Many critics consider Meryl Streep our greatest living actress, and millions of movie fans don’t disagree. Her versatility is unparalleled: In The Iron Lady she embodies stern and sour British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but in Mamma Mia she perfectly portrays a carefree singing hippie on a Greek island paradise. Here are eight interesting facts about one of America’s most illustrious actresses.
Mary Louise Streep made her first appearance in Summit, New Jersey, on June 22, 1949. Her father, business executive Harry William Streep Jr., quickly nicknamed her “Meryl,” a unique moniker she hated as a child. “I haaaaaaaated my name. I wanted to be named Patty or Cathy,” she has said.
Meryl Streep Was a Cheerleader and Homecoming Queen
Streep started acting at the age of 6, portraying the Virgin Mary in her family’s living room. And more than half a century before she played an off-key opera wannabe in Florence Foster Jenkins, Streep studied opera and trained with a voice coach before abandoning singing in favor of cheerleading, smoking, and boys. She made the cheerleading squad, and was elected homecoming queen at Bernards High School in Bernardsville, New Jersey.
After receiving a B.A. in drama and costume design at prestigious Vassar College, Streep acted in summer stock and then earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. She returned to her alma mater to deliver the commencement speech to Vassar’s graduates in 1983. Streep has also received numerous honorary degrees, including doctorates from Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Indiana University.
Meryl Streep Was Engaged to “The Godfather’s” Fredo
After graduating from Yale in 1975, the aspiring actress followed the time-honored path to New York City. She made her Broadway debut that year in Trelawney of the Wells. In 1976 she starred opposite The Godfather actor John Cazale in Measure for Measure at New York’s Shakespeare in the Park. Cazale only appeared in five films — and all five of them received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture. The two actors were engaged to be married, but the relationship ended when Cazale died of cancer in 1978.
Streep worked with Cazale on his last film, Vietnam war drama The Deer Hunter, and that performance earned her the first of a record-breaking 21 Oscar nominations. While she didn’t take home the Best Supporting Actress award, she’s since carried home three golden statues, for performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982), and The Iron Lady (2011). She reportedly forgot her first statue in the bathroom, just after winning the award.
Meryl Streep received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998 and may be a designated GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), but one prize she doesn’t have is the designation known as EGOT — an acronym given to those who have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. The actress (who reportedly has lost out on only five roles after auditioning) has Emmys (three) and Oscars (three), but only nominations when it comes to Grammys (six) and Tonys (one). (She also has a great number of Golden Globes and a bushel of BAFTAs.) So Streep is an EO, but not an EGOT.
Credit: Bryan Bedder/ Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images
She Keeps It All in the Family
While her performances and awards are very public, Meryl Streep’s private life stays mostly … private. She was married for more than 45 years to American sculptor Don Gummer, whom she met through her brother (Streep and Gummer confirmed their separation in October 2023). The couple share four children: musician Henry Wolfe and actresses Mamie, Grace, and Louisa. Streep owns homes in Connecticut and California and — apart from awards ceremonies and charity galas — has rarely appeared in the tabloids.
Cynthia Barnes has written for the Boston Globe, National Geographic, the Toronto Star and the Discoverer. After loving life in Bangkok, she happily calls Colorado home.
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The catalog of social graces is constantly growing and changing to reflect the world we live in. Yet for every self-explanatory etiquette principle (silence your phone at the movies), there’s another seemingly arbitrary one (men should escort women on the left). While these “rules” may seem old-fashioned and are often broken in today’s society, they were once the guidelines for proper manners. We took the courtesy of demystifying six of them.
Seasoned etiquette aficionados often express dismay at the way people pass salt and pepper shakers. Regardless of which condiment a dining companion requests, in America, the polite response is to pass both shakers at the same time. This action conveniences everyone at the table. Think of salt and pepper as a pair of spouses or siblings — it becomes less likely that one will go missing if they stay together. Keeping the shakers in tandem also prevents a person from passing the wrong shaker. In addition, there’s a chance the recipient’s neighbor may need both ingredients, which are now within easy reach. Hence a rhyme that invokes two Blue’s Clues characters: “Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper always travel around the table together!” Politeness also dictates that shakers be placed on the table, not into outstretched hands. The thinking is occasionally linked to the superstition that two people grasping a salt shaker will eventually argue.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book of Ecclesiastes includes the line, “Be ashamed of breaking an oath or a covenant, and of stretching your elbow at dinner.” Many have translated this directive as a warning to keep elbows off the table at all times. Table manners were originally introduced to prevent mealtime fights, with the knife and fork establishing each eater’s boundary lines. Today, the elbow rule stops people from slouching or accidentally leaning their arms into food dishes. Moreover, when breaking bread with a group, placing your elbows on the table blocks those on either side of you from making eye contact.
Why You Shouldn’t Drink When You Are Being Toasted To
If a loved one or co-worker raises a glass in your honor, break the instinct of joining in on the toast. Since you’re being fêted, etiquette experts would perceive lifting your glass as a vain gesture, like giving applause to your own performance. Instead, practice the role of grateful recipient: Refrain from touching your glass and punctuate the toast with a “thank you.” Another common toast faux pas is clinking glasses to make the good tidings official. Knocking drinks with a tableful of people can require awkward stretching, causing spills or even broken glassware. A more dignified solution? Just hold those glasses aloft.
When assisting theme park guests, Disney employees are trained to point with two conjoined fingers, index and middle. While the act reportedly doubles as a nod to Walt Disney’s smoking, the larger explanation is that standard pointing is considered rude in numerous cultures — especially if aimed at another person. A perception that dates back to Shakespeare’s time, pointing brings unwanted attention to the recipient, implying that they’ve committed a wrong. Repeated pointing in Japan can even instigate hostility. Figurative “finger-pointing” is defined as “making explicit and often unfair accusations of blame.” In situations where you feel compelled to point, it is kinder to use an open palm, flight attendant-style.
Why You Shouldn’t Respond to “Thank You” With “No Problem”
There’s a common perception that by answering an expression of gratitude with “no problem,” you’re hinting that the effort exerted was or almost became an inconvenience. (Ditto “no worries,” “don’t mention it,” or “it was nothing.”) “Thank you” neither pleads for forgiveness nor merits a brush-off. “No problem” isn’t necessarily the latter, though. Despite the negative phrasing, it’s generally understood by Gen-Xers and Millennials as an attempt to be humble. In addition, the traditional response to “thank you” is understated in several languages — from Mandarin (mei guanxi or “it’s OK”) to German (keine ursache or “never mind”) — and the advent of texting has made the global vernacular less formal. But at least when speaking, etiquette authorities encourage people to try replies such as “you’re welcome,” “my pleasure,” and “of course.”
Why You Should Open a Car Door With the Hand That’s Furthest Away
Cycling accounts for more than 25% of daily travel in the Netherlands; thus, Dutch citizens tend to be more conscientious toward bike riders than Americans. Yet we can all learn from their example with the “Dutch Reach,” a subtle move for anyone seated on the left-hand side of a car. Upon parking, Dutch drivers are instructed to use their right hands when opening their doors, even though their left hands are closer. This forces individuals to fully turn their upper bodies toward their exit, increasing the probability that they will spot anyone approaching in a bike lane. Some local drivers even tie ribbons to their door handles as reminders, and the Dutch Reach Project employs the slogan, “Reach, Swivel, Look, Open” — good safety advice regardless of your seat placement.
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Interesting Facts writers have been seen in Popular Mechanics, Mental Floss, A+E Networks, and more. They’re fascinated by history, science, food, culture, and the world around them.
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“His ears are too big and he looks like an ape.” So said Twentieth Century-Fox founder Darryl F. Zanuck of the young actor who would become “the King of Hollywood” and appear in more than 60 films. Zanuck was initially no fan, but he eventually changed his mind — and that wasn’t the only time William Clark Gable confounded his critics. Screen idol Gary Cooper turned down a role that Gable accepted, stating, “[That film] is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me.” That film, by the way, was Gone With the Wind, and Gable’s portrayal of Rhett Butler is still legendary. Here are six more interesting facts about one of Hollywood’s most iconic leading men.
Clark Gable’s Birth Certificate Said He Was a Girl
The birth certificate that showed Clark Gable as a girl must have come as a surprise to his parents, after their son arrived on February 1, 1901, in the small town of Cadiz, Ohio. It’s not clear what led to the error. His mother, Adeline Gable (née Hershelman), died while Clark was still an infant, and his father (also named William) soon remarried. Gable’s stepmother, Jennie Dunlap, encouraged his love of music and literature.
Although he aspired to be an actor from the age of 17, Gable held a number of jobs before “making it” in Hollywood. In addition to helping his father farm, he worked in a tire factory, as a wildcatter — his father had also worked on oil rigs — and as a lumberjack and salesman before beginning to land film roles. The studios played up Gable’s rugged appeal, leading one magazine to describe him as a “lumberjack in evening clothes.”
Literally. Gable’s first wife, theater manager Josephine Dillon, was 17 years his senior and his agent, helping him control his rather high-pitched voice and improving his acting. After he became leading man material, Gable’s affairs were legendary. He lured Joan Crawford away from her actor husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; fathered a secret child with Loretta Young; and carried on with Lana Turner while married to “the love of his life,” Carole Lombard, who was killed in a plane crash in 1942 (the pair had married in 1939). Gable also had a son, John Clark Gable, with his fifth (and last) wife, Kay Williams.
Like many actors of his day, Gable did his part in World War II. Although above draft age, the actor enlisted as a private before attending Officers’ Candidate School, and then trained as an aerial gunner. Against the wishes of his studio (which wanted him in a noncombat role), Gable flew missions over Europe, producing footage for the film Combat America. He was relieved from active duty in 1944.
The German dictator was well known for his obsession with movies, and was a big fan of American and British films. During World War II, the Führer even concocted a plot to kidnap the Gone With the Wind star. A $5,000 reward was offered to anyone who could capture Gable and deliver him — unharmed — to Germany. Whether Hitler wanted him for propaganda or other purposes, it’s probably safe to say that the actor did not return the admiration.
He was known for his famous smile, but periodontal disease robbed Gable of his own teeth as a young adult. While filming MGM’s Dancing Lady in 1933, he was hospitalized for pyorrhea, a gum infection that eventually required the removal of his teeth. It’s rumored that the shooting delay and subsequent cost overruns led to him being lent to Columbia Pictures for It Happened One Night, for which Gable won an Academy Award. The actor carried on with a full set of dentures… and halitosis. “Kissing Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind was not that exciting,” Vivian Leigh once said. “His dentures smelled something awful.” (Gable’s smoking probably didn’t help.)
Cynthia Barnes
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Cynthia Barnes has written for the Boston Globe, National Geographic, the Toronto Star and the Discoverer. After loving life in Bangkok, she happily calls Colorado home.
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The Woodstock Music & Art Festival, billed as “3 Days of Music and Peace,” began on August 15, 1969, on a dairy farm in the town of Bethel in New York’s Catskill Mountains. The festival defied expectations, drawing somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 people (far more than the 50,000 anticipated to attend). It turned into a history-making celebration of counter-culture, defining the free-wheeling, peace-loving spirit of 1960s hippie culture. Here are 10 facts you might not know about arguably the most influential music festival in history.
Woodstock’s organizers — Miami Music Festival alum Michael Lang, Capitol Records executive Artie Kornfeld, and entrepreneurs John Roberts and Joel Rosenman — searched various upstate New York locations, originally trying to put the event in the town of Woodstock and then the town of Saugerties before settling on the town of Wallkill. But residents objected, and the board passed an ordinance prohibiting gatherings over 5,000 people and then officially banning the festival on July 15, leaving the organizers scrambling to find a new venue just weeks before the event.
Sullivan County dairy farmer Max Yasgur stepped in and rented out his 600-acre farm for the event. “I never expected this festival to be this big,” he said at the time. “But if the generation gap is to be closed, we older people have to do more than we have done.” Yasgur, who died in 1973 at the age of 53, put the property — located in Bethel, about 60 miles from Woodstock — up for sale in 1971. He’s also remembered for stepping in and providing milk, cheese, and butter when the festival ran out of food, as well as free water, while others had been charging for it. “How can anyone ask for money for water?” Yasgur said at the time.
About 100,000 tickets ranging from $6 for a day to $18 for the weekend had been sold ahead of time, but so many people arrived early that organizers didn’t have time to build the ticket booths, among other things. “You do everything you can to get the gates and the fences finished, but you have your priorities,” Lang told The Telegraph. “People are coming, and you need to be able to feed them, and take care of them, and give them a show. So you have to prioritize.”
Credit: Tucker Ranson/ Archive Photos via Getty Images
Creedence Clearwater Revival Was the First Band to Sign On
The legendary lineup of 32 acts who played in addition to Hendrix included Joan Baez, Santana, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Janis Joplin, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. But the first one to officially sign on was Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Once Creedence signed, everyone else jumped in line and all the other big acts came on,” the band's drummer Doug Clifford said. “The next acts to sign on the dotted line were Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, and Ten Years After.”
Not all musicians were eager to join the festival, including The Beatles, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and Joni Mitchell. Scheduling conflicts were the culprit for Zeppelin (they played in New Jersey’s Asbury Park that weekend) and The Stones (frontman Mick Jagger was shooting a movie in Australia), while, unbeknownst at the time, John Lennon was about to quit The Beatles the following month. As for The Doors? “We were stupid and turned it down,” guitarist Robby Krieger later admitted.
A Young Martin Scorsese Helped Direct a Woodstock Documentary
Just a few days before the concert, Lang and Kornfeld made a deal with director Michael Wadleigh to film a documentary. Among the team that Wadleigh — who had followed President Richard Nixon on his campaign trail in 1968 — put together was recent NYU film school graduate Martin Scorsese as the assistant director. “At one point, Marty tried to take a nap in a pup tent under the stage,” cameraman Hart Perry told Rolling Stone. “He knocked over the pole, and the whole thing collapsed. He had claustrophobia and was screaming for somebody to help him. But he wasn’t Martin Scorsese yet, he was just some schmuck from Little Italy.” The Warner Bros. documentary — simply titled Woodstock — went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Few police officers were assigned to Woodstock, but when the masses started descending early, organizers thought it could turn into one of “greatest human tragedies in modern times,” so a combination of local authorities, health care professionals, and the U.S. Army were gathered to step in. Also part of the contingency was the Hog Farm, a New Mexico-based hippie commune led by Hugh Romney, who was better known as Wavy Gravy. Among their strategies to help keep the peace was to threaten those causing trouble by dousing soda water or throwing custard pies. But they also ended up stepping in and helped cook and serve food.
An unexpected aspect the festival was noted for was its sound system, despite the outside setting. Audio engineer Bill Hanley came up with a method that took advantage of the shape of the field. “We built two speaker towers, each of which had two levels containing its own speaker cluster,” he told Front of House Magazine. “The dense crowd conveniently absorbed some of the sound.” Now known as the “Woodstock Sound System,” it was “the largest, most advanced, and expensive concert sound system ever constructed” because of its “quality, clarity, and intelligibility,” according to the mag.
Mother Nature unleashed her own excitement, pouring rain on the outdoor festivities, particularly when The Grateful Dead took the stage on Saturday night — and an internal delay didn’t help either. “It was raining toads when we played,” guitarist Bob Weir told Rolling Stone. “The rain was part of our nightmare. The other part was our sound man, who decided that the ground situation on the stage was all wrong. It took him about two hours to change it, which held up the show.” By the time they played, the mix proved to be dangerous. “Touching my guitar and the microphone was nearly fatal,” Weir said. “There was a great big blue spark about the size of a baseball, and I got lifted off my feet and sent back eight or 10 feet to my amplifier."
Credit: Jack Robinson/ Archive Photos via Getty Images
Joni Mitchell Wasn’t Actually at Woodstock
Joni Mitchell may be known for her song “Woodstock,” with lyrics like “By the time we got to Woodstock / We were half a million strong,” but she didn’t actually attend. Originally on the Sunday lineup, she had a TV appearance in New York City on Monday and her team was afraid she wouldn’t make it back in time. She wrote the tune in a New York City hotel room based on what fellow singer-songwriter Graham Nash, who she was dating at the time, told her as well as footage she saw; she performed it at the Big Sur Folk Festival later that year. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young went on to release a version of Mitchell’s song.
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Whether it’s Marilyn Monroe or Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman or Humphrey Bogart, the classic faces of the silver screen are familiar and beloved — but how much do you really know about them? For example, which starlet’s first job involved building drones? What famously raven-haired performer was really a blond? Which leading man apologized for his first film role? Read on for some of our favorite facts about the sparkling stars of yesteryear.
Elvis Never Performed Outside of the U.S. and Canada
Despite being beloved around the world, Elvis Presley never performed outside of the United States and Canada. The prevailing (though never officially confirmed) belief is that the King of Rock ’n’ Roll had to turn down every offer he received to play abroad because his controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was an undocumented immigrant from the Netherlands who didn’t have a passport and feared he would be denied reentry to the U.S. if he left. (If Elvis ever had a fear of flying, he evidently got over it, as he purchased and customized several planes over the years.) Other than three 1957 shows in Canada (in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver, B.C.), Elvis only ever performed stateside.
Humphrey Bogart Never Says “Play It Again, Sam” in “Casablanca”
Despite being one of the film’s most oft-quoted lines, the words “Play it again, Sam” are never said in Casablanca. It’s been called “probably the most misquoted line in cinema history,” not least because it’s usually attributed to the wrong character. The 1942 film’s protagonist, conflicted Morocco nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), is often imagined as the one saying the line, even though the closest equivalent — “Play it, Sam” — is actually said by Rick’s endangered ex, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). (Rick does later instruct Sam, the piano player in question, to “play it,” however.) For all that, Casablanca, a noir classic set in WWII, still has many other memorable lines, including six on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes list, the most of any film. (That includes “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”)
Credit: Art Zelin/ Archive Photos via Getty Images
Paul Newman Publicly Apologized for His First Film Role
While many actors dream of landing their first featured film role, the experience was a nightmare for Paul Newman. Tapped to star in The Silver Chalice (1954) as a Greek silversmith who fashions a cup to commemorate Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, the Hollywood newcomer butted heads with director Victor Saville and never found a comfort zone in matters ranging from delivering dialogue to riding a camel. He later called it “the worst film to be made in the entirety of the 1950s.” While Newman eventually overcame this early career hurdle, the rising star was aghast to learn that a Los Angeles television station was airing The Silver Chalice in 1963. As a result, according to Shawn Levy’s Paul Newman: A Life, Newman took out ads in two local papers begging people not to watch the movie. (The ads backfired, as curious viewers tuned in to see what all the fuss was about.)
Judy Garland’s Stage Name Came From a Hoagy Carmichael Song
Judy’s legal name was Frances Ethel Gumm, after her parents, Frank and Ethel. The couple had expected a boy after having two girls, and planned to name him Frank Jr., so Frances was both a compromise and an inside joke. In everyday life, she was simply known as “Baby” or “Baby Gumm.”
The last name “Garland” came about while she and her sisters, then known as the Gumm Sisters, were touring. ”Gumm Sisters” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and a popular comedian emceeing a series of performances came up with “Garland Sisters.”
“Judy,” however, didn’t come until later, and for a time she was known professionally as Frances Garland. The first name came along after one of her older sisters decided to go by a stage name. Sick of both “Baby” and “Frances,” she picked her own fresh moniker from Hoagy Carmichael’s latest hit, “Judy.” She was especially drawn to one line: “If she seems a saint but you find that she ain’t, that’s Judy.” She encountered some family resistance to the new name, but refused to respond to anything but “Judy” as soon as she’d made her decision, so it stuck pretty quickly.
Marilyn Monroe Had a Close Friendship With Singer Ella Fitzgerald
At the recommendation of a music coach, Marilyn Monroe spent hours listening to Ella Fitzgerald recordings while trying to train her own voice. After Monroe first saw Fitzgerald perform live in 1954, the pair rapidly became friends, sharing a common bond through their life experiences. A year later, when the “First Lady of Song” had trouble booking a gig at legendary L.A. nightclub Mocambo — the owners thought Fitzgerald wasn’t svelte and glamorous enough to draw a crowd — Monroe used her star power to step in.
“She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night,” recalled Fitzgerald. “She told him — and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status — that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again.”
The Rat Pack is best known as a group of entertainers including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford. They frequently teamed up both on- and off-screen, most famously in the 1960 heist film Ocean’s 11 and as regulars on the Las Vegas circuit. But the Rat Pack most of us know was actually the second iteration of the group.
The first Rat Pack formed in the 1950s around actor Humphrey Bogart, whose wife, actress Lauren Bacall, came up with the name after a wild weekend in Vegas with friends including Sinatra, Judy Garland, and David Niven. The story goes that Bacall took one look at the disheveled and sleep-deprived crew and told them they looked like a “rat pack.” The sobriquet stuck, and a Hollywood legend was born. After Bogie’s death in 1957, Sinatra took over the group and added some of his close friends as members, though they reportedly referred to themselves as “the Clan” or “the Summit.”
Bette Davis Failed Multiple Hollywood Screen Tests
In 1930, a scout for Universal Studios saw Bette Davis in Solid South and invited her to screen test. It didn’t go very well. Davis arrived in Hollywood with her mother, but the studio representative sent to meet her at the train left because he claimed not to see anyone who looked like an actress. A movie executive watched one screen test and announced she had no sex appeal. In others, she was rejected because of crooked teeth. She even once recalled fleeing the room, screaming, after seeing herself on-screen. Universal eventually offered her a contract, but she was given small, forgettable roles. Davis was preparing to return to New York when Warner Bros. offered her a contract — and then she was on her way to stardom.
Miss Piggy’s Name Is Short for “Pigathius,” From the Greek Meaning “River of Passion”
Not unlike Madonna, Lady Gaga, and other world-famous divas, Miss Piggy has never deigned to use her full name among us mere mortals. If she had, more of us might know that her first name is actually short for “Pigathius,” which comes from a Greek word supposedly meaning “river of passion.” Given her tumultuous love affair with a certain green frog, it’s more than fitting. Her last name, meanwhile, is Lee, which Muppets creator Jim Henson referenced in a 1974 note describing her as “delicate and lovely” (accurate).
If you’re ever looking for a counterexample to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous claim that “there are no second acts in American lives,” look no further than Shirley Temple. The beloved child star, who was Hollywood’s No. 1 box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, announced her retirement from film at the age of 22 in 1950. It was anyone’s guess what Temple would do next, but it’s unlikely that many predicted her eventual diplomatic career. After she ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 1967, President Nixon appointed her as a delegate to the 24th United Nations General Assembly in 1969, and President Ford named her the ambassador to Ghana in 1974.
Temple’s foreign service didn’t end there. In 1989, just before the Velvet Revolution, President George H.W. Bush made her ambassador to the former Czechoslovakia, a post she held until 1992, as the country became a parliamentary democracy. According to Norman Eisen, who held the same role from 2011 to 2014, the “sunny confidence and optimism” that made Temple a movie star also helped her “really infuse the United States’ role — as our representative here, in the Velvet Revolution — with that good cheer and that hope.”
Liza Minnelli Lost Out on the “Cabaret” Stage Role That Later Won Her an Oscar
Liza Minnelli is perhaps best known for the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, but when the musical first opened on Broadway in 1966, she didn’t have the part. Though she auditioned for the role, Minnelli was rejected in favor of actress Jill Haworth due to a perceived lack of experience. While it may be natural to feel pessimistic in the wake of a rejection, Minnelli claims her optimism remained undeterred, stating that she “knew [she’d] get the movie for some reason.”
When producers were casting for the 1972 film version, Minnelli was working in Paris and invited one of them to a show at which she performed the titular song, “Cabaret.” Though she initially struggled to convince the producers to hire her, that performance ultimately won her the part. The film version of Cabaret, directed by Bob Fosse, earned Minnelli her first and only Academy Award. She was 27 at the time.
Elizabeth Taylor Had “Violet” Eyes and a Double Set of Eyelashes
In 1970, when Hollywood Reporter film critic Todd McCarthy first met Taylor, he was stopped in his tracks by “a pair of eyes unlike any I’ve ever beheld, before or since; deep violet eyes of a sort withheld from ordinary mortals.”
However, while Taylor’s eyes are typically credited as violet, they were more likely a deep blue with an uncommon amount of melanin in the irises, which made them appear violet when she wore specific colors. This inspired her to often wear black eyeliner with blue, purple, or dark brown eyeshadow to bring out her trademark color.
Framing those famous eyes were Taylor’s double row of eyelashes, known as distichiasis, the result of a mutation of FOXC2, a gene responsible for embryonic tissue development. While this heavy, second set of eyelashes can cause complications for some, they quickly became a notable part of Taylor’s beauty at a young age. When she was filming Lassie Come Home (1943) at the age of 9, Taylor was accused of wearing too much mascara, and when production members tried to clean it off, they realized the dark shade was her own eyelashes. As Taylor’s Lassie co-star Roddy McDowall remembered, “Who has double eyelashes except a girl who was absolutely born to be on the big screen?”
Lucille Ball Was One of the First Women to Appear Pregnant on Network TV
Pregnant characters are commonplace now, but in the 1950s, Lucy’s television pregnancy was groundbreaking. Both CBS and the show’s sponsor, Philip Morris, were so concerned about airing this seemingly suggestive idea that they had the production studio work with various religious organizations to determine how to most sensitively express this supposedly controversial plot point. Ultimately, the producers agreed to avoid the word “pregnant,” going with the euphemism “expecting” (and similar terms) instead. The then-radical six-episode pregnancy arc paid off, as over 44 million people tuned in on January 19, 1953, to see Lucy welcome her son Little Ricky. The episode, titled “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” aired the same day Ball actually gave birth by planned cesarean section to Desi Arnaz Jr.
Bobby-soxers weren’t the only ones who followed Frank Sinatra’s every move. The FBI kept a massive file on him, detailing his life and relationships for four decades. They were especially interested in his alleged ties to people involved with organized crime. Sinatra reportedly had a friendship with Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana, and was also said to have received gifts from Joseph and Charles Fischetti, who ran an illegal gambling operation. The file even includes an account of him making an appearance in Atlantic City during the wedding of Philadelphia mob boss Angelo Bruno’s daughter.
Sinatra wasn’t exactly shy about his social interactions with mafiosi — they owned many of the establishments where he performed, after all — but he steadfastly denied having any close personal or business connections to the mob, and resented the many rumors implying otherwise. He famously took issue with The Godfather because of the perception that the character Johnny Fontane, a singer with ties to organized crime families, was based on him. According to author Mario Puzo, who wrote the novel that inspired the film, he and Sinatra got into an argument over the insinuation at a restaurant near Beverly Hills.
Sinatra’s FBI file wasn’t just a record of his own comings and goings, of course. It also included threats made against him by would-be extortioners and blackmailers, as well as details of the bureau’s investigation into the 1963 kidnapping of his son Frank Sinatra Jr. (Frank Jr. was rescued, and all three kidnappers were caught and convicted.)
Elvis Was a Natural Blond and Used Shoe Polish as Hair Dye
You’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of Elvis’ natural blond hairstyle, as only one known photo exists, hanging on the wall of Graceland. From a young age, Elvis dyed his hair jet black with shoe polish — which was cheaper than hair dye — in an effort to make his blue eyes stand out. Elvis also began applying eyeliner to further accentuate his eyes around 1960, a trick he learned from actor Tony Curtis. As Elvis rose to fame, he continued to dye his hair to maintain his image, though he eventually shifted from shoe polish to a patented hair dye combination of Miss Clairol 51D and Black Velvet/Mink Brown by Paramount. Elvis later enlisted the services of Larry Geller, a beloved stylist in West Hollywood who also worked with stars such as Marlon Brando and Steve McQueen.
MGM Made Judy Garland Wear Nose-Altering Accessories
Judy Garland rose to superstardom with her doe-eyed look, but in her days at MGM, she was considered, however unfairly, a kind of ugly duckling compared to the more willowy starlets in the MGM stable. In her earlier years, when the priority was preserving her childlike look, she carried rubber discs in a small carrying case, along with caps for her teeth. She’d insert the discs in her nose to give it a more upturned look. Because the studio wanted to keep her looking as young as possible, her breasts were also often bound.
Once she was a little older and starring in less-childlike roles, such as Esther Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis, she started wearing a canvas and metal corset that required two people on either side to pull the strings tight. (It’s a wonder she was still able to sing.)
Humphrey Bogart famously plays chess in Casablanca, and the scenes may have been written into the script to please him. In real life, as a young man, he was said to hustle players for dimes and quarters in New York parks and at Coney Island. Bogart was also a chess tournament director, and active in a Hollywood chess club. In a June 1945 interview, he said that he played chess almost daily, and described the game as one of his main interests.
Monroe’s late teens coincided with World War II, and at age 18, she started working 10 hours a day for a company called Radioplane, which manufactured small, unmanned aircraft used to drop explosives. Her job was inspecting the aircraft parachutes and spraying them with fire retardant.
It was here at the drone factory that Monroe got her start in modeling — a career she hadn’t considered before. A photographer with the United States Army was assigned to take photos of women in war production (inspired by “Rosie the Riveter”), and one of those photos — of a smiling Monroe holding a propeller — was published in an Army magazine in 1945. Soon, Monroe became a sought-after model and pin-up girl, and eventually that success led to a screen test with 20th Century Fox.
Elizabeth Taylor Was the First Actress To Earn $1 Million
Elizabeth Taylor was the first actress to earn more than $1 million for a single movie, for 1963’s Cleopatra. When the movie was first planned, her $1 million salary was half of the original budget. As the film’s budget boomed to $31 million, Taylor’s paycheck did as well — to $7 million (around $54 million in 2022).
From her youth, Taylor had been a bold negotiator and wasn’t afraid to ask for what she was worth or to end a negotiation that wasn’t going her way. Originally, she had little interest in starring in Cleopatra, which inspired her bold pay request of $1 million and 10% of the box-office gross, thinking there was no chance 20th Century Fox would agree to her terms. To everyone’s surprise, they did. As she later said, “If someone is dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I’m certainly not dumb enough to turn it down.”
A Low Asking Price Led to Clint Eastwood’s First Big-Screen Starring Role
In hindsight, it seems logical that Clint Eastwood made the winning leap from cattle driver Rowdy Yates on Rawhide to the (mostly) nameless gunslinger of A Fistful of Dollars (1964), but success was no sure thing at the time. For starters, Eastwood received the opportunity largely because he was cheaper than other prominent American actors — not always a great sign for the overall viability of a project. There was also the matter of communication issues, as Italian director Sergio Leone spoke little English. And then there was the lawsuit filed by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who accused Leone of copying his samurai movie Yojimbo (1961). Despite the production troubles, Fistful and its sequels For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) became overseas hits before finally reaching American shores in 1967, paving the way for Eastwood’s big-screen career to take off.
Paul Newman Earned Two Oscar Nominations for One Character
Paul Newman is one of just six actors to receive Academy Award nominations for playing the same character in two separate films. He first earned a nod for the role of ambitious pool shark “Fast” Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961), and later won his first and only competitive Oscar after returning as an aging Nelson in The Color of Money (1986). The other five actors with this distinction are: Bing Crosby, as Father Chuck O’Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945); Peter O’Toole, as King Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968); Al Pacino, as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974); Cate Blanchett, as Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007); and Sylvester Stallone, as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015).
As the first female head of a major Hollywood studio — Desilu Productions, which she formed with husband Desi Arnaz but took over by herself after their divorce in 1960 — Lucille Ball helped produce some of the most influential television shows of all time. She was particularly instrumental in getting Star Trek on the air. There was apparently some trepidation by Desilu board members when it came to the budget of the ambitious series, leaving Ball to personally finance not one but two pilots of the science fiction mainstay. One studio accountant, Edwin “Ed” Holly, even claimed: “If it were not for Lucy, there would be no Star Trek today.” Lucille Ball truly allowed the show to live long and prosper.
Grace Kelly’s Romance With Prince Rainier Got Off to a Rocky Start
According to Donald Spoto’s High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly, Kelly was in France to attend the 1955 Cannes Film Festival when she agreed to travel to Monaco to meet Prince Rainier III (part of a scheme put together by the magazine Paris-Match for a photo story). However, the prince was delayed by a commitment elsewhere, and by the time he rushed back to his palace an hour late, his fed-up guest was ready to leave. When Rainier asked if she wanted to tour the palace, Kelly coolly replied that she’d already done so while waiting. They subsequently relaxed while walking through the palace garden, their brief meeting giving rise to an epistolary friendship that turned romantic, and eventually led to their “wedding of the century” in April 1956.
Clint Eastwood Became Dirty Harry After Other Stars Passed on the Part
Other than his Man with No Name antihero from the Dollars Trilogy, Clint Eastwood is perhaps best known for portraying “Dirty Harry” Callahan across five films. But that famous role also nearly went to someone else, as Robert Mitchum and Steve McQueen were reportedly among the big-name stars who rejected the offer. According to Eastwood, it was Paul Newman who first tipped off a studio executive that the erstwhile spaghetti Western star would be a good fit for the part. After Frank Sinatra pulled out of the movie, Dirty Harry finally moved ahead with the man who would become its iconic, magnum-toting lead.
It wasn’t quite Jackie Chan territory, but Katharine Hepburn insisted on doing her own stunts to preserve the authenticity of her shoots. Yes, that’s her dangling from Grant’s grasp off the scaffold at the end of Bringing Up Baby, and that’s her tumbling into an unsanitary Venetian canal in Summertime (1955). Furthermore, advancing years did little to dampen her enthusiasm for such exertion: She endured horseback rides across treacherous terrain for Rooster Cogburn (1975), less than a year after undergoing hip surgery, and insisted on doing her own dives into frigid waters for On Golden Pond (1981), a few weeks after having an operation for a separated shoulder.
Grace Kelly Enjoyed a Running Gag With Alec Guinness
Grace Kelly and Alec Guinness engaged in a running gag that lasted more than two decades after their time together on the prank-filled set of The Swan (1956). After Kelly relentlessly teased her co-star about an overzealous fan, Guinness retaliated by having a concierge slip a tomahawk into her hotel bed. A few years later, Guinness was surprised to return to his London home and discover the same tomahawk nestled between his bedsheets. He later enlisted English actor John Westbrook to redeliver the item while Kelly and Westbrook toured the U.S. for a poetry reading during the 1970s, but her highness got the last laugh when Guinness again found the tomahawk in his Beverly Hills hotel bed in 1979.
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Some words and letters are such a familiar part of everyday life that they almost fade into the background. From markings on your electronics, food packaging, and clothes to the words you see on water bottles and inside elevators, here are the meanings behind some mysterious letters you might see every day.
The letters “UL” can be found on many things, including electric plugs, heaters, smoke alarms, and personal flotation devices. UL stands for “Underwriters Laboratories,” a company that’s been conducting product safety testing for more than a century. If an item meets UL’s safety standards, it earns the right to bear a “UL” mark.
The man who founded what became UL, William Henry Merrill Jr., got the idea to set up an electrical testing laboratory after being dispatched to check fire risks at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The Underwriters Electrical Bureau was founded in 1894, and Underwriters Laboratories was incorporated in 1901. UL began offering its label service to certify products it had tested in 1906.
You may have spotted a “CE” on eyeglass frames, mobile phones (or their packaging), appliances, electronics, and more. CE stands for the French phrase “Conformité Européenne,” which means “European compliance.” The CE designation indicates an item has met the standards to be sold in the European Economic Area. The certification process ensures that products in specific categories adhere to safety, health, and environmental standards. Placing CE on things isn’t required outside of Europe, but plenty of manufacturers leave the CE mark on items that are sold both in Europe and elsewhere.
Mobile phones, earbuds, television stations, and other communication devices operate on radio frequencies. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission checks to make sure these devices can function with no harmful interference. The FCC also ensures a device won’t overexpose users to radiofrequency (RF) energy, which is a type of electromagnetic radiation.
After obtaining FCC approval, manufacturers will place an FCC logo on the device and/or its packaging. At first glance, this logo can appear as if it contains just an F and a C next to each other, but a closer look will reveal there’s a second C hidden inside the first one.
Credit: Steve Russell/ Toronto Star via Getty Images
OTIS
Maybe you study the insides of elevators to have something to do during your ascent or descent, or perhaps you get nervous and read every bit of elevator signage in search of reassurance it’s working properly. If so, you’ve likely seen “OTIS” emblazoned on an elevator’s floor, control panel, or elsewhere. This isn’t an acronym or abbreviation — OTIS refers to the Otis Elevator Company.
In the 1830s and ’40s, passengers regularly died in elevators when lifting cables broke. Inventor Elisha Graves Otis created an elevator safety brake, and in 1853, showed off his invention at New York City’s Crystal Palace Convention by ascending on an open platform, cutting the hoisting rope with an ax, and not falling thanks to the safety brake. Four years later, E.V. Haughwout and Company’s department store in Manhattan became the first business to use elevators equipped with this special brake.
After the Otis Elevator Company was founded in 1853 and Otis patented his invention in 1861, Otis elevators helped transform cities. Today, the company continues to make elevators with the name “Otis” displayed inside. The safety mechanisms in present-day elevators even stick to the same basic engineering principles that Otis originally used.
People who don’t keep kosher may have seen the letter “U” inside a circle on some food items and not have known this indicated the item was processed according to Jewish dietary laws. This letter “U” is actually inside an “O,” not a circle; “OU” stands for “Orthodox Union Kosher.” Some products may be marked with “OU-D” to indicate that they contain dairy or were made on equipment that handled dairy. “OU-P” tells people an item is kosher for Passover.
“OU” isn’t the only way to signal that a food item is Kosher. A “K” inside a circle or a star are other well-known marks for kosher foods.
You can find the letters “PET” on many plastic bottles, including most of the ones that hold beverages. PET is an acronym for the plastic “polyethylene terephthalate,” which is part of the polyester family of polymers.
Above the word “PET” on these bottles, you’ll also usually see a 1 in a triangle made up of arrows. This is a recycling code. PET bottles can successfully be recycled, so make sure to do this instead of throwing yours away.
USB is such a familiar term that you may not be aware it’s an acronym for “universal serial bus.” USB really did live up to the “universal” part of its name. Before USB, serial ports, parallel ports, and more were used to connect external devices like keyboards, mice, and printers. USB made it possible for these different devices to hook up to computers via the same connection.
USB technology was developed by a group of American businesses, notably Intel, and first became available in 1996. When Apple’s iMac came out in 1998, it was a USB-only computer. USB is still popular today, as are USB-C ports on phones, tablets, and certain computers.
Zippers are part of our daily lives, whether on our jeans, coats, or bags, and as long as they work, they usually don’t receive intense scrutiny. However, a closer look at various zippers will likely reveal that many of them are inscribed with the letters “YKK.”
YKK stands for “Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha,” which roughly translates to “Yoshida Manufacturing Shareholding Company.” This company, founded in 1934, uses its own brass, polyester, threads, and even zipper machines. By controlling so much of the process, YKK can deliver high-quality zippers. The company also sells these zippers at reasonable prices. The combination has made YKK a go-to in the garment industry — and explains why half of the world’s zippers have YKK zippers.
QR codes are those pixelated-looking black-and-white squares that you can scan with your phone for more information about something, whether it’s an advertisement or a piece of art. They’ve become ubiquitous, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic popularized contactless menus and payment. However, they’re very rarely called by their full name.
“QR” actually stands for “quick response,” and the codes can be used to share far more than a link. If you wanted to, you could share an entire book with one code. The technology was first developed by a Toyota subsidiary in the mid-’90s as a way to track auto parts, but QR codes found new life as a way to direct smartphone users from a physical space to a digital one. They used to require a special reader, but nowadays, most smartphone camera apps will read QR codes on their own.
You’ve probably noticed a UPC while out shopping, especially if you use self-checkout. It stands for “universal product code.” UPCs have two parts, both of which communicate information to a computer: a barcode, and a 12-digit product code called a Global Trade Item Number, or GTIN.
A product’s GTIN includes a company code for the manufacturer and a product code for the item itself. Manufacturers have to buy each individual code from GS1, a nonprofit industry group that tracks everything. Because all GTIN numbers are 12 digits, companies with a lot of products need shorter company codes to accommodate larger product numbers.
You’ll most commonly see “SKU” in online shopping carts, but occasionally someone will use it as a synonym for “product.” It stands for “stock keeping unit,” and like UPCs, it keeps track of products for sale. Unlike UPCs, which are universal across different companies, a SKU refers to an inventory item internally within one company. Because it’s for internal tracking and not outside purchases, it can be whatever the company wants, but unique SKUs help sellers be more precise about what products they’re stocking, selling, and shipping. In your shopping cart, a SKU identifies the exact color, size, and model of what you’re buying.
If you’re a crafter or handyperson, you’ve probably come across PVC pipe. Typically, it’s used in water systems from home plumbing to city utilities, but clever DIYers have used it for everything from storage to cosplay, because it’s waterproof, sturdy, durable, and cheap. PVC stands for “polyvinyl chloride.” One of the most-used plastics in the world, it’s also found in insulation, clothing, hoses, toys, and pretty much anywhere that plastic is found.
You’ve probably seen the terms “VR” and “AR” in arcades, science fiction, and buzzy new technology products. VR stands for “virtual reality,” and refers to an environment that’s entirely simulated. Some gamers use VR headsets to immerse themselves fully in a video game with a full, 360-degree view of a digital world. The tech can also be used to view specially made videos and photography.
AR, or “augmented reality,” adds simulated digital elements to the actual world around you. If you’ve played Pokemon Go — which superimposes Pokemon characters and other game elements on top of your surroundings using a smartphone camera — you’ve experienced an augmented reality application. Live translation apps, which use a smartphone camera to translate text in real time, are another example of AR.
GIF images — that’s Graphics Interchange Format — have been used for more than three decades, although these days they’re mostly used for brief animations. The format was invented in 1987 by the CompuServe internet service provider, and once upon a time it was often used for still images. Because it uses limited colors, it kept file sizes low, which was especially critical when internet speeds were much slower, and it allowed images to have transparent elements, which helped with web design. Most computers and connections can handle bigger file sizes now, and higher-quality formats allow transparency without being prohibitively large — but even today, nothing handles a short clip quite like a GIF.
You may have seen “PU” a lot recently to describe PU leather, a material used to create clothing, accessories, and upholstery. PU stands for polyurethane, a kind of artificial material commonly used in spandex. You also might have seen this acronym in PU foam, which has wide applications from crafting to home repair.
PU leather is a more specific kind of “pleather” or faux leather, which can also be made out of PVC — although PU leather is generally considered to be higher quality and more eco-friendly. It can be vegan, but sometimes includes elements of real leather, too.
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When you think of U.S. college traditions, alcohol-fueled antics and Animal House tropes may come to mind, but that wouldn’t be giving college students nearly enough credit. Whether it’s honoring a specific chemical element, chucking broken pianos off rooftops, or celebrating a particularly significant prime number, students have found creative ways over the years to forget the stresses of academic life. These stories showcase 12 of the strangest college traditions found on campuses throughout the United States.
Every year in March, first-year students at the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning build a massive dragon to wage battle against a phoenix designed by the school’s College of Engineering students. Known as Dragon Day, the tradition dates back to 1901, when a student at the Ithaca, New York, school named Willard Dickerman Straight proposed a day to celebrate the architecture college. Through the decades, the event evolved alongside a growing rivalry between the architecture and the engineering students, until it eventually took the shape of today’s Dragon Day. It used to be that after the ensuing scuffle between the dragon and phoenix in the Arts Quad, the dragon was burned to a crisp, but this post-battle tradition has since been abandoned.
Piano Drop (M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts)
A 1972 debate in M.I.T.’s Baker House dormitory started over a simple question: “What are we going to do with this broken piano?” Someone suggested throwing the piano out the window, but student guidelines at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university forbade throwing anything out of windows. However, an astute M.I.T. student named Charlie Bruno pointed out that the guidelines didn’t say anything about the roof. Fifty years later, M.I.T. students still muscle a broken, irreparable piano up to the roof of Baker House each year and watch it plunge to the ground.
A skeleton named Dooley, known as the “Lord of Misrule,” serves as the spirit of Atlanta’s Emory University. The tradition dates back to an October 1899 article in Emory’s monthly literary journal titled “Reflections of a Skeleton,” written from the humorous perspective of a medical skeleton housed in the science room. In 1909, the skeleton appeared in another article in the same literary journal, and took on the name Dooley. Today, Emory celebrates its resident spirit with a weeklong celebration. On one unspecified day during Dooley’s Week each spring, a person dressed as Dooley (or is it Dooley himself?) and accompanied by a coterie of guards dismisses classes for the day, and students celebrate with activities including games and concerts.
A long-standing tradition at Pennsylvania’s Swarthmore College states that once a year the “temporal boundary between the present and 65 million years ago weakens, letting loose vicious pterodactyls and a slew of countless other monsters.” Students — armed with foam bats — defend the campus in a campus-wide LARP (live action role-playing) game of unparalleled chaos and weirdness. The university’s Psi Phi Club organizes the monster showdown to encourage students to stop worrying about grades for a night and instead take up arms against supposed pterodactyl invaders.
Shoe Tree (Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky)
On the campus of Kentucky’s Murray State University grows an unusual tree. Its trunk is completely obscured by hundreds of pairs of shoes, but, strangely, the “pairs” don’t match. In a sign of their devotion, couples who met on campus each leave behind one of their shoes, with the date of their anniversary written on the soles, to form a new “pair.” Some alumni couples who procreate return to the shoe tree to add a third baby shoe to their small footwear tribute. The tradition dates to around 1965, and the current tree is the third tree to stand on the spot — the first was struck by lightning and burned down, and the second was removed due to falling limbs.
The Healy Howl (Georgetown University, Washington D.C.)
Several key scenes in the classic 1973 horror film The Exorcist were shot on Georgetown’s campus, so to celebrate the school’s small part in film history, the film is screened on Copley lawn each year on the night before Halloween. Once the credits begin rolling around midnight, students at the Washington, D.C., college walk to nearby Healy Hall and howl at the moon in an attempt to scare off any ghosts and ghouls from campus.
Seventh Annual Nitrogen Day (Reed College, Portland, Oregon)
Nitrogen is the most abundant gas in Earth’s atmosphere, but it’s often overlooked because of its mostly inert properties — you can’t see, smell, or taste it. To give nitrogen its proper due, students at Portland, Oregon’s Reed College hosted the first Nitrogen Day in 1992, which featured grilled hotdogs (because of the nitrates), a ceremony called “In Nitrogen We Trust,” lots of liquid nitrogen freezing, and musical performances from a group by the name Just Say N to O Band. Despite being celebrated for two decades, each year’s event is labeled the Seventh Annual Nitrogen Day due to the element’s venerable position on the periodic table.
Great Midwest Trivia Contest (Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin)
The “great” qualifier is not hyperbole: Started in 1966, the Great Midwest Trivia Contest is a 50-hour-long trivia marathon held during the last weekend of January at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and broadcast by the student radio station WLFM. The last question of the previous year’s contest becomes the first question the following year — which helps earn it the nickname of the “world’s longest-running trivia contest.” Because teams have access to the internet, the questions are usually quite difficult. For example, past questions have included: “Translate the phrase ‘Bon matin, j’aime le jeu’ from French to Furbish” (as in the language of Furbys) or “What is the binary code for the 13th letter when it is translated?”
Dating back to 1898, “The Pull” is one of the oldest college traditions in the U.S. It’s exactly what it sounds like: an epic game of tug-of-war. Every fall, freshmen at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, face off against sophomores in a grueling game held across the Black River. Each team — composed of 18 “pullers,” who lay in pits and pull with all their might, and 18 “moralers,” who provide moral support and direction as the team’s “eyes” from above the pits — fight for every inch of rope. Most matches last upwards of three hours. However, the 1956 pull lasted a record-breakingly short two minutes and 40 seconds.
Van Wickle Gates (Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island)
Dedicated in 1902, Brown University’s Van Wickle Gates stand as a proud symbol of the Providence, Rhode Island, campus and its 250 years of history. However, the gates themselves are only open three days each year. At the beginning of fall and spring semesters, the gates open inward towards campus to admit new students, and during end-of-year commencement ceremonies, the gates open outward. According to longstanding tradition, students who walk through the gates before their graduation are doomed to drop out. The university’s marching band members, who must walk through the gates for every commencement ceremony, attempt to avoid this fate by crossing as many limbs as possible or by hopping backwards when passing through the gate.
Each April, students stage a “Liquid Latex” show at Brandeis University, a liberal arts college west of Boston. The students apply copious amounts of liquid latex paint to mostly nude models in various intricate designs and choreograph dances. It’s one of the largest liquid latex performances outside of Brazil’s Carnival celebrations — and it’s just risqué enough to earn an honorable mention in Playboy magazine.
Number 47 (Pomona College, Claremont, California)
Pomona College has a strange relationship with the number 47. In the summer of 1964, science students at the Claremont, California, college were conducting experiments about the random occurrence of certain numbers in nature. Because 47 is such a large prime number, they used it as a control to see how frequently other numbers occurred. Strangely, the student began seeing the number 47 everywhere: The college is located on the nearby freeway’s exit 47, the college’s motto has 47 characters, the school’s organ has 47 pipes, and so on.
Although it was an example of frequency bias — in which our brains are primed to see specific things when we’re actively searching for them — the number made its mark. It even snuck into pop culture: Pomona alum Joe Menosky included many references to 47 when writing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Today, the college still honors its obsession with the number by holding an annual celebration on April 7, or 4/7.
Darren Orf
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Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
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Voice actors are some of the most versatile performers in television, film, and more, lending their considerable talents to animation, live action, audiobooks, and other beloved media. These golden-tongued entertainers are behind some of the most recognizable characters in pop culture, from Bugs Bunny to SpongeBob SquarePants and Darth Vader. Though some may not be household names, the dulcet tones of these seven actors have echoed throughout Hollywood for years.
Known as “The Man of a Thousand Voices,” Mel Blanc is widely considered one of the greatest voice actors of all time, and was a pioneer during the golden age of American animation. Blanc is credited with providing the voices for an estimated 90% of all Warner Bros. characters during the 1940s and 1950s, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig. Overall, he crafted voices for some 3,000 cartoon characters throughout his prolific six-decade career.
Blanc began voice acting in 1923, at the age of 15, with a singing role on the KGW radio program Stories by Aunt Nell. His popularity skyrocketed after he booked his first gig with Warner Bros. in 1937, as the character Porky Pig in the short film Porky’s Road Race. Blanc debuted the voice for Daffy Duck later that year, and introduced Bugs Bunny in 1940’s A Wild Hare. Over the following decades, Blanc continued to carve out an unparalleled legacy in his field, voicing many other memorable animated characters, including Barney Rubble in The Flintstones and Mr. Spacely in The Jetsons. Blanc worked continuously through the 1980s, up until his death in 1989.
While June Foray had a diminutive stature — standing only 4 feet, 11 inches tall — she was an absolute giant in voice acting history. By the age of 12, Foray was providing voices on a local radio program in Massachusetts, and she later moved to Los Angeles to begin a film career in the 1940s. That decision proved extremely fruitful, as Foray caught the attention of Walt Disney, who hired her to voice Lucifer the cat in 1950’s Cinderella. In 1959, Foray voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel in the famous Rocky & Bullwinkle duo, which became one of her signature characters. Throughout her legendary career, which lasted until the early 2010s (she died in 2017 at the age of 99), Foray was widely beloved in the industry. Animator Chuck Jones once said, “June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc is the male June Foray.”
Credit: Anwar Hussein/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Mark Hamill
He may be best known for portraying Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, but Mark Hamill has also had a prolific voice acting career since the 1970s. Prior to his time as a Jedi, Hamill voiced various guest roles on The New Scooby-Doo Movies television series in the early part of that decade. But it was his role as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, which ran from 1992 to 1995, that would cement Hamill’s legacy as a voice actor. He reprised the role for the Batman: Arkham video game series, and his portrayal of the Joker inspired countless other versions of the character that came later. Interestingly, Luke Skywalker isn’t Hamill’s only Star Wars role, either — he voiced an alien named Boolio in a cameo for 2019’s Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.
Credit: Colin Davey/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Nancy Cartwright
The Simpsons features a who’s who of talented voice actors, from Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson) to Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson) and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns). One of the most famous voices on the long-running animated show is that of Nancy Cartwright, who plays Bart Simpson. Cartwright has voiced the young prankster since The Simpsons began over 30 years ago, delivering signature lines such as “Eat my shorts” and “Don’t have a cow, man.” Cartwright also voices the characters of Ralph Wiggum and Nelson Muntz, and even provides the trademark sucking sound for one-year-old Maggie Simpson. Her portrayal of famous animated children doesn’t end there: She also voiced Chuckie Finster on Rugrats from 2001 until 2004 and again for the 2022 reboot of the popular animated children’s series.
You definitely won’t find Tom Kenny in a pineapple under the sea, though his most famous character does call one home. The voice behind the star of SpongeBob SquarePants, which premiered in 1999, Kenny has had an extensive career in children’s animation, also voicing roles in The Powerpuff Girls, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Adventure Time. While working as a stand-up comedian prior to voice acting, Kenny once performed in front of an executive from the Cartoon Network, who scouted him to work in animation. Shortly after, Kenny was hired for his first major role playing Heffer the cow on Rocko’s Modern Life, which ran from 1993 to 1996. During his time as a voice actor, Kenny has won three Annie Awards and two Daytime Emmys.
Throughout his six-decade career — both on-camera and behind the mic — James Earl Jones has demonstrated remarkable versatility: He has voiced everyone from the evilest of villains to some of Hollywood’s most memorable heroes. Those roles include the dastardly sith lord Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise and the king of the jungle Mufasa from 1994’s The Lion King. While Darth Vader was physically portrayed by English actor David Prowse, Jones’ voice gave the character his signature intimidating bravado. Jones is so synonymous with Darth Vader that he has reprised the role several times, most recently for the 2022 Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jones also returned to voice the character of Mufasa in the 2019 CGI-heavy remake.
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Frank Welker
He may not be a household name, but Frank Welker is the third-highest-grossing actor of all time, according to film industry data website The Numbers, finishing just behind Stan Lee and Samuel L. Jackson. Welker rose to stardom in 1969, when he voiced Fred Jones on the animated series Scooby Doo, Where Are You! More recently, Welker has lent his voice to films such as the Transformers series, The Smurfs, and Mortal Kombat. Welker has also voiced Smokey Bear in commercials about preventing forest fires, Inspector Gadget in the 1983 animated TV series of the same name, and several of the titular characters in 1984’s Muppet Babies. With such an extensive résumé, Welker may just be the most famous actor you’ve heard but never heard of.
Bennett Kleinman
Staff Writer
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism Media, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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An American holiday tradition since January 1, 1890, Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses Parade — often just called the Rose Parade — is a beloved part of New Year’s Day observances. Whether you’ll be one of the hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the sidewalks along Colorado Boulevard in Southern California, or one of the estimated 50 million people watching from home, here are six fun facts you may not already know.
In 1888, blue bloods (and blue-blood wannabes) from the East Coast founded Pasadena’s very exclusive Valley Hunt Club, an English-influenced invitation-only establishment that held rabbit shoots and staged debutante balls for its wealthy members. Two years after the club’s founding, it held the first Tournament of Roses to promote Southern California’s abundant sunshine and year-round blooms. “In New York, people are buried in snow,” Professor Charles F. Holder reportedly announced at a club meeting. “Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”
The First Rose Parade “Floats” Were Just Horse-Drawn Carriages
The first Tournament of Roses featured a small procession of pony carts and horse-drawn carriages that were lavishly covered in local blooms. A few thousand people gathered to watch the parade, which was followed by chariot and foot races, jousting, polo, and tug-of-war. The event was a success, but modest compared to today’s spectacle of pageantry and pomp. Marching bands and motorized floats were added in subsequent years, and the games were expanded to include ostrich races and bronco busting demonstrations. (There was even a race between an elephant and a camel.) After five years, the event outgrew its original organizers, and in 1895, the Tournament of Roses Association was formed to take charge of the parade and related festivities.
In 1902, the organizers decided to go even bigger by hosting a college football game after the parade. The matchup saw California’s Stanford go up against Michigan — only to lose 49-0 in a defeat so lopsided that football disappeared from the festival for more than a decade. It was permanently reinstated in 1916, and in late 1922, a few months before the 1923 game, the Rose Bowl Stadium opened its gates for the first time. Its namesake Rose Bowl Game has been played there almost every year since, except in 1942 and 2021, and has been a sellout attraction since 1947.
For the first three years, the parade was held on January 1. But in 1893, New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday. Organizers worried that the procession would interfere with religious services or scare horses tied up outside local churches, so they decided to move the parade to the following day, Monday, January 2. That precedent stuck, and to this day, the Tournament of Roses takes place on January 1 — unless January 1 falls on a Sunday, which happened most recently in 2023. In its 130-plus-year history, the parade has been canceled outright only four times, during the World War II years of 1942, 1943, and 1945, and in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Automobiles are a no-no at the Tournament of Roses Parade, with four exceptions. Cars are permitted for the parade’s grand marshal, the mayor of Pasadena, the Rose Bowl Game Hall of Fame inductees, and the Tournament of Roses president. And these aren’t your average sensible sedans: In 2022, the Tournament of Roses president rode in a 1967 Crown Firecoach fire engine, while Grand Marshal Levar Burton traversed the 5.5-mile route in a 1923 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.
There Are Literally Millions of Flowers on the Floats
The Rose Parade floats have come a long way since that first 1890 procession. Today’s motorized floats can be upwards of 100 feet long and 16 feet tall — and every visible inch must be covered in natural materials, such as seeds, bark, moss, and, of course, flowers (sometimes tens of thousands of them). Construction on the floats starts months in advance, and decorations may be added as early as mid-October, but most of the natural materials are saved for the final week before the parade. Live flowers in water-filled vials are added last, by volunteers working around the clock leading up to the morning of January 1. All told, more than 80,000 volunteer hours go into the planning of the parade and the construction of the floats.
Interesting Facts
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Interesting Facts writers have been seen in Popular Mechanics, Mental Floss, A+E Networks, and more. They’re fascinated by history, science, food, culture, and the world around them.
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