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Entertainment Trivia

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Nineteen Canadian actors and actresses have been nominated for Academy Awards during the more than 70-year history of the Oscars. And the winners were Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Marie Dressler, Deanna Durbin (special award), Walter Huston, and Harold Russell.

In 1998, a California court denied actor Dennis Hopper's appeal of a $475,000 defamation verdict won earlier by actor Rip Torn. The award stemmed from Hopper's 1994 appearance on The Tonight Show, when he told talk show host Jay Leno that he rejected Torn for a film role in Easy Rider after Torn pulled a knife on him at a New York restaurant. Jack Nicholson later took the part. Torn sued, claiming that it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife, and he only grabbed it away and pointed it back at him. Torn received $300,000 for lost income and $175,000 for emotional distress. Torn was also entitled to seek punitive damages.

No longer used, the Technicolor imbibition printing process was a three-stripe dye transfer process. According to film critics, other photochemical processes have yet to equal the imbibition process in its richness and longevity of color rendition.

In 1998, director/writer Spike Lee moved his family to Manhattan's tony Upper East Side. For $7.5 million, Lee purchased the turn-of-the-century townhouse once owned by artist Jasper Johns and before that, famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

No matter how popular the show, a serial (or soap opera) on Mexican television runs no longer than just one season.

In 2000 in Afghanistan, Leonardo DiCaprio's hair style caused bedlam. Barbers were arrested for copying the style he wore in the hit film Titanic (1997). Taliban militiamen arrested and jailed twenty-eight barbers in Kabul for promoting anti-Islamic styles. While Titanic was banned in the area, copies were widely available on video.

Not all Broadway musicals have had happy premises or happy endings. Popular stage musicals over the years which featured death or murder include: Carmen Jones (1943), Carousel (1945), Evita (1979), Irma La Douce (1958), Lost in the Stars (1949), Man of La Mancha (1965), Oklahoma! (1943), Oliver! (1960), Perchance to Dream (1945), Porgy and Bess (1935), Redhead (1959), Rose-Marie (1924), Sunset Boulevard (1994), Sweeney Todd (1979), The Ballad of Dr. Crippen (1961), The King and I (1951), and West Side Story (1957).

In 2000, a one-minute commercial on "bad boy" Howard Stern's radio show could cost as much as $7,000, astronomical by radio standards. Stern was well known for his self-proclaimed title of "King of All Media."

In 2000, the Razzie Award for Worst New Star of the Decade went to Pauly Shore for his work in the films Bio-Dome, Encino Man, Jury Duty, and others.

In a 1991 Esquire article, former child actor Danny Bonaduce of The Partridge Family wrote this about kids in film and TV: "Most child actors were lucky enough to get the part in the first place. They cry and complain that now that they are no longer little and cute, Hollywood has no use for them. What we often fail to appreciate is that being little and cute may have been our only skill. Now that we are not so little anymore, and certainly not as cute, some of us may have to face reality, stop whining and get real jobs."

Not all performances of the “Nutcracker” ballet follow the same story line. Characters like the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy are often taken out of the plot so that a romantic story between Clara and the Nutcracker Prince can be played out. In some versions, Clara is called Marie.

Numerous likenesses of Abraham Lincoln were placed through the classic film The Manchurian Candidate, as seen in busts, paintings, and portraits. These alluded to the film's climatic assassination attempt, and in real life, seem to foreshadow the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all named after artists and/or sculptors. However, Donatello does not occur in the same time period as Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

In a 1991 biography, Madonna stated, "All entertainers are exhibitionists, admitted or not."

Of the Village People's six members, five sport mustaches.

In a 1996 interview, actor Walter Matthau related this self-deprecating story about his film career: "Apparently, I shout a lot in most films. I did a film with Elvis Presley, King Creole. And the Hungarian director says to me, 'Matt-ow, you are high-priced actor. Pretend you are low-priced actor. Don't act so much.'"

On April 3, 1933, the Marx Brothers incorporated, choosing Harpo as president.

In a 1996 interview, comedian Jerry Lewis related that he was among the first to spot young Steven Spielberg's talent. He showed Spielberg's short film Amblin to his University of Southern California class, which included students George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola.

On August 28, 1850, Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin was performed for the very first time. The day has since been set aside as “Spare a Grin for Lohengrin Day.”

In all, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson were featured in four novels and 56 short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unquestionably, Holmes is one of the most beloved figures in the history of mystery fiction, and was immortalized in many films, particularly those in the 1930s and 1940s starring Sir Basil Rathbone.

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