity Bono’s only movie role was in the 1994 film Bar Girls. In a bit part, she played “Scorp.”
George Washington could barely write and had very poor grammar skills.
Before breaking into films, actor Hugh Grant headed a comedy group called the Jockeys of Norfolk.
In 1979, actor Mel Gibson had an edge for the starring role in Mad Max because just before the audition he had gotten into a fight and his face was badly battered.
Scientology actively helps arrange celebrities' divorces and marriages when Scientology deems them beneficial to Scientology. These include Tom Cruise's divorce from Mimi Rogers and Lisa Marie Presley’s marriage to Michael Jackson. The organization hoped to make Jackson a Scientologist so he would recruit large numbers of youth.
Melanie Griffith's mother is Tippi Hedren, best known for her lead role in the movie The Birds.
When Britney Spears checks into a hotel she uses the name Allota Warmheart so that no-one will recognize her.
Rita Moreno is the first and only entertainer to have received all four of America's top entertainment industry awards including the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony, and the Grammy.
Actor Richard Gere attended the University of Massachusetts on a scholarship for gymnastics.
Michael di Lorenzo who is on New York Under Cover was one of the lead dancers on Michael Jackson's Beat It video.
. Fergie wrote hit ballad “Big Girls Don't Cry” while she was claiming unemployment in the years before she became a member of the Black Eyed Peas.
2. Studio bosses have unwittingly placed a giant 50-foot-tall poster for Matt Damon's latest movie The Bourne Ultimatum on the side of the actor's apartment building in New York City.
3. Author J.K. Rowling is moving on from Harry Potter and has started writing a detective novel.
4. The daughter of late glamour girl Anna Nicole Smith, Dannielynn, will celebrate her first birthday next month at a party in Louisville, Kentucky.
5. Oscar winner Jamie Foxx is taking classical lessons from a Los Angeles Philharmonic cellist for his upcoming movie The Soloist, in which his character masters the instrument. Foxx isn't deaf to the classics--he's a trained pianist.
6. Smooth crooner Wayne Newton is to join the cast of the wannabe ballroom kings and queens in the upcoming season of TV talent show Dancing with the Stars.
7. Hairspray has become the 10th musical to take more than $100 million at the U.S. box office.
8. The stripper poles, barstools and other fittings from the New Jersey club that served as the Bada Bing bar on TV series The Sopranos are to be sold on eBay.
9. Disney's The Lion King has become the ninth longest-running show in Broadway history after playing its 4,098th performance on Aug. 21. That show broke Miss Saigon's top 10 record. The Lion King will officially celebrate its 10th anniversary on Nov. 11.
10. Model-turned-actress Carmen Electra is making a musical comeback, 15 years after her self-titled debut album failed to make the charts.
Hollywood History Facts
The Hollywood Neighborhood was named after the Hollywood Theater which opened on July 17th, 1926 with the silent movie, "More Pay-Less Work".
The first Junior Rose Festival parade was held in June 1918.
The Hollywood Neighborhood was the most popular automobile cruising destination in Oregon.
The trolley operated between 1906 and 1937 in the Hollywood District and was the 3rd largest electrical transport system in the U.S. during the 1930s.
The Banfield Highway was named after T.H. Banfield, a prominent Portland businessman.
Did you know:
1. Previous to 1910 stars were not promoted by name. If you were a fan and wanted to write to one, you'd labeled your mail to "The Butler with the Mustache" or "Girl with Curly Hair."
2. In 1910 a girl named Florence Lawrence was stolen away from her current studio by another one who promised to promote her actual name.
3. By 1912 many stars were being promoted under their actual names and began demanding higher and higher salaries.
4. By 1919 a star named Fatty Arbuckle became the first celebrity in history to get a million dollar per year contract. (DANG! A million bucks in 1919! That's serious cabbage!)
5. Thomas Edison invented motion picture, and most early movie studios were NY-based.
6. Studios had to pay a fee to Edison for the right to make movies, and because movies were in such high demand, many pirate companies emerged and tried to evade the fees. They did it by moving as far away from NY as possible. Hello Hollywood.
Hollywood was initially built in 1923 by Harry Chandler for a cost of $21,000. It was built to advertise the area "Hollywoodland". Built to last for only a year and a half, it lasted for more than eighty years and is still going strong.
In '39, there was a small white dot below the sign. It contained four thousand twenty watt bulbs to light up the structure and was maintained by a caretaker.
A piece of Hollywoodland was sold to the city of Los Angeles, which included the part of land that had the Hollywood sign on it.
In '49, L, A, N &D were removed and H was helped up because it was half toppled over. This form of the sign came to stay.
The sign deteriorated to wither until it fell under its own weight .It was brought back to shape by generous donors in '78 during which for three months because a new sign was being put up. Hugh Hefner held a fundraiser auctioning off each letter of the sign. Alice Cooper sponsored one O. Gene Aunty sponsored an L and Paul Williams a W.
Then in '95, to maintain the sign Hollywood Sign Trust was setup, which was created to keep the Hollywood Sign in top shape.
The Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce became the signs image and licensing manager. The sign itself became the property of the city of Los Angeles.
In 2000, lightning destroyed the signs surveillance booth and Panasonic was called to set up a security system for the sign with microwave triggered motion detectors, external alarms and a close circuit television network.
TITANIC FACTS
Facts About the Real Ship and Events:
Titanic was licensed to carry 3,500 passengers. There were approximately 2,227 aboard for the maiden voyage, including crew.
Titanic and its sister ship, the Olympic, were built at the same time, side by side, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Originally, in 1907 the White Star Line had commissioned the building of three ships known as Olympic, Titanic, and Gigantic. The latter was later changed to Brittanic and launched in 1914, sinking two years later after being commissioned as a hospital ship and striked a mine during World War I.
It cost approximately $7.5 million (1912) to build the Titanic. During the building and launching of the Titanic, two workers were killed.
Originally, the Titanic was to have 32 life boats. Because this many life boats made the ship look cluttered, it was lowered to 20.
The length of the Titanic was approximately 1/6th of a mile long (883 ft).
For publicity purposes, the White Star Line had a model of the Titanic built in 1911.
Prior to arriving at Southampton, the Titanic underwent a short sea trial. For these tests, the lookouts had binoculars. But sometime between these tests and the maiden voyage, the binoculars were misplaced. Had they not been misplaced, the Titanic tragedy may have very well been averted.
The Titanic was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and gym.
Prior to the Titanic leaving Southampton, none of the crew were given lifeboat drills or training.
A First Class ticket on the Titanic would cost you $4,500 in 1912. A Third Class ticket would only cost you $30. Interestingly enough, the Third Class cabins were much nicer than that even the first class of many other ships of the time. Even the Third Class Common Room had a piano, which was known to be a luxury for any ship.
While it is widely known that the gentlemen on Titanic had a Smoking Room, what is lesser known is that the ladies had a reading and writing room.
Prior to the Titanic voyage, Captain Smith called his 40-year career with ships "uneventful". Even so, when Smith was captain of an Olympic voyage (Titanic’s sister ship), the Olympic collided with another ship, the HMS Hawke. Smith was exonerated of any wrong doing in that collision, however, which slightly crippled the Olympic, but did limited damage.
Watch most Titanic movies and they show smoke billowing from all four of Titanic’s funnels (which were so big that you could run two trains through them simultaneously). The problem is that the fourth funnel was only for show with it’s primary use being ventilation for the kitchens.
Titanic was going around 20 knots before hitting the iceberg. That would be the equivalent of 25 miles per hour on land.
Even though Titanic did not have even close to enough life boats for all the passengers, the ship was still within and even exceeded regulations of the time for life boat numbers and capacity. The regulations quickly changed after the Titanic disaster.
Ironically, all but one of Titanic lifeboats were brought back to New York by the Carpathia, after the incident, they all disappeared from the docks in New York. After all, the demand for life-boat was never so great. They were probably repainted, and re-used on other ships.
Titanic was the first ship to use "S.O.S." Prior to "S.O.S." the emergency call was "C.Q.D." (Come Quick, Danger). That fateful night, Titanic used both.
From the time Titanic struck an iceberg, it took two hours and 40 minutes to sink.
While most people believe the final song the Titanic played was "Nearer My God To Thee", stronger evidence points to the final song being "Autumn".
Had the nearby California ship heard Titanic’s distress calls or understood the flares, they could have rescued nearly everyone on board.
The first newspaper reports in New York, Titanic’s destination, stated that all the passengers had been rescued from the sinking ship.
The surviving rate amongst women and children was extremely high (94% First Class, 81% Second Class, 87% Crew), except in Third Class where only 47% of the women and children on board survived.
While James Cameron’s Titanic shows a 17-year old female fictional character being the last one rescued, the truth is that a Titanic crew member, Charles Joughin, was the last one rescued from the freezing waters.
As a result of the Titanic sinking, all ships were required to have enough lifeboats for the amount of passengers on board. Even Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic, had to go in for a refitting, not just of lifeboats, but improvements to areas like the watertight compartments.
The White Star Line never believed that lifeboats for all passengers were mandatory (even after the sinking). They thought the only purpose that lifeboats on the Titanic would serve would be to ferry people to another ship should it become stalled.
The Bow of the Titanic is now buried in over 50-feet of mud, making it near impossible to raise even if someone wanted to.
A new theory, based on sonar studies of the sunken Titanic, states that the Titanic did not sink from a 300-foot gash, but rather by some "pinhole" cracks that allowed it to stay afloat for as long as it did prior to the final plunge at 2:20AM on April 15 1912.
Facts About the Movie:
Fox Baja Studios was mostly constructed in 100 days in order to be ready for the primary filming of Titanic.
Some of the scenes in the movie required a cast of extras number 1,000 people, all prepped for costume, hair, and makeup in a building the size of a football field.
For the movie Titanic, 12 deep sea dives were made to the actual grave of the Titanic. At the time, only five small submarines were capable of diving to the depth of Titanic’s final resting place. It took the sub two and a half hours just to reach the ship (from the surface of the ocean) and two and half hours to get back.
Titanic tied a record for the most Academy Awards ever won by a movie, hauling in 11 Oscars, including one for “Best Picture.”
Titanic is the highest grossing movie of all time, bringing in $1.8 billion dollars from theaters worldwide. To put that in context, the second highest grossing movie of all time is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which brought in $975 million worldwide.
The Titanic set built for the movie was nearly life-sized, coming in at 775 feet. The set was built to perfectly replicate all known interior and exterior details of the actual ship.
The 17 million gallon seawater tank, built for the sinking scenes in Titanic, is the largest shooting tank in the world and the largest ever constructed for a movie.
Louis Armstrong attributes his start in a musical career after being sent to the New Orleans Waif's Home for Boys for firing his father's .38 pistol. There his music teacher took an interest in him and he began his love for music.
Unusual deaths have plagued the cast of the Poltergeist trilogy of films including 12-year-old actress Heather O'Rourke, who died of septic shock. The theory is that the set was cursed by evil.
Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Lucille Ball, the long running star of the popular television show, I Love Lucy, wasn't a natural redhead. Originally she was a brunette.
Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital.
Back in 1956 recording artist Johnny Mathis was forced to make the decision between trying out for the United States Olympic track team or recording his first album for Columbia Records. Obviously, he chose the recording and went on to become the eighth biggest selling album artist of all time.
Actress Cheryl Ladd started her career as the singing voice of the character Melody on the 1970's cartoon Josie and the Pussycats.
James Buchanan was the only bachelor president.
Fatty Arbuckle, popular silent film comedian was charged with the rape and murder of the beautiful, but promiscuous, actress Virginia Rappe. It took three different trials to sort out what really happened at the wild party at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel. Though he was finally acquitted of the crime, his career never recovered from the scandal.
George Clooney owns a pet pig named Max.
Matthew McConaughey sometimes has to stop eating because he claims to get too sexually aroused by the food. He says: "I think food is really sexy."
Vivien Leigh reportedly did not like kissing Clark Gable because she said that he had excessively bad breath.
Walt Disney named Micky Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for a while.
Paul Newman’s first acting job was an appearance on the Television show, The Aldrich Family. Immediately afterwards, he quit the Yale Drama School and landed appearances on numerous television shows.
Even though they broke up 25 years ago, the Beatles continue to sell more records each year than the Rolling Stones.
Julia Roberts is the highest paid actress in film history.
Actress Lisa Kudrow is a pool shark.
Janis Joplin's will called for a party for 200 people at her favorite pub in San Alselmo, California at a cost of $2,500.00.
George Clooney says he will never get married, nor have any children.
Robert Evans and Jerry Lee Lewis top to the list of male celebrities having had the most wives. Both have had six.
Dr. Seuss pronounced his name so it rhymed with "rejoice"
Tom Hanks collects 1940’s typewriters.
David Letterman worked at a local grocery store during his teenage years.
Jennifer Lopez started taking singing and dancing lessons at age 5.
Abraham Lincoln went to school for less than a year. He taught himself to read and write.
Jamie Farr, who played Klinger on M*A*S*H was the only member of the cast that was a soldier in the Korean War.
Actress Cameron Diaz’s childhood nickname was Skeletor, as she has always been skinny.
Tom Cruise once enrolled in a seminary to become a priest but dropped out after only one year.
The longest Oscar acceptance speech was made by Greer Garson for 1924's Mrs. Miniver. It took an hour.
Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" for 1938 was Adolf Hitler.
John F. Kennedy had a sister, Rosemary, who was mentally retarded. She had a lobotomy, an accepted practice at one time. She died in January, 2005 at the age of 86.
The Mills Brothers have recorded the most songs of any artist: about 2,250.
Nicole Kidman is scared of butterflies.
Actor, Randy Quaid was once a regular on the popular television show Saturday Night Live. Starting in show business as the straight man in comedy teams, he often impersonated President Ronald Reagan in the show in the mid 1980’s.
Queen Elizabeth II unveiled a statue of a dung beetle at the London Zoo, but declined to attend the dedication of a children's playground and walkway dedicated to Diana, Princess of Wales
Italian producer Carlo Ponti meet Sophia Loren when he was a judge in a beauty contest. Loren was only 15 years old. She starred in one of his films five years later and they married in 1957 when Sophia was 23.
At age 16 at the 1984 Olympics, was Cuba Gooding Jr.'s first professional job was as a break-dancer for Lionel Richie.
Before her success as a comedienne, Ellen DeGeneres consider becoming a professional golfer.
Ronald Reagan appeared in 60 films from the 1930's to the 1960's
MGM star Spencer Tracy won consecutive Best Actor Oscars in the late 1930’s for his appearances in Captains Courageous in 1937 and Boys Town in 1938. This wouldn't happen again until Tom Hanks won back-to-back Oscars in the 1990s for Philadelphia in 1993 and Forrest Gump in 1994.
George Harrison, with My Sweet Lord, was the first Beatle to have a Number 1 hit single following the group's breakup.
Comedian/actor Billy Crystal portrayed Jodie Dallas, the first openly gay main character on network television on ABC's Soap, which aired from 1977 to 1981.
Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Donald Trump, and Elizabeth Taylor all have their own perfumes or cologne. Lisa Marie Presley vows to never make a Presley perfume. YEAH!!!
Mike Wallace wasn’t always a reporter. He hosted seven TV game shows before beginning his full-time journalism career.
Harpo Marx was fully capable of speaking.
Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
Actress Sharon Stone’s I.Q. is 154 and she is often known to complain that she is “fiercely intelligent.”
Abraham Lincoln went to school for less than a year. He taught himself to read and write.
Penny Marshall was the first woman film director to have a film take in more than $100 million at the box office - she accomplished this with the 1988 film Big.
Rita Hayworth, known as the "Love Goddess," appeared on the cover of Life magazine five times.
Alan Alda’s father, actor Robert Alda, wanted Alan to become a doctor. But Alan, growing up around Vaudeville comedians, developed into a natural clown.
Winston Churchill, one of England's greatest politicians, historians and statesmen, was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Bette Midler, Barry Manilow and many other famous vocalists got their start in a New York City club called The Continental Baths.
Nicole Kidman wore a corset while filming The Portrait of a Lady to take her waist down to 19 inches.
Jim Morrison of the 60's rock group The Doors, was the first rock star to be arrested on stage.
One of Christina Ricci’s schoolmates was actor Macaulay Culkin.
Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national television in 1956. He sang Blue Suede Shoes and Heartbreak Hotel on The Dorsey Brothers Show.
Edgar Allan Poe and LSD advocate Timothy Leary were both kicked out of West Point.
In every show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidit, of the Fantasticks, did, there was at least one song about rain.
Aerosmith's Dude Looks Like a Lady was written about Vince Neil of Motley Crue.
Scientology, the controversial religion of many Hollywood stars, includes such celebrity member as John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, Nicole Kidman, Kelly Preston, Priscilla Presley, and Lisa Presley. Allegedly, many of these celebrities are secretly being given lucrative compensation for endorsing Scientology. Though the church doesn’t like to admit it, Charles Manson was also a member.
The popular silent star Greta Garbo spoke her first Swedish-accented words in the MGM film Anna Christie in 1930.
Before he became an actor, Sam Shepard wrote more than 40 plays, winning 10 Obies and a Pulitzer Prize.
Ronald Reagan was the oldest president to ever leave office at 77 years old.
Hedy Lamarr, once known as “The Most Beautiful Woman In Films,” patented an invention for a radio guiding system for torpedoes which was used in WWII. A similar technology used for cellular devices today.
The youngest actress to be nominated as best actress is Keisha Castle-Hughes who was nominated at just 13 years old.
During the making of the movie Fight Club, actor Brad Pitt chipped his tooth. However, he did not get his tooth capped until after the movie was done filming as he thought it would look better chipped for his character.
Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on the cartoon show Scooby-Doo. Casey Kasem, being a strict vegetarian, also requested that Shaggy follow the same diet on the show.
Felix the Cat is the first cartoon character to ever be made into a balloon for a parade
Zsa Zsa Gabor wins the list of most married female celebrities with a record 9 husbands. Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner tie for second at 8 husbands.
"Weird" Al Yankovic received a Bachelor's degree in Architecture in 1981. He also served as valedictorian of his high school at age 16.
The first inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 were Jimmie Rodgers, Fred Rose and Hank Williams.
In October, 1959 Elizabeth Taylor became the first Hollywood star to receive $1 million for a single picture - for Cleopatra.
Allman Brothers Band members Duane Allman and Berry Oakley were killed in separate motorcycle accidents within only three blocks and one year of each other.
MGM stars Clark Gable and Joan Crawford starred together in the risqué film Dance, Fools, Dance in 1931, the first of eight features that teamed the pair together
Barry Manilow sang, but did not write, the 1976 chart-topping song I Write the Songs.
Brad Pitt posed for a campus calendar in college.
Actor Billy Bob Thornton’s mother, Virginia, is a psychic.
Paris Hilton has often been dubbed as the most “useless” celebrity in America. Unable to claim talent, good deeds, any type of purpose, business acumen, or even a memorable personality, multiple sources bash the beautiful heiress whose only claim to fame is in having made an amateur pornographic video. By some descriptions of the video, she’s not even “good” in bed.
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were all 27 years old when they died.
Hank Patterson, the 80 year old actor, who played Fred Ziffel on Green Acres was deaf. The dialogue coach , Phil Gordon, would lay on the floor and tap him on his leg with a yardstick when it was time for him to deliver his line.
C3P0 is the first character to speak in Star Wars.
The teddy bear was named for Theodore Roosevelt because he refused to shoot a bear cub while hunting.
Some of the shortest celebrity marriages on record include Drew Barrymore and Jeremy Thomas at 30 days, Cher and Gregg Allman at 9 days, Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips at 8 days. But Britney Spears wins the infamous prize for shortest marriage, at just 55 hours.
The title role of the 1971 movie Dirty Harry was originally intended for Frank Sinatra. After he refused, it was offered to John Wayne, and then Paul Newman, before finally being accepted by Clint Eastwood.
Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller made his screen debut as the vine-swinging ape-man in Tarzan, the Ape Man in 1932.
Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen lost an arm in a 1984 auto accident.
Lisa Kudrow has a degree in Sociobiology. She originally planned to be a doctor.
Traci Lords rose from an abused child to the reigning princess of porn while she was underage. One of the most popular porn stars of the time, her career was cut short by a crackdown on child pornography. Undaunted, Lords is one of the few porn stars who has been able to make the transition to mainstream television and movies.
In Meg Ryan's 1981 film debut in Rich and Famous, Candice Bergen played her mother.
As a teenager, Kevin Costner sang in a church choir.
Everyone knows the Beatles were George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr. But there were also two lesser known, previous members of the band: Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe.
Actress Sally Field was paid $4,000 a week for her role in the TV show The Flying Nun.
Jerry Mathers was discovered at age 2 by a department store manager who used Jerry's photo on the store's Christmas calendar. In 1954, at age 2.5 Jerry made his TV debut on The Ed Wynn Show.
Walt Disney's first cartoon character was called Oswald the Rabbit.
Broadway actress Helen Hayes made her screen debut in The Sin of Madelon Claudet in 1931 and won the Best Actress Academy Award for her first talkie.
Pierce Brosnan's first appearance as James Bond was in 1995 Golden Eye.
Gerald Ford was the only president not elected into office.
Billie Jean by Michael Jackson was the first video to air on MTV by a black artist.
Nicole Kidman suffered a broken rib while rehearsing a dance routine for Moulin Rouge.
Before succeeding in the movie industry, director James Cameron was a school bus driver.
Tom Cruise started wearing braces in 2002. He removes them during filming.
Katharine Hepburn made her screen debut in A Bill of Divorcement in 1932.
Many of the sweaters worn by Mr. Rogers on the popular television show, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, were actually knitted by his real mother.
For the blockbuster movie The Terminator, O.J. Simpson was considered to play the role of the Terminator, but producers rejected him as they thought he would not be taken seriously.
In 1968, John Lennon and girlfriend Yoko Ono's album Two Virgins was sold in the United States in a plain brown paper wrapper as on the real cover they both had posed nude.
The first female guest host of Saturday Night Live was actress Candice Bergen.
Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh’s father, Vic Morrow died in a helicopter crash while filming Twilight Zone: The Movie.
The Beach Boys waited 22 years to score their first chart-toping single.
Ozzy Osbourne was trying to bite the head off a bat in concert when the bat decided to bite back.
Barbara Streisand has waxed more gold and platinum albums than any other solo female artist.
Adolf Hitler had some Jewish heritage -- his great great grandmother was a Jewish maid.
The first country artist to sell over 10 million copies of an album was Garth Brooks.
Young platinum blonde star, Jean Harlow, appeared in her first major role in Howard Hughes' World War I aviation epic, Hell's Angels in 1930. Harlow was then signed by MGM in 1932 and soon became a major star.
Between 1931 and 1969 Walt Disney collected thirty-five Oscars.
Curly-topped, dimpled child star Shirley Temple appeared in her first films, an Our Gang type series of shorts titled Baby Burlesks, in 1933.
Actress Jayne Mansfield accidentally exhaled her breast out of her dress during the telecast of the Academy Awards in 1957.
Rock and roll singer, Little Richard, played a transvestite named Lavonne in gay clubs early in his career.
Actor Kurt Russell once played minor league baseball for two years before tearing a shoulder muscle.
When Tom Cruise was seven years old, he was diagnosed as dyslexic. He claims Scientology helped him overcome it.
Christian Brando, Marlon Brando's son, murdered his pregnant, mentally disturbed sister's boyfriend in a drunken rage. Brando and prosecutors reached a plea and Brando pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Dolly Parton was the first woman in country music to have her her own syndicated television show.
Doris Day, the wholesome actress whose movie career was on a down slide by the late Sixties, was approached to play the role of Mrs. Robinson. She turned the part down because she thought the movie was "trashy."
Winona Ryder's childhood home in Elk, California had no electricity.
The Beatles song Dear Prudence was written about Mia Farrow's sister Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles at a religious retreat in India.
Oprah Winfrey's production company Harpo is Oprah spelt backwards.
Musician Eric Clapton grew up thinking his mother was his sister.
American Pie star Jason Biggs spent a year playing bad boy Pete Wendall on the TV soap opera As The World Turns.
Roger Ebert is the only film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Jenna Elfman of Dharma & Greg fame had such bad buck teeth in high school that the other kids all called her Bucky Beaver.
Bela Lugosi was buried in his Dracula cape.
Actress Elizabeth Shoe’s movie debut was as Ralph Macchio’s girlfriend Ali in Karate Kid.
B-actor John Wayne made his first major role debut a western called The Big Trail in 1930. The film was one of the first shot in "Grandeur," Fox's experimental wide-screen 70mm format. Both the film and the new process flopped; it would be nine more years before his star-making appearance in Stagecoach in 1939.
James Doohan, who played Scottie in Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger on his right hand.
Comedian Buddy Hackett was asked to become one of the Three Stooges after Curly Howard suffered a stroke in 1946. He declined, pursuing his own style of comedy.
The early stage names of Sonny and Cher were "Cleo and Caesar".
Lana Turner, glamorous movie queen of the 1940’s had an affair with a small time hood named Johnny Stompanato in the late 1950’s. On the very night that she was nominated to get an Oscar for her role in Peyton Place, she and Stompanato quarreled loudly in the bedroom of her Beverly Hills home. When Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, overheard Stompanato threaten her mother, the young girl grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and ran upstairs. In the struggled, the eight-inch blade severed Stompanato’s aorta and he died in the bedroom. The killing was ruled a justifiable homicide but became one of Hollywood's most talked-about crimes.
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg played a cameo role as the clerk who receives Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi's money at the end of the Blues Brothers.
Sheryl Crow's front two teeth are fake -- she had them knocked out when she tripped on the stage earlier in her career.
At age 21, George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but obviously didn’t make it.
Actress Annette Bening cooked on a charter boat for a year to help pay for college.
While mom Naomi and sister Wynonna tried to make it in the music business, Ashley Judd attended 12 different schools.
While she was growing up, actress Glenn Close’s father operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo. She lived in Africa and attended boarding schools in Switzerland.
Tom Cruise took up acting after losing his place on a high school wrestling team.
Ronald Reagan's first screen credits was the starring role in the 1937 movie Love Is On the Air.
Brad Pitt is banned from entering China because of his role in Seven Years in Tibet.
Julia Roberts lies on her back to have her make-up applied before going onto a film set. She insists it gives her a relaxed look.
1,400 actresses were interviewed for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.
Spade Cooley, a wildly successful country music band leader during the 1940’s and ‘50’s, shocked Hollywood with brutal murder of his wife. In 1961, Spade attacked his estranged wife, beating her to death while their 14-year-old daughter watched. Spade was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, where he died of a heart attack at age 59.
In 1997, Tom Cruise and other big time Hollywood entertainers took out an international newspaper ad denouncing Germany for resorting to the same totalitarian tactics against Scientologists that the country used against the Jews under Hitler during the 1930's.
Actress Demi Moore is totally blind in her left eye after undergoing an operation to correct a squint when she was a child.
Who in the heck is Kevin Federline? Before he married Britney Spears and fathered her baby, no one knew who he was. Having no fame and no money, he was a small time dancer in Britney’s opening act. That man has really come up in the world. Allegedly, he spends Spears’ money like it’s going out of style. Most celebrity watchers predict a quick demise of the marriage, as well as Britney’s potential for one day overtaking the title as the most married celebrity.
The original captain of Star Trek's starship Enterprise was Jeffrey Hunter, and not William Shatner in the pilot episode The Cage which aired in 1964. The cast was quite different from the pilot with the exception of Leonard Nimoy as Spock.
Johnny Depp has a tattoo that reads "Winona Forever."
Actress Sissy Spacek got so into the part of Carrie that she slept with fake pig's blood all over her to ensure continuity.
Besides Star Trek, William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy, James Doohan, and George Takei have all appeared at one time or another on The Twilight Zone.
Actor Greg Kennear worked on the advertising campaign for the movie Space Sluts in the Slammer.
The Beatles have sold more records than anyone else with over a billion worldwide.
Denise Richards' first kiss was with a boy who’d had his front teeth taken out the day before.
Zsa Zsa Gabor is the great aunt of Paris Hilton.
Actor Denzel Washington graduated from Fordham University with a BA in journalism.
Angelina Jolie has a tattoo on her stomach that spells out the Latin words meaning "What Nourishes Me Also Destroys Me."
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was called the "American Pie." Thus the name of the Don McLean song.
The Beatles' first song to hit the UK charts was Love me Do on October 11, 1962.
The first song played on the armed forces radio during Operation Desert Storm was Rock the Casba by The Clash.
Christina Ricci was turned down for two roles opposite Leonardo DiCaprio including Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Rose in Titanic.
Before allowing actress Annette Funicello to appear in all those beach party movies, Walt Disney insisted that she could not be involved in any "suggestive" scenes, nor uncover her navel.
