15 Immortal Facts About “Highlander”

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Jake Rossen and Mental_Floss present 15 Immortal Facts About Highlander.

Before I present my three favorite facts, let me tell you I am a HUGE fan of Highlander.  The sequels were bad and I never watched the tv series.  For me, “There can only be one!”

2. THE ROLE WAS ORIGINALLY OFFERED TO KURT RUSSELL.
At the time, Russell was a former Disney kid star who had gotten some notice for his genre work with John Carpenter in Escape From New York (1981) and The Thing (1982). Highlanderdirector Russell Mulcahy met with him for the film; though he appeared ready to take on the role, Mulcahy told Cinefantastique that Kurt’s then-girlfriend, Goldie Hawn, talked him out of it.

4. LAMBERT BARELY SPOKE ANY ENGLISH.
Aside from grunts, Lambert didn’t have much dialogue as Tarzan, so Mulcahy was unaware that his English was limited at the time he was cast in Highlander. In the end, his unique accent—Lambert was raised in Switzerland—worked for the character, who was supposed to have immersed himself in various cultures over his 400-year existence.

12. FANS AREN’T BLAMELESS IN THE SENSELESS TRAGEDY OF THE SEQUEL, EITHER.
According to producer Bill Panzer, the idea of exploring the origins of the Immortals was a result of fans constantly asking about it after the 1986 original. “The question we were most asked by fans after the first film was, ‘Where did the immortals come from?’” he told Video Watchdog. “It made sense to answer that question in the second film. What we didn’t realize at the time was that the fans didn’t really want to know their … origins because then the romanticism and mystery of the story was stripped away.” Good job, fans.

Zablo the Barbarian by Jim Ivey

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As promised, the first caricature that my buddy, Jim Ivey, drew for me.  I was probably 19 at the time.  So that would date the art at around 1977.  Don’t you love the broken sword?

For those who came in late, Jim Ivey had a 40 year career as a political cartoonist [Washington Star, St. Pete Times, San Francisco Examiner and the Orlando Sentinel].  When I first met Jim in the mid-1970’s he was running The Cartoon Museum in Orlando, Florida.

Jim had a lot of irons in the fire; working as a syndicated cartoonist [The Thoughts of Man], a political cartoonist [The Orlando Sentinel], a publisher [CartooNews], teacher [UCF cartooning class] and even a comic book convention organizer [OrlandoCon]. At the time, I was into collecting comic books and later original art. Jim’s Cartoon Museum was like heaven.

Super Z by Jim Ivey

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I was going through the vault and I came across a caricature that my buddy, Jim Ivey, did for me six years ago when he was just 84.  I think if Jim sticks with it, he may have a career as an artist.

Actually, Jim Ivey had a 40 year career as a political cartoonist [Washington Star, St. Pete Times, San Francisco Examiner and the Orlando Sentinel].  When I first met Jim in the mid-1970’s he was running The Cartoon Museum in Orlando, Florida.

Jim had a lot of irons in the fire; working as a syndicated cartoonist [The Thoughts of Man], a political cartoonist [The Orlando Sentinel], a publisher [CartooNews], teacher [UCF cartooning class] and even a comic book convention organizer [OrlandoCon]. At the time, I was into collecting comic books and later original art. Jim’s Cartoon Museum was like heaven.

Tomorrow I’ll show you the first caricature Jim ever drew of me.  It was drawn way back in the late 70’s when Jim was in his 50’s and I was still in my teens.

14 Things You Might Not Know About “Ghost”

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Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 14 Things You Might Not Know About Ghost.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. WHOOPI GOLDBERG CREDITS HER OSCAR WIN TO PATRICK SWAYZE.
On The View, Goldberg revealed that she only got the role of Oda Mae Brown because Swayze fought for her. The producers resisted casting her, but Swayze told them he wasn’t doing the film unless Whoopi was in it, too, and that she was right for the part—even though at that point she and Swayze had never met. “And I won an Oscar because of Patrick Swayze,” Goldberg said. In her 1991 Oscar speech, she thanked Swayze, calling him “a stand-up guy.”

4. DIRECTOR JERRY ZUCKER SAID HE’D CAST PATRICK SWAYZE “OVER MY DEAD BODY.”
In a video that appears on the Ghost DVD, screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin—who won an Oscar for his script—talks about how Zucker was at first against casting Swayze as Sam. “Jerry wanted to see him on film, so went out and saw the movie Roadhouse, and we walked out of that movie and Jerry said to me, ‘Over my dead body,’” recalls Rubin. Swayze really wanted the role, and because Zucker appreciated Swayze’s gusto, he let Swayze audition. After Swayze read the end of the script aloud, Zucker changed his mind. “We all had tears in our eyes, right there in the office—and we knew how it ends,” Zucker told People in 1990. “I saw a side of Patrick that I never knew existed.”

3. GHOST TURNED DEMI MOORE INTO THE HIGHEST-PAID ACTRESS AT THE TIME.
By the time Ghost was released, Moore was already famous for her roles in St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night…, but she wasn’t considered a bankable star. After the unexpected $200 million domestic gross of Ghost, she hit box office gold with a trifecta of other huge hits: 1992’s A Few Good Men ($141,340,178), 1993’s Indecent Proposal ($106,614,059), and 1994’s Disclosure ($83,015,089). If you add up all of Demi’s film grosses, it comes out to more than $1 billion. In 1995, she was paid an unprecedented $12.5 million to take her clothes off in Striptease. The film wasn’t a huge hit, and a few years later she traded Hollywood for Idaho.

A Few Facts About Lucille Ball

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Eddie Deezen and Neatorama present A Few Facts You May Not Know About Lucille Ball.  Here are three of my favorites…

* Lucy was born a brunette. She later was a blond model. It wasn’t until she was pushing 30 that Lucy first dyed her hair the world-famous red color. She became a redhead to appear in the 1943 movie Du Barry Was a Lady.

* Lucy had no eyebrows. For her first movie role inRoman Scandals (1933) she shaved her eyebrows off. (She played a slave girl.) They never grew back.

* Lucy was terrified of birds. Because birds were her main phobia, Lucy refused to stay in any hotel room that had pictures of birds or had birds on the wallpaper. No birds or pictures of birds were ever allowed in her home.

25 Yada Yada Yada Facts About “Seinfeld”

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Jennifer M. Wood and Mental_Floss present 25 Yada Yada Yada Facts About Seinfeld.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. IT WAS NEVER PITCHED AS “A SHOW ABOUT NOTHING.”
During a 2014 Reddit AMA, Jerry Seinfeld admitted that both he and co-creator Larry David were surprised by how Seinfeld earned its “show about nothing” moniker: “The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was we want to show how a comedian gets his material,’” Seinfeld explained. “The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later, and Larry and I to this day are surprised that it caught on as a way that people describe the show, because to us it’s the opposite of that.”

5. STEVE BUSCEMI AUDITIONED FOR GEORGE.
Steve Buscemi is one of many soon-to-be-successful actors who unsuccessfully auditioned for Seinfeld. David Alan Grier was also in the mix, as was David Letterman’s bandleader Paul Shaffer, who said in his autobiography that his resemblance to Larry David (upon whom George is based) was what made him of interest to the show’s creators.

22. SEINFELD TURNED DOWN $110 MILLION FOR SEASON 10.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But when Seinfeld turned down the chance to earn $5 million per episode—a grand total of $110 million—to come back for a tenth season, the network finally got that he wasn’t kidding around.

16 Nostalgic Facts About “Stand by Me”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 16 Nostalgic Facts About Stand by Me.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. COCA-COLA ALMOST SHUT DOWN THE MOVIE ENTIRELY.
The soda company bought Embassy Pictures, the film’s original production company, and announced they weren’t going to fund Stand by Me just two days before they were set to start shooting. Television legend Norman Lear—who had worked with Reiner for years on All in the Family—was one of the three owners of Embassy prior to its sale. He believed in the project enough that he agreed to personally foot the film’s $8 million budget.

14. STEPHEN KING WAS IMPRESSED.
After Reiner screened the finished product for the author, King excused himself for 15 minutes. When he returned, he said it was the first time one of his stories was successfully put on film. King even applauded Reiner for changing it so that Gordie picks up the gun instead of Chris, wishing he had thought of that in the first place.

13. REINER CAME UP WITH THE TITLE.
Columbia Pictures didn’t like the idea of using The Body as the movie title for a variety of reasons. Reiner thought naming it after the Ben E. King song that plays at the end of the movie would be good. Co-writer Raynold Gideon said Reiner’s suggestion was the “least unpopular option.”

Tom Hardy Gets “100 Bullets”

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As a huge fan, I loved reading this week that Tom Hardy has teamed with New Line Cinema to bring Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s 100 Bullets to a theater near you.  Hardy looks to direct and star in the adaption.

My guess is Hardy will play Lono which would work.  If he doesn’t and needs help with the cast, I’ll stick with my 100 Bullets dream cast from 2011.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter.

16 Biting Facts About “Fright Night”

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Jennifer M. Wood and Mental_Floss present 16 Biting Facts About Fright Night.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. PETER VINCENT MADE THE STORY CLICK.
It wasn’t until Holland conceived of the character of Peter Vincent, the late-night horror movie host played by Roddy McDowall, that he really found the story. While discussing the idea with a department head at Columbia Pictures, Holland realized what The Boy Who Cried Vampire would do: “Of course, he’s gonna go to Vincent Price!” Which is when the screenplay clicked. “The minute I had Peter Vincent, I had the story,” Holland told Dread Central. “Charley Brewster was the engine, but Peter Vincent was the heart.”

5. RODDY MCDOWALL DID NOT WANT TO PLAY THE PART LIKE VINCENT PRICE.
Once he was cast, Roddy McDowall made the decision that Peter Vincent was nothing like Vincent Price—specifically: he was a terrible actor. “My part is that of an old ham actor,” McDowall told Monster Land magazine in 1985. “I mean a dreadful actor. He had a moderate success in an isolated film here and there, but all very bad product. Basically, he played one character for eight or 10 films, for which he probably got paid next to nothing. ..”

16. VINCENT PRICE LOVED THE MOVIE.
Holland had the chance to meet Vincent Price one night at a dinner party at McDowall’s. And the actor was well aware that McDowall’s character was based on him. “I was a little bit embarrassed by it,” admitted Holland. “He said it was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job. Thank God he didn’t ask why he wasn’t cast in it.”