Today I Found Out » People

Mark Wahlberg was a Drug Dealer and was Charged with Attempted Murder Before Forming Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

Daven — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:39:07 +0000

Image Courtesy of ©Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com

Today I found out Mark Wahlberg was a drug dealer and was tried for attempted murder before forming Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

Wahlberg, born the youngest of nine children all living in a three bedroom apartment, dropped out of school around the age of fourteen and joined a gang. During this time, he was reportedly in trouble with the law around 20-25 times, for dealing drugs and various other offenses. He also claims he became addicted to cocaine during this period. Things came to a head when he was 16 years old and he attacked two Vietnamese men without provocation. He attacked the first with a stick and he punched the second, permanently blinding him in the process. The official record of the event as recorded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Superior Court is as follows:

Count I:

At approximately 9:00 p.m. on April 8, 1988, Thanh Lam, a Vietnamese adult male who resides in Dorchester, traveled by car to 998 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester, Massachusetts. At 998 Dorchester Avenue, Thanh Lam left his car carrying two cases of beer. As he crossed the sidewalk, Mark Wahlberg attacked Thanh Lam. Wahlberg was carrying a large wooden stick, approximately five feet long and two to three inches in diameter. Wahlberg approached Thanh Lam calling him a “Vietnam fucking shit”, then hit him over the head with the stick. Thanh Lam was knocked to the ground unconscious. The stick broke in two and was later recovered from the scene. Thanh Lam was treated overnight at Boston City Hospital.

After police arrested Wahlberg later on the night of April 8, 1988, Wahlberg was informed of his rights and returned to the scene of 988 Dorchester Avenue. In the presence of two police officers, he stated: “You don’t have to let him identify me, I’ll tell you now that’s the mother-fucker whose head I split open”, or words to that effect.

Count II:

As a police officer arrived at the scene of 988 Dorchester Avenue, Wahlberg and two other youths who were with him fled up Dorchester Avenue toward Pearl Street.

Shortly after 9:00pm on April 8, 1988, Hoa Trinh, an adult Vietnamese male who resides in Dorchester, was standing several blocks away from 998 Dorchester Avenue, near the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Pearl Street. Hoa Trinh was not aware of the altercation outside of 998 Dorchester Avenue.

Wahlberg ran up to Hoa Trinh, put his arm around Hoa Trinh’s shoulder and said: “Police coming, police coming, let me hide.” After a police cruiser passed, Wahlberg punched Trinh in the eye, causing him to fall to the ground.

Police arrived and Hoa Trinh identified Wahlberg as the person who punched him. Wahlberg was placed under arrest and read his rights. Thereafter, he made numerous unsolicited racial statements about “gooks” and “slant-eyed gooks”. After being returned to 998 Dorchester Avenue, Wahlberg identified Thanh Lam as the person he hit over the head with a stick.

For these attacks, Wahlberg was arrested and initially charged with attempted murder, but it was later reduced to criminal contempt, which carried a maximum sentence of ten years. After pleading guilty, he was given a two year sentence at the Deer Island House of Correction in Boston. In the end, he only had to serve 45 days in the correctional facility.

Unlike most that go through such facilities, the time he spent locked up inspired him to try and turn his life around. “As soon as I began that life of crime, there was always a voice in my head telling me I was going to end up in jail. Three of my brothers had done time. My sister went to prison so many times I lost count. Finally I was there, locked up with the kind of guys I’d always wanted to be like. Now I’d earned my stripes and I was just like them and I realized it wasn’t what I wanted at all. I’d ended up in the worst place I could possibly imagine and I never wanted to go back.” He started his turn-around by reaching out to his parish priest for guidance and support, as well as leaving the gang he was a member of.

Mark Wahlberg’s big break came thanks to his older brother, Donnie. Donnie Wahlberg was already famous at this point with his success as a member of The New Kids on the Block, a band Mark had initially been a member of at the age of 13, but quit before the group became famous. Mark had been working as a bricklayer after serving time when Donnie helped him form Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, including helping him get a record contract and producing the first record the group made. The debut album Music for the People, released in 1991 when Mark Wahlberg was 19 years old, ended up going Platinum thanks largely to the hit single Good Vibrations and the follow up single Wildside.

After his music career started to hit the tank a couple years later, Wahlberg dropped his Marky Mark persona and decided to take up acting. Despite early skepticism by critics, he made the switch successfully, with his first critical success coming from appearing in The Basketball Diaries, though he had a few roles before this, most notably opposite Danny DeVito in Renaissance Man. Since then, he has become one of the bigger stars in Hollywood, reportedly commanding around $12-$15 million per movie today.

Bonus Factoids:

During his “Marky Mark” fame period, Wahlberg famously worked for Calvin Klein as an underwear model. Somewhat more humorously, he also put out a workout video: Form… Focus… Fitness
Mark Wahlberg’s siblings are: Arthur, James, Debbie, Michelle, Paul, Tracey, Robert, and Donnie. He also has half siblings Scott, Buddy, and Donna who are children of his dad by another woman.
Though all in all Wahlberg has turned his life around quite nicely, especially in recent years where he’s been involved in numerous charitable endeavors, particularly benefiting underprivileged youth, he still had several instances of violence in his post-prison, younger years (around the “Marky Mark” period). For instance, when he was 21 years old, he “viciously and repeatedly kicked the plaintiff, Robert D. Crehan, in the face and jaw” while a friend of his, Derk McCall, held Crehan down on the ground. This resulted in Crehan’s jaw being broken, as well as a claimed decrease in learning ability. Wahlberg also famous had a fight with certain members of Madonna’s entourage (which he states Madonna still owes him an apology over). He also attacked a security guard, which resulted in him having to appear in several anti-bias advertisements. Wahlberg states about his early life: “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life and I’ve done bad things. But I never blamed my upbringing for that. I never behaved like a victim so that I would have a convenient reason for victimizing others. Everything I did wrong was my own fault. I was taught the difference between right and wrong at an early age. I take full responsibility.”
Wahlberg was originally cast in both Ocean’s Eleven and Brokeback Mountain, but turned both roles down. In Ocean’s Eleven, he was cast as Linus Caldwell, but withdrew and Matt Damon was cast instead. In Brokeback Mountain he states he withdrew due to being uncomfortable with the sex scenes.
Wahlberg and several friends originally had tickets to fly on United 93, one of the planes hijacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. However, they ended up deciding to instead charter a plane to go attend a film festival in Canada before returning to Los Angeles. Wahlberg has since stated that “If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’” Obviously this didn’t go over very well with people who lost loved ones on that plane, nor with the general public. Given Wahlberg’s apparent propensity towards violence, even when unprovoked, the first part of his claim isn’t really that far-fetched. However, the passengers of United 93 did revolt once they realized the bomb threat the terrorists were using to control them wasn’t likely true. They learned this after several passengers heard of the planes that hit the twin towers from talking to loved ones on their cell phones. Unfortunately for the passengers, though, the terrorists at this point were obviously the ones flying the plane. Once the passengers had nearly broken into the cockpit, the hijackers made the decision to simply crash the plane, with one recorded as saying ”Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?” and another responding, “Yes, pull it down.” The pilot then rolled the plane over and began chanting “Allāhu Akbar”, while the passengers continued to fight. The official report states that at the time of impact, the passengers were just seconds from taking complete control. So obviously Wahlberg with his temper and fighting ability being there or not would have made no difference as the hijackers would have put the plane down all the same the second it was apparent a passenger or group of passengers were about to retake the aircraft.
Wahlberg never returned to High School after dropping out at the age of 14, but did eventually get his GED.
Since New Kids on the Block, Donnie Wahlberg also took up acting, appearing in such works as Band of Brothers, the Saw films, and The Sixth Sense. For the latter role in The Sixth Sense as “Vincent Grey”, he had to lose 43 pounds.
New Kids on the Block was formed by Maurice Starr who held auditions in Boston with over 500 boys turning out. The first member selected was Donnie Wahlberg, who subsequently convinced Starr to also add Mark to the group, along with some friends of his.
New Kids on the Block actually almost never were, as far as becoming famous. Their debut album was a flop and their second album initially didn’t do any better. After their first album, the group could only get gigs at school dances and the like. When their second album was released, it also initially flopped with little interest in their first single Please Don’t Go Girl. Finally, the label had decided to drop the group, but at this same time a single radio station in Florida had been playing the song steadily, with it becoming one of the most requested songs at that station. When Columbia Records learned of this, they decided to promote the song more and things took off from there. Interestingly, due to their later success, their debut album ultimately ended up selling four million copies, despite the initial flop. All total, New Kids on the Block sold over 70 million albums.
The original name of New Kids on the Block was “NYNUK”, but upon signing the group, the label, Columbia Records, told them they needed to come up with a different name.
Donnie Wahlberg also has had his share of trouble with the law, such as being charged with first degree arson for setting fire to a hotel hallway in Kentucky (The Seelbach Hotel). The charges were later lowered and he simply had to make a series of public service ads about fire safety, as well as anti-drug and anti-drunk driving ads.

Sources and Further Reading:

Conan O’Brien Spent Two Years as a Writer and Producer of the Simpsons

Daven — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:23:34 +0000

Today I found out that Conan O’Brien spent two years as a writer and producer of The Simpsons before replacing Letterman as the host of Late Night.

After becoming burnt out working at Saturday Night Live, Conan quit and decided to do something else, though he had no idea what. When Mike Reiss and Al Jean from The Simpsons heard about it, they called him up and offered him a job, even though he didn’t really have any experience writing sitcom scripts.

On his first day of work, he showed up and they showed him into this office and left him to jot down some episode ideas. When he left for a coffee break a few minutes later, he heard a crash and walked back into the office and there was a hole in the window and a dead bird on the floor. This happened within 10 minutes of him arriving at his new place of work. Nice omen!

After two years of working on The Simpsons, he got the job as the new host of Late Night on NBC. Fox tried to force him to stay as he still had a year on his contract with them, but he ended up being able to get out of it when NBC paid Fox half the value of Conan’s salary that year and Conan paid the other half. Seems like NBC is often paying to end Conan’s contracts prematurely.

Bonus Factoids:

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, named many of the characters after his own family such as: Homer (his dad), Margaret (his mom), Maggie and Lisa (his sisters), and Abe (his grandfather). His brother Mark was the inspiration for Bart. He chose to name the character “Bart” though, because it was an anagram for “Brat”.
Matt Groening’s last name is pronounced “Grain-ing”, not “Grown-ing”.
The couch gag in The Simpsons is used to make the show longer or shorter depending on the length of the episode itself. The average couch gag lasts about 6 seconds while the longest to date lasted 46 seconds.
Marge’s middle name is Juliet; Bart’s middle name is Jo-Jo; and Lisa’s middle name is Marie.
Matt Groening voices the sound of Maggie sucking on a pacifier.
Lisa has celebrated her 8th birthday on two different episodes.
Bart is voiced by a woman, Nancy Cartwright, who also does the voices for Nelson, Ralph, and Todd among others.
In the opening credits of all the episodes but one, Maggie is listed as costing $847.63, which was the average monthly cost of caring for a newborn baby at the time of the show’s inception. In the one episode where she doesn’t list as that price, the register reads NRA 4EVER.
The voices done by Hank Azaria are based on people he has known in real life. For instance, Lou is based on Sylvester Stallone. Comic Book Guy is based on Azaria’s old college roommate. Chief Wiggum is based on famed actor Edward G. Robinson.
Dr. Nick is named after the doctor that prescribed several doses of narcotics to Elvis Presley.
In the Arabic broadcast of The Simpsons episodes, Homer drinks soda instead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs.
The character of Moe Szyslak was based on Louis “Red” Deutsch, a bartender who was infamous for his profane tirades against prank calls in the mid 1970′s.
The Simpsons has only six main cast members who do the voices for almost all of the characters.

Sources:

Kim Jong-il’s Real Name was Yuri Irsenovich Kim

Daven — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:17:23 +0000

Kim Jong-Il was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim. His official biography states that he was born on a sacred mountain (Baekdu Mountain, the legendary birthplace of Korea’s first kingdom) on February 16, 1942, where his father was serving in a secret military base, attempting to overthrow the Japanese. Further, it states that his birth was marked by a double rainbow over the mountain, a new star appearing in the sky, and, before his birth, a swallow foretold his coming.

Besides the obvious parts of this that aren’t true, he also was not born on Baekdu Mountain in 1942, but rather was born in Vyatskoye, Khabaroskv in 1941. Vyatskoye is a small hamlet in Russia. Kim’s father, Kim Il-Sung, was actually a commander in the Soviet 88th Brigade there. After WWII, Korea gained its independence from Japan and the family returned to Korea where his father began being groomed to rule by the Soviets, first being installed by Stalin as the head of the Provisional People’s Committee. Shortly thereafter, he was made Prime Minister and eventually became President.

Other interesting Korean state propaganda surrounding Kim Jong-Il include:

He never pooped (perhaps that contributed to his declining health).
He wrote over 1,500 books in a three year time-span.
He wrote six full operas that are considered by experts to be the best six operas ever created.
The first time he played golf in 1994, he shot 11 hole-in-ones and was 38 under par (verified by all of his bodyguards, no less). From there, he nearly always shot several hole-in-ones any time he golfed.
He began walking at just three weeks old and could fluently speak at just eight weeks old.
People the world over receive plastic surgery to try to look more like Kim Jong-Il. His hair and clothing styles are also widely mimicked.
His birthday is highly celebrated throughout the world.
He had the ability to control the weather and it usually reflected his moods.
He invented hamburgers as a way to provide a new tasty food for his impoverished people.

Bonus Factoids:

Kim Jong-Il’s father was also no slouch in the propaganda department, though he mostly stuck to things that were at least in the realm of plausible, unlike the non-pooping Jong-Il. For instance, while at first his military career with the Soviets was no secret, Il-Sung later erased all references of his serving in the Red Army from North Korean historical records and rewrote certain parts of Korean history as far back as 1866 to bolster the aura around the Kim family, among other things. Also, to help boost anti-American sentiment, he frequently claimed that the United States was intentionally spreading diseases throughout North Korea.
Kim Il-Sung claimed to have composed the famous Korean opera “The Flower Girl”, which was later made into a novel and a movie. Kim claimed he wrote it while in prison in 1929 in Jilin, China. The story of the opera is centered around a very poor girl who sells flowers in a market to help support her sick mother and blind sister, now that their father is dead. Her mother soon dies because her daughter can’t save up for the medicine in time and her sister is killed by their evil landlord who believes the blind girl is possessed by a demon. He makes it look like it is an accident, though, by having her freeze to death. He then locks up the flower girl who is only saved by her brother who is a member of the Revolutionary Army. The brother then overthrows the landlord and frees his sister. Gripping.
Kim Il-Sung was jailed at the age of 17 in China for belonging to the South Manchurian Communist Youth Association, which was a Marxist organization. He was released after just a few months. Three years before this, he founded the Down-With-Imperialism Union.
On the off chance he’d have to flee North Korea, Kim Jong-Il supposedly had nearly $4 billion stashed away in various banks throughout Europe.
Both Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il reportedly had a great fear of flying. As such, they used a series of Presidential Trains to get around. The trains, of which there are supposedly six, are heavily armored and extremely luxurious, though little else is known about them. It was on one of these trains that Kim Jong-Il supposedly died.
“Propaganda City” in North Korea (Kijong-Dong, “Freedom Village”) is a city built near the border of North and South Korea and is meant to demonstrate how wonderful life is in North Korea and how beautiful and prosperous the towns are. The only problem with this is that the city isn’t inhabited by anybody because the city isn’t designed to be functional, just look great. For instance, the buildings are just hallow shells with nothing inside. On the outside, though, the city includes everything you’d expect to see, including timed lights, street sweepers, etc.
While Kim Jong-Il publicly wouldn’t eat or drink anything not made in North Korea (as part of Juche ideals, “self-reliance”, he and his father pushed), he actually frequently had imported French wine and had his chef acquire delicacies from all over the world.
Being a huge movie fan, Jong-Il once had South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee kidnapped in Hong Kong and brought to North Korea. When Choi’s ex-husband, famed South Korean director Shin Sang-ok, learned of this, he went to investigate in Hong Kong. Once there, he was soon kidnapped as well and brought to North Korea. The two were kept separate at first and were well treated overall, though Shin was put in prison after attempting to escape. Eventually Kim Jong-Il invited them both to dinner and explained he wanted them to develop a major film industry for North Korea to help bolster the public perception of North Korea globally. The two agreed to do so, as they were given no real choice.
While in North Korea, Shin directed a total of seven movies, including Pulgasari, which was more or less a knock-off of Godzilla.
Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok remarried while in North Korea at the “encouragement” of Kim Jong-Il.
The two managed to escape North Korea eight years after being kidnapped when Kim Jong-Il allowed them to attend a film festival in Austria. While there, they fled to the U.S. Embassy and were granted political asylum. The North Korean government denies Choi and Shin were ever held against their will, but the two produced secret recordings they had made, including conversations with Kim Jong-Il, that backed up their story. They later returned to South Korea once they were sure that their government believed them that they hadn’t gone to North Korea willingly.
While in the U.S., Shin directed a few U.S. films under the name “Simon Sheen”, including 3 Ninjas Kick Back and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.
During the 1960s, Shin’s made over 300 films in South Korea.

Sources:

The Guy Who Played Mr. Bean has a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering

Daven — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:18:37 +0000

Today I found out Rowan Atkinson, the guy who played “Mr. Bean”, has a master’s degree in electrical engineering.

Atkinson originally received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering (EE) at Newcastle University before enrolling in an EE master’s program at The Queen’s College Oxford in 1975. While working towards this degree, he also pursued acting on the side with a variety of clubs, including: the Oxford University Dramatic Society; the Oxford Revue; and the Experimental Theatre Club.

The character of Mr. Bean, though not the name, was originally developed during this time period. The character’s modus operandi was to be a “child in a grown man’s body”, based on similar brands of “physical humor” comedy portrayed by such famed actors as Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Jacques Tati (particularly the character of “Monsieur Hulot” portrayed by Tati).

In retrospect, the development of the character of Mr. Bean proved to be a more profitable use of Atkinson’s time in college than actual course study. The subsequent TV program based on this character lasted five years and was wildly popular throughout the UK with peak ratings as high as just shy of 19 million viewers. In addition to that, the two films made to date featuring this character, “Bean” and “Mr. Bean’s Holliday”, combined grossed nearly half a billion dollars worldwide in theaters ($250 million and $230 million respectively), while only costing $22 million to make the first film and $25 million for the second.

Bonus Factoids:

In his early days of acting, Atkinson earned a truck driver’s license as a way to make extra money while he established himself as an actor.
In the UK, a truck driver is called a “lorry driver”.
Thanks in large part to the Mr. Bean character, along with various other roles he’s performed, Rowand Atkinson is today estimated to have a net worth of around $150 million.
Atkinson’s oldest brother, Rupert, in 2000 barely lost the post of leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (by a mere 16 votes).
Buster Keaton, whose style of comedy was very similar to Mr. Bean, also inspired Jackie Chan’s brand of comedy, according to Chan’s autobiography.
Keaton was named the seventh greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Further, he is ranked as the “21st greatest male actor of all time” by the American Film Institute. In his early silent films, he was known for delivering his brand of physical comedy with a completely straight face, which he found typically drew bigger laughs than if he was more animated in his expressions.
Keaton got his start in show business at just four years old in 1899, performing in his parent’s comedy sketch. His role was typically to get his dad angry at him, at which point his dad would toss him across the stage to land in the orchestra pit or to slam against the scenery. While this may sound rough, his dad taught him how to land such that he wouldn’t ever get hurt. Although, his father faced being arrested several times for child abuse, only getting off when Keaton would show that he had not been hurt in any way by being tossed. Keaton stated “The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It’s a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I’d have been killed if I hadn’t been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don’t last long, because they can’t stand the treatment.”
Keaton was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 1966, but his doctors never told him he was going to die; they told him he just had bronchitis, though they knew it was lung cancer. His last wife, Eleanor Keaton, also died of lung cancer 32 years later.
A major car enthusiast, Atkinson occasionally writes for different British automobile magazines, such as Car, Octane, Evo, and SuperClassics and has appeared on the motor vehicle show, Top Gear. He also owns several cars including the exceptionally rare McLaren F1, which he has wrecked twice, once in 1999 and once just a few months ago in August of 2011. In the first wreck, he rear ended a $600 Mini Metro car with his car worth then about $1+ million (today worth more in the vicinity of $4 million). In the second accident, he hit a tree.
The McLaren F1 can go from 0-60 mph in 3.2 seconds and has a top speed of around 240 mph. McLaren only produced 106 of these cars.
One of the earliest known performances of the Mr. Bean-style character done by Atkinson was in a 1979 show called “Canned Laughter”. The character, while similarly portrayed as Mr. Bean, went under the name “Robert Box”.
The name of “Mr. Bean” wasn’t thought up until after Atkinson landed the Mr. Bean show. During early production, they threw around a variety of names for the character, originally “Mr. White”, then several possible names based on vegetables and other plant life like “Mr. Carrot” or “Mr. Cauliflower”. Eventually, they settled on “Mr. Bean”.
Other notable characters done by Atkinson include: Zazu on Disney’s The Lion King; Johnny English; and various characters on the historical sitcom Blackadder, among many others.
The Queen’s College Oxford was founded nearly 700 years ago in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield, who was a chaplain to the wife of King Edward III of England, Queen Philippa of Hainault.
The city of Oxford was originally named Oxenaforda, which just meant “Ford of the Oxen”.

Sources and More Information:

Albert Einstein Did Not Fail at Mathematics in School

Daven — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:32:57 +0000

Today I found out Albert Einstein did not fail at mathematics in school.

In fact, he actually excelled at mathematics throughout his schooling and even considered becoming a mathematician for a time. This rumor actually started while he was still alive and even showed up in a particular issue of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Einstein was shown the article in Ripley’s, which had the title “Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics.” Beyond the fact that this failure never happened, the other incorrect bit in that article was that Einstein was not a mathematician. Einstein reportedly found the article humorous and remarked: ““I never failed in mathematics… Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.” (15 was the age in Germany that most qualified students would start to learn calculus.)

Indeed, by the age of 12, Einstein took it upon himself to see if he could learn geometry and algebra on his own. His parents subsequently bought him textbooks towards this end and, in one summer, he mastered both subjects, while coming up with his own proofs to prove the various mathematical theories he was studying, including his own way to prove the Pythagorean Theorem. Also at the age of 12, he began learning calculus, which, as noted, was about three years ahead of his classmates that would eventually qualify to pursue calculus.

How the myth came about that Einstein was poor at mathematics at an early age isn’t entirely known. A few theories have been thrown about. One story, who knows if it is true, is that in 1896 (the last year he attended this particular school), the school he was attending reversed their grading scale so that “6″ became the highest mark, instead of the lowest, and “1″ became the lowest, instead of the highest. So it would have looked like he had suddenly gone from passing to failing in his final year, when comparing with his marks from previous years.

Another potential origin story is that it was simply a case of him frequently needing to solicit the aid of mathematicians to double check is work, as well as to help him formalize his theoretical ideas into the language of mathematics. This, however, had nothing to do with being poor at mathematics; he simply wasn’t a mathematician and was often dealing with very advanced topics in mathematics that only mathematicians were generally proficient at. Even in these cases though, he typically picked up what he needed to know very quickly from the mathematicians who helped him.

Bonus Factoids:

Yet another myth surrounding Einstein is that he was the instigator of the theory that we only use 10% of our brains, something that has since been thoroughly debunked (both by the fact that he never said that and that we actually use all of our brains.)
While Einstein excelled at mathematics, he was very poor at language, particularly early on in his life (this also carried on to a lesser degree later in his life as well, including being initially rejected at the Federal Polytechnic Academy due to poor marks in non-science related subjects). By his own account, he didn’t start speaking until he was four years old. This, however, may have significantly aided in him developing the habit of thinking in images, rather than words, similar to how many deaf people think. This habit of thinking in images is largely how he first thought up the idea of special and general relativity using “thought experiments”, called Gedankenexperiment. Indeed, his first idea that there was something wrong with Maxwell’s equations came when he was sixteen and performed a thought experiment imagining what would happen if you were traveling at the speed of light and observed light traveling alongside you. The light, from this perspective, would then seem stationary to you, but Maxwell’s equations didn’t allow for this. He subsequently wrote an essay on this, at sixteen, and began formulating a new theory based on this thought experiment, which eventually resulted in his paper on special relativity.
When Einstein graduated from college, he failed to find work in academia as well as failed to be accepted into any doctoral program. Instead, he accepted a job as a third class patent clerk in a Swiss patent office. In his spare time, with the help of his wife, Mileva Mari, to double check his work (she was a physicist and slightly more advanced than he in mathematics), he wrote four papers that changed the landscape of Physics: proving that light acts as both particles and waves, not just waves; proving the existence of atoms and molecules; illustrating his theory of special relativity; and outlining the relationship between matter and energy.
Einstein eventually got his wife to agree to divorce him by offering her the money he would receive when he eventually would win a Nobel Prize for one or more of his papers he wrote in 1905 (no lack of confidence there) . Apparently, she must have thought he had a good shot at it too someday, because, after thinking it over for a week, she accepted. She ended up having to wait until 1921, but eventually got the money.
Another popular myth is that Einstein received a Nobel Prize for his theory of special relativity. In fact, he actually received it for “the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”. At the time, Einstein was immensely popular with the public and there was a big push for him to win a Nobel Prize for his work. However, there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding his work in special relativity, so the committee did not want to award him a Nobel Prize for that. Carl Wilhelm Oseen eventually suggested that they could award him a Nobel Prize for discovering a new law of Physics, thereby getting around the problem of special relativity potentially not being correct, while pleasing the masses that were pushing hard for him to win a Nobel Prize. Einstein never won another Nobel Prize, despite special and general relativity revolutionizing theoretical physics.
Unlike many scientists, Einstein was a believer in God. However, not necessarily the God of any particular religion. He described his belief as such: “A spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way, the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.” … “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”
Another myth surrounding Einstein is that he had an affair with Marilyn Monroe. In fact, he never even met her. Many proponents of this myth claim that Monroe suggested they have a baby together, making the perfect child, having her looks and his brain. He supposedly retorted, “But what if it has my looks and your brain?” This, of course, never happened and this anecdote is also commonly assigned to other actresses and intellectuals, including Isadora Duncan and George Bernard Shaw.

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Marie Antoinette Never Said “Let Them Eat Cake”

Daven — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:01:38 +0000

Today I found out Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake”.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “Of course she didn’t, she spoke French!” But, in fact, she didn’t say “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” either. In fact, this saying in France actually pre-dated her arrival there by anywhere from about thirty years to as much as a century.

This myth is often stated that on her way to the guillotine, forced by a mob of starving French peasants, she exasperatedly said “let them eat cake!” Another version says that when she heard the people were starving from lack of bread, she suggested, “let them eat cake.” There are numerous problems with both of these versions of the tail, but we’ll just stick with the “let them eat cake” part.

The actual saying “let them eat cake” was first written by the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his autobiography “Confessions”. At the time, Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old and living in Austria. She didn’t come to France until four years later when she married Louis XVI. More than that, Rousseau mentioned this same phrase in a letter written 18 years before Marie-Antoinette was even born.

In his autobiography, Rousseau references a “great princess”, who, when told the peasants had no bread, said “Well, let them eat brioche.” (brioche being a highly enriched bread). It is thought that either Rousseau coined this phrase himself or he was referring to Maria-Thérèse, who had lived about 100 years before and was the wife of Louis XIV. Historians are divided on which is correct. There is significant evidence that the French royal family believed the phrase originated from Maria-Thérèse and it was a story passed down among them. Indeed, Louis XVIII, in a memoir he penned in 1791, related the story of Marie-Thérèse saying this. In either case, this statement was used to illustrate the disconnect between the aristocracy in France and the plight of the people.

Brioche

Further, during a brief bread shortage in 1775, which lead to a series of riots, in a letter from Marie-Antoinette to her Austrian family, she states the following: “It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness.” Hardly something written by someone who was oblivious or unsympathetic to the plight of the poor.

So how did this saying get attributed to Marie Antoinette? Primarily, because the people of France loathed her. If you read up on her history, you’ll find most of this loathing was primarily because she was an easy and very visible target to vent their rage against the French aristocracy on. Marie Antoinette was Austrian and before her marriage to Louis XVI, Austria and France had been bitter enemies (in truth, things didn’t improve too much after their union, though at least open war was avoided until the King was eventually deposed in the revolution).

Initially, her beauty, eloquence, and personality endeared the people to her. But as matters degraded between the general public and the aristocracy, she became the favorite member of the elite class to vilify. Throughout most of her time in France, she was frequently accused of such things as: incest with her son; having numerous affairs with just about every man or woman she came in contact with; attempting to weaken France so that Austria could take over; attempting to bankrupt France through political intrigues and lavish spending (she was nicknamed “Madame Déficit”); attempting to siphon the funds in France’s treasury to her brother Joseph II of Austria; attempting to defraud jewelers of the cost of a certain extremely expensive diamond necklace; wishing to bathe in the blood of her political enemies; orchestrating orgies; being the “power behind the throne”, influencing many of the king’s decisions that were seen as hurting France (nicknamed “Madame Veto”); plotting to kill the Duke of Orléans; orchestrating the massacre of Swiss Guards; etc.

In reality, there is little evidence that any of these things took place, save her lavish spending. However, her spending habits were nothing compared to most French royalty at the time, which is somewhat surprising, considering the Queen was expected to out-do everyone else. But it should be noted, that’s relatively speaking. By most standards through history, her spending habits were indeed ridiculous for most of her time as queen.

She did, however, include very generous charitable contributions to the poor of France, among her lavish spending, which also makes the idea of her saying “let them eat cake” seem out of character, considering it represents a level of obliviousness that doesn’t align with what is known about her.

In addition to this, she had no real political power for most of her time as queen, as her husband tended to rebuff any suggestion she made due to the fact that she was Austrian and he was raised to distrust Austrians as much as the people of France did. Indeed, he rarely ever spoke to her about matters of state, fearing she might attempt to use this information to Austria’s advantage. Thus, she almost never took part in politics (which also was criticized at various times by the general public, who accused her of standing by and doing nothing while France slowly deteriorated).

When the king eventually withdrew from many of his political responsibilities, due to extreme depression, she finally stepped in to help calm matters between the assembly and the king, which had rapidly deteriorated with the state of France. Now that she was taking part in politics, this also was criticized, with the revolutionists accusing her of trying to bolster Austria’s position and weaken France (which there was never any real evidence of; indeed, the evidence is quite to the contrary. Most of her political dealings went against the interests of Austria, due to the fact that her goal was to secure the future of her children, who were French royalty, and that future was becoming in doubt with the state of France).

At this time, she also made many enemies among the French aristocracy for criticizing their lavish spending habits, when France was so near bankruptcy. France’s continued financial problems at this time when she was at the helm, also did nothing to bolster her popularity with the people, who blamed her for these problems, despite the fact that she had little to do with it, and lacked the power to fix it. Outside of the revolutionists, many of her rivals in court were also actively attempting to sway the people against her by giving large donations of bread and money to them, in an effort to undermine some of her political dealings. To make matters worse, she was also dealing with her dying son, who she insisted on taking care of herself, rather than allowing others to do it, which was traditional for royalty at the time. He eventually died of tuberculosis.

So basically, she was Austrian, a woman, and one of the top members of the French aristocracy at a time when being any of these three wasn’t looked upon highly by the general public; so she became target #1 for all their rage against their negligent rulers.

The expression itself, “let them eat cake”, was relatively well known amongst many of the revolutionists, and they used it to personify the disconnect between the aristocracy and the general public at this time. Post-revolution French historians also liked to use the phrase as it summed up the extreme selfishness and complete obliviousness of the French aristocracy during this period. So it’s not surprising that they assigned the phrase as being spoken by her, who was their favorite target for such things before her death as well.

Her life was actually quite a sad story from beginning to end and reputable historical accounts of herself and her actions are quite contrary to the general perception of her, not just then, but today as well. If you’re interested in reading more about this, I highly recommend this book, which is a very interesting read, assuming you like biographies and are at all interested in French history: Marie Antoinette: The Journey

Bonus Factoids:

Marie Antoinette’s last words were “pardon me sir, I meant not to do it.” She had accidentally stepped on the foot of the executioner and was apologizing for it.
Once imprisoned after the revolution, she vowed to no longer take part in French politics because whatever happened that was bad would be blamed on her anyways. She, instead, devoted her time towards attending charitable events, when allowed, and taking care of her surviving children.
War broke out on April 20th, 1792, between France and Austria, which also did little to bolster her popularity, being Austrian.
On September 21, 1792 the monarchy of France was officially declared finished, and a National Convention began its rule. At which point, the king and queen were tried separately for treason. The king was eventually executed on January 21, 1793. In the months after, Antoinette’s health rapidly deteriorated due to refusing to eat and the onset of tuberculosis, as well as frequent hemorrhaging, thought to be caused by uterine cancer.
Eventually, her son, the heir, was taken from her and given to a cobbler to be “retrained” with the ideals of the revolutionists. He later died in prison in 1795. At this point, numerous attempts were planned to try to free her, but with all attempts being refused by Antoinette.
She was eventually given one day to prepare a defense for herself, after being informed she would be tried. Among the charges brought against her, were those listed above, including incest with her son, which she initially refused to respond to, unlike the other charges leveled against her. When pressed, she lost her composure, which she had maintained up until that point and lamented: “If I have not replied, it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother.” This endeared her to many of the women present, but the result of the trial had been already decided before hand by the Committee of Public Safety.
She was, thus, convicted on October the 16th and sentenced to death. Her hair was cut off and she was driven through Paris in an open cart to be ridiculed by the masses. After her execution, her body was buried in an unmarked grave. It was later exhumed and given a proper burial in 1815 when the comte de Provence became King Louis XVIII after the capture of Napoleon in 1814.
Another popular myth is that the phrase “Let them eat cake” was attributed to Marie Antoinette because she was overheard by an Englishman saying: Le theme est quete (The theme is quest), which sounds phonetically a bit like “let them eat cake”, but is generally gibberish.
At this time in France, marriages were consummated publicly, to prove that the union was completed. Marriages in most cultures at this time were not official until that consummation took place. Thus, witnesses always had to be present at the consummation. In France, at the time, servants usually slept in the same room as their masters, so witnesses were usually present anyways. Marie Antoinette and the King didn’t consummate their marriage for a full seven years after the actual proxy wedding (the king was not present at the wedding). At that time, Antoinette’s brother traveled to France and intervened, at which point the marriage was finally consummated.
Having little else to do with her time, Antoinette primarily divided her time between taking direct care of her children (which was rare among royalty and frowned upon at the time), gambling, performing in plays, shopping, and studying historical and scientific works. Somewhat ironically, Antoinette was a huge fan of works by Rousseau, who originally penned the phrase she is so famous for.
One of the first acts Antoinette did to displease the masses was to purchase Château de Saint-Cloud, which she intended to leave as an inheritance to her younger children who were not heirs. The idea of a woman owning her own property outraged many, particularly because she was the queen and shouldn’t have a residence that was not also owned by the king.

Sources:

Al Capone Had A Brother Who Was A Prohibition Enforcement Officer

Scott — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:02:12 +0000

Today I found out Al Capone’s brother was a police officer who at one point was also a prohibition enforcement officer.

James Vincenzo Capone, born in 1892, was 7 years old when his infamous brother Al was born. Growing up in Brooklyn, he felt the city life didn’t suit him and decided to head out west. As such, he left the family at the age of 16 to join the circus in 1908. Losing touch with his family, he traveled throughout the Midwest going by the name “Richard Hart”, choosing to keep people from knowing about his Italian heritage. Instead, he preferred people to think he was Mexican or Native American.

During this early period in his life, he became fascinated with guns and would spend countless hours shooting at bottles and cans, soon becoming an expert marksman. After World War I, he told people he had developed this skill serving in the infantry in France. He also said that he rose to the rank of Lieutenant and received the “sharpshooters” medal from General John J Pershing. However, later in his life, this military service was called into question by local Legionaries who asked for proof of his claims. Being unable to provide any record of actually being a serviceman, his military history is thought to have been made up.

He eventually settled in Homer, Nebraska, where he soon became Homer’s town marshal for two years followed by one year as a state sheriff. It was then that he chose to seek out more excitement by becoming a prohibition enforcement officer. This was quite ironical given the fact that his brother, Al, was at the same time rising in fame as a gangster in Chicago, particularly known for illegal smuggling of liqueur.

Mr. Hart lead countless raids that ended in numerous arrests and convictions. He soon became famous for his methods in which he used disguises to enter towns undercover to bust local bootleggers. Due to his pair of pearl-handled pistols and his ability as a marksman, the papers began calling him “Two Gun Hart” after several sensational arrests. As his fame grew, he was hired by the U.S. Indian Service where he soon developed a reputation of brutality among the natives. In one incident, he killed a local Native American in a fight. After his arrest, it came to light that the Native American was a bootlegger, so all charges were dropped. Two Gun did not escape the crime Scot free, though. The murdered Native’s family, seeking retribution, attempted to kill Hart. They were not successful, but did manage to take one of his eyes.

After several more incidents, Two Gun’s reputation was tarnished and he ended up almost blind and broke. Unable to handle his bills and facing the prospect of being penniless, Hart chose to reach out to his wealthy brother in Chicago. Initially refusing to tell his wife and children where he was going, Hart went to Chicago returning with a new suit and a roll of $100 dollar bills. Finally, after one trip in which he went to visit his mother, he revealed to his wife that his brother was Al Capone.

In 1946, near the end of Al Capone’s life, Hart allowed his son Harry to go with him to a Capone family cabin. There he was able to meet his famous uncle. Capone, who at the time was suffering from complications of syphilis, had been released from his incarceration in Alcatraz and did not have much of his memory in-tact. Less than a year later, Al would die, on January 25, 1947.

In 1952, Richard Hart died of a heart attack at his home in Homer Nebraska with his wife and son at his side. Attaining fame as a law man fighting the same criminals his brother Al called peers.

Bonus Factoids:

Arguably the most heinous crime attributed to Al Capone was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929, 7 members of the “Bugs” Moran mob were lined up against a garage and shot to death by rivals pretending to be police. While Al was in Florida at the time, it was generally thought he was behind the incident.
Two Gun Hart had a bit of his brother Al in him. Although it was never proven, when accepting the position as town marshal, he was given keys to all of the businesses in the town in case he needed to get into them during his nightly patrols. During this time, several businesses routinely found that certain items in their stores would go missing.
Hart was a body-guard for the 30^th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, during the summer of 1927. Interestingly, Al Capone’s bullet-proof Cadillac, that was eventually seized by the U.S. Treasury, was used by the government as 32^nd President, Franklin Roosevelt’s, limousine.
Scarface was the most well-known nickname of Al Capone. The scars were given to him during a fight in which he insulted a mobster Frank Gallulcio’s sister telling her, “Honey, you have a nice ass and I mean that as a compliment.” Capone’s closest friends called him “Snorky”.
Before Al Capone was transferred to Alcatraz, he was at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta Georgia. He was said to live like a king because he always had more socks, bed sheets and underwear then the other prisoners. This was made possible because he had a hollowed out the handle of his tennis racket and had hidden several thousand dollars in it with which he could purchase the bounty.
Capone’s favorite drink was Templeton Rye whiskey.

References:

Whitey Ford Gave Pete Rose His “Charlie Hustle” Nickname

Daven — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:30:16 +0000

Today I found out Whitey Ford gave Pete Rose his “Charlie Hustle” nickname.

It was during spring training of what would turn out to be Pete Rose’s rookie year that Ford gave the nickname to him. The exact event that lead to the nickname is somewhat in dispute. The most commonly held story is that he gave Pete Rose the nickname after Rose drew a walk in a spring training game, but instead of jogging up the line, he sprinted.

However, according to Mickey Mantle, that wasn’t the first time Ford called him that. Rather, it was in a spring training game where Mickey Mantle hit a home run way out of the ballpark; rather than just watch it sail overhead, Rose ran to the wall and jumped as high as he could to try to catch the ball that was long gone. Mantle stated that when he got back to the dugout, Ford said “Did you see Charlie Hustle out there?”

In any event, that hustle paid off as Rose went on to win the Rookie of the Year award that year, batting .272 with a .334 OBP while tallying 170 hits. From there, he went on to compile one of the most impressive “counting stat” careers in the history of the game, finishing his career as a player: first in hits (4256); first in games played (3562); first in runs scored by a switch hitter (2165); most doubles by a switch hitter (746); most singles (3215); most walks by a switch hitter (1566); most total bases by a switch hitter (5752); most consecutive seasons with 100 or more hits (23); and tied for most years with 200 hits (10, tied with Ichiro Suzuki who did it consecutively, unlike Rose, and just missed making it 11 straight in 2011 by 16 hits). In addition to those, Rose also added to his trophy case: three batting titles; one MVP; 17 All-Star game selections; and two Gold Glove awards.

He also went on to manage, starting in 1984 while he was still a player and continuing on to 1989, with the latter three years of that as just a manager and not a player/manager. He eventually was placed on the permanently ineligible list in 1989 due to a gambling problem, including betting on Reds games, the team he was managing. In exchange for voluntarily being placed on that list, Major League Baseball agreed to not formally reveal their findings on his gambling habits. However, it is known that he bet on at least 52 Reds games between 1986 and 1987, though there was never any evidence that he bet against the Reds. Despite numerous appeals, Rose has remained on that list to date and is barred from the Hall of Fame because of it.

Interestingly, Mickey Mantle was also once put on the permanently ineligible list for being associated with gambling. In his case, though, he wasn’t the one doing the gambling. Rather, he was working at a casino in Atlantic City in 1983 as a greeter and representative, primarily in golfing charity events. The commissioner of baseball, Bowie Kuhn, when he found out Mantle worked at the casino warned him that he would be banned from baseball if he didn’t quit. When Mantle ignored his warnings, the commissioner followed through on his threat and placed him on the permanently ineligible list. When Kuhn was replaced by Peter Ueberroth, Mantle was reinstated and allowed to participate in MLB activities again starting in 1985.

Bonus Factoids:

Willie Mays was also placed on the “permanently” ineligible list at the same time as Mickey Mantle and for the same reason, working as a greeter and special assistant to the casino’s president. His suspension was also lifted at the same time as Mantle’s.
After his rookie season, Pete Rose joined the US Army Reserves and served at Fort Knox for six months. He also served six years with the 478th Engineering Battalion at Fort Thomas as a cook. This division also included Johnny Bench, Bobby Tolan, and Darrel Chaney. Being a cook allowed him to only have to show up one weekend a month. During that weekend, he was also allowed to leave early so that he could make the Reds’ games.
Rose’s first manager in the minor leagues once told the Reds that “Pete Rose can’t make a double play, can’t throw, can’t hit left handed, and can’t run.” A true testament to subjective scouting-style player evaluation. Further, he likely would have never even been signed at all out of high school had his uncle, who was a scout for the Reds, not begged them to sign him. Other scouts at the time reportedly saw little potential in him, but thanks to the fact that the Reds system was somewhat depleted at the time, they eventually agreed to sign him on June 18, 1960.
Before 1991, Rose still would have been technically eligible for the Hall of Fame. It wasn’t until that year that the Hall voted to ban those on the permanently ineligible list, though it had been an unwritten rule previous to that among Hall of Fame voters.
Pete Rose also holds the record for longest managerial suspension due to an on field event (30 days). This was following a confrontation between Rose and an umpire where Rose shoved the umpire after supposedly being scratched by the umpire on the face as they argued.
Shortly after being banned from baseball, Rose was arrested and served five months in prison for failing to count horse racing winnings and money earned from selling autographs on his income taxes. The total amount he was deficient in back taxes was $366,041.
Although officially banned from all MLB related events and activities, Rose was allowed to participate in the pre-game events before Game 2 of the 1999 World Series. The ban was lifted for a night because Rose had been selected by fans to the “All-Century” team.
Pete Rose’s daughter Cara (stage name: Chea Courtney) starred in the first season of the soap opera “Passions” and had a recurring role in Melrose Place.
Mickey Mantle was named after Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane as Mantle’s father thought “Mickey” was Cochrane’s first name. In fact, his name was Gordon.
Due to an injury in college, Mantle nearly never had the chance to play professional baseball. During a football game, Mantle was kicked hard in the shin, which, aside from being really painful, the leg became severally infected and doctors initially thought they were going to have to amputate it.
Mantle stated in his autobiography that his father forced him to marry the woman who ultimately became Mickey’s wife, Merlyn Johnson. While the two remained married until Mantle’s death, they separated fifteen years before and Mantle was known to have had numerous affairs. He even was audacious enough to bring one of his mistresses with him, along with his wife, to his Hall of Fame induction.
Mantle also had a major alcohol problem through most of his life, as did pretty much everyone else in his immediate family. After having to have a liver transplant in 1995, Mantle stated to the press: “This is a role model. Don’t be like me.” Soon after that, he died of cancer.
Edward Ford was given the nickname “Whitey” during his stint in the minor leagues due to his deeply blond hair.
Once his career was over, Ford admitted that later in his career he had frequently cheated by doctoring baseballs. His favorite method was to mark up the ball using various sharp objects, such as his wedding ring. He also would have his catcher mark up the ball by sharpening a buckle on his shin guard and rubbing the ball against that before throwing it to Ford to pitch. Elston Howard, his catcher, also used the mud around the batter’s box to coat one side of the ball before giving it to Ford to throw.

Sources:

Slick, My Life in and Around Baseball, by Whitey Ford
My Prison Without Bars, Pete Rose
Pete Rose
A Hero All His Life, by the Mantle family
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle Stats
Pete Rose (official site)
Pete Rose Stats
Whitey Ford Stats
Whitey Ford (official site)
Whitey Ford
Willie Mays
Image Source

Elizabeth Taylor was at One Time Carrie Fisher’s Step-Mother

Daven — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 10:58:46 +0000

Today I found out Elizabeth Taylor was at one time Carrie Fisher’s step-mother.

Carrie Fisher, who’s best known for her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars, is the daughter of famed entertainers Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. At the height of Eddie Fisher’s fame as a singer and eventual TV show host in the 1950s, he married actress Debbie Reynolds, with the two staying married for four years, from 1955-1959. Carrie Fisher was born just a year after the two were wed in 1956.

When Eddie Fisher divorced Reynolds in 1959, he quickly married one of Reynolds’ best friends, Elizabeth Taylor who was also the widow of his former best friend, producer Mike Todd, who had died in 1958. After Todd’s death, Fisher and Taylor became close and began having an affair that ultimate resulted in him divorcing Reynolds. The marriage with Fisher was surprisingly Elizabeth Taylor’s third marriage, even though she was at the time only 27 years old. The two stayed married for five years and divorced in 1964 when Carrie Fisher was 9 years of age.

From there, Fisher married three more women throughout his life (making a total of five), two of which he later divorced and one that died in 2001 while the two were still married, that one being his longest marriage, lasting nearly nine years. Elizabeth Taylor went on to marry another four men (making a total of seven husbands and eight marriages). Her final husband was Larry Fortensky who was a construction worker she met at the Betty Ford Clinic.

Interestingly, despite the fact that Reynolds’ husband left her for Elizabeth Taylor, the two women eventually became friends once again, after, by chance, they were traveling together on a cruise liner and decided to make up. They also did a made for TV movie together called These Old Broads where a bit in the movie includes the two making fun of a character named “Freddie” who was the ex-husband the two characters had both at one point been married to. Incidentally, These Old Broads was co-written and produced by Carrie Fisher.

Bonus Factoids:

Carrie Fisher began performing with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, at just 12 years old in Las Vegas, including eventually performing in the Broadway show Irene in 1973, which starred Debbie Reynolds.
The famous golden bikini in Return of the Jedi was originally thought up as Fisher had complained in A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back that her outfits made it so the audience couldn’t tell by anything but her face and voice that she was a woman. Fisher stated that it wasn’t actually made of metal, but rather a type of plastic. Further, from behind, the outfit left absolutely nothing to the imagination, in her words: “if you stood behind me, you could see straight to Florida.” She also stated she had some issues keeping her top from falling off at times, which also added to her uncomfortableness on the set, despite the fact that everyone was completely professionally even though she was half naked.
Carrie Fisher is indirectly mentioned in several Paul Simon songs, with the two having been married for a year in 1983-1984 and having dated for about five years before that.
During filming of Empire Strikes Back, Carrie Fisher has stated she used cocaine heavily and nearly died of an overdose at one point.
The famous “bun” hair style worn by Leia in A New Hope and later by Padme in Revenge of the Sith was inspired by a certain Mexican hair style that was popular in the late 19th century. Somewhat similar hair styles can still be seen sometimes in places like Valencia Venezuela, particularly during the Falles festival.
In the original A New Hope script, Leia was to be a 14 year old spoiled princess with two brothers, neither of which was Luke.
In the original Empire Strikes Back script Darth Vader was not Luke’s father, but rather his father appeared to him in ghost form, much like Obi-wan in the final script, and instructed him in the ways of the Jedi. The co-writer of that script died of cancer though, and Lucas was unhappy with it anyways, so re-wrote parts of it, including making Vader Luke’s father. He also decided to write in the scene having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite to make the ending even darker.
Lucas originally envisioned Star Wars as a nine part movie series, but after doing the middle three, he became sick of it and decided he’d abandon the franchise, though he later went back on that and made the first three. Hopefully if he decides to make 6-9, he’ll go with the Timothy Zahn “Heir to the Empire” trilogy, which is fantastic, and not try to write his own scripts again after the disaster, particularly with the dialogue, that was 1-3.
Interestingly, in the original plot of Revenge of the Sith, Lucas had Anakin’s journey towards the dark side be because the Emperor had poisoned his mind against the Jedi and convinced him that the Jedi were attempting to take over the Republic and were themselves the ones who were secretly evil. Thus, Anakin joined the Emperor to prevent that. He later changed it so that Anakin becoming a Sith Lord was simply to try to save Padme’s life, which, in my opinion, is a much weaker plot than the original.
Eddie Fisher died just a little over a year ago on September 22, 2010, from complications after falling and breaking his hip just 13 days before his death.
Elizabeth Taylor died on March 23, of this year (2011) of heart failure, six months after Eddie Fisher.
Debbie Reynolds also partook in serial monogamy marrying three times: to Eddie Fisher, then shoe store chain owner and millionaire Harry Karl, who ultimately gambled away his and her fortune, and finally to Richard Hamlett from 1984-1996. The final marriage fell apart reportedly due to problems with a hotel and casino the two owned in Las Vegas that was floundering and eventually went under a year after their divorce, resulting in Reynolds having to declare bankruptcy. Today, Reynolds lives next door to her daughter, Carrie Fisher, in Beverley Hills.
Debbie Reynolds got her start as an entertainer at the age of just 16 years old, signing on with Warner Bros. and later with MGM. She was vaulted into stardom four years later for her role in the musical Singing in the Rain.
Elizabeth Taylor was actually born in Brittan, but with U.S. parents, giving her dual citizenship. Her godfather was British parliament member Colonel Victor Cazalet. She tried at one point in the 1960s to renounce her U.S. citizenship and became solely a British citizen, but her request was denied because she wouldn’t speak the words that she renounced all allegiance to the U.S.
Taylor’s family moved back to the U.S. when WWII broke out. She subsequently began acting at the tender age of nine years old. She became a star just three years later at the age of 12 after appearing in the movie National Velvet, which also stared Mickey Rooney and Angela Lansbury.
Due to devoting all her time to acting and practicing acting, Taylor received little formal education and even in her teen years reportedly couldn’t add or subtract well without using her fingers. She even attempted to quit acting so she could just enjoy being a kid, but her parents refused to let her.
Taylor’s first marriage was to Hilton heir Nicky Hilton, who turned out to be extremely abusive and had gambling and drinking problems, so the marriage only lasted about 6 months. She was just 18 years old when the two got married. Her second marriage was to a much nicer man, Michael Wilding, but who was 20 years older than her, which ultimate doomed the marriage, according to Taylor, because of her immaturity. Her third marriage was to producer Michael Todd and lasted a little over a year before he died. Her forth marriage was to Eddie Fisher. Her fifth was to “one of the three loves” of her life, famed actor Richard Burton. The two began having an affair with one another while they were both married to other people. Her sixth marriage was also to Burton, the two divorced and later got back together. Her seventh marriage was to U.S. senator John Warner, which ended with her being deeply depressed and unhappy with the life of a politician’s wife. She checked into the Betty Ford Clinic, which was also where she later (a different instance) met her eighth husband Larry Fortensky, who was at the clinic due to drunk driving and a general drinking problem. The two got married in 1991 and divorced in 1996. Incidentally, their prenuptial agreement stated he had to stay married at least five years to get anything in the divorce. On the five year mark, almost exactly (about 24 days after the mark), they got divorced and he received one million dollars. The two remained friends though throughout the rest of Taylor’s life and she occasionally gave him additional funds to help him support himself. She also left him an additional $800,000 when she died. According to Fortensky’s sister, the two did not divorce for lack of love, but rather because he was sick of being known as “Mr. Elizabeth Taylor”.
Taylor also was engaged to be married to Glenn Davis, the Heisman Trophy winner. More famously, Howard Hughes attempted to get Taylor to marry him, even trying to get her parents to convince her. He promised to build a movie studio for her, if she’d marry him.
When Hughes proposed to Elizabeth Taylor, he swooped in with a helicopter and had it sprinkle diamonds all around her.
While married to Burton, Elizabeth Taylor intentionally gained weight to try to get studios to stop giving her movie roles as she once again attempted to quit acting.
When Burton first met Elizabeth Taylor, he stated: “She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse.” After having been married to her, he changed his tune a bit, stating: “calling her the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense. She has wonderful eyes, but she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she’s rather short in the leg.” Marriage…
Upon her death, Elizabeth Taylor’s estate was estimated to be worth around $1 billion, including $150 million worth of jewelry and $130 million in real estate. Interestingly, most of her fortune did not come from acting, but from her various business dealings. In 2010 alone, her various business ventures grossed nearly $70 million.
Throughout her life, Taylor was hospitalized 70 different times and had 20 major operations, among these included: having both her hips replaced, breaking her back five times, surgery to remove a brain tumor, surgery to repair a punctured esophagus, heart surgery, and skin cancer.
At her funeral, Taylor requested that she be late for her own funeral, so it was started 15 minutes after the posted time.

Sources:

A Woman Who Lost the Ability to Smell, Taste, See, and Hear as a Child was the First Deaf-Blind Person to Be Fully Educated

Daven — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:04:10 +0000

Today I found out about a woman who lost the ability to smell, taste, see, and hear as a child, but went on to become the first deaf-blind person to be fully educated.

The woman was Laura Bridgman. Bridgman was born in 1829 and it is thought she had full use of all her senses at birth. However, at the age of two years old, she became sick with scarlet fever, which lasted several weeks before she began to get better. Once she did heal, it became apparent that she had lost her sight and hearing in the process. It was later discovered, after she was educated, that she had lost or never had a sense of smell and she also had nearly no sense of taste.

The one sense she did have was touch. Amazingly, even with only this one sense and no real language, she was still pretty handy around the house as a child. She enjoyed mimicking actions demonstrated to her through touch, so her mother used this to teach her how to do certain household chores. She even learned to sew and knit.

Beyond that, her only real methods of communication were a very simple form of tactile sign language. For instance, she knew if someone pushed her, that she was to go away. If they pulled her, she was to follow along with the pull. When she did an action correctly or what her family wanted, they would pat her on the head. When she did something incorrectly, they would pat her on the back. Eventually, though, Bridgman became too much of a handful for her family as she frequently threw violent temper tantrums and would only obey her father who had to physically overpower her to get that obedience.

At this point, it was generally thought that at deaf-blind person would be unable to be taught even the most rudimentary things, beyond mimicking tasks, let alone be able to be taught to comprehend language. (Although, there are records of a few deaf-blind people learning basic tactile sign language and one French deaf-blind woman who was able to learn French, shortly before Bridgman. However, in these instances, these individuals were not able to become fully educated for a variety of reasons, for more on this, see the Bonus Factoids below).

Luckily for Bridgman, though, there was a school for the blind which had been founded the same year as her birth, in 1829, and which opened in 1832 (Perkins School for the Blind). By 1837, many blind people had been successfully educated and one of the instructors there, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, learned of Laura Bridgman’s condition through an account written by the head of the medical department at Dartmouth College, Dr. Mussey. Once Howe learned of Bridgman, he wanted to try and see if he could find a way to teach a deaf-blind person language, which would hopefully be the vehicle to educating her.

Laura, now 8 years old, was then sent to Perkins and began her education. Howe and his assistant, Lydia Hall Drew, first started by devising a way to teach her names of objects in English by giving her objects with their names attached to them in the form of labels with raised letters. Eventually, Laura was able to match labels to objects when the labels were detached. However, at this point, she still had no concept of what she was doing and was only imitating based on memorization, rather than really understanding what the labels meant. Now that she at least associated certain words with objects, even if she didn’t understand the significance, Howe took the exercise further by cutting up the labels and teaching her to rearrange them into the words that she associated with objects.

It was during these exercises that Bridgman finally grasped that objects have names and the labels were indicating the names. This was first indicated by the fact that she suddenly independently wanted to know what the names of objects around her were. Shortly thereafter, she began to fully grasp the concept of an alphabet and, from there, they were able to begin to teach her to use the alphabet and words in communicating.

Once that was accomplished, the rest of her education was relatively straightforward. Her brain now had an engine to drive conscious thought, including essential abstract thought. She proceeded to attend classes like any other student at Perkins, though with various teachers with her at all times finger-spelling everything to her. During her education, she learned mathematics, astronomy, writing, geometry, philosophy, history, biology, etc.

Thanks to Howe being able to successfully reach Bridgman and the fact that he’d been able to do it while she was still fairly young, which allowed her to be able to think abstractly once she had a language for her brain to use, there now was an established method for “reaching” deaf-blind people. Further, it was now proven that deaf-blind people are capable of learning just as well as anyone, assuming they were reached at a young enough age, which was contrary to what most thought at the time.

Howe also published an account of Bridgman’s education which drew the interest of Charles Dickens who came to meet her when she was twelve, in 1842. Dickens then wrote an account of Laura Bridgman in his work, American Notes. In 1886, three years before Bridgman’s death at the age of 59, this account in Dickens’ work resulted in Helen Keller’s parents learning that a deaf-blind person could be educated. It was also through Howe’s methods for teaching Bridgman that Keller was taught.

(Note: If you liked this article, you might also like these: How Deaf People Think and Helen Keller was Not Born Blind or Deaf)

Bonus Factoids:

The doll Anne Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller, gave Keller upon their first meeting was made by Laura Bridgman and had been a gift from Bridgman to Sullivan.
The sickness that cost Bridgman the use of most of her senses also took the lives of her two sisters and brother.
Bridgman was first able to write her own name in a legible fashion on July 24, 1839, about two years after her education began, at the age of 10 years old. Her progression in mathematics was astoundingly fast, in comparison to her education in language. It took her just 19 days from her first math lesson to learn to add columns of figures from zero to thirty.
At the age of 20, Bridgman’s education was complete and she returned home. However, because of neglect by her family, who didn’t have time to properly look after her, she developed health problems and it was decided that she should return to Perkins permanently. Her former teacher, Howe, and a friend of hers, Dorothea Dix, set about raising funds to support Bridgman at the school. While there, she taught needlework and helped around the school with domestic chores. She also made money for herself by using her modest fame to help sell various needlework pieces she did. Her primary use of the money tended to be in buying gifts for people she knew and donating to various charities.
In Bridgman’s free time, her main hobbies were reading and writing letters and poems.
Bridgman died in 1889 at the age of 59 in her “Sunny Home” at Perkins.
Howe’s teaching method was inspired by meeting Julia Brace, who was a deaf-blind person that had been taught basic tactile sign language
Unlike Bridgman, Brace was never able to comprehend abstract thoughts due to not being formally instructed until she was 34 years old, in 1842, also at Perkins. Her education at Perkins was largely a failure, despite her being taught by Howe with the same methods he’d successfully used with Bridgman. Brace made almost no progress due to her inability to grasp any concept that was abstract, and, a mere one year later, she left the school. As a child, because she hadn’t lost her sight and hearing until the age of five, she was able to develop a tactile sign language with her family thanks to once being able to talk. Despite having no capacity for abstract thought, Brace did have an incredible memory for tangible information and even managed to function as a nurse.
Brace became deafblind after contracting typhus fever.
Recent research has shown that language is integral in such brain functions as memory, abstract thinking, and, fascinatingly, self-awareness. Language has been shown to literally be the “device driver”, so to speak, that drives much of the brain’s core “hardware”. Thus, deaf people who aren’t taught some form of complex language at a young age, will be significantly handicapped mentally until they learn a structured language, even though there is nothing actually wrong with their brains. The problem is even more severe than it may appear at first because of how important language is to the early stages of development of the brain. Those completely deaf people who are taught no sign language until later life will often have learning problems that stick with them throughout their lives, such as trouble with abstract thought, even after they have eventually learn a particular sign language. It is because of how integral language is to how our brains develop and function that even deaf people, let alone deaf-blined people, were once thought of as mentally handicapped and unteachable.
Bridgman’s case is not only mentioned famously in Dickens’ American Notes, but also in the French La Symphonie Pastorale, by André Gide. La Symphonie Pastorale is a novel written in 1919 about a pastor who adopts a blind girl. (spoiler alert) The blind girl eventually falls in love with the pastor and becomes hated by nearly everyone in the family except the pastor, due to the amount of time the pastor dedicates to the child. Eventually, one of the pastor’s sons falls in love with the girl and wants to marry her, but the pastor refuses to let him, because he is in love with her too. The story ends with the blind girl receiving a surgery which allows her to see. She then realizes the world isn’t nearly as beautiful as the pastor made out and that she is not in fact in love with the pastor, but his son. She tries to kill herself by drowning, but instead contracts pneumonia from the event and dies. It’s a page turner all right.
Other famous deaf-blind people include: Sanzan Tani, who by the time he reached adulthood was fully deaf and blind, though he overcame this and continued to function as a teacher; Robert Smithdas, who became the first deaf-blind person to receive a Master’s degree, specializing in vocational guidance and rehabilitation of the handicapped and for a time worked with Helen Keller; and Heinrich Landesmann, who was an Austrian poet and philosopher, who developed a form of tactile signing that now is named after him.
Robert Smithdas is actually still alive today, only retiring in 2008 at the age of 83 years old. Interestingly, his wife Michelle is also deaf-blind. This leads one to wonder how exactly the two do things like locate one another in their home; presumably, something to do with using vibrations in the floor or the like. In any case, it would be fascinating to read about such things as this concerning the two.
As noted, Bridgman enjoyed writing poetry. Her most famous poem, in her day, was “Holy Home”:

Holy home is from everlasting to everlasting.
Holy home is summerly.
I pass this dark home toward a light home.
Earthly home shall perish,
But holy home shall endure forever.
Earthly home is wintery.
Hard is it for us to appreciate the radiance of holy home because of the blindness of our minds.
How glorious holy home is, and still more than a beam of sun!
By the finger of God my eyes and my ears shall be opened;
The string of my tongue shall be loosed.
With sweeter joys in heaven I shall hear and speak and see.
What glorious rapture in holy home for me to hear the angels sing and perform upon instruments!
Also that I can behold the beauty of heavenly home.
Jesus Christ has gone to prepare a place for those who love and believe Him.
My zealous hope is that sinners might turn themselves from the power of darkness unto light divine.
When I die, God will make me happy.
In heaven music is sweeter than honey, and finer than a diamond.

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