The Extraordinary Book of Useless Information

by Don Voorhees

  Lamarr also holds the distinction of performing the first female orgasm on screen, in the 1933 movie Ecstasy, and was the first to show full female frontal nudity.

  MOVIE BUFFS

  Artist’s model Audrey Munson was the first woman to appear nude in a film. She played an artist’s model in 1915’s Inspiration.

  The 1916 silent film A Daughter of the Gods, starring Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman, was the first movie where a major star appeared nude.

  REBELS REQUIEM

  The three stars of Rebel Without a Cause all met tragic ends in real life. James Dean died in a car wreck. Natalie Wood drowned under suspicious circumstances. Sal Mineo was stabbed in a parking area behind his West Hollywood home.

  BUILDING BRIDGES

  In the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, the prisoners built the bridge in two months. The construction company hired to build the bridge for the film took eight months to complete the task.

  In real life, some eighty thousand Asian conscripts and thirteen thousand prisoners died during the building of the bridge for the Japanese in 1943. Two bridges were built, a temporary wooden one and a permanent steel-and-concrete one.

  The bridges were destroyed by Allied bombers two years later. The steel bridge has since been repaired and is still in use today.

  A real bridge and train were destroyed for the movie. On the first take, the explosive charges failed to detonate and the train went over the bridge and crashed down a hill.

  OUTTAKES

  At least thirty-two different actresses were screen-tested for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, even Lucille Ball.

  In Terminator 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid $15 million and only had seven hundred words of dialogue. That comes out to $21,429 per word.

  The blue pinafore dress Judy Garland wore as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz sold for $480,000 in 2012.

  A “cold open” is when a TV show or movie jumps directly into the plot, before the opening credits roll. TV shows do this to hook the viewer before going to the first commercial break.

  For the scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds where Tippi Hedren is attacked, trained birds were attached to her with nylon strings. Hedren actually was cut by a bird during the filming.

  During the filming of the 1931 movie Viking, a ship explosion killed the producer and about twenty-six members of the crew while they were filming an iceberg off of Labrador.

  The 1964 movie The Fall of the Roman Empire had the biggest outdoor movie set ever built. Its reconstruction of the Roman Forum measured 1,312 feet by 754 feet.

  In the movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon, 532 cars were destroyed. They were flood-damaged autos donated by an insurance company.

  TO BOLDLY GO . . .

  Initially, NBC executives wanted to ditch the Spock character from Star Trek because they thought he looked satanic.

  James Doohan, who played Scottie on Star Trek, lost his right middle finger during World War II.

  Lieutenant Uhura’s name means “freedom” in Swahili.

  Star Trek: The Next Generation character Geordi La Forge was named for an avid Star Trek fan, George La Forge, who died of muscular dystrophy in 1975.

  Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is 953.7 feet long.

  It would take the starship Enterprise 400,000 years to cross the galaxy on impulse drive.

  The Enterprise holds a crew of 430.

  Klingons like to eat food that is still alive.

  A Vulcan’s heart beats several hundred times a minute, and Vulcans don’t have an appendix.

  BONDAGE

  The only James Bond movie theme song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was “A View to a Kill,” by Duran Duran. “Live and Let Die,” by Paul McCartney and Wings, and “Nobody Does it Better,” by Carly Simon, made it to number two. “For Your Eyes Only,” by Sheena Easton, hit number five, and “Die Another Day,” by Madonna, and “Skyfall,” by Adele, both peaked at number eight.

  “OH TAY!”

  Alfalfa of Our Gang film shorts (later known as The Little Rascals, when they moved to television) fame was actor Carl Switzer.

  Switzer was shot to death by an acquaintance in a dispute over money in 1959.

  George McFarland, who played Spanky, got his nickname from a newspaper reporter who called the three-year-old actor a “spanky child,” a term at the time referring to a bright toddler.

  McFarland, who was in the series from 1932 to 1942, popularized the expression “okeydokey.”

  William “Billie” Thomas Jr. played Buckwheat in the series from 1934 to 1944. Originally, Buckwheat was a girl, but later she slowly morphed into a boy.

  Thomas suffered from a speech impediment and is best known for the expression “O-tay!”

  Thomas’s family were offended by Eddie Murphy’s spoof of the Buckwheat character on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s.

  In 1990, the ABC newsmagazine TV show 20/20 did an interview with an Arizona grocery bagger that they thought was Thomas. Unfortunately, Thomas had died ten years earlier. ABC apologized and the program’s producer was forced to resign.

  Contrary to popular myth, Bill Cosby never bought up the rights to Our Gang to keep the show’s racial stereotypes off TV.

  A pit bull, with a black ring around its left eye, played Petey. The ring was applied by makeup artist Max Factor.

  Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple both auditioned for Our Gang.

  OFF TO A GOOD START

  In 2010, TV Guide published a list of the top ten television credits sequences. They were, in order, The Simpsons, Get Smart, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Hawaii Five-O (the original), True Blood, The Big Bang Theory, Dexter, The Brady Bunch, Mad Men, and The Sopranos.

  BEWARE THE BLOB

  In 1950, four Philadelphia policemen saw a six-foot, round, light-emitting, gelatinous mass land on the ground and begin to climb up a telephone pole. This incident became the basis for the 1958 cult classic The Blob, which was filmed in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

  The Blob was Steve McQueen’s first starring role.

  The movie’s title song—“The Blob”—hit number thirty-three on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

  BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

  CNN news personality Anderson Cooper sunburned his eyes in 2012, after spending several hours on the water in Portugal without sunglasses. He was blind for thirty-six hours.

  SOAP DOPE

  It costs about $50 million a year to produce a daytime soap opera, about 30 percent more than it costs to produce a television talk show.

  In 1999, there were eleven American soap operas on television. In 2011, there were only four.

  MUSICAL MOMENTS

  The only three songs to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart after the death of the recording artist were “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce, and “Me and Bobby McGee” by Janice Joplin.

  According to Billboard, Adele’s 21 was the bestselling album of 2011 and 2012, selling 5.82 million copies and 4.41 million copies, respectively.

  The bikini didn’t really catch on until the number one hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” was released in 1960, by sixteen-year-old Brian Hyland.

  South Korean rap star Psy’s music video “Gangnam Style” is the most-watched item posted to YouTube, with more than 1.5 billion views.

  A poll by UltimateClassicRock.com found that the top country rock song of all time is “Can’t You See” by the Marshall Tucker Band. The rest of the top ten in order are “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Green Grass and High Tides” by the Outlaws, “Highway Song” by Blackfoot, “Long Haired Country Boy” by the Charlie Daniels Band, “Flirtin’ with Disaster” by Molly Hatchet, “La Grange” by ZZ Top, “Ramblin’ Man” by the Allman Brothers, “30 Days in
the Hole” by Humble Pie, and “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain.

  The top-earning musicians for 2012 were Dr. Dre at $110 million, Roger Waters at $88 million, Elton John at $80 million, U2 at $78 million, Take That at $69 million, Bon Jovi at $60 million, Britney Spears at $58 million, Paul McCartney at $57 million, Taylor Swift at $57 million, Justin Bieber at $55 million, and Toby Keith at $55 million.

  Trumpeter Louis Armstrong used to get hard calluses on his lips, which he would remove himself every four or five years with a razor blade.

  Johann Sebastian Bach wrote some 1,100 pieces of music.

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started playing the harpsichord at the age of three and composing music at the age of five.

  Mozart began a three-and-a-half-year musical tour of Europe with his family when he was only six.

  Mozart went on to compose enough music to fill two hundred compact discs.

  BOOK CLUB

  Toni Morrison is the pen name of Chloe Anthony Wofford.

  George Orwell was the nom de plume of Eric Arthur Blair.

  Anne Rice was named after her father—Howard Allen O’Brien. She hated the name Howard and told the nuns on her first day of kindergarten that her name was Anne. Her last name comes from her husband Stan Rice.

  Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet.

  Mystery writer Agatha Christie was the first known woman in Britain to take up surfing, in the 1920s.

  Emily Dickinson was a recluse who didn’t leave her house for more than twenty years and spoke to visitors through a closed door.

  PAINTIN’ PLACE

  When Grant Wood was fourteen, he won third place in a national crayon drawing contest sponsored by Crayola. He credits this with sparking his interest in becoming an artist.

  Michelangelo had his nose broken by a contemporary artist named Torrigiano, and was disfigured for life.

  The Louvre was built in the late 1100s as a fortress.

  Paul Gaugin worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal construction project. He was fired after two weeks.

  In 2012, guitarist Eric Clapton sold the painting Abstraktes Bild (809-4) by German artist Gerhard Richter, for $34,190,756, a new record price for the work of a living painter. That’s more then ten times what Clapton paid for it in 2001. The previous record was for the Jasper Johns work titled Flags, which sold for $28.6 million in 2010.

  USA Today

  DEADLY DATA

  The city of Chicago averages more than one murder a day.

  Each day in America, 6,718 people die. That’s one death every thirteen seconds. There is one birth every eight seconds.

  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of Americans who die from prescription drug overdoses is greater than that for cocaine and heroin overdoses combined. In 2008, there were 20,044 overdose deaths from prescription drugs, 14,800 of those from painkillers.

  The most common cause of poisonings in America is analgesics, at 12 percent, followed by cosmetics/personal care products, household cleaners, sedatives/antipsychotics/hypnotics, and foreign bodies/toys/miscellaneous.

  NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

  For every one hundred women in the United States that is a centenarian (over one hundred years old), there are only 20.7 men.

  In New Mexico, people over the age of one hundred who are not dependents pay no income tax.

  INTIMATE INJURIES

  Sixteen thousand American men and women seek treatment in emergency rooms every year for genital injuries.

  IN THE LINE OF DUTY

  In 2011, 163 American law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. Sixty-eight died from gunfire.

  INDIEPENDENCE DAY

  According to a 2011 study, the deadliest day of the year on American highways is July 4, with 144 fatalities. The next five deadliest days are September 2, August 13, July 15, May 20, and November 11.

  Fatal car wrecks increase by 6 percent on income tax filing day.

  New Year’s Day has the highest number of drunken driving–related deaths—130. It is also the day with the most pedestrians killed by vehicles, topping Halloween.

  And the most dangerous day of the week to drive to work is . . . Friday.

  The number of traffic and workplace accidents increase the day after daylight saving time begins. Heart attacks also increase by 20 percent.

  One-half of those injured while wearing headphones are struck by trains.

  CLICK IT OR TICKET

  People in the West wear seat belts more than folks in other parts of America—94 percent. Those in the Northeast are least likely to buckle up—80 percent.

  Drivers buckle up more on weekends and when in heavy traffic.

  Seat belt usage reduces the risk of dying in a fatal accident by 45 percent for front seat occupants. It is estimated that seat belts saved 12,546 U.S. lives in 2010.

  PILL POPPERS

  People in the Eastern United States are more likely to use antibiotics than are those on the West Coast.

  West Virginia had the highest rate of antibiotic use from 1999 to 2007—1,222 prescriptions per one thousand people, more than double the rate in Alaska—546 prescriptions per one thousand people—during the same time period.

  The rate of antibiotic use in Scandinavia is much lower than Alaska’s, as doctors there are trained not to prescribe the drugs for things they are useless against, such as viruses.

  STAMP OUT HUNGER

  Fifteen percent of the American population is on food stamps.

  COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL

  In 2010, there were 723,277 foreign students enrolled in U.S. colleges. That’s about 4 percent of overall American university enrollment.

  China led the way with the highest number of students enrolled—158,000—followed by India, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, and Turkey.

  The University of Southern California led the nation in the number of foreign students enrolled in 2011, which it had done for the previous ten years.

  In 2009, 19.2 percent of Hispanics in America had college degrees, as did 29.4 percent of blacks, 48.7 percent of whites, and 69.1 percent of Asians.

  About 79 percent of American university faculty members are white.

  Just 56 percent of American college students complete a four-year degree within six years. College dropouts tend to be male.

  The publicly funded four-year colleges with the worst graduation rates are as follows: Southern University at New Orleans, Louisiana, graduates 4 percent; University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, 7.7 percent; Kent State University-East Liverpool, Ohio, 8.9 percent; Rogers State University, Claremore, Oklahoma, 11.5 percent; Texas Southern University, Houston, Texas, 13.3 percent; Ohio University Southern Campus, Ironton, Ohio, 13.7 percent; Kent State University-Tuscarawas, Ohio, 13.9 percent; Purdue University North Central, Indiana, 14 percent; Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma, 14.1 percent; and Ohio University at Chillicothe, Ohio, 15.6 percent.

  The University of Pennsylvania was America’s first nonreligious university.

  About 96 percent of Ivy League professors who donated money in 2012 gave to Barack Obama in the presidential election.

  LOCK AND LOAD

  Colleges in five states permit students to carry guns on campus—Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin.

  MAKE ROOM FOR THE TURKEY

  November 15 is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day.

  CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

  There is a custom among Italian-Americans in the New York/North Jersey area to throw change on the floor of a new car for good luck.

  PETITE PARKS

  At just 0.02 acres in size, the smallest site in the National Park Service is the Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Philadelphia, which honors the American Revolutionary War hero.

  Another litt
le known National Park Service site is the African Burial Ground in Manhattan. Here, the remains of seventeenth– and eighteenth-century slaves that were unearthed accidentally during a construction project in 1991 are commemorated with a monument and visitor center.

  The Nicodemus National Historical Park in Nicodemus, Kansas, is the only remaining all-black town established west of the Mississippi. This town was used as an outpost for ex-slaves moving westward after the Civil War.

  JOBS REPORT

  Steve Jobs dropped out of school after one semester at Reed College in Oregon. He later went back to audit a course in calligraphy, which he credited with the simple design and elegance of Apple products.

  After leaving college, Jobs backpacked across India while eating psychedelic mushrooms. He said this experience helped crystallize his vision and creativity.

  He was fired by the Apple board of directors in 1985 for being too much of a perfectionist and a control freak. The company faltered during his absence and they rehired him in 1997.

  Steve Jobs occasionally manned Apple’s customer service phones and was known to have personally called a customer who had emailed him with a complaint about getting his laptop repaired.

  Jobs would lease a different silver Mercedes SL55 AMG every six months. Because anyone with a new car in California has six months to affix a license plate, his cars never had one.

  Per square foot of floor space, the most profitable stores in the world are Apple Retail Stores. They generate twice the income, per square foot, of Tiffany’s.

  A LITTLE FACE TIME

  Just as fellow tech guru Steve Jobs did, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day. The billionaire claims to have one drawer with twenty identical gray T-shirts that make up his shirt wardrobe.

  Zuckerberg announced that he only eats meat from animals that he has personally killed. The dead animals, which include goats, pigs, and chickens, are sent out for butchering.

  When the share price of Facebook stock tumbled after being issued in 2012, Zuckerberg lost $8.1 billion in net worth by the end of the year.