Desi Arnaz's father was mayor of Santiago, Cuba, and his mother the daughter of one of the founders of Bacardi Rum. His family went into exile after the coup that brought Fulgencio Batista to power in 1934. The family made its new home in Miami, Florida. Desi's best friend in high school -- Al Capone, Jr.
Despite being 24 years old, Michael J. Fox starred as high school student Marty McFly in the hit science-fiction comedy Back to the Future (1985).
Dick Clark of American Bandstand fame is the host of the CBS trivia game show "Winning Lines". Clark is also the producer of rival network Fox's game show "Greed".
Diminutive actor Felix Silla played the hirsute role of Cousin Itt on the bizarre 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. Years later, he was Twiki on television’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and also was one of the countless Ewoks in Return of the Jedi.
Dimitri Tiomkin wrote High Noon's prize-winning musical score. Asked in an interview how a Russian-born concert pianist could write Western music, Tiomkin had a quick reply. "Did Strauss," he inquired hotly, "have to be an Olympic swimmer to write The Blue Danube?"
Director and screenwriter Cecil B. DeMille was one of the first film pioneers who quickly realized that how a movie looked could be a powerful magnet to draw larger audiences into theatres. He capitalized on audiences' thirst for extravagance and luxury, as evidenced in his The King of Kings, The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, and The Greatest Show on Earth. As a result, DeMille sold millions of tickets worldwide.
Director John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) was made on a shoestring budget, so there was no money for elaborate masks and costumes. That's why they went to a costume store and bought a William Shatner mask, from the movie The Devil's Rain. They then painted it white, and teased out the hair.
Dooley Wilson appeared as Sam in the movie "Casablanca." Dooley was a drummer — not a pianist in real life. The man who really played the piano in Casablanca was a Warner Brothers' staff musician who was at a piano off-camera during the filming.
During a 1996 People magazine interview, director Michael Cimino was asked about the 1980 film Heaven's Gate, one of the biggest money-losing films in Hollywood history. On how the debacle affected his life, Cimino responded, "It was really a great trauma, as everyone knows. Since then, I've been unable to make any movie that I've wanted to make. I've been making the best of what is available."
During a stage revival of the musical The King and I, star Yul Brynner reportedly acted like a prima donna, making frustrating demands of the cast and crew. One incident that escalated the friction was the London Palladium's backstage pay phone. Brynner said the phone's ringing woke him during naps, so he requested a private phone be installed in his newly-redecorated dressing room (which cost $65,000 to make-over). He then had the public phone disconnected. Reportedly, cast members retaliated by pouring glue on his dressing room doorknob.
During an interview on the history of Los Angeles, screenwriter Robert Towne said he nearly named his blockbuster film Water and Power instead of Chinatown. The film, which starred Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, was a critical accounting of southern California's earlier days of water and the ruthless men who controlled its distribution.
During an interview, Oscar-winning film director Billy Wilder observed: "Writers are vastly underrated and underpaid. It is totally impossible to make a great picture out of a lousy script; it is impossible, on the other hand for a mediocre director to screw up a great script altogether."
During the 1930s and 1940s, posters showing movie star Marlene Dietrich's legs were banned from the Paris Metro because they were considered too distracting to riders.
During the 1950s, the average budget for a Three Stooges' film was about $16,000. This included the salaries of the three stars. In the late 1990s, with the resurgence of interest in Moe, Larry, and Curly, Columbia Pictures easily earned more than that with just one TV showing of the same film in only one major U.S. city.
During the 1960s, cast members from The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres, and Gomer Pyle served as spokespeople for Jell-O instant pudding in nationally-televised commercials.
During the Depression, "B" movies were coupled with "A" movies to produce a double-billing at U.S. theaters. This was a desperate effort of film studio heads to draw in budget-conscience audiences with meager allowances for entertainment. By the 1940s, Columbia Pictures and MGM had perfected the "B" flick to the point that it was difficult to tell it from an "A" picture. "B" movies were profitable, and Universal Pictures turned out an average of one B-film each week. Most B-films took from 7 days to 3 weeks (including Saturdays) to make. Scant time was spent on rehearsals or costume fittings. Work was plentiful for actors in the 1940s and 1950s, and appearing in ten or more B-films a year was not unusual. Few got rich as A-film actors did, but acting in B-films provided a comfortable and dependable living.
During the filming of the epic The Bible, director John Huston lamented, "I don't know how God managed. I'm having a terrible time."
During the musical number "I Have Confidence," the real Maria von Trapp makes a brief cameo appearance in the film The Sound of Music. She is in the background as Julie Andrews (in the role of Maria) walks through an archway during the song.
During World War II, Hollywood actors and actresses who did not enter the armed forces found themselves serving in military movies. In 1942 alone, 80 films touched on war
Each generation has its runaway hits in television and film. TV's "I Love Lucy" was the Number 1 show on the air in the 1950's, and the merchandising of hundreds of "Lucy-inspired" trinkets and toys were in tremendous demand. At the height of the show's popularity, a person could buy official "I Love Lucy" aprons and Lucy dolls. Thirty-two thousand white, heart-bedecked aprons and 85,000 dolls were snatched up by fans in one 30-day period in late 1952. The following year, a Little Ricky doll debuted in department and toy stores, and their manufacturer couldn’t keep up with thousands of reorders. Neither could an overworked furniture manufacturer who sold a unprecedented 1 million "I Love Lucy" bedroom suites in just 90 days
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