ANECDOTES

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In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller, Psycho, the sound effects for the famous shower scene were actually created by repeatedly stabbing a casaba melon.

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O J Simpson was originally cast to play Terminator, but the studio was afraid that no one would buy him as a remorseless killer.

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John and Frances Gunther’s son, Johnny, died in his eighteenth year, and was buried on July 2nd 1947. He was a handsome, tall, fair-haired boy who went to Deerfield Academy where he majored in mathematics and chemistry. For fourteen months he had suffered from a brain tumor for which he had had two operations. But even after the second, he passed his examinations for Columbia. After his first operation, the doctors asked John and Frances about the advisability of telling Johnny what was the matter with him. The doctors thought it wiser to explain, and the older Gunthers agreed. The surgeon went to Johnny alone and told him the full gravity of a brain tumor.

The boy listened carefully, then looked the doctor in the eye and asked, “How shall we break it to my parents?’ “

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Sir Alec Guinness was seldom recognised in public.

In one of the stories he told about himself, Guinness checked his hat and coat at a restaurant and asked for a claim ticket. “It will not be necessary,” the attendant said. Guinness later retrieved his garments, put his hand in the coat pocket and found a slip of paper on which was written, “Bald with glasses.”

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The above reminds me of the story about Fred Astaire when he went for a screen test in the early 1830’s. His evaluation written on his report card was “Can’t act; slightly bald; can dance a little.”

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After watching Cary Grant on a television broadcast, his mother, then in her nineties, reprimanded him for letting his hair get so gray. “It doesn’t bother me,” he replied carelessly.

“Maybe not,” said his mother sternly, “but it bothers me. It makes me seem so old.”

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In the early days of his career, author Erle Stanley Gardner churned out stories for pulp magazines at the rate of 200,000 words a month. As he was paid by the word, the length of the story was more important to him than its quality, and he tended to draw the maximum potential from every incident. His villains, for example, were always killed by the last bullet in the gun. Gardner’s editor once asked him why his heroes were always so careless with their first five shots.

“At three cents a word,” replied Gardner, “every time I say bang in the story I get three cents. If you think I’m going to finish the gun battle while my hero has got fifteen cents’ worth of unexploded ammunition in his gun, you’re nuts.”

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According to legend, while still a prince in Greece, Alexander the Great sought out the famed ascetic Diogenes, who rejected social niceties and slept in a large barrel or clay jar. Alexander approached Diogwenes and asked if there was anything he in his great riches could do for him. “Yes,” Diogenes replied, “stand aside; you’re blocking my sun.”

Alexander was charmed by Diogenes’ refusal to be impressed, stating, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

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Oscar winning film director Christopher Nolan does not have a cell phone or an email account. When Warner Bros. assigned him an office email account, he was unaware until some time later, Nolan commenting that “There were thousands of e-mails in this account – some from quite important people, actually … I had them take it down, so people didn’t think they were getting in touch with me.”

On the topic of cell phones, he said: “It’s not that I’m a luddite and don’t like technology; I’ve just never been interested. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1997, nobody really had cell phones, and I just never went down that path.”

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David Niven speaks of a conversation with Greta Garbo one day in a rainstorm:

“I often wondered if something of [vertigo] had overcome Garbo at the pinnacle of her career, so seeing her before me, carefree and happy, munching away contentedly with the rain cascading off the table, I decided it might be a propitious moment to try and find out.

“ ‘Why did you give up the movies?’ I asked.

“She considered her answer so carefully that I wondered if she had decided to ignore my personal question. At last, almost to herself, she said, ‘I had made enough faces.’ ”

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Zsa Zsa Gabor once appeared on a television program in which guest celebrities attempted to solve viewers’ conjugal problems. The first question came from a young lady: “I’m breaking my engagement to a very wealthy man who has already given me a sable coat, diamonds, a stove, and a Rolls-Royce. What should I do?”

“Give back the stove,” advised Zsa Zsa.

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In December 1948, a Washington, DC, radio station telephoned various ambassadors in the capital, asking what they would like for Christmas. The unedited replies were recorded and broadcast in a special program the following week. “Peace throughout the world,” proclaimed the French ambassador. “Freedom for all people enslaved by imperialism,” demanded the Russian ambassador. “Well, it’s very kind of you to ask,” came the polite voice of Sir Oliver Shewell Franks, “I’d quite like a box of crystallised fruit.”