Crazy Facts about Actors, Actresses, and Directors

[iconogassed]

When Jean Arthur was 74, she was arrested for trespassing and abuse of a police officer. A neighbour had taken exception to her insistence on feeding the wailing dog he would leave out for hours and Arthur's persistent offers of help (like putting up a fenced rut herself so the dog wouldn't have to be chained up). The abuse charge resulted from her calling the responding officer "damn stupid".

During the trial, her lawyer told her to play it like she was in a Capra movie again. When the judge asked her why she didn't leave immediately after being told to, she shouted "I love the dog and the dog loves me!" But she was convicted anyway and sentenced to three years suspended with probation.

(She also used an alias during booking and told them "you wouldn't be doing this to me if I were Katharine Hepburn!" when she made bail)

[MacSwell]

Glenn Close's dad was Mobutu's personal physician.

[JSchlansky]

Quentin Tarantino hand doubled for Christoph Waltz during the strangulation scene for Inglorious Basterds and actually choked the the shit out of Diane Kruger

[iconogassed]

If he hadn't gotten the opportunity to legally prey on actresses etc. I imagine some variety of sex crime charges would have been a given

[MacSwell]

Daniel Day-Lewis' father Cecil was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.

[CosmicMonkey]

Michael Curtiz competed in the 1912 Olympics as part of the Hungarian Fencing team. 4 months later, the first Hungarian feature film, directed by and starring him, was released.

[CosmicMonkey]

Okay this one is kinda obscure, but way too good not to share.

Dorian Corey, one of the older drag queens in Paris is Burning (the one who spends most of their interview putting on make-up) died from AIDS-related complications in 1993. After her death, friends going through her stuff found a trunk in her sewing room with a partially mummified body inside alongside a note that said "This poor soul broke into my apartment and I was forced to shoot him." Police reports indicate the body was killed by a gunshot wound to the head and had been decomposing inside the trunk for 15-25 years and fingerprints from the corpse later matched to a man who had previous convictions for rape and assault. Also, the fact that it had been in the trunk for 20+ years means it had been moved multiple times to different apartments throughout the city. The thing is, the interview with Dorian Corey in Paris is Burning was filmed in the same room the trunk was kept in for years and in all likelihood, the entire interview was shot and filmed while there was a dead body inside the room. Some fans claim that that the trunk itself is actually visible in the film, but evidence is spurious. Either way, it adds an intensely creepy detail to what is already one of the greatest documentaries ever made.

BTW, if you haven't seen Paris is Burning, you really should. EDIT: and it's on Netflix!

[paulofilmo]

whoa.

also +1 - fascinating doc

[CosmicMonkey]

A direct quote from Wikipedia:

"On January 26, 2006, while driving down a winding canyon road in Hollywood, [Joaquin] Phoenix veered off the road and flipped his car. The crash was reportedly caused by brake failure. Shaken and confused, Phoenix heard a tapping on his window and a voice say, "Just relax." Unable to see the man, Phoenix replied, "I'm fine. I am relaxed." The man replied, "No, you're not," and stopped Phoenix from lighting a cigarette while gasoline was leaking into the car cabin. Phoenix then realized that the man was famed German film director Werner Herzog. While Herzog helped Phoenix out of the wreckage by breaking the back window of the car, bystanders phoned for an ambulance. Phoenix approached Herzog to express gratitude, but Herzog downplayed his heroism and returned to his home nearby."



...TIL Werner Herzog once saved Joaquin Phoenix's life and I literally have no idea what to do with this information. Who even is this man? Will we ever ever understand him? Does the world even deserve have to someone like Werner Herzog in it?

[paulofilmo]

ah yes. i learned about it from this