Though Sally Field is arguably the canonical Gidget, she wasn't the only Gidget or even the first Gidget. Sandra Dee was the first screen Gidget, in the eponymous 1959 film. Then Deborah Walley played the character in the 1961 movie Gidget Goes Hawaiian, and Cindy Carroll took over in Gidget Goes To Rome (1963).
All of these characters were based on a real-life surfer girl named Kathy Kohner, who was given the nickname "Gidget" by her young male surfer friends. Kohner stood about five feet tall, and the name was a contraction of "girl midget."
Peter Sellers Shot Jacqueline Bisset On The Set Of Casino Royale
Peter Sellers was a loose cannon, which is one factor in his being a brilliant comedic actor -- his co-stars never knew what he was going to do. In fact, his strange behavior alienated his colleagues on numerous occasions, with a prime example being Orson Welles. Welles and Sellers ended up in a legendary feud while making the 1967 Bond spoof Casino Royale, and couldn't even film scenes together. The animosity stemmed in part from Sellers' fat jokes at Welles' expense, but Orson got off easy compared to Jacqueline Bisset.
Source: Pinterest
The incident happened on their first take. As the seductive Miss Goodthighs, Bisset entered the scene wearing a pajama top and carrying a bottle of Champagne. Sellers, playing James Bond, turned to her and quite unexpectedly shot her in the face with a gun -- it was loaded with blanks, of course. But the gunpowder made her skin burn, and she was bleeding where tiny shards had broken the skin. "First I thought I had been actually shot and then when I realized it had been a blank, I thought I'd been blinded," she later revealed. "My face looked like a shower spout of pinpricks leaking blood. ... To get shot in your first scene with a big star, that is a nightmare."
Which Is Which? Anne Francis And Her 'Twilight Zone' Mannequin Double
The story of a statue that comes to life goes back to ancient times, when Pygmalion fell in love with his sculpture Galatea and Aphrodite brought her to life. There have been reboots and variations over the years, including the story of Pinocchio -- you know how it is, statues and toys are always coming to life, and everyone's happy about it. The inversion of the story, in which a person is turned into a statue, is not so happy.
Source: IMDB
This terrible fate befell the character played by Anne Francis on a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone about a woman who goes into a department store and ends up becoming a mannequin. To shoot the story, the show needed the real woman (Ms. Francis) and a mannequin that looked just like her -- but was clearly a mannequin if you look closely. In this picture, we see the prop and the actress side-by-side, and the resemblance is uncanny. Actor James Millhollin seems at a loss to tell which is which (hint: look at the eyes and the hands).
'Strange Brew' Is Based On Shakespeare's Hamlet
Bob and Doug McKenzie, played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, are a pair of comedic characters developed on SCTV, a sketch show broadcasting out of Toronto and also carried in the United States. Because of different allocations for commercials, the Canadian version of the show ran two minutes longer than the American one. The producers asked Thomas and Moranis to fill the time with “Canadian content.” The duo bristled at the notion, but then came up with a rebellious solution -- if the producers want more Canadian content, they would give it to them in the form of ridiculous cultural stereotypes.
Source: Ain't It Cool News
The McKenzie brothers ended up being one of the most successful bits on SCTV, even getting its own movie. For the big screen, the comedians flirted with highbrow literature by borrowing their plot from Shakespeare. In Hamlet, a Danish prince returns home to Elsinore castle to find that his father has been murdered and his mother has shacked up with the culprit, his uncle. In Strange Brew, the Mackenzie brothers learn that the owner of their favorite brewery has been killed by an evil brewmaster, the owner's daughter is in cahoots, her uncle is trying to cover it up, etc. -- it's not an exact rip of the plot, but there are similarities. And Moranis and Thomas tipped their hand with the name of the company at the center of the story: the Elsinore Brewery.
Max Headroom Won An Award For High Tech Effects, But There Were None
The character Max Headroom, which was first developed for British TV and debuted in 1985, was supposed to be a disembodied consciousness manifested as a computer-generated TV host. He was a talking head made of pixels and polygons -- right? Well, that's the impression the show wanted you to get.
Source: The Verge
The secret of Max Headroom was that he wasn't computer generated at all. The character's look was achieved by encasing actor Matt Frewer in a stiff suit-and-tie shell and applying makeup to make his skin look all smooth and plasticky. Under the harsh lights, and set against a background of careening parallel lines (ok, that part was computer generated), Frewer did indeed look very artificial. TV critics didn't know how the effect was achieved, but they were impressed by what they assumed was some serious technology. In 1986, the show won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Graphics -- even though, apart from the lines in the background, the show didn't employ any graphic effects.
Richard Dreyfuss Spends Most Of 'American Graffiti' Trying To Find Suzanne Somers
In American Graffiti, the high school graduate Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) glimpses a beautiful blonde woman driving a white Ford Thunderbird, and immediately becomes obsessed with her. His obsession isn't unjustified -- when he looks at her for that brief moment, she returns his friendly gaze and appears to mouth the words "I love you." For the rest of the film, he's on a quest to find her, although he is frequently distracted by side adventures, which tends to happen to teens cruising the strip on a Saturday night.
Source: IMDB
What viewers often don't know -- and indeed couldn't have known when the movie was released -- is that the briefly-glimpsed blonde was played by Suzanne Somers. Though Somers would soon become a big star thanks to Three's Company, she wasn't famous at all in 1973. In fact, "Blonde in T-Bird" was Somers' first credited screen role.
Bob 'Hogan' Crane Married Sigrid 'Hilda' Valdis And They Had A Son (Not Pictured)
Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane was known to be a charmer -- or a masher, depending on your perspective. In 1965, he began an affair with one of his castmates, Cynthia Lynn, who played Col. Klink's secretary Helga. Lynn left the show after the first season, and Patricia Olson -- who performed under the stage name of Sigrid Valdis -- stepped in to play Helga's replacement Hilda. Crane followed along, redirecting his attention from Helga to Hilda.
Source: IMDB
"He was always hitting on me from day one," Patricia Crane recalled for ABC News. "But he would hit on any bimbo that would walk on that set. It didn't matter. I mean, that was just Bob." Though Crane is remembered for his sexual appetite and mysterious death (in 1978), he romanced Patricia and -- after divorcing his wife of 20 years, who was his high school sweetheart -- put a ring on it in 1970. Their son, Scott Crane, was born the following year.
Bones, Kirk And Spock Pretend To Shave With Their Communicators Between Takes On 'Star Trek'
Star Trek is not a funny show. Doesn't matter whether it's the original series, Next Generation or Voyager -- none of them have jokes. And that's a shame because there is much to laugh at.
Source: imgur
These guys are out there zooming around to different planets wearing goofy color-coded sweaters. Spock had pointy ears like an elf! Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand) had a hairdo that was woven like an Easter basket! And at some point, no matter how serious an actor you are, you realize that the communicator prop you're holding, which helps you communicate with the pretend spaceship that is orbiting the planet you're pretending to be on, looks a hell of a lot like an electric shaver. And you shave with it.
'Gilligan's Island's Lagoon Was A Studio Lot Filled With Water
The relatively convincing lagoon of the fictional island where Gilligan's Island was set was wholly artificial. It was constructed at CBS Studio Center, in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the water was only about 4 feet deep. Because the set was near a freeway, shooting often had to be stopped because of noisy rush hour traffic. Palm trees and other vegetation were strategically arranged to block buildings in the background, but sharp-eyed viewers can occasionally spot the structures.
Source: Closer Weekly
The water in the lagoon became famously filthy as it stagnated over the months of shooting. To prove its toxicity, Bob Denver (Gilligan) and Alan Hale Jr. (the Skipper) released a live fish in the water -- and the fish died. The network eventually agreed to change the water when the show's stars demanded executives go for a swim in the lagoon.
The Shark In 'Jaws' Was Named 'Bruce,' After Steven Spielberg's Lawyer
There was one major special effect in Jaws: the mechanical shark designed specifically for the film. It was a full-size, pneumatically powered creature measuring approximately 25 feet long and weighed thousands of pounds. And it was a nightmare to deal with, famously malfunctioning and breaking down -- in fact, the shark became an additional challenge for director Steven Spielberg, who had to rewrite scenes and shoot around the shark's shortcomings.
Source: IMDB
The shark -- actually, there were three of them -- was named Bruce after Steven Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce Ramer. All Bruces were destroyed, but a fourth Bruce was made from the original mold, and was hung at Universal Studios for park guests to take pictures with. In around 1990, that Bruce was taken down and sent to a junkyard to make way for more current attractions. The owner of the junkyard held on to Bruce, knowing he had a curio worth preserving. When the junkyard closed down in 2016, Bruce was donated to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
The Face Of Michael Myers In 'Halloween' Is William Shatner
The horror movie Halloween, directed by John Carpenter, was a low-budget affair, costing just $300,000 to make. The actor who played killer Michael Myers, Nick Castle, was Carpenter’s film school friend and was only paid $25 per day. Jamie Lee Curtis was reportedly only paid $8,000, and bought her wardrobe for under $100 from JC Penney.
Source: Reddit
But the most famous bit of movie magic -- the mask worn by killer Michael Myers -- is truly among the most legendary low-budget shortcuts. It was actually a Captain Kirk mask -- yes, in its original form it was supposed to make the wearer look something like William Shatner -- and it cost just $1.29. Carpenter painted it white, and liked it because of its blank stare
The 1966 Batmobile Was A Lincoln Concept Car From 1955
The 1955 Lincoln Futura was a one-off, a concept car that demonstrated Ford Motor Company's space-age imagination. It was hand built by Ghia in Turin, Italy at a cost of $250,000 or more than $2.3 million in 2019 dollars. The Futura made appearances at car shows as a car of the future, and after a few years was repurposed for the 1959 film It Started With a Kiss, although it was painted red for the movie because the original silvery color was not particularly photogenic.
After the film was over, car customizer George Barris bought the Futura for $1. In 1965, 20th Century Fox contracted Barris to create the car for a new television show based on the Batman comic book, but Barris was tasked with producing a Batmobile in three weeks with a budget of just $15,000. He decided to work with the Futura, modifying it so that it could appear on the show. The modifications were simple: the fin was extended to the windshield, bat-details were added, and it was painted black with fluorescent cerise trim. The customizing crew also added gadgets, such as the “jet drive,” which was simply a butane tank, and the chain cutter that popped out of the car’s nose.
Jack Wild Seems Surprised That H.R. Pufnstuf Is An Average Joe
No one would ever accuse Sid and Marty Krofft of making convincing costumes -- whether we're talking about the sea monster Sigmund or the Banana Splits, these big goofy characters are obviously just people wearing clunky suits. But that doesn't mean you want to see the people with their big foam heads off.
Source: Reddit
Young actor Jack Wild, who played Jimmy on H.R. Pufnstuf, quietly speaks for us all in this photo. Just feet away from him sits Roberto Gamonet wearing the H.R. Pufnstuf costume without the head, as well as Johnny Silver, who has removed the head from his Ludicrous Lion costume. Krofft-world bodies with human heads on them -- does anyone want to witness that? Talk about moments that'll ruin your childhood!
Tabatha On 'Bewitched' Was Played By Twin Actresses
Bewitched's cast included Elizabeth Montgomery, two different "Richards," and Agnes Moorhead. But don't forget Tabitha, an important part, played by Erin Murphy. Or we should say, played mostly by Erin Murphy. Did you know she was a twin?
Source: Tumblr
Erin Murphy, the actress known for playing Tabatha, has a fraternal twin sister Diane, and for at least 18 episodes in 1966-67 the two of them shared the job of playing Samantha and Darrin's offspring. Erin eventually got the role all to herself, partially because, as fraternal (and not identical) twins, she and her sister began to look noticeably different from each other.
Groucho Marx's Guest Appearance On 'Welcome Back Kotter' Was Canceled
Comedy legend Groucho Marx (of the Marx Brothers) was booked to do a guest spot on Welcome Back, Kotter. In the episode, "Sadie Hawkins Day," as originally written, series star Gabe Kaplan would break into a Groucho Marx impression, and then the show would cut to Marx himself reacting to it. The cameo was never filmed.
Source: IMDB
Marx was 86 at the time, and looked it. In fact, he was too feeble to perform the scene, so it was canceled. Marx shot a few publicity stills with the cast on set, but he wasn't in the episode. He died the following year.
The non-appearance was no doubt a disappointment for Kaplan, a Groucho Marx fan. You may detect occasional touches of Groucho in Kaplan's Kotter, but the actor went for the gusto in 1982 when he starred in Groucho, a one-man play written by Groucho Marx's son.
The Painting Seen On 'Good Times' Was Painted By A Former NFL Player
Jimmie Walker is most famous for playing J.J. Evans on Good Times, and J.J.'s calling card was the interjection (all together now) "Dy-no-mite!" But his frequent clowning overshadows a serious side that the show's writers gave J.J.: he is a talented artist. J.J. Evans is often seen painting on the show, and the closing credits of many episodes roll over a scene that J.J. painted -- that was actually a canvas by artist Ernie Barnes.
Source: L.A. Times
Barnes' most famous work is "Sugar Shack," and appearing at the end of Good Times isn't its only claim to fame -- it was also used as cover art for Marvin Gaye's 1976 album I Want You. Barnes, who died in 2009, also supplied other paintings attributed to J.J. on the show, and his art can be found on covers of albums by Curtis Mayfield, The Crusaders and B.B. King.
Barnes has been recognized as an important 20th-century artist, although he might have painted less if he'd had better luck at football. Barnes was drafted out of college by the Baltimore Colts in 1959, and bounced to the New York Titans, San Diego Chargers, and Denver Broncos. Barnes was playing for the Saskatchewan Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League in 1965 when he suffered a career-ending foot fracture. New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin soon hired Barnes not to play, but to paint, telling him "You have more value to the country as an artist than as a football player."
The Studio Didn't Think Spencer Tracy Would Live To Finish Shooting 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner'
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner was an important film in 1967, asking audiences to contend with the idea of interracial marriage not in the abstract but in their own lives, through the eyes of characters played by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Both actors felt the movie was very important to make, but only one of them was really in the shape to do it. Though he was just 67 years old, Tracy was thoroughly ill, suffering from heart disease, diabetes, high-blood pressure, respiratory disease and more.
New York Post
Tracy failed his insurance physical before shooting began. Both Hepburn and director Stanley Kramer put up their salaries as collateral in case of Tracy's death. But the precautions went further: Kramer, Hepburn, and co-stars Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton worked on extra footage from a second script that accounted for the possible loss of Tracy. Spencer Tracy would come to the set in the morning and film his scenes, then leave by midday to rest up -- and the rest of the cast and crew would continue working without him. Tracy died 17 days after shooting wrapped.
Fonzie Was Only Allowed To Wear A Leather Jacket Because Of His Motorcycle
One of the most famous garments in the history of American television, once a prized exhibit at the Smithsonian, Fonzie's leather jacket almost never got its chance to shine. Apparently, higher-ups at ABC forbid the Fonz from wearing his trademark duds on Happy Days because they feared that the jacket would make him look like a hoodlum. That’s why in the first few episodes the Fonz is rocking a forgettable white windbreaker.
Source: IMDB
Thankfully, producers of the show cleverly found a loophole. The Fonz would be permitted to wear his leather if he was near his motorcycle. Putting the Fonz astride his hog changed the leather jacket from gang colors to “a piece of safety equipment” in the eyes of higher-ups. Producers sold executives on the idea that without his leather Fonzie would be in danger on his bike. Once they got the green light on that incredible sell job, they decided to simply always put him next to a motorcycle.
The Thuggish Hanson Brothers Of 'Slap Shot' Were Played By Real Life Hockey Thugs
What makes the 1977 hockey comedy Slap Shot so good isn't Paul Newman, nor is it really the underdog sports story -- it's the outrageous trio of Jeff, Steve and Jack Hanson. They show up as unknown weirdos with obscure hockey backgrounds and turn out to be ruthless brawlers who help redefine the team's persona. They play dirty, and they love it, and the audience loves them for it.
Source: IMDB
The Hansons were based on the Carlsons, an infamous and very real trio of brawlin' hockey brothers -- in fact, they weren't just based on the Carlsons. Jeff and Steve Hanson were portrayed by Jeff and Steve Carlson, who took a break from playing for the Johnstown (Pennsylvania) Jets to make the movie. The third Carlson brother, Jack, would have been in the movie too, but he was called up to play for the Edmonton Oilers, so Dave Hanson (another Johnstown Jet) filled in as Jack. The trios exploits on the ice in Slap Shot -- talking trash, playing dirty, fighting and bleeding all over the place -- bring an element of cinema verite to the movie, mainly because they were just doing what they'd done all their lives as athletes.
'Dr. Strangelove' Originally Ended With A Massive Pie-Fight Scene That Was Scrapped
As the black comedy Dr. Strangelove is reaching its climax, a scuffle breaks out, and U.S. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) delivers one of the movies most famous and ironic lines. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here!" he says. "This is the War Room." Viewers never really knew how much fighting they missed.
Source: BFI
In the tense situation, with nuclear war imminent, those assembled in the War Room hatch a plan to wait out the decades of radiation in mine shafts -- and then the movie ends, with nuclear bombs exploding to the tune of "We'll Meet Again."
But Kubrick had a more ridiculous ending in mind, and actually filmed it. When the Russian ambassador is threatened with a strip search, he throws a pie at President Muffley. "Our beloved president has been infamously struck down by a pie in the prime of his life!" exclaims General "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott), and a massive pie fight ensues. In test screenings, which took place right after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, viewers disliked the scene -- so Kubrick removed it.
Florence Henderson Got The 'Brady Bunch' Job Because She Was Boring
During casting of The Brady Bunch, Florence Henderson (Carol Brady) was a last-minute replacement. Actress Joyce Bulifant was all but set to play the role and had participated in screen tests with young actors hoping to play the Brady offspring. Bulifant's Carol Brady would have been much zanier than Henderson's -- but when Ann B. Davis was enlisted to play Alice, the housekeeper, that presented a problem.
Source: Consequence.net
Alice was definitely going to be wacky, and Davis, an Emmy-winning actress, was a catch. Producers went looking for an actress who could give a more sober portrayal of Carol Brady -- and ultimately Henderson was their choice for a dependable mom who wouldn't steal every scene. Casting the kids was a longer and more complex process -- in all, 464 boys and girls auditioned to play Marcia, Jan, Cindy, Greg, Peter, and Bobby.
Garrett Morris Of 'Saturday Night Live' Is An Opera Singer
Though he's famous for his playing Chico "Baseball been berry berry good to me" Escuela and delivering "News For The Hard Of Hearing" on Saturday Night Live, Garrett Morris expected to find his entertainment career in music. His grandfather, a Methodist minister who raised him, noted young Garrett's singing talent and encouraged it. Morris went on to study at Dillard University and trained vocally at Juilliard. This formal training boosted Morris into a blooming and successful career as a musical arranger and soloist before finding acting.
Source: IMDB
As a trained tenor, capable of singing opera in Italian and German, Morris often sang on Saturday Night Live in segments that had a funny concept while showing off his singing chops. He has also released a handful of albums, including Saturday Night Sweet (1980) and Black Creole Chronicles (2014). The latter explores the music of his hometown, New Orleans, Louisiana.
No comments: