Читать книгу The Mammoth Book of Useless Information - Noel Botham - Страница 10

• Dirk Bogarde’s real name was Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde.

• In 1944, Barry Fitzgerald got an Oscar nomination in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories for the same role in Going My Way.

• The first-ever Academy Awards ceremony lasted five minutes, with tickets costing just $10.

• In Zulu (1964), some of the Zulu warriors are clearly wearing the wrist watches they were paid with.

• Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991) is the only animated film ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

• Judy Garland was 17 years old when she appeared in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

• Star Wars (1977) was originally called ‘The Adventures of Luke Starkiller’. The hero’s name was later changed from Starkiller to Skywalker for fear that it sounded too violent.

• The first ever remake was the 1904 re-release of The Great Train Robbery (1903).

• A record 8,552 animals were featured in Around the World in Eighty Days (1956).

• In 1925, MGM ran a contest to find a new name for Lucille LeSueur. They settled on Joan Crawford.

• The shortest-ever Hollywood marriage is the six-hour union of Rudolph Valentino and Jean Acker.

• Laurence Olivier is the only actor to direct himself in an Oscar-winning performance – in Hamlet (1948).

• The only soundtrack to out-gross the movie is that for Superfly (1972).

• Paul Newman was the joint owner of an Indy car racing team.

• The date 29 August 1997 is that of Judgement Day in Terminator 2 (1991).

• The Braveheart sword was auctioned in New York in 2001 for $135,000.

• The Wizard of Oz was released in England with an X certificate.

• MGM’s Irving Thalberg rejected Gone with the Wind (1939), saying ‘No Civil War picture ever made a nickel!’

• As a prop, E.T. was insured for $1.3 million.

• In Star Wars, when the storm troopers break into the control room where R2-D2 and C-3PO are hiding, one of them smacks his head on the door and falls backwards.

• One in twenty American film-goers saw Star Wars more than once in 1977, its opening year.

• Actor Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz in US TV series Happy Days, was considered for the part of Danny Zuko in Grease (1978).

• MGM had a reputation for being the most glamorous film studio, based on its having white telephones.

• Comedian, director, actor and author Billy Crystal has won three Emmy awards for hosting the Oscars.

• In the 1959 film Ben-Hur, nine chariots start the chariot race, but six crash and four finish, making a total of ten.

• In Casablanca (1942), Humphrey Bogart ad-libbed the line ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.’

• The names of the companies responsible for the end of the world in the Terminator movies, Skynet and Cyberdyne Systems, are actually names of real companies.

• In Gladiator (2000), during the battle with the Barbarian Horde, one of the chariots is turned over – revealing a gas cylinder in the back.

• The roar of the T. Rex in Jurassic Park (1993) is a blast from a baby elephant mixed with alligator growls and tiger shrieks.

• George Harrison was president of the George Formby Appreciation Society.

• The difference between animated chipmunks Chip ’n’ Dale is that Chip has one tooth and Dale has two.

• Billie Holiday was known as ‘Lady Day’.

• There are five basic foot positions in ballet.

• Thirteen or more players are needed for a big band.

• The heavy metal band Black Sabbath got their name from a 1963 horror film of the same name starring Boris Karloff.

• Johann Strauss was seven years old when he wrote his first waltz.

• Super-heroine Wonder Woman’s real name is Diana Prince.

• Verdi’s opera Aida was commissioned to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

• Popeye lives on the Island of Sweetwater.

• The Fine Young Cannibals won Best British Group at the 1990 Brit Awards. The band members returned their trophies, however, saying that the awards show was being used to promote Margaret Thatcher.

• Prince’s nickname is ‘His Royal Badness’.

• Johnny Cash recorded albums live in Folsom State Prison and San Quentin State Prison, both in California, but contrary to popular belief was never imprisoned himself.

• The TV series Battlestar Galactica was the subject of lawsuits from 20th Century Fox, as the company alleged it was a ‘steal’ from Star Wars.

• The cartoon strip ‘Peanuts’ has appeared in some 2,600 newspapers in seventy-five countries, and has been translated into twenty-one languages.

• Chopin made his debut as a pianist at the age of eight.

• Billy Batson must say the name of the ancient wizard ‘Shazam’ to transform into Captain Marvel.

• Dolly Parton owns a theme park called Dollywood in the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.

• There are 20,000 television commercials made each year that are aimed exclusively at children in the USA, with 7,000 for sugared breakfast cereals.

• Ancient Chinese artists freely painted scenes of nakedness but would never depict a bare female foot.

• Nearly 80 per cent of Japanese adverts use celebrities, the majority being local stars. Of the foreign celebrities, the most popular are Arnold Schwarzenegger, promoting noodles, and Steven Spielberg, endorsing whiskey.

• The average American sees or hears 560 advertisements a day.

• War photographer Robert Capa’s famous photos of D-Day were selected from only 11 exposures that survived the developing process. Although he had shot four rolls of film, most of the photos were ruined by heat.

• In Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper, a salt cellar near Judas Iscariot is knocked over. This is said to have started the superstition that spilt salt is unlucky.

• The oldest piano still in existence was built in 1720.

• The average medium-sized piano has about 230 strings, each string having about 165lb (75kg) of tension, with the combined pull of all strings equalling approximately 18 tons (18,288kg).

• X-rays of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa reveal there to be three completely different versions of the same subject, all painted by da Vinci, under the final portrait.

• The sculpture by Auguste Rodin that has come to be called The Thinker was not meant to be a profile of a man in thought, but a representation of the poet Dante.

• Because of the precautions taken to prevent photographers from showing the public what occurred on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the first published picture of the venue, in 1907, was made through an empty coat sleeve that concealed a camera.

• The harp’s ancestor is a hunting bow.

• Violins weigh less than 16oz (approximately 448g) yet resist string tension of over 65lb (29kg).

• It took four months to synchronise the three-minute fight scene between live actors and animated skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

• The highest-paid animal actors are bears, which can earn $20,000 a day.

• The real names of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were Frederic Austerlitz Jr and Virginia Katherine McMath respectively.

• Film star Audrey Hepburn was fluent in English, French, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish and Italian, and was a member of the Dutch Resistance in World War II from the age of 15.

• ‘Success is a great deodorant. It takes away all your past smells.’ Elizabeth Taylor

• Leonard Nimoy owned a pet store in the 1960s before playing Mr Spock in Star Trek.

• ‘The duration of a film should not exceed the capacity of the human bladder.’ Alfred Hitchcock

• In the movie Rear Window (1954), Grace Kelly is in a scene arguing with James Stewart, who is sitting in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg. The cast switches from his left leg to his right during the scene.

• 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 Duplex (2003).

• Hollywood star Ben Affleck appeared as an extra – playing a basketball player – in the 1992 surprise hit film Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

• Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova’s father doubled up as a police chief and a basketball professional when she was a child growing up in Decin.

• Rapper NAS’s 30th birthday cake was iced with green marijuana leaves, as a nod to his hemp advocacy.

• Presenters and nominees at the 2003 Emmy Awards received a gift basket worth more than £18,750 featuring speciality phones and a trip to Bora Bora.

• US actress Rena Sofer, who stars in the American version of saucy British sitcom Coupling, is an orthodox rabbi.

• Legendary singer Sir Elton John refuses to play white pianos, which he brands ‘tasteless’. He also dislikes white limousines, but he can tolerate one item in white – refrigerators.

• US rappers Eminem and Wyclef Jean were born on the same day in the same year, 17 October 1972.

• Rocker Dave Matthews and his wife Ashley have matching wedding bands made out of pressed pennies from the years they were born, 1967 and 1973 respectively.

• Flamboyant comic Eddie Izzard practically managed to sell out his Sexie show at New York’s City Centre despite having virtually no advertising or promotion.

• Director Quentin Tarantino was so impressed with the bar from the fictitious House of Blue Leaves, created for his movie Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003) he had it installed in his Hollywood home.

• Funnyman Jim Carrey, comedienne Ellen DeGeneres and Frasier star Jane Leeves were in the same acting class before hitting fame.

• Actress Uma Thurman carried home rocks from the different locations where she filmed Kill Bill for her children Maya, five, and Roan, one.

• Everybody Loves Raymond star Ray Romano went to high school with actress Fran Drescher in New York, and refused to be funny in her presence because he couldn’t stand her nasal laugh.

• Radiohead star Jonny Greenwood has turned composer – he has penned the score for the human life on Earth TV documentary Bodysong.

• Rapper 50 Cent’s £2.6 million mansion in Farmington, Connecticut, is the largest in the entire state. The pad used to belong to Mike Tyson and boasts eighteen bedrooms, thirty-eight bathrooms and a man-made waterfall.

• Dublin kebab restaurant Abrakebabra rewarded Westlife singer Bryan McFadden with a gold card to thank him for being their best customer.

• Rapper Eminem’s parents once fronted a covers group called Daddy Warbucks.

• Movie funnyman Bill Murray owns a little-league baseball team in St Paul, Minnesota, and helps boost attendances by inviting fans to try out the hot tub he has installed in the stand.

• Football-mad rocker Rod Stewart’s fourteen-year-old son with model Rachel Hunter, Liam McAllister Stewart, is named after Scottish international sport hero Gary McAllister.

• Friends star Jennifer Aniston wore underwear with a picture of Brad Pitt on it to the 2003 Emmy Awards.

• Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones’s son Dylan has become so close to his mother’s pal George Clooney that he now refers to the actor as ‘Uncle George’.

• Reportedly, flamboyant rocker Sir Elton John is having a range of candles made for him with specially designed wicks, as he can’t sleep unless he has personally trimmed them before going to bed.

• Staff at supermarket Tesco were so impressed with a special extra-large species of South African avocado that they’ve christened it the ‘J-Lo’ after Jennifer Lopez’s impressive curves.

• US actor Kevin Costner has twice taken on roles after Harrison Ford turned them down – Ford was the original choice to star in Dragonfly (2002) and JFK (1991).

• The name of 4-LOM, one of the bounty hunters seen listening to Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), stands for: For Love Of Money.

• Hollywood comedian Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall. He had an assistant wait in line for him, however.

• Police in Italy had to come to UK supermodel Naomi Campbell’s rescue when a crowd of up to 4,000 men swarmed a beach she was visiting.

• The Russian Imperial Necklace has been loaned out by Joseff jewellers of Hollywood for 1,215 different feature films.

• Titanic (1997) star Leonardo DiCaprio says he practised his losing smile for the Oscars – because he knew he wouldn’t win the Best Actor trophy.

• There is a new television show on a British cable channel called Watching Paint Dry. Viewers watch in real time: gloss, semi-gloss, matt, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favourite.

• The BBC asked to interview reggae legend Bob Marley in 2005 for a documentary – despite the fact he died in 1981. They sent the Bob Marley Foundation an email saying it would involve him ‘spending one or two days with us’.

• Thousands of Britons say they would like Robbie Williams’s song ‘Angels’ played at their funeral.

• In Star Wars, a small pair of metal dice can be seen hanging in the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit as Chewbacca prepares to depart from Mos Eisley. The dice do not appear in subsequent scenes.

• Zeppo Marx (the unfunny one of the Marx Brothers) had a patent for a wrist watch with a heart monitor.

• A schoolgirl asked band Coldplay for their autographs to sell for charity – and got a triple platinum disc worth £4,000.

• Flamenco dancer José Greco took out an insurance policy through Lloyd’s of London against his trousers splitting during a performance.

• Jonathan Davids, lead singer of Korn, played in his high-school bagpipe band.

• Rap artist Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs had his first job aged two when he modelled in an ad for Baskin-Robbins ice-cream shops.

• E.T. (1982) director Steven Spielberg is Drew Barrymore’s godfather. After seeing her nude in Playboy magazine, he sent her a blanket with a note telling her to cover herself up.

• In 1996, 37 per cent of the toys sold in the United States were Star Wars products.

• Speed (1994) star Sandra Bullock has revealed she uses haemorrhoid cream on her face.

• The Monty Python movie The Life of Brian (1979) was banned in Scotland on its release.

• In 1977, the legendary Groucho Marx died three days after Elvis Presley died. Unfortunately, due to the fevered commotion caused by Presley’s unanticipated death, the media paid little attention to the passing of this brilliant comic.

• Men in Black star Will Smith wants female fans to stop asking him to sign their breasts – because he doesn’t want to upset their boyfriends.

• Actor Robert De Niro played the part of the Cowardly Lion in his elementary school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. De Niro was ten at the time.

• ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ was created in 1939, in Chicago, for the Montgomery Ward department stores for a Christmas promotion. The lyrics were written as a poem, ‘Rollo, the Red-nosed Reindeer’, by Robert May. Montgomery Ward liked it but didn’t like the name Rollo, so they changed it to Rudolph. It wasn’t set to music until 1947 and Gene Autry recorded the hit song in 1949.

• The first Michelin Man costume (Bibendum) was worn by none other than Col. Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.

• Former EastEnders star Danniella Westbrook buys her millionaire husband clothes on eBay.

• In Estonia, Teletubbies is known as Teletupsuds.

• Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne’s full name was Alan Alexander Milne.

• Teletubbies is filmed in the open on a site in Warwickshire. The dome, hills and rabbits are real. Some of the grass and flowers are real and some are artificial.

• You cannot walk down the Disney parade route without being on at least one camera.

• Actress Jodie Foster was George Lucas’s second choice to play the part of Princess Leia in Star Wars.

• In 1978, the ‘Hollywood’ sign was in such a state of disrepair (termites had infested the wooden scaffolding that supports the 15m-high letters) that one of the Os had fallen off.

• After fifty events, the UK claims to be the most successful Eurovision nation – Ireland have won more often, with seven victories to the UK’s five, but the UK have finished second an astonishing fifteen times.

• A shocking EastEnders storyline featuring Dennis Rickman having an affair with Peggy Mitchell was pulled at the last minute.

• Nicole Richie has six pet rats and gave her Simple Life co-star Paris Hilton a rat she called ‘Tori Spelling’ for Christmas.

• Ex-Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth cancelled the rest of his US tour after injuring himself performing ‘a very fast, complicated 15th-century samurai move’ during a recent performance.

• In 2004, rocker David Bowie thought he was being stalked by someone dressed as a giant pink rabbit. Bowie noticed the fan at several concerts, but became alarmed when he got on a plane and the bunny was on board.

• The beginning of The Wizard of Oz is black and white because colour was not available at that point. When colour was available, the writers decided to start using it for the scenes in Munchkinland.

• Television presenter Johnny Vaughan says his £60,000 sports car was crashed by his pet bulldog, Harvey. Vaughan had stopped his automatic Maserati 3200GT on the way home from a visit to a vet, thinking Harvey needed the toilet, but, when he got out of the vehicle, Harvey jumped across the seat and hit the gear stick into drive.

• Stars received an unusual gift in their goodie bag at this year’s Oscars – a vacuum cleaner.

• The computer Hal in 2001: Space Odyssey (1968) got his name from the producers of the film. HAL are the letters before IBM (H comes before I, A before B and L before M).

• Napoleon Bonaparte is the historical figure most often portrayed in movies. He has been featured in 194 movies. By comparison, Jesus Christ features in 152 and Abraham Lincoln in 137.

• While on a training schedule and drinking protein drinks to enhance her muscles, Hollywood superstar Halle Berry confessed she couldn’t stop breaking wind as a result of the drinks.

• Chewbacca’s name is inspired by the name of Chebika City, in Tunisia, near the place where the Tatooine scenes in Star Wars where shot.

• Glamour model Jordan once said she fancied a six-in-a-bed romp with five other celebrities – but not the Beckhams.

• In 1965, auditions were held for TV show The Monkees. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson and songwriter Paul Williams.

• American Beauty (1999) star Kevin Spacey’s older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator.

• A BBC children’s presenter was reprimanded for wearing a T-shirt that contained a risqué slogan. Dominic Wood was rapped for wearing a ‘Morning Wood’ T-shirt on his Dick and Dom in da Bungalow show.

• Irish singer Ronan Keating had to abandon a filming session when he was flashed at by streakers in Phuket, Thailand.

• A mouse caused £7,000 worth of damage to BBC television presenter Sue Barker’s Ferrari.

• David Letterman was voted Class Smart Alec at his home-town high school, Broad Ripple High.

• La Boca in southern Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the birthplace of the tango.

• Basic Instinct (1992) star Sharon Stone is a member of MENSA.

• The Millennium Falcon in Star Wars was originally inspired by the shape of a hamburger with an olive on the side.

• Singer Lenny Kravitz kept a marijuana joint he’d shared with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger for a year as a tribute.

• In The Empire Strikes Back, legendary actor Alec Guinness performed all his appearances in six hours.

• The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of £1 billion to reunite.

• In 1962, the Mashed Potato, the Loco-Motion, the Frug, the Monkey and the Funky Chicken were all popular dances.

• Friends star Lisa Kudrow has a degree in biology from Vassar College.

• Hollywood legend Paul Newman was colour-blind.

• Miss Congeniality (2000) star Sandra Bullock is allergic to horses.

• US actress Lara Flynn Boyle is dyslexic.

• 9 ½Weeks Star Kim Basinger has suffered panic attacks during which she cannot leave the house.

• Austin Powers star Mike Myers has an aversion to being touched.

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) star Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns.

• Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) actress Andie MacDowell worked at McDonald’s and Pizza Hut as a teenager.

• US funnyman Steve Martin once worked at Disneyland selling maps and guidebooks.

• Matrix star Keanu Reeves’s father has served time in prison for cocaine possession.

• Cheers actor Woody Harrelson’s father has served time in prison for murder.

• Red Dragon (2002) actor Edward Norton’s father invented the shopping mall.

• ER actress Julianna Margulies’s father wrote the ‘Plop-Plop, Fizz-Fizz’ Alka-Seltzer commercial.

• The great-uncle of Baywatch star David Hasselhoff was Karl Hasselhoff, the inventor of inflatable sheep.

• Singer Eric Clapton owns one-fifth of the planet Mars.

• In the film Forrest Gump (1994), all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed.

• Toto the dog was paid £65 per week while filming The Wizard of Oz.

• Kelsey Grammar sings and plays the piano for the theme song of Frasier.

• The director of 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton, spent millions on training squirrels to crack nuts to recreate the ‘Nut Room’ scene.

• Cinderella’s slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator.

• Pupils at a US school have been offered counselling after a teacher showed them clips of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004).

• A fan of Pop Idol runner-up Gareth Gates missed meeting him when he turned up at her home because her dad had the television on too loud.

• An elderly actor who broke his leg on stage during a performance of Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist in Bosnia had to endure laughs and taunts from the audience who thought his cries of pain were part of the show.

• Pinocchio was made of pine.

• In the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indy escapes with the golden idol in a seaplane with the registration number OB-3PO. This of course refers to Obi-wan and C-3PO from Star Wars.

• The ‘Mexican Hat Dance’ is the official dance of Mexico.

• Professional ballerinas use about twelve pairs of toe shoes per week.

• US singer Macy Gray has stunned fans by performing naked on stage – apart from a pair of designer shoes.

• For Star Wars’ 20th anniversary, the first episode film renovation cost as much as the original movie.

• Former Generation-X singer Billy Idol has revealed he shaves his grey pubic hair.

• Over eight years of Seinfeld, ‘Cosmo’ Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment door 284 times.

• Actress Elizabeth Hurley has twelve piercings in her ears and a pierced nose.

• Buskers in Budapest are to have to take a yearly exam to protect tourists from musically incompetent beggars.

• A rock fan who paid £1,000 for a guitar signed by Queen’s Brian May rubbed off the signature with his sleeve when he played it.

• In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon.

• Prince Charles sent a bottle of whisky to recovering alcoholic Ozzy Osbourne after his quad bike crash.

• When director George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti (1973) soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an ‘R’ and numbered the dialogue starting with a ‘D’. Sound designer Walter Murch would ask George for Reel 2, Dialogue 2 by saying ‘R2D2’. George liked the way that sounded so much he integrated it into another project he was working on.

• Singer Janet Jackson’s boob flash at the Super Bowl has become the most searched event in the history of the Internet.

• It was illegal to sell E.T. dolls in France because there is a law there against selling dolls without human faces.

• DJ Jo Whiley has gone under the knife to have a third nipple removed. She had thought it was a mole until doctors informed her otherwise.

• The Paramount logo contains twenty-two stars.

• Donald Duck lives at 1313 Webfoot Walk, Duckburg, Calisota.

• The small actor hiding inside R2-D2 is named Kenny Baker. He is less than 4ft (1.2m) tall.

• Canadian singer Bryan Adams’s song ‘Everything I Do (I Do It For You)’ is the track most couples pick for the first dance at their weddings.

• By the time an American child finishes primary school he will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television.

• Veteran crooner Tony Christie has landed a £50,000 contract to become the face of Stilton cheese.

• Sections of the under-construction Death Star in Star Wars resemble the San Francisco skyline, the silhouette of a favourite city of George Lucas.

• In 1912, the Archbishop of Paris declared dancing the tango a sin.

• Karmuela Searlel, one of the many Tarzans, was mauled to death on the set by a raging elephant.

• The most popular TV show in Venezuela is the Miss Venezuela Pageant.

• A man who lost £20,000 worth of prizes on ITV1’s Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway crashed his car after leaving the studio.

• Return of the Jedi (1983) was originally titled ‘Revenge of the Jedi’ – but later underwent a title change, because, according to director George Lucas, a Jedi would never take revenge.

• Television presenter Nick Owen was turned away from a football club bar that is named after him. The BBC Midlands Today presenter was trying to get into the Nick Owen bar at Luton Town Football Club, but was refused entry because the bar was full.

• Scenes showing Irish actor Colin Farrell’s penis have been cut from a film he’s made – because it’s too distracting for audiences.

• Jackie Stallone, mother of Rocky star Sylvester, says she believes her dogs possess psychic powers because they predicted George W. Bush would win the US election.