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MOVIE LEGEND: Shaft was originally going to star a white actor.

STATUS: I’m Going With False

Shaft, directed by Gordon Parks and starring Richard Roundtree as the titular private detective, was a massive box office smash upon its release in 1971 and became the face of what was later referred to as “blaxploitation” films (I’ll let you judge whether you feel it qualifies as “blaxploitation”). The film, which won an Academy Award for Best Song for its theme (written and performed by Isaac Hayes), was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

For years, though, legendary blaxploitation producer and director Melvin Van Peebles has told the story of how Shaft was originally not going to star Richard Roundtree, but the title detective was going to be played by a white actor! Here’s a New York Press blog article that sums up Van Peebles story well:

It’s been almost 40 years since the box office success of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song (1971), the first-ever independent film to profit commercially and what Van Peebles claims, “changed everything” in the movie making industry. Sweetback boosted the cinematic black image and influenced the lead in films like Shaft, whose black protagonist was originally cast as a white character.

That’s what you’ll generally see told in regards to this story, that the unexpected sucess off Van Peebles’ independent release, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song, about a young black man who stands up against white authority, changed the course of Shaft’s history. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is undeniably an important film. It clearly influenced a number of blaxspolitation films (although, much more so than Shaft, Van Peebles’ film is definitely not an exploitative film – the knockoffs of it, though, were) and, more importantly, it showed that you could have a hit film not only written and directed by black filmmakers (which was not necessarily in doubt at the time, as Gordon Parks had already had success as a director) but that you could have a hit film produced and financed by black people, as well. Comedian Bill Cosby loaned Van Peebles the last $50,000 he needed to make the film. So yes, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song is an important film. However, I believe Van Peebles is overstating its influence upon the film Shaft.

First of all, Ernest Tidyman’s novel, Shaft, which the film was based on, starred a black private detective. Since one of the most striking aspects of Shaft is the very fact that it IS about a black private detective, it seems hard to believe that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would have optioned the book only to change the race of its title character. However, to be honest, I cannot say for sure that they would not do such a thing. If they liked the story well enough, perhaps they would have done so.

No, the more important reason as to why Van Peebles is almost surely mistaken in how influential his film was was the fact that Shaft was already well into production by the time Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song was released. Sweet Sweetback hit theaters on April 23, 1971. Shaft hit theaters on July 2, 1971. Richard Roundtree was already cast as Shaft well before Sweet Sweetback was released. Contemporary articles about Shaft in Ebony in June 1971 made it clear that Shaft’s release had no connection to Sweet Sweetback. Now, the success of Sweet Sweetback most likely gave Shaft more attention, which surely helped the film be a success, but it did not get the film made and it did not get the film changed from white actors to black.

Thanks to Pauline Pechin for the New York Press article and thanks to Ebony (author uncredited) for their spotlight on the filming on Shaft from June 1971.

MOVIE LEGEND: An audience member watching A Fish Called Wanda died from laughter.

STATUS: True

The notion of someone dying of laughter watching a film just sounds like an urban legend, doesn’t it? Like someone mixing Pop Rocks and soda and dying. However, in the case of an audience member watching A Fish Called Wanda, it sadly was very true.

In 1989 a Danish audiologist, Ole Bentzen, died watching A Fish Called Wanda. What happened was that he started laughing so hard that his heart was beating between 250 and 500 beats per minute, ultimately leading to cardiac arrest.

The specific scene that got to Bentzen was the famous “fish and chips” scene, where Kevin Kline’s character, Otto, tortures Michael Palin’s character, Ken, first by shoving chips (french fries) up Ken’s nose and then later by eating Ken’s pet fish in front of him.

Apparently the scene reminded Bentzen of a joke/game that he did with his family, where each member would put a piece of cauliflower up their nose and see who could eat the rest of their vegetables fastest without the cauliflower falling out of their nose.

While bizarre, it really is quite sad, as it sounds like Bentzen was a fun-loving guy. In Washington D.C. in 2009, they began a comedy festival in Bentzen’s honor called The Bentzen Ball.

MOVIE LEGEND: Wes Craven’s original ending for A Nightmare on Elm Street was dramatically different than what made it into theaters.

STATUS: True

If you haven’t seen A Nightmare on Elm Street, you might not want to read this one. You are spoiler warned!

The low-budget horror film, written and directed by Wes Craven, was a massive success upon its release in 1984 and a sequel was quickly rushed out for release the next year (the series ultimately became a successful film franchise, with nine films released so far, and I’m sure more to come in the future).

However, when Craven wrote the film, he never intended it as the beginning of a franchise, and in fact, Craven’s original ending for the film had a happy ending. The film’s protagonist, Nancy Thompson, sees basically all of her friends and her mother killed by the evil Freddy Kruegger, who attacks you in your dreams and if you die in your dream you also die in real life. Craven wanted the film to end with Nancy defeating Freddy by basically refusing to believe in him.

The next day would then open with the revelation that it was ALL a dream, and Nancy’s mother and her friends were all still alive. Here are two screen shots of that original ending…

However, the head of New Line Cinema (who financed the film – the first time the independent movie distributor actually produced its own film) Robert Shaye insisted that the ending be done in such a way to set up a sequel. Shaye compelled Craven to have Craven’s original ending modified into a “twist” ending, where what Nancy THINKS is the next day is actually still part of the nightmare, with Kruegger pulling her mother into the house and having Kruegger posess the car she and her friends are driving in and having the film end in that shocking fashion.

They ultimately filmed four versions of the ending – the happy one, the twist one and two compromise versions (mostly the twist ending, but with slight changes). They went with the twist ending. Craven decided not to do the second film, although he had since returned to the film franchise for a few of the sequels.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

-Brian Cronin

NOTE: I posted this over at Spinoff Online last year. I figured it made sense to have a record of it here, too, for my archives.

Click here to view an archive of the previous music urban legends.

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MUSIC LEGEND: The official release of “Through the Wire” has re-recorded vocals by Kanye after his jaw had further healed.

STATUS: True

In the beginning of the 21st Century, Kanye West had made a name for himself as one of the top young producers in the rap industry. However, West wanted to do more than produce other rappers’ tracks. He wanted to do his own songs. He had trouble getting signed and even after Roc-a-Fella Records signed him, they were unsure if they actually wanted to put out an album of his music.

This changed with the release of “Through the Wire,” a song that West wrote after a devastating 2002 car accident he was in coming home from a production session. The accident left his jaw wired shut. While in the hospital, he heard Chaka Khan’s 1985 hit “Through the Fire” on the radio (from her album I Feel For You)…

The phrase “through the fire” made him think about his accident, and specifically the wire around his jaw. Less than two months after the accident, West recorded “Through the Wire,” a song about his situation.

The powerful tune convinced Roc-A-Fella to back West on a solo album and in late 2003 the tune was the lead single from West’s 2004 classic rap album, College Dropout…

However, what many people do not know is that the official album release of “Through the Wire” is not the actual song that West recorded right after his accident. Instead, West went in and dubbed in his voice on all of the verses in the song (I am unsure if it was his idea or someone at the label). When he speaks in the tune, that is from the original track, but the parts where he raps is his voice from 2003 superimposed on his original recording from 2002 (he also dropped a Tupac reference from the original recording).

Both versions of the song are quite good, but I can understand why they wanted a “cleaner” version of the verses.

MUSIC LEGEND: “School Spirit” had to be censored for Aretha Franklin to agree to allow her song to be sampled on the track.

STATUS: True

Like many rap albums, College Dropout was released in a “Clean” version and a “Parental Warning – Explicit Content” version. The former had the profanity of the album censored while the latter obviously did not.

However, there was a curiosity on the album. On BOTH versions of the album, the song “School Spirit” was censored…

As you would imagine, this confused people a lot. It is weird to buy an album that specifically warns about explicit content and then have a song be censored on it.

As it turns out, it had to do with a song that was sampled on the track. “School Spirit” sampled Aretha’s Franklin “Spirit in the Dark”…

off of her underrated 1970 classic album of the same name…

Franklin would only clear the use of the sample if West agreed that the song would be clean, which is why the song is censored on both versions of the album.

Eventually West came out with a uncensored version when the album had a special iTunes release. I don’t know what changed with his arrangement with Franklin. In the ensuing period he did become one of the biggest rappers in the world (and West and Franklin had worked together on songs in the meantime) so perhaps she was more willing to accommodate him this time around.

MUSIC LEGEND: “Homecoming” is about a woman named Wendy.

STATUS: False

This one is pretty close to being too silly to even feature here, but what can I say? It surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) comes up a LOT. Just do a search on the internet, you’ll find a bunch of references to people asking about who “Wendy” is on the Kanye West song “Homecoming.”

Early in the tune, West talks about a girl that he once knew and he seems to say something that sounds sort of like “Wendy,” but in reality, he is saying “Windy,” as the song is one long love letter to Chicago, where West grew up (Chicago is the “girl” that he has known since he was 3).

What’s particularly disappointing is that the end of the song even has West say, “And if you don’t know by now, I’m talkin’ about Chi-town.” Don’t get much more direct than that.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of the previous thirty-eight.

Let’s begin!

TV URBAN LEGEND: Paul McCartney provided a lentil soup recipe backwards at the end of the “Lisa the Vegetarian” episode of the Simpsons.

STATUS: True

One of the most famous myths that followed the Beatles around during the 1960s was that Paul McCartney died and was replaced by a look-alike. People found “proof” all over the place, from the cover of Abbey Road (he is not wearing shoes and he is walking out of step)…

to the “fact” that if you played “Revolution #9″ on the White Album backwards, you would hear a clue to Paul being dead.

In 1995, in the seventh season of the Simpsons…

in the episode titled “Lisa the Vegetarian,” Paul McCartney and his wife Linda guest-starred to lend Lisa Simpson support in her desire to become a vegetarian.

In the episode, Paul tells Lisa:

Linda and I both feel strongly about animal rights. In fact, if you play “Maybe I’m Amazed” backwards, you’ll hear a recipe for a really ripping lentil soup.

And sure enough, over the closing credits, as McCartney sings “Maybe I’m Amazed,” there is a hidden recipe for lentil soup that is only identifiable by playing the credits backwards.

Here is the recipe (courtesy of The Simpsons Archive)…

– one medium onion, chopped
– two tablespoons of vegetable oil
– one clove of garlic, crushed
– one cup of carrots, chopped
– two sticks of celery, chopped
– half a cup of lentils
– one bay leaf
– one tablespoon of freshly-chopped parsely
– salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste
– two and a quarter cups of vegetable stock or water

The hidden message ends with McCartney pointing out that, by the way, he’s alive.

Thanks again to The Simpsons Archive for the information!

TV URBAN LEGEND: Sally Jessy Raphael kept wearing glasses even after getting corrective eye surgery.

STATUS: False (with some truth to it)

Sally Jessy Raphael was a popular daytime talk show host for two decades beginning in the 1980s.

She became especially well known for her distinctive bright red eyeglasses…

As the story goes, Raphael became SO identified with her eyeglasses that even after getting corrective eye surgery, her producers would not allow her to stop wearing her trademark pair of glasses.

While that really is not that hard to believe if it WAS true, the real truth is a bit different than that. You see, Raphael never had particularly BAD vision, just not good enough to be able to read a teleprompter without having a problem. Around 2000, Raphael’s vision began to improve a bit – enough so that she likely did not have to wear her glasses if she did not want to. When told about this, Raphael quickly scoffed at the idea, ”The guy said, ‘You don’t really need these.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean, I built a career on them!’ ”

So no, she never got corrective eye surgery.

And no, she was never FORCED to keep wearing her glasses even when she did not need to wear them (although, of course, she knew very well that if she HAD chosen not to wear them, it might have been an issue).

This is not to say that Raphael was happy about the importance that the glasses began to take on when it came to her image.

She told the New York Times in 2000:

You go to school, you get a master’s degree, you study Shakespeare and wind up being famous for plastic glasses. It’s the only thing anyone wants to talk to me about. I can walk through an airport and think someone’s going to ask me an intelligent question and they’ll go, ‘You’re not wearing your red glasses.’ At parties with relatively sophisticated people? ‘You’re Sally Jessy? I thought she wore red glasses.’ Not always, babe, not always.’

Thanks to James Barroh and Elisabeth Bumiller for the quotes!

TV URBAN LEGEND: Danny Thomas once made a particularly dark “episode” of Father Knows Best to help sell U.S. savings bonds.

STATUS: True

Over the years, various television series have done special short episodes for the government to promote United States savings bonds. I’ll even be mentioning another particularly interesting one in a later edition of TV Urban Legends Revealed (so if you were going to talk about other examples, hold off for a bit, please!).

The one that stands out the most in television history is definitely “24 Hours in Tyrantland,” a full 30-minute episode of “Father Knows Best” designed to sell U.S. savings bonds in a surprisingly dark fashion.

In the episode, Robert Young’s Jim Anderson is organizing a savings bond drive and he is disappointed in the fact that his three children seem disinterested in helping out. So to prove a point, he makes them spend 24 hours in “Tyrantland.” This was an exercise in which the kids (Betty (Elinor Donahue), Bud (Billy Gray), and Kathy (Lauren Chapin)) would each be given numbers as names and forced to undergo a series of regimented chores dictated by Jim and his wife Margaret (Jane Wyatt).

In the end, the kids realize the error of the way and eldest daughter Betty (also known as “Princess”) explains what she learned about how good we have it in America and she vows to help her father on his drive.

Her parents, naturally, are quite pleased…

The episode was never aired and only shown at civic functions and at schools. It can be found now, though, on the first season DVD of Father Knowa Best (linked to above).

Okay, that’s it for this installment!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

-Brian Cronin

Click here for an archive of the previous three hundred and forty-seven.

Click here to read this week’s legends.

Read on to see a list of past Comic Book Legends Revealed!

Comic Book Legends Revealed #319

Comic Book Legends Revealed #320

Comic Book Legends Revealed #321

Comic Book Legends Revealed #322

Comic Book Legends Revealed #323

Comic Book Legends Revealed #324

Comic Book Legends Revealed #325

Comic Book Legends Revealed #326

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Comic Book Legends Revealed #330

Comic Book Legends Revealed #331

Comic Book Legends Revealed #332

Comic Book Legends Revealed #333

Comic Book Legends Revealed #334

Comic Book Legends Revealed #335

Comic Book Legends Revealed #336

Comic Book Legends Revealed #337

Comic Book Legends Revealed #338

Comic Book Legends Revealed #339

Comic Book Legends Revealed #340

Comic Book Legends Revealed #341

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Comic Book Legends Revealed #344

Comic Book Legends Revealed #345

Comic Book Legends Revealed #346

Comic Book Legends Revealed #347

Today is a “Grab Bag” day here at Entertainment Urban Legends Revealed, where each time we feature a different area of the world of arts and entertainment (outside of TV, Film, Music and Comics). Each time you will see grab bag legends from one of these following 23 “Grab Bag” categories

Let’s begin!

AMUSEMENT PARK URBAN LEGEND: A man who had been mute for over five years spoke after riding the Cyclone.

STATUS: True

Built in 1927, Coney Island’s Cyclone roller coaster is one of the most famous roller coasters in the history of roller coasters…

It had its perhaps most famous testimonial to its greatness in 1949 when a West Virginian coal miner named Emilio Franco rode the coaster.

You see, Franco suffered from a condition called Aphonia since 1943, which struck him unable to speak.

While riding the coaster, he screamed.

And when he got off of the coaster, he spoke his first words in SIX YEARS.

Those words?

“I feel sick.”

Awesome.

Thanks to Nick Cook’s Roller Coasters, Or, I Had So Much Fun, I Almost Puked for the informtation!

AMUSEMENT PARK URBAN LEGEND: Cinderella’s Castle was designed with a secret apartment inside for Walt Disney’s personal use.

STATUS: True

In the first edition of Amusement Park Urban Legends Revealed, I discussed another urban legend involving Cinderella’s Castle at Magic Kingdom in Florida’s Disney World. Now here’s another one!

Walt Disney had a secret apartment in Disneyland in the Main Street Firehouse. So when designs were made for Magic Kingdom in Florida, Disney wanted a similar apartment built in Cinderella’s Castle.

However, Disney died in 1966 and Cinderella’s Castle was not finished until 1971. His original plans were still continued, until Walt’s brother Roy also passed away in 1971. With neither Disneys around to use the apartment, the unfinished room was turned into an office instead.

Later on, a room for people to stay in WAS built into the castle, although it was not in the spot where the original apartment would have been. This new room is Cinderella’s Dream Suite and was introduced as part of a promotion where randomly selected families would win the chance to stay in the Dream Suite.

I don’t know what the Dream Suite is being used for nowadays. Anyone happen to know?

AMUSEMENT PARK URBAN LEGEND: The Liberty Bell in Liberty Square in the Magic Kingdom is from a series of 50 replicas made of the Liberty Bell for the Bi-Centennial.

STATUS: False

In Liberty Square in the Magic Kindom, there is a replica of the Liberty Bell…

Here’s how the story goes:

In 1976, 50 replicas were cast and molded in honor of our country’s 200th birthday. Each state would receive one and place it in a spot of their choice. However, the state of Pennsylvania had a problem. They already had the original Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Why would they want a replica? Years later, Walt Disney World realized Pennsylvania had the replica and asked if they could have it for Liberty Square. Pennsylvania agreed and on July 4th, 1989 the replica Liberty Bell was hoisted and lowered into its permanent spot inside Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom where it still sits today. Florida remains the only state with two of the 50 replica Liberty Bells.

That is not the case. There WERE 50 replicas made, but it was not in 1976, it was in 1950, oddly enough.

The Pennsylvania replica is in Allentown at the Liberty Bell Shrine in Zion Reformed Church. The Liberty Bell Museum has a list here of where all the replicas are nowadays.

The Disney Liberty Bell was specially cast for Disney in 1989, when the Bell was installed in Liberty Square. Heck, it says as much on the plaque on the Bell at Liberty Square…

Thanks to the Liberty Bell Museum for the replica information!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Click here to view an archive of the previous thirty-seven.

Let’s begin!

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: The Stonehenge scene in This is Spinal Tap was inspired by one of Black Sabbath’s tours.

STATUS: False

This is Spinal Tap is a widely popular 1984 “mockumentary” following the exploits of a fictional rock group, satirizing (among many things) the pretensions of rock bands.

One of the, if not THE most, famous scenes in the film is when the band unveils what they think will be an elaborate stage prop of a giant replica of Stonehenge. They think that a giant replica of Stonehenge is lowering behind them while it is, in fact, a tiny replica of Stonehenge (they were shown the replica earlier and presumed that it was a scale model of the actual prop and not the actual prop itself).

For years, people have presumed that the scene specifically satirizes the outlandish 1983 tour of the band Black Sabbath to promote their 1983 album, Born Again…

In a 1994 interview with Mojo Magazine, Ian Gillan (the lead singer on that Black Sabbath album) recalled their Stonehenge stage prop…

Mojo Magazine: Ian Gillan, you briefly joined Black Sabbath in 1983, tell us about the infamous Born Again tour that provided such valuable inspiration for Spinal Tap?

Ian Gillan: We were up at a company called LSD (Light and Sound Design) in Birmingham, and the lighting engineer asked if anyone had any ideas for a stage set. Geezer Butler suggested Stonehenge. “How do you envisage it, Geezer?” asked the engineer. “Life size, of course,” replied Geezer. So they built a life-size Stonehenge. We hired the Birmingham NEC to rehearse in and they couldn’t get these bloody things in there. We opened in Montreal and Don Arden had hired Maple Leaf ice hockey stadium for a week, so they shipped the set over there and could still only get a few of those damn stones up, one each side of the stage, one behind the drums and two cross-pieces.

It seems pretty straightforward, right?

Especially since the film was released in 1984 and the Sabbath tour was in 1983.

However, the gag actually PREDATED the Sabbath tour!

You see, before Rob Reiner and the rest of the Spinal Tap creative team (Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer – who also make up the band in the film) were given the money to finance the film, they were given a small sum to film a 20 minute version of the film to demonstrate to the financiers what the film would look like (it was, after all, a bit of an unusual premise for the time). So they put together a 20-minute version that repeated many of the same jokes that would later appear in the film…including the Stonehenge bit!

So no, the Stonehenge gag in This is Spinal Tap is not, in fact, based on Black Sabbath’s Born Again tour. It is just a happy coincidence (or a great case of predicting the pretensions of rock bands, whichever you prefer).

Thanks to Mojo Magazine and Ian Gillan for the quotes!

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: A movie studio spread rumors of the death of one of its actresses for publicity.

STATUS: True

Florence Lawrence was one of the earliest movie stars. In fact, she is often nicknamed “The First Movie Star.”

She began appearing in silent films in 1906 and soon became director D.W. Griffith’s go-to leading lady for his short films that he made for Biograph Films in the early 20th Century.

In the early days of silent films, actors and actresses were not credited, so Lawrence gained her fame as “The Biograph Girl.”

Lawrence and her fellow Biograph star, leading man (and her husband) Harry Solter, tried to get work at another movie studio while working for Biograph. The other studio reported their efforts to Biograph and they were both promptly fired.

Lawrence was wooed by Carl Laemmle, founder and owner of Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP) (the company would later become Universal). He wanted stars and Lawrence was one of the biggest in the business. However, having a star who was identified with a rival studio did not make Laemmle particularly happy, so he (or someone at IMP, at leaat) hatched up an outlandish publicity stunt. They would first spread rumors that “The Biograph Girl” had been killed in a car accident.

Then, after a suitable amount of time, IMP took out full page ads “debunking” the “lie” about her death, and, of course, noting her name and the fact that she was now starring in films for IMP.

The publicity did wonders and Lawrence did many pictures for IMP and remained a star well into 1910s.

Kelly R. Brown did a book on Florence Lawrence that is quite good. It is called Florence Lawrence, the Biograph Girl: America’s First Movie Star. It is well worth a read.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Albert Finney had a bizarrely hilarious hidden cameo in drag within his own film, Miller’s Crossing.

STATUS: True

Miller’s Crossing is a 1990 gangster film by the Coen Brothers…

In it, Gabriel Byrne plays the right-hand man to an Irish-American mob boss (played by Albert Finney) while also having an affair with his boss’s girlfriend (played by Marcia Gay Harden).

While everyone in the film is quite good, Finney’s Leo O’Bannon is certainly a stand out, especially a wonderful sequence where he fights off an assassination attempt while in his home in a robe listening to “Danny Boy.”

However, amusingly enough, this is not the only character Finney plays in the film!

In one of the early scenes in the film, Byrne’s Tom Reagan storms into a ladies’ restroom to confront Harden’s Verna Bernbaum.

This naturally offends the ladies within the room at the time.

Check out who one of the ladies is (click on the image to enlarge)…

Yep, it is Finney dressed as a woman.

I don’t know WHY he did it, but it sure is hilarious (and I assume that this is all the reason needed – that it was a funny bit)!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of the previous thirty-seven.

Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: The Dixie Cups’ version of “Iko Iko” was recorded without their knowledge.

STATUS: True

The Dixie Cups hit the big time in 1964 with their #1 smash hit, “Chapel of Love,” which was originally written for The Ronnettes.

The Dixie Cups consisted of sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Lee Hawkins and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson. The trio grew up in New Orleans, and it was this New Orleans background that led to the trio using the 1950s tune, “Jack a Mo” as their warm up song while preparing to lay down some tracks in a New York recording studio in 1965 (the trio had signed with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s new record company, Red Bird Records).

However, what the girls did not know was that Leiber and Stoller were RECORDING their warm-up performance, which was just accompanied by the girls tapping drumsticks on some ashtrays.

Leiber and Stoller looped in some other instruments and released the girls’ warm-up song as an actual single! The tune, now called “Iko Iko,” hit the top 20 in 1965!

Talk about a happy accident!

MUSIC LEGEND: Stevie Nicks wrote “Edge of Seventeen” based on the way that Tom Petty’s wife pronounced the word “age.”

STATUS: True

“Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove)” is perhaps Stevie Nicks’ most iconic solo hit. It was released on Nicks’ debut solo album, Bella Donna, which came out in July of 1981. Nicks began recording the songs that would make up the album in August of 1980.

In 1980, Nicks recorded “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” with rock singer Tom Petty (it was the top single off of Bella Donna).

While recording the song, Nicks hung out with Petty and his then-wife, Jane.

In a 1981 interview, Nicks recalled a conversation she had with Mrs. Petty:

She was telling me about Tom, about when she met him, and she has an incredible Southern accent…and she said that she met him at the age of seventeen, but I thought she said “edge”, and she said “no…age” and I said “Jane, forget it, it’s got to be “edge”. The “Edge of Seventeen” is perfect. I’m going to write a song, ok? And I’m going to give you credit.” She didn’t believe me, you know? She couldn’t believe it when it came out on the album.

Initially, Nicks intended to write the song about Tom and Jane, but life took a bit of a different path. In December of 1980, John Lennon was murdered. His death shook Nicks, but it shook Nicks’ friend (who was also the producer of the album) Jimmy Iovene even harder, as Iovene was a close friend of Lennon’s. Nicks comforted her friend as best as she could, but couldn’t really think of how to help. Very soon after (I believe it was actually the very same week of Lennon’s death), Nicks flew home to Phoenix, Arizona, as a close uncle of hers was dying of cancer and Nicks wanted to be nearby in his final days.

Thus, the song that began as a title and an idea of being about a hopeful romance soon became a song about loss (the “white-winged dove” representing the spirit leaving the body).

With such a personal connection to the song, it is no wonder that it became such an important song in Nicks’ repertoire.

Thanks to Robert W. Morgan and Stevie Nicks for the information from Morgan’s interview with Nicks.

MUSIC LEGEND: Helen O’Hara was hired by Dexy’s Midnight Runners after the lead singer of the band discovered her at a bus stop with her violin.

STATUS: False

The story of a musician being pulled out of a crowd to join a band is a popular one, even if it is rarely true. Interestingly enough, in a past edition of Music Urban Legends Revealed, I spotlighted the true story of Scarlett Rivera, who Bob Dylan literally plucked from the obscurity of a New York sidewalk to perform on his album, Desire.

However, in the case of Helen O’Hara, violinist for Dexy’s Midnight Runners from 1982 to 1987, the truth is less interesting than the fiction Kevin Rowland (lead singer of the band) came up with to explain how O’Hara joined the group.

Here’s O’Hara with the group in the mid-80s (she is the female violinist, naturally)…

According to Rowland, he was driving past a bus stop in Birmingham, England when he saw O’Hara with her violin case. He pulled over and asked her to try out for the band and ta da! – a new member of the group.

In reality, though, O’Hara was one of three violinists from the Birmingham School of Music who the band auditioned in 1982 when Rowland had decided to change up the sound of the group. O’Hara, who had played in a rock band with a former member of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, was the only one of the three who had experience with rock music and she landed the gig (she turned down an offer to play for the Madrid Philharmonic to take the Dexy’s gig). She played on the band’s smash hit, “Come on, Eileen”

and stayed with the group until 1987.

As you would expect, for every Scarlet Rivera story out there, there are a hundred or so Helen O’Hara stories out there (not that O’Hara’s real story is not interesting. Far from it. I think the idea of a lady choosing to try out for a rock band instead of taking a job in the Madrid Philharmonic is pretty darn cool. Just not the story that Rowland tried to turn it into).

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of the previous thirty-seven.

Let’s begin!

TV URBAN LEGEND: Activision sued Viacom for mis-handling the Star Trek franchise.

STATUS: True

In 1998, Activision signed a ten-year licensing agreement with Viacom to produce video games based on Viacom’s Star Trek property.

However, just five years into the deal, Activision canceled the contract in 2003 and sued Viacom over the deal. At the heart of their case was that they felt that Viacom had mishandled the Star Trek media franchise to the point where the property was no longer popular enough to sustain video games sales high enough for it to be worth it to Activision to continue to produce Star Trek video games (in addition, without new films and TV series, Activision would not have fodder to design video games ABOUT). The primary example was that when the deal was signed, there were two Star Trek series on TV (Deep Space Nine and Voyager) plus the most recent Star Trek film had been a hit and a new one was due out soon. When they canceled in 2003, there was only one Star Trek television series and there were no plans for another Star Trek film after the 2002 box office disappointment, Star Trek: Nemesis.

Activision banged Viacom pretty hard in their complaint:

through its actions and inactions, Viacom has let the once proud ‘Star Trek’ franchise stagnate and decay. Viacom has released only one ‘Star Trek’ movie since entering into agreement with Activision and has recently informed Activision it has no current plans for further ‘Star Trek’ films. Viacom also has allowed two ‘Star Trek’ television series to go off the air and the remaining series suffers from weak ratings. Viacom also frustrated Activision’s efforts to coordinate the development and marketing of its games with Viacom’s development and marketing of its new movies and television series.”

Viacom, naturally, countered that Activision was merely attempting to use a lawsuit to re-negotiate a deal that they decided they wanted out of.

The case went on for over a year and a half before the parties settled in 2005. Viacom quickly signed a new licensing deal with Bethesda to make new Star Trek video games. And, of course, a few years later the Star Trek franchise saw its biggest commercial success to date in the rebooted film franchise (do note, though, that Activision’s contract would have expired before that film, so it is not like they missed out on anything).

TV URBAN LEGEND: I Love Lucy invented the “three camera” approach for TV shows.

STATUS: False

I Love Lucy was a highly influential television series.

The show particularly impressed with its avant garde filming techniques, which helped revolutionize television (particularly the world of syndication). That said, because they are SO famous for their filming techniques, they often get over-credited in certain areas. One such area is the idea of using three cameras to film the show.

You see, in the early days of television, shows were filmed with just one camera, just like a movie.

Then, for many years, television shows (well, sitcoms, at least) were filmed with three cameras. The idea was simple, with three cameras going at once (or switched back and forth between three cameras), you could get close-ups and wide shots and different angles all at once so that you could just quickly edit them together later rather than having a single camera have to set up to get each of those different shots. As you might imagine, it saves a good deal of time. Nowadays, if you’re filming something live, like a sporting event, multiple cameras are pretty much a necessity.

But by the time that I Love Lucy started using three cameras in 1951, though, the set-up had been used already by a few shows, including another sitcom on the same network as I Love Lucy, Amos and Andy!

Desi Arnaz and cinematographer Karl Freund might have really perfected the practice (and they came up with the idea of doing it with 35 mm film rather than 16 mm film and they were the first to use the system with a live studio audience) but the idea was invented in 1947 for NBC by Jerry Fairbanks, a short subject film director (he had won an Academy Award for the area before Paramount made him choose between film and TV – he went with TV) who came up with the idea with the help of director/producer Frank Telford.

Fairbanks said of the process, “If you used three or four cameras, all running continuously, you were using up a tremendous amount of film. We developed a Multicam system where the soundtrack ran continuously. Cameras could be switched on and off at will, and the film from each camera could still be keyed to the soundtrack. That brought the cost way down.”

Fairbanks never patented the process, which is likely why few people know about him, and instead credit the much more famous Desi Arnaz.

So here’s to you, Jerry Fairbanks!

TV URBAN LEGEND: A character on ER was saved from death because of the name of the character.

STATUS: True

In Season 9 of E.R., a new character named Erin Harkins was introduced, played by Leslie Bibb.

Harkins was an idealistic medical student who first showed up in Season 9 who became enamored with brooding Croatian doctor Luka Kovac (played by Goran Visnjic). Her puppy dog crush was rejected several times by Kovac before he made a drunken pass at her at a Christmas party after he revealed to his ex-girlfriend that he was still in love with her.

Later in the same episode, an exhausted and angry Kovac (who had been called in to work hungover and had made a mistake) crashes his car with Harkins in the passenger seat.

Originally, the accident was meant to have killed Harkins, giving the character of Kovac (who had already lost his wife and child to a bombing back in Croatia) even MORE trauma before slowly building the character back up (most of Season 9 was spent tearing Kovac down). Harkins does not appear in the next couple of episodes. However, she then makes one final appearance (to finish her ER rotation) before never being seen again.

Amazingly enough, the character was saved for one simple reason – her first name!

You see, the character was created by E.R. writer and producer David Zabel, and he named her after his wife!! So when it came time to kill her off, Zabel recalled, “I just couldn’t do it. I had to come up with a better storyline to let her live.”

Isn’t that sweet?

Thanks to Zabel and Amy Chozick of the Wall Street Journal for the information!

Okay, that’s it for this installment!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

-Brian Cronin

Today is a “Grab Bag” day here at Entertainment Urban Legends Revealed, where each time we feature a different area of the world of arts and entertainment (outside of TV, Film, Music and Comics). Each time you will see grab bag legends from one of these following 23 “Grab Bag” categories

Let’s begin!

POETRY URBAN LEGEND: Dorothy Parker’s ashes sat in a filing cabinet for nearly two decades.

STATUS: True

Dorothy Parker was one of the leading humorists and wits of the 20th Century.

After selling her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914, Parker eventually went to work for that magazine as well as Vogue as she became famous for her presence as a founding member of the gathering of New York wits known as the Algonquin Round Table.

In 1925, Harold Ross founded the New Yorker and Parker was one of his star writers. She wrote more than 300 poems for the magazine, specially in viciously dark poems, with suicide being a common topic. In 1926, Parker released the first volume of her poems titled ENOUGH ROPE : POEMS. It sold well.

Eventually, Parker moved to Hollywood where she became a successful and acclaimed screenwriter. Her left-wing politics though resulted in her eventually becoming blacklisted.

She returned to New York City where she worked for various magazines, perhaps most famously doing book reviews for Esquire. She had two separate “stints” being married to fellow writer Alan Campbell that ended with Campbell’s suicide in 1963 (from a drug overdose). However, her later years were mostly noted by her problems with alcoholism and after Campbell’s death, Parker did not have very many close friends.

This, therefore, led to the sad, strange fate of Parker’s ashes. She died in 1967 of a heart attack at the age of 76. She left her entire estate to Martin Luther King (King amusingly did not know who Parker was when he was informed he inherited her estate). When King, himself, was killed a year later, her estate passed to the NAACP (as per her will). The NAACP still holds the copyrights on Parker’s works.

Interestingly enough, though, Parker never specified what to do with her remains after her death. Thus, Parker’s lawyer, Paul O’Dwyer, kept Parker’s ashes in his office for nearly TWO DECADES! At first, it wasn’t a matter of people forgetting, per se, so much as no one could agree exactly on what to do with them, so they just stayed there while people figured it out. Eventually, though, the last FIFTEEN YEARS of her ashes’ time in O’Dwyer’s office were spent in a filing cabinet.

Eventually, the NAACP heard about the situation and built a memorial garden in 1988 at their national headquarters in Baltimore for Parker. A plaque read:

Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) humorist, writer, critic. Defender of human and civil rights. For her epitaph she suggested, ‘Excuse my dust’. This memorial garden is dedicated to her noble spirit which celebrated the oneness of humankind and to the bonds of everlasting friendship between black and Jewish people. Dedicated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. October 28, 1988.

It remains there to this day.

POETRY URBAN LEGEND: Thomas Bowdler “bowdlerized” Longfellow’s “Wreck of the Hesperus” by editing “bull” to “gentleman cow.”

STATUS: False

Thomas Bowdler was a physican at the turn of the 19th Century who is much more famous for the work he did with his sister, Harriet, in editing the works of Shakespeare into a form that would make it appropriate for women and children to read. Bowdler recalled when he was a child and his father would entertain the family with the plays of Shakespeare, his father would surreptiously omit parts of the plays that he felt were inappropriate for the ears of his wife and children. Bowdler felt that many people would appreciate an actual text version on these omissions, so that they did not have to do the omitting on their own.

So Thomas and Harriet set out to edit Shakespeare (with Harriet taking the lead). Eventually roughly 10% of Shakespeare’s words had been expunged, with some of them replaced by other words and some words (and characters) omitted entirely. One of the most famous changes in the collection (titled The Family Shakespeare) was the edit made to Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth’s famous cry “Out, damned spot!” was altered to “Out, crimson spot!”

As you might imagine, even over 200 years ago their actiosn drew derision from the literary community, and soon the term “bowdlerize” was coined to describe inelegant edits designed to cut out “offensive” material.

As the story goes, one of the most egregious edits Bowdler ever made was when he edited a reference to a bull in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic poem, “The Wreck of the Hesperus”

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

from “bull” to “gentleman cow.”

And so “gentleman cow” has become a famous term for when someone is trying too hard to be inoffensive about a reference.

So, did this happen?

Nope.

You see, Longfellow’s poem came out a fully 17 years after Bowdler died! In fact, the actual wreck of the Hesperus (which inspired Longfellow) did not occur until 1839, 14 years after Bowdler’s passing!

Could someone else have bowdlerized Longfellow and come up with the “gentleman cow” term? Certainly possible, but it is impossible that the person who did it was Thomas Bowdler.

POETRY URBAN LEGEND: Robert Lowell famously responded literally to a joking suggestion by famed poetry professor Allen Tate that Lowell could live in a tent on Tate’s yard.

STATUS: True

Robert Lowell, the father of “confessional poetry” was one of the most celebrated poets in the history of American poetry. The Boston-born poet was the sixth U.S. poet laureate and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Lowell originally studied at Harvard University, but he changed his mind when he met famed English author Ford Madox Ford at a party in Boston after Lowell’s second year in school. The Good Soldier novelist remarked that he was headed to go stay with famed poet Allen Tate (the SECOND U.S. poet laureate) in Ohio, where Tate and John Crowe Ransom were teaching at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Lowell actually ended up in Ohio before Ford. This led to an amazing exchange between he and the Tate’s that Lowell later recounted to the Paris Review in 1961…

It’s a terrible piece of youthful callousness. They had one Negro woman who came in and helped, but Mrs. Tate was doing all the housekeeping. She had three guests and her own family, and was doing the cooking and writing a novel. And this young man arrived, quite ardent and eccentric. I think I suggested that maybe I’d stay with them. And they said, “We really haven’t any room, you’d have to pitch a tent on the lawn.” So I went to Sears, Roebuck and got a tent and rigged it on their lawn. The Tates were too polite to tell me that what they’d said had been just a figure of speech. I stayed two months in my tent and ate with the Tates.

Eventually Lowell moved to dormitory housing and was soon on his way to a storied career in poetry.

Pretty amazing, huh?

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com