While not on purpose, I noted that each of today’s legends involve an actor abruptly leaving a television series. So I guess I will say that is today’s theme!!

Let’s begin!

TV LEGEND: The phrase “Does Not Compute” debuted on Lost in Space

STATUS: False

It’s pretty funny, I’m used to a legend tying into a past legend, but today’s first legends ties in with TWO of the legends from Play Legends Revealed #2!

First off, that installment involved the origin of the term “robot” for artificial human-like machines. Today, we look into the origin of the phrase “Does Not Compute.”

“Does Not Compute” has become a very popular phrase when it comes to the depiction of robots. I suppose it an interesting take on the notion that robots “compute” rather than “think,” and it is a very cool way of showing a robot reacting differently than a human.

The most popular usage of the term is quite possibly the Robot in the 1965 television series, Lost in Space.

The robot’s MOST popular catch phrase was “Danger!” or “Warning!” - this has solidified into the popular consciousness as the phrase “Danger, Will Robinson!” which the Robot actually only said once (Will Robinson is the youngest child of the family that is lost in space), although the robot DID frequently warn young Will of danger.

While that is the most popular catch phrase of the robot, it has also often been attributed as coining the phrase “does not compute.”

It did not (it did use the phrase, though).

As an alternative, some have credited the 1966 television series Star Trek at coining the phrase…

It, too, did not actually coin the phrase (I can’t honestly say that I know if it even used the phrase - I imagine it did, but I can’t say for sure).

So where DID the phrase come from?

Why, none other than a 1964 sitcom starring Bob Cummings (the other connection from Play Legends Revealed #2!) and a pre-Batman Julie Newmar, My Living Doll!

The show was created by Jack Chertok, following his hit sitcom the previous year with a fairly similar premise, My Favorite Martian…

In My Living Doll, Cummings plays a psychologist who is put in charge of an experimental robot (to keep her away from the military). He names her Rhoda and proceeds to begin to program her to be the “perfect woman” (and yes, it is just as sexist as it sounds - more so, really).

Her catch phrase was “That does not compute” (sometimes “That doesn’t compute”), becoming the first use of that term.

The show barely lasted through the first season, though, as Cummings chafed under the idea of having to share the show with Newmar (Cummings seemed to view the show as almost like a sequel to his last sitcom), and actually quit the show with a few episodes left to film! Cummings wanted to have a script filmed where Cummings’ characters’ grandfather would visit (Cummings in a dual role), echoing a character Cummings did on his last show. In the episode (the 22nd of the series), Newmar’s role was basically a background one. Chertok balked at the idea and Cummings quit.

His wacky neighbor thereby inherited Rhoda for the rest of the show’s short run.

A short run but, in the long term, an influential one!

TV LEGEND: An episode of Ally McBeal that featured a wedding proposal had to be edited at the last minute to become a break-up episode when one of the stars of the show was fired.

STATUS: True

Few shows have run as hot and as cold as David E. Kelley’s Ally McBeal.

Starring Calista Flockhart as a neurotic lawyer working in a wacky law firm, the show was a massive hit upon its debut in 1997, and won the Emmy Award for Best Comedy after its second season!

The show cooled off rather dramatically following its hot start, though, and by the end of Season 3, it was no longer a “buzz-worthy” program (it received only three Emmy nominations for Season 3 after 13 for Season 2 and 10 for Season 1).

Luckily, while the show needed help, there also happened to be an actor out there who could use some help.

Talented movie star Robert Downey Jr. spent pretty much all of the late 1990s fighting his drug addiction, eventually serving almost a year in prison beginning in 1999.

Within a week of his release from prison on probation, Downey signed on with Ally McBeal, presumably in an attempt to rehabilitate his image (as well as boost McBeal’s ratings).

He joined the cast for the fourth season, playing Ally’s new boyfriend, Larry.

The move was a critical and commercial success, and the show was once more a “buzz-worthy” show…

While things were going well on the show itself, things continued to go poorly for Downey. He was miserable being “stuck” doing television (not any particular problem with the show or his co-stars, he just hated the 9 to 5 work atmosphere of filming a television program after the much more flexible schedule of filming movies) and the drug use continued.

He got caught with drugs again in November of 2000, but while awaiting the hearing on that case, he continued acting on McBeal.

However, in April of 2001, with the filming finished on all but one episode of the series, Downey was arrested once again for drug use, although he was not charged (he was on cocaine at the time, though).

That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and Downey Jr. was fired from Ally McBeal, either by Kelley himself or by higher-ups forcing Kelley to let him go. The public statement stated that it was Kelley’s decision, but certain aspects of the situation seemed to suggest otherwise, including the fact that in the last episode Downey filmed, his character got engaged to Ally McBeal!!

Yes, the relationship between Larry and Ally had proven so successful that Kelley planned to have the two marry in the final episode of season four.

Now with Downey out of the picture, the penultimate episode of Season 4, “Home Again” had to be severely re-written by a peeved Kelley to go from an episode where Larry proposes to Ally to an episode where Larry INTENDS to propose to Ally but instead breaks up with her.

In a nod to the original plot (and perhaps another sign that Kelley did not agree with the decision to can Downey), the finale of season four kept its original title, and was called “The Wedding,” even though, of course, there was no wedding in it.

The departure of Downey (and a few other notable cast members) was the end of Ally McBeal’s days of being a talked about show (it received 7 Emmy Nominations, with Peter MacNicol beating out Downey for Best Supporting Actor), and it limped to the finish line with Season 5 being its final season.

Downey, meanwhile, after being sentenced to drug rehabilitation and three years of parole (luckily for him, the laws in California heavily decreased in severity following his original drug arrests, or else he’d be back to prison) eventually resurrected his career, most notably with his recent starring turn in the blockbuster film, Iron Man….

and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Tropic Thunder…

So while he’s likely not thinking much about “What If…?”s, I am sure many Ally McBeal fans are!

TV LEGEND: A TV series continued production even after one of the two leads on the show killed himself.

STATUS: True

I would never dream of begrudging shows continuing when one of their leads die. I mean, obviously, The Royal Family was not going to last long past Redd Foxx’s death or Chico and the Man after Freddy Prinze’s suicide, but when you’re in charge of a television program that employs dozens of people, I don’t think it is unfair at all to consider those people’s jobs and continue the show even if the chances are that the show won’t recover from the death of one of the leads.

However, few shows reacted as oddly to a lead’s death as Alias Smith and Jones, which never even halted production!!

Alias Smith and Jones was a clever western series created by Glen A. Larson, noted TV writer and producer (and creator of Battlestar Galactica, as well as Knight Rider, among many many shows, including co-creating Magnum P.I.).

It starred Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Kid Curry, two of the most well-known outlaws in the Wild West, who now have decided to go on the straight and narrow. They always made a point of not killing people, so they convince a sheriff to pardon them. However, due to their notoriety, the sheriff can’t OFFICIALLY pardon them or else the outrage would be far too intense. Instead, they have to be good guys for an undetermined time until they have “earned” their pardon. In the mean time, they take on the respective aliases of Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones (hence the title of the show, Alias Smith and Jones) and try to stay away from the lure of the life of the outlaw, while also staying clear of detectives still trying to capture them (as well as former associates who don’t appreciate their reformation).

The show debuted strong in the ratings (not getting destroyed TOO badly by its time slot opponent, the popular Flip Wilson Show), and for awhile there, it seemed like they had a chance to buck the trend in television of Westerns no longer having an audience (There were very few of the classic Westerns still on the air by the time Alias Smith and Jones debuted as a mid-season replacement in January 1971).

Then, mid-way through their second season, tragedy struck - Pete Duel killed himself via a self-inflicted gunshot wound sometime after midnight the morning of New Year’s Eve, 1971.

Even before the show began, the legendary television writer/producer Roy Huggins was sort of co-running the show with Larson (veteran producer Jo Swerling, Jr. was the day-to-day producer of the show), and by the beginning of the first season, Huggins was mostly in charge, and Huggins’ first instinct was to just cancel the show.

However, in a meeting with ABC executives on the morning of January 1, 1972, Huggins and Swerling were basically ordered to keep up with production of the show. Effectively, “You have a contract with us to keep doing this show - if you stop, we will sue you.” Not only that, but because the show was already behind schedule (hence the fact that they had scheduled filming for New Year’s Day) they were ordered to continue filming THAT DAY!

So a shocked Huggins and Swerling had to go to the set (where all the employees had gathered and were informed of Duel’s death - except those that had heard it on the news) and tell everyone that production was to continue on the show - they were to just film scenes of the episode (which they had already completed two days worth of shooting) “The Biggest Game in the West” that did not feature Duel until his role could be re-cast.

Actor Roger Davis (who actually did the spoken intro to the series) was cast while on a flight to Aspen for New Year’s Eve and by the end of the day on January 1, 1972, Davis was already being fitted for his costume.

And after the funeral for Duel on January 2, 1972, production picked back up the following day with re-shots of some of the scenes filmed with Duel in them, and all the new shots needed with Davis.

For some of the scenes, they would show the back of Duel’s head and then cut to a close-up of Davis’ face (or vice versa).

For example…here is Jones (played by Davis) leaving a stagecoach…

and here is Jones (played by Duel) walking to the bank from the stagecoach…

Pretty freaky, huh?

The show would finish its second season and actually get renewed for a third season, but was canceled during November sweeps (it had moved to air across from All in the Family, which did not bode well for whatever show airing against it). All together, Davis starred in 17 episodes as Jones to Duel’s 33.

Thanks to Douglas Snauffer and Joel Thurm’s great book, The Show Must Go on: How the Deaths of Lead Actors Have Affected Television Series for the information about how ABC forced the show back into production!

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

This is the second in a series of examinations of legends related to plays and their playwrights and whether they are true or false.

Let’s begin!

PLAY LEGEND: Bob Cummings pretended to be from England to get a role on Broadway.

STATUS: True

Bob Cummings was a popular actor with a career that stretched a number of decades, from the stage to the screen to television.

He’s probably best known for his critically acclaimed (and popular) sitcom, The Bob Cummings Show, that ran from 1955-1959, where he plays a womanizing photographer.

The show launched the career of Ann B. Davis, as she won two Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress for her work on the program (years before she was Alice on The Brady Bunch).

Cummings had a successful film career during the 1940s, with King’s Row….

and Saboteur probably being his two most notable roles…

(he was most popular as a comedic actor, but his dramatic films have seemed to stand the test of time a bit better - he also had a co-starring role in the classic drama Dial M for Murder)…

An experienced and talented pilot, Cummings tried to fit that background into many of the roles he took (including his character on The Bob Cummings Show)…

But what’s at issue here is how Cummings got his start in show business period.

You see, when Cummings was a young man in the early 1930s, he was not having a very good go at getting a job as an actor in New York on the theater circuit. Then, as it remains true now, I suppose, British actors were the “hot” ticket on Broadway, so Cummings devised a rather devious plan.

He actually traveled to England and lived there for a month, developing a British accent and purchasing British clothes, so that when he returned to the States, he was now calling himself Blade Stanhope Conway. He even managed to get an acquaintance to put up a temporary marquee outside a British playhouse stating “Blade Stanhope Conway in Shaw’s Candida.”

He then sent letters of introduction to various New York theater companies telling them that he, Blade Stanhope Conway, would be coming to New York and was hoping to do some theater work there.

And sure enough, he was given a small role in a Broadway play, The Roof.

He soon got work under his own name working as a comedian in The Ziegfeld Follies.

Soon, though, Cummings decided to make the trek out to California to pursue a career in film. This time around, to gain entrance into the world of westerns, he decided to take on ANOTHER persona, this time of a Texan named Bruce Hutchens.

I don’t know if his Texan approach was what got him his first gig, but whatever the reason, he soon got a small role in a film and his career developed from there.

Isn’t that an amazing act of deception and/or ingenuity?

PLAY LEGEND: Karel Čapek coined the word “robot” in a play.

STATUS: False (but Very Close to True!)

Karel Čapek was one of the notable writers in Czechoslovakia during the 20th Century, and he was especially noteworthy when it comes to science fiction, as while he likely would not be technically termed a “science fiction writer,” he surely had a science fiction-tinge to his work, which is especially notable for a guy whose most notable plays all came during the 1920s.

Čapek was a harsh critic of Nazi Germany, and devoted much of his work in the 1930s to criticizing the Nazis. He refused to leave the country when it became pretty clear that the Nazis were coming, and he died of double pneumonia in December 1938, just as the Nazis were annexing part of his homeland.

Perhaps his most famous play was called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which is about, well, robots.

And it is from this play that the term “robot” (an artificial, manufactured human-like being) is derived.

So over the years, you would see stuff like (from this site):

He coined the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) in 1920.

and

Etymological note: Robota is a Czech cognate of the German word arbeit (”work”), from the Indo-European root *orbh-. It is usually translated as “serf” or “forced labor” and was the name used for the so-called “labor rent” which existed in Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1848. From this word K. Čapek created the word robot = a working or serving machine.

The etymological roots pointed above are spot on, but what’s INcorrect is that it was not Karel Čapek who coined the term, but rather, his brother, Josef Čapek. Karel was set to call the machine-men laboři (from Latin labor, work), but his brother argued that roboti (translated into English as “robot”) would sound better.

To his credit, Čapek made sure to let people know that it was his brother’s word, as he lived long enough to see the word becoming a common part of the international dictionary.

While in his death, at least Karel escaped the punishment of the Germans (who were not a fan), Josef was not so lucky, and he was arrested and died in 1945 in a concentration camp (he wrote a book of poetry while in the camp, titled, appropriately enough, Poems from a Concentration Camp).

Man, this story ended up pretty depressing.

My apologies!

PLAY LEGEND: Tennessee Williams’ first published standalone work was a story in the pulp magazine, Weird Tales!

STATUS: True

Tennessee Williams is one of the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th Century (and one of the most celebrated American playwrights without qualification).

Between 1944 and 1960, he wrote some of the most famous plays in the history of American Theater…

And his first professional standalone work?

It appeared in the pages of Weird Tales magazine!

(The qualifier, by the way, is because a year earlier Williams had won third prize in an essay contest in Smart Set, so since their was a monetary prize for his winning essay, I suppose that sort of counts as his first professional work - but this was a work published on its own accord and not part of a contest)

Weird Tales magazine was a fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine. Its most famous contributors were H.P. Lovecraft, who debuted his Cthulhu stories in the pages of the magazine, and Robert E. Howard, who did not introduce Conan in the title, but you could argue that Weird Tales was where the character was popularized. Edmund Hamilton was another notable contributor.

But you also have to add young Tennesse Williams to the picture, who had a story published at age 16 in the August 1928 edition of Weird Tales (the same issue that Howard introduced his Solomon Kane character)…

The story was called “The Vengeance of Nitocris,” and it was about the sister of a pharaoh getting revenge on those that have betrayed (and murdered) her brother. Her revenge is pretty lurid (an elaborate death trap that allows her to view them as they die) and it is followed (Spoiler Alert! ;)) with her graphically taking her own life when she realizes she cannot escape retribution for her acts.

If you would like to stretch, you can even see some similarities between the story and his later, adult work (but it’s a pretty big stretch).

That was the beginning of Tennessee Williams’ pulp fiction career, but it was also the end. Soon he would go away to college, and while in school he began to devote his time exclusively to becoming a playwright which, obviously, worked out pretty well for him.

But imagine if he had gone the other route…who knows what tawdry tales lurked in the mind of Tennessee?!?

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

Let’s begin!

MOVIE LEGEND: Robin Williams had a major dispute with Walt Disney over how big his character was drawn on the poster for Aladdin.

STATUS: True (but there’s a lot more to it)

The story of Robin Williams’ problems with Walt Disney contain a whole lot of “he said/they said,” so it’s an interesting case to try to break the situation down. First off. what everyone can agree on is that at one point Robin Williams was very, very happy with Walt Disney’s movie business. It was while working for Disney that Williams rescued his faltering movie career in 1987 with the hit film, Good Morning, Vietnam, which also netted Williams his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

He then followed that up with ANOTHER hit film for Disney, and ANOTHER Oscar Nomination for Best Actor with 1989’s Dead Poets Society…

So by the early 1990s, he and the folks at Disney were happy with each other. So it was with this in mind, along with the fact that he just has his third child in 1991 (after his first child in 1983 and his second in 1989) and wanted something for his kids, that Williams agreed to voice the Genie in Disney’s new film, Aladdin.

Here’s where one of the first bit of “depends on how you look at it” issue comes up. When Williams’ side of the story is told, the fact that he voiced the Genie for essentially scale (rather than his normal high salary in the millions of dollars, so he only got $70,000 for doing the character) is offered up as “Williams did the role for scale as a personal favor to Disney because of the success of his previous films for Disney. However, while it’s true that Williams took scale, that is also typical when it comes to celebrities lending their voices to cartoon characters in Disney films. They usually work for roughly scale. However, there were certainly mitigating factors in the Williams situation. When he signed on for the role, he thought it was going to be a small character, but after Williams came in to lay down his lines, he ended up improvising so much extra material that the animators expanded the role of the Genie to make room for Williams’ improvised jokes. So that brings us to the major issue for Williams. He asked (and Disney executives agreed) that they not use his voice to promote the film and he also asked that his character not be used excessively to promote the film. To wit, the request was “not more than 25% of the promotional poster for the picture.” This was due to the fact that Williams had a new picture coming out around the same time for another studio, Toys, and he did not want to be competing with his own work, especially as one film would be “his” film while the other was a glorified cameo…

Disney attempted to comply with the poster requirement, but simply by reducing the size of all the OTHER characters in the poster so that the Genie was still the focus of the poster…

As for the voice thing, well, Disney just flat out decided to ignore that aspect of the agreement. They did not use Williams’ NAME in commercials, as it wasn’t “Aladdin starring Robin Williams!” but they definitely used his voice in the commercials (prominently so, from the dozen or so commercials I’ve viewed from the time of the movie’s release). So Williams was quite irked by Disney. It did not help, I am sure, that Toys was a flop while Aladdin was a blockbuster hit. Disney attempted to assuage Williams a bit by sending him a Pablo Picasso painting worth over $1 million at the time, but by this time, Williams was past the point of being soothed. He was done with the Mouse, as it were. So when Aladdin 2 came out, Dan Castellaneta voiced the genie…

Fox executive Joe Roth tried pitching Williams a project early in 1993 that was partially financed by Disney, but Williams turned it down because of the Disney connection. Ultimately, Roth and Williams DID get together on a film, the blockbuster Mrs. Doubtfire…

Soon afterward, Roth moved to Disney to replace the departing Jeffrey Katzenberg (who had recently left Disney to form Dreamworks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen) and organized a public apology to Williams. So, even though Castellaneta has already finished recording his lines for the 3rd Aladdin film, Williams agreed to return to the role and dubbed over Castellaneta’s dialogue.

And Williams returned to Disney to star in the 1996 live action film, Jack…

Amusingly enough, Williams later got into ANOTHER argument with Disney over financing of a film, and as a result, he was not involved in doing the Genie’s voice for other projects, such as the Kingdom Hearts video game…

Although, once again, Williams appears to have kissed and made up with Disney, as he was named a “Disney Legend” in 2009.

Time really DOES heal all wounds, eh?

Thanks to Jesse Kornbluth’s excellent 1993 feature on Williams for New York Magazine for a lot of the information for this piece!

MOVIE LEGEND: The plot of the film adaptation of The Big Sleep was so convoluted that not even the screenwriters fully understood the plot.

STATUS: I’m Going With False

Howard Hawks’ 1946 film version of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep is an excellent film…

The original novel is quite good, as well..

Right from the start, it’s worth noting that the film IS very convoluted (I suppose a kinder word is that it is “complex”).

However, the degree to which the film is convoluted has been overstated over the years to the point where it is just, well, false.

To wit, Allmovie.com’s review of the film states:

Any further attempts to outline the plot would be futile: the storyline becomes so complicated and convoluted that even screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthmann were forced to consult Raymond Chandler for advice (he was as confused by the plot as the screenwriters).

(As a quick aside, yeah, it’s pretty cool that William Faulkner co-wrote such a great film).

That is just not true.

It’s really a pretty straightforward case of a simple tale getting exaggerated over the years until it sounds a lot bigger than it really was.

Chandler WAS consulted during the filming of the movie, but not by the screenwriters, but rather by the director Hawks and the star, Humphrey Bogart (playing Chandler’s famous private eye, Philip Marlowe).

Bogart and Hawks sent Chandler a telegram telling him that they had been arguing over whether a particular character had been murdered or committed suicide, so they figured they’d ask Chandler, who told a friend in a letter that he told them “dammit I didn’t know either.”

From the tone of Chandler’s letter (which was collected in Tom Hiney and Frank MacShane’s The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction 1909-1959), it does not appear as though Chandler was giving a serious answer, but rather a sort of “Why are you bothering me with such a question?” In the very same letter, he tells his friend that apparently a studio executive found out how much the telegram had cost to send and drilled Hawks over wasting studio funds on such a frivolous pursuit.

But even if he was being serious, he was not corresponding with the screenwriters, and there is no record of any other such correspondence. And since the story about Hawks and Bogart telegraming him is pretty much exactly the story that has been told about the screenwriters asking him, and it seems pretty darn likely that the one is being confused/conflated with the other.

So I’m going with a general false on the whole “the screenwriters did not understand their own film,” although it is a lot more believable knowing that the script had multiple writers working on it over the course of the writing of the film (as opposed to a team of writers working together).

MOVIE LEGEND: James Dean not only was a “Stunt Tester” for Beat the Clock, but he was fired from the gig for an amusing reason.

STATUS: True

James Dean is one of the most iconic movie stars in the history of film, highly recognizable and popular while only starring in three films.

What’s interesting is that for a guy who broke into the industry at a young age, he still spent a sizable amount of time trying to GET that break.

Dean acted while in school in Los Angeles, but dropped out just a little shy of his 20th birthday, in 1951, to fully concentrate on acting.

He got a role in a commercial and had a few walk on roles in films, but he was making a slow go at it as an actor, so in the fall of 1951, at the urging of a few of his acting acquaintances, Dean headed for New York City, where most television work (and practically all notable theater work) took place.

It was while in New York as a struggling actor that Dean took part in the amusing situation that is at the heart of this legend.

Before he left for New York, Dean befriended a radio executive named Rogers Brackett. Brackett was a big supporter of Dean, and he hooked Dean up with some contacts while in New York while Dean was trying to get that one “big break.”

The first job Brackett helped him out with was a job on Beat the Clock.

Beat the Clock was a popular game show during the 1950s that was hosted by the great Bud Collyer (voice of Superman on the radio!).

You see, game shows were a very popular place for struggling actors to find work. First of all, they all filmed in New York, which was thick with unemployed actors. Secondly, the hours were flexible. Third, often the companies that made game shows also had interests in scripted dramas, so it was a good place for contacts. And finally, it was an actual job on a television show!

So a good deal of young actors who later became famous worked for game shows during the 1950s. Robert Redford, for instance, was a presented on a game show.

But Dean’s job, it was a lot more fun - he was a “stunt tester.”

You see, the concept behind Beat the Clock would be that contestants were given ridiculous tasks to perform, only they also had to do the tasks within an allotted amount of time.

So naturally, if the show was to tell someone “Dig three balloons out of a vat of whopped cream using a spoon held in your mouth,” they had to be able to know how long such a task would take so that they could fairly challenge someone to do it. Heck, they had to know that the task could be performed PERIOD!

So they would hire “stunt testers,” people who would perform the stunts so they could figure out how long each stunt took.

And that was what James Dean did for them.

But here’s the twist.

The young, athletic Dean (who was just about 21 at the time) was way too good at stunts. SO good that they ultimately had to let him go as he was doing the stunts so quickly that they couldn’t accurately gauge how an “average” person would perform them.

Luckily, by this time, Dean was starting to get small roles on television and in 1952, he gained admission into the Actor’s Studio to work with Lee Strasburg. At this point, it was pretty clear that he was going to make it as an actor, and by the next year, he was starring in his first film, East of Eden.

Another young actor later in the 1950s had better luck sticking with Beat the Clock while HE was trying to find work as an actor.

That was the great Warren Oates, star of a great many awesome westerns (plus a great turn in Stripes as Sgt. Hulka)…

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 read them!

Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: The Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel” was not performed by The Crystals

STATUS: True Enough for a True

The Crystals formed in the early 1960s with the lineup of Barbara Alston, Patsy Wright, Mary Thomas, Dee Dee Kenniebrew and Myrna Girard.

They eventually signed with Phil Spector’s Phillies Records.

They had a top 20 hit in 1961 with “There’s No Other (Like My Baby)” and another Top 20 hit the next year with “Uptown.”

They had a memorable flop, though, in 1962, with their next single, “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss),” which did not even chart because most stations felt that the subject matter was way too unsettling.

The Crystals followed with a major #1 hit later that year (a song that is still popular today), “He’s A Rebel”…

However, amazingly enough, the “Crystals” on the song were not the ACTUAL Crystals!

You see, Gene Pitney had written the song and offered it first to a competing girl band, The Shirelles. They turned it down.

A young singer named Vicki Carr was then given the song, and her version was set to be released soon.

Here’s where things get interesting.

Spector later claimed that he just really liked the song and wanted to record it as soon as possible and that he did not know of the other version, but it seems much more likely that he wanted to beat the Carr version of the song to the market. Since Spector was in Los Angeles and The Crystals were touring in New York, he felt he did not have enough time to have them fly out to record the song. So instead he put together a group of singers based in L.A., led by Darlene Love (the group of singers performed as The Blossoms), and recorded the song and released it as being by the Crystals!

Can you imagine how the Crystals must have felt when they discovered that “they” had the #1 song on the charts and it wasn’t even sung by them?!?!

The Love-led “Crystals” had another hit single, but then Love and Spector split (there’s another good story there, I’ll get to it in the future).

Another wrinkle in the story is that while they were touring, they naturally had to sing their biggest hit, right? The problem was that lead singer Alston did not have the big voice that Love did (and she never was a big fan of singing live), so they actually had to hire another girl, La La Brooks, to sing lead on “He’s A Rebel.”

And when the “real” Crystals returned later in 1963 with two other massive hits, “And Then He Kissed Me” and “Da Doo Run Run,” it was now Brooks on lead vocals!

So “He’s A Rebel” not only saw the Crystals lose their own name for awhile, but it led to a new lead singer!

MUSIC LEGEND: Paul Anka got the publisher’s rights to “My Way” for free.

STATUS: True

As I discussed in the last installment of Music Legends Revealed, Claude François had a hit in France in 1967 with the Jacques Revaux song “Comme D’Habitude” (lyrics by Claude François and Gilles Thibaut)…

In 1969, singer/songwriter Paul Anka acquired the rights to the song and used the tune to write a brand-new song (lyric-wise) called “My Way.”

Anka gave the song to Frank Sinatra, who used it as the title track to his 1969 album…

All well and good, but amazingly enough, Anka acquired the publisher’s rights (half of the publishing rights) to the song for FREE!!!

Publishing rights are basically what it sounds like - the right to publish a work. In the old days, songs made the majority of their money through the publication of sheet music of the song. Publishing songs still includes the sale of sheet music, but it also includes all other usage of the song’s copyright, with the most important being the recording of the song, either by the artist themselves or by other artists (cover versions). Each time the song is played, there is a royalty paid. The person who owns the publisher’s rights of the song gets half of the royalties (typically - you can negotiate different terms, of course) while the writer of the song gets the other half.

So song royalties can be valuable. However, they can also be worthless if no one is actually playing the song, ya know?

In the case of Paul Anka and the song “Comme D’Habitude,” the song was a minor hit in France, but it wasn’t exactly an international sensation, ya know? Anka only heard it because he was spending a lot of time in France on holiday.

So the argument Anka undoubtedly presented to them was “if you give me the publisher’s rights and the song’s a hit, you guys will get 37.5% of the royalties as the writers of the song (all three men, Jacques Revaux, Claude François and Gilles Thibaut co-wrote the song - it is 37.5% instead of 50% because Anka would get an equal share for the new English lyrics, as they are not a translation of the French lyrics) and that is better than the NOTHING you’ll get if I DON’T take the song and make it a hit.”

Still, they must not have been particularly confident in the chances of the song becoming a hit for them to assign Anka basically 62.5% of the future royalties of the song for free, and seeing as how the song has become a MAJOR song to cover (it’s biggest success WAS a cover version), Anka made a shrewd move.

But Anka had learned pretty early on the power of music publishing, as he chose to publish his own music not too long into his career as a songwriter. As his career as a performer waned, he became more and more a music publisher than anything else, and he has certainly done well for himself by it.

But don’t cry for Revaux, François and Thibaut, I’m sure they’ve made more money of the song than they ever expected to!

MUSIC LEGEND: Angus Young was still a teenager when AC/DC signed their first record contract.

STATUS: False

AC/DC is a highly successful Australian rock and roll band that was formed in 1973, with their first album, High Voltage, released in 1975.

As you can see from the cover of their album, one of the most notable aspect of the group, at least from a publicity standpoint, was the schoolboy outfit that lead guitarist, Angus Young, wore. The look is so iconic that Young still wears the outfit today!

The outfit came about when Young determined that every member of the band should have a “gimmick.” His older sister, Margaret (Angus’ brother Malcolm co-founded the band with Angus) came up with the school boy look. The outfit is his uniform from his days at Ashfield Boys High School in Sydney.

In any event, Angus was 18 years old when the band was founded, and he was 20 when the band was signed to a record label and released their first album. However, it was determined that it sounded a lot cooler for Young to be still a teenager, so press releases for the band stated that Young was 16 years old, not 20.

Even today, decades later, Young’s birth date is frequently listed as 1959 instead of his actual year of 1955.

Isn’t it fascinating to see how far a publicity stunt can travel? Once information is published, I guess it sticks around forever!!

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

This week has a special theme! I’ll call it “What’s in a Name?”

Let’s begin!

TV LEGEND: Oprah Winfrey got her name via a typo on her birth certificate.

STATUS: False

Oprah Winfrey, as you all, of course, know, is one of the most famous personalities in the world, let alone the world of television.

However, her famous name is NOT her actual birth name!

Oprah was named after Orpah, the sister-in-law of Ruth (from the “Book of Ruth” in the Bible). So her birth name was Orpah, NOT Oprah.

This, though, has led to many stories that the name Oprah came about via a typo on her birth certificate.

In fact, on the website oprah-winfrey.com (not affiliated with Oprah Winfrey - I’m just pointing it out as a notable source for a common story), it says:

She was originally named Orpah after a woman from the “Book of Ruth” but a spelling mistake on the birth certificate changed it to Oprah.

This is false. She was born Orpah Winfrey.

There are a bunch of different stories on how the name went from Orpah to Oprah, but they all basically come down to the fact that her friends and family all had difficult pronouncing the obscure biblical name, always transposing the R and the P.

But it started with Orpah, not a mistake on the birth certificate!

TV LEGEND: Joe Mantegna came up with the name of his Criminal Minds character from an out of the ordinary source.

STATUS: True

Joe Mantegna took over from Mandy Patinkin as the co-lead (along with Thomas Gibson) of Criminal Minds beginning in Season 3.

Mantegna plays David Rossi, a retired FBI agent who comes out of retirement to work with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Peculiarly enough, there is an actual history behind the seemingly straightforward name of Mantegna’s character.

In an interview with The Onion’s AV Club, Mantegna explained:

I got a chance to name this character after a real person, a policeman named David Rossi who was the first guy to testify in the O.J. Simpson trial. I thought he got piled on by O.J. Simpson’s lawyers at the time. So I thought “Someday I’m gonna name a character after this guy.” He went up in his dress blue uniforms and testified for two days. And I thought “What integrity.” For two days, this guy just got beat up—and all he did was answer the phones—and it’s obvious the defense is just gonna beat this guy up and try to hang the LAPD over the fact that this fuckin’ idiot murdered his wife. To me it was a joke. And so because of it, I named him after this guy, and he found out through surreptitious methods, and we became great friends. ’Cause he was so flattered that I had done that.

Isn’t that fascinating?

I’d love to have a picture of the “real” Rossi, but I’ve yet been unable to find one. Anyone out there have a picture I could use?

Thanks to Joe Mantegna and the Onion AV Club for the information!

TV LEGEND: A character on Seinfeld was named after a Producer of Smallville.

STATUS: True (although, of course, the timing is a bit different than that)

Reader Taylor wrote in to ask:

For years I’ve seen the name “Joe Davola” as a producer on Smallville. There was also a character on Seinfeld (And we know how Jerry loves Superman) named “Crazy” Joe Davola. He wants to kill most of the gang, and goes nuts over Elaine, even dressing up as a clown in a creepy performance of “I Pagliacci.”

Any chance any aspect of the Seinfeld character was based on the real guy?

Yes, it is true, the character “Crazy Joe Davola,” who appeared throughout the fourth season of Seinfeld…

was, indeed, named after Joe Davola, a television producer…

who later produced Smallville.

However, the character has nothing to do with the “real” Joe Davola.

You see, a fairly common occurrence at Seinfeld was to work actual people from the TV industry into the show. Basically names that Jerry Sienfeld and Larry David found interesting.

Joe Davola was one such name, and so was Lloyd Braun (the real Lloyd Braun was Larry David’s lawyer, and eventually became a major television executive, even heading up ABC Entertainment for a few years)…

So was Alec Berg (who was a writer on Seinfeld)…

They even point out on the episode where a character named after Alec Berg appears that Alec Berg is a “good John Houseman name -’Alec Beerrrrg’” (can’t you just imagine Houseman calling on that name in the Paper Chase?)

In any event, while it IS cool that a guy who got a character named after him on Seinfeld (whose star is a BIG fan of Superman) is currently a producer on a show about young Superman, that has nothing to do with the name being used on the show.

Thanks to Taylor for the question!

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

This is the second in a series of examinations of legends related to novels and their authors and whether they are true or false.

Let’s begin!

NOVEL LEGEND: The taser was invented based on a device in a Tom Swift novel (the taser was actually named AFTER the novel)

STATUS: True

Edward Stratemeyer invented the Tom Swift series of novels in 1910, along with the pseudonym Victor Appleton (which would be used as the collective pen name of the series of authors who worked on the title) as the author of the book.

The original series of books ran from 1910 until 1941, and a subsequent revival of the series (starring Tom Swift’s son) took place from 1954 until 1971 (the book series has since been revived a number of times, but no revival was as influential as the first one).

Tom Swift was a self-taught genius who would often invent new devices that would help him resolve whatever the plot was of that particular novel (his inventions started off pretty straightforward and got more fantastical as time went on).

The series of novels was a major influence on a number of science-minded people (legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov cited the series as a major influence on his work).

One novel that was particularly influential was the tenth novel in the series, Tom Swift and His Electic Rifle, published in 1911.

In the novel, Tom and his friends go on an African safari, aided in great part by Tom’s invention of the titular device, a rifle that shoots electricity.

The book had a lasting affect on young Jack Stover (born 1920), and it stuck with him well into his adult years when he was working for NASA as a researcher (after years of working in the Aviation industry). Really, it is not too surprising, as the idea of a gun that shoots electricity is a pretty good one.

In 1969, Stover began working on the gun and he completed it in 1974. He named it directly after the source of his inspiration - Tom Swift’s Electric Rifle, or TSER.

The TSER was developed as a means to stun people through electricity, allowing people to avoid using bullets.

Stover formed a corporation named after his product, but after a little while, he tired of “TSER” as a name, so he added an “A” and it became TASER, and his company was Taser Systems, Inc. (the “A” was explained away by presuming it was Tom Swift’s middle initial, making it Tom A. Swift’s Electric Rifle.

Stover’s originally TASER involved gun powder to fire the electric prongs that would be used to stun the intended subject, and that resulted in the TASER being categorized as a “firearm,” which meant that Stover mostly had to sell his TASERS strictly to law enforcement agencies.

That changed in the early 1990s when brothers Rick and Tim Smith approached Stover about re-designing the TASER to make it fire through compressed air cartridges rather than gunpowder.

That is the current way the TASER works (and upon its completion in 1994, it was, indeed, no longer categorized as a firearm).

The Smiths now run TASER International (Stover passed away in February 2009).

It’s amazing how the seemingly most random things can have great affects later on, a 1910 juvenile novel inspiring a weapon sixty years after the fact!

NOVEL LEGEND: Stephen King’s wife fished his work on the novel Carrie out of the trash and forced him to finish it.

STATUS: True Enough for a True

Another example of a matter of chance having a major effect on how a person’s life turned out was the case of Stephen King’s first published novel, Carrie.

Carrie is best known for the film adaptation staring Sissy Spacek…

but it was also Stephen King’s first published novel…

It was his first published novel, but it was not his first finished novel, and in fact, it was almost never finished at all!

At the time he began working on Carrie, King was already a prolific short story writer, but he had no luck selling his first three finished novels. As a man searching for SOME sort of hook or inspiration, he decided to write a short story about a teenage girl after a woman chastised him for only writing about male leads. He decided to write about this troubled telekinetic teen to show that he COULD write a female lead.

However, after finishing a few pages, King soured on the story and threw it into the trash.

His wife, Tabitha (seen here with King at an event a few years back….)

fished the pages out of the garbage and told King he should give the work another try.

He agreed and soon he expanded the short story into a novel and soon that novel would be the first of his novels to sell, but certainly not the last!

I say “true enough” as the status because I often see takes on this story that involve much more grandiose versions of the story, like King finishing the NOVEL and throwing the NOVEL into the trash before his wife digs it out. One version of the story involves Tabitha fishing the finished novel out of the trash and submitting it without King’s approval or notice.

The real story, as I note above, is a good deal less provocative - she simply told him to give a short story (which he had only written a few pages, basically one scene) another try.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s quite cool of her, and it’s remarkable how it all ended up, but as cool of a story as it is, I think it’s worth noting that the “real” story is a good deal more subdued than some of the fantastical version of the story.

NOVEL LEGEND: The Brontë sisters were forbidden by the their father from eating meat.

STATUS: False

The three Brontë sisters (not counting their two older sisters who died in their youth) were all novelists in the early 19th Century (here they are in a painting by their brother, Branwell)

The youngest, Anne, wrote a couple of novels, but her two sisters each wrote one of the most well-known and beloved novels of Western Literature.

The middle sister, Emily, wrote Wuthering Heights…

while the eldest, Charlotte, wrote Jane Eyre, which is one of the most popular novels of all-time (and was the most popular novel of the three sisters back then, as well).

Born over a stretch of four years between 1816 and 1820, all three sisters were dead by 1855, with the oldest of the three, Charlotte, living the longest (she died giving birth to her child at the age of 38 - both child and mother died).

What’s fascinating is that so much of the story of their life has been dictated by pretty much one biography, an 1857 biography of Charlotte, published two years after her death. Written by Elizabeth Gaskell, this bio formed the foundation for what the general public knew about the Brontës for over a century.

Which is fair enough, of course, except that Gaskell, as it turned out, was not a particularly faithful biographer!!

One of the more notable aspects of Charlotte’s life that Gaskell decided to ignore was the deep attraction that Charlotte had for Constantin Heger, the married man who ran the boarding school where both Charlotte and Emily taught (Charlotte taught English and Emily taught Music). Gaskell felt that such information would be too damaging to Charlotte’s reputation, especially since Charlotte’s father (and her husband, for that matter!) were still alive.

Really, though, it was Charlotte’s reputation that Gaskell was most concerned with, since she effectively invented stories about Patrick’s rearing of the girls (Patrick’s wife, Maria, the mother of the girls and Branwell, died in 1825) that do not reflect too well on Patrick.

But it appears as though Patrick was willing to go along with the stories (he helped Gaskell with the biography - Patrick actually ended up outliving ALL of his six children - and he was thirty-nine when Charlotte was born!) because it appears that this was what Charlotte wanted (her sisters predeceased her, so they were not as concerned with their “legacy”).

You see, the reaction to the novels of the sisters involved a good deal of public interest, but also a goodly amount of public backlash against the somewhat unsavory nature of the novels, which were fairly controversial at the time. So the way to come up with an “excuse” of sorts for their novels, the sisters formulated the myth that they were raised in an extremely strict home and that they were just simple country women who did not know enough to be chastised.

Gaskell ran with this approach, depicting the sisters home life as downright tragic. It was here that Gaskell introduced the notion that Patrick would not let the sisters eat meat - a notion that persisted for over a century, until modern scholars found references to the sisters writing in their journals about being served meat.

It’s truly fascinating to see how a myth was created about their lives.

Lucasta Miller unpacks almost all of these legends in her book about the sisters, The Brontë Myth…

It’s well worth a read.

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

By the way, sorry to those following the blog on your RSS readers - when I accidentally hit “publish” instead of “save draft,” I did not know that it would be permanent on your RSS feed. I’ll do my best in the future to avoid having such a mistake happen again.

Let’s begin!

MOVIE LEGEND: A scene of Jack Palance mounting a horse in Shane was a rewound shot of Palance dismounting the horse!

STATUS: True

Jack Palance’s work in westerns was a defining aspect of his stellar career in the film industry. Heck, he even ended up winning an Academy Award in 1992 for spoofing his “tough guy cowboy” image in the Billy Crystal film, City Slickers…

But the role he is most known for is almost certainly the ominous hired gun Jack Wilson in the Alan Ladd western Shane.

Palance is almost effortlessly menacing in the film. There was just one problem that popped up in the filming of the movie - Palance did not know anything about horses!

You see, Palance had just recently gotten into making films after an extended stay on the Broadway stage (he understudied Marlon Brandon in A Streetcar Named Desire) - this came after a stint as a professional boxer and serving his country in the Air Force during World War II. Palance had never been around horses in his life (well, at least not in terms of riding them), so he was completely lost when it came to working with them.

This causes George Stevens to improvise his film, including at least one bit that ended up making the film probably better than originally intended.

Wilson was originally set to make his debut in the film by galloping into town on a horse at high speeds. Naturally, Palance could not do anything close to that. So instead, Stevens re-wrote the scene to have Wilson ride slowly into town.

The resulting scene was a good deal more ominous.

Note here that the scene cuts off as Palance is getting off of the horse - this was because Palance had a great deal of trouble dismounting his horse.

Well, later in the film, there is a scene where Wilson and his boss, ruthless cattle boss Rufus Ryker (played by Emile Meyer) are waiting at the home of Joe and Marian Starrett (played by Van Heflin and Jean Arthur) in an effort to intimidate them.

Shane, a former gunslinger who was staying with the Starrett and Wilson size each other up.

To achieve this effect, Wilson had to get off of his horse, and Palance manages to dismount nicely.

He then goes over and takes a sip of water (all ominously, of course).

Then he re-mounts his horse, but hilariously enough, Stevens felt that the shot they got of Palance getting back on the horse was not good enough, so for the film, he simply edited the film to include the dismount scene..in reverse!!

It’s hard to tell without actually seeing it on video, but hopefully this screen shot of the mounting scene can help - as you can tell, it’s identical to the earlier dismounting scene.

Pretty hilarious and really clever editing work on Stevens’ part because I never noticed it in the film until I was specifically looking for it!

MOVIE LEGEND: Sigourney Weaver actually making a trick shot ended up causing a bit of a scene during the filming of Alien Resurrection.

STATUS: True

You don’t need me to tell you that the amazing basketball shots, home runs and touchdown passes in films are invariably achieved through trick photography. Sometimes, the scenes are less well done as others (the basketball game at the end of Teen Wolf, for instance, has a special place in film historians’ hearts for its awfully unrealistic looking basketball sequence - people barely bending their arms and the ball happens to fly into the basket).

Well, that was NOT the case in the film, Alien Resurrection…

Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is effectively brought back from the dead via cloning by “The Company” after her death in the third Aliens movie (she kills herself because she has a Queen Alien embryo implanted in her)

The new Ripley, though, has enhanced abilities due to her DNA merging with the Alien.

She demonstrates these skills on the basketball court. Ripley is sparring with a group of mercenaries, particularly a character called Johner, played by Ron Perlman.

To demonstrate her new powers, Ripley was to shoot a basketball one-handed with her back to the basket a goodly distance away and have it go in.

Weaver was determined to make the shot “live,” and had practiced to the point where she could actually make it about once every six shots.

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was getting a bit impatient, as he was perfectly fine with just using trick photography (or special effects) to get the shot, but Weaver was adamant. Ultimately, Jeanet agreed to give her six takes to get the shot in.

Weaver missed the first five times, but on the six try, the ball went right in!!

However, as you can see from the middle screen shot, Jeanet framed the shot with the ball disappearing from the frame at the top of the frame - this was done so that, if need be, he could then use special effects to have the ball drop from the sky without having to show the entire arc of the ball. So now, due to this framing, a REAL shot looked like a FAKE shot!

He offered to edit in a special effect of the arc of the ball, but Weaver was content just making the shot.

Amusingly enough, though, the ball going through on the last take proved too much for Perlman to take, and when the ball went in he broke character to shout his surprise at the ball actually going in!

This is why in the film, they cut away from the shot to a separately filmed reaction shot by Johner…

MOVIE LEGEND: Judy Garland did not make as much money for making The Wizard of Oz as the dog who played Toto in the film.

STATUS: False

Judy Garland was a young actress under contract with Metro Goldwyn Meyer (MGM) when she made the Wizard of Oz.

As a result, her salary for the film seems quite low compared to the other actors in the film.

This has led to a story that has made its way around the internet that Garland actually made less money than the dog who played her pet, Toto!

The exact quote (you can find it in a number of places) is:

For the movie the Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland was paid $35 a week while Toto received $125 a week.

This is a pretty straightforward case of nope, that’s not true.

Eric Gjovaag, my personal favorite Wizard of Oz expert, has the facts at his awesome Wizard of Oz FAQ.

As it turned out, Garland made $500 a week while Terry (the dog who played Toto) and her trainer, Carl Spitz, were paid $125 per week.

Do note that after the film ended, MGM tore up Garland’s contract and gave her a sizable raise.

Thanks, Eric, for clearing up this little bit of misinformation!

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 read them!

Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)” was originally about the repeal of Prohibition.

STATUS: True

By the middle of the 1970s, the Four Seasons were in a bit of a pickle. Their lead singer, and most famous member, Frankie Valli, had tremendous problems with hearing loss, so he was no longer able to be the lead singer for the group.

In a clever move, rather than disbanding, the group brought in two new band members (by “the group,” I basically just mean Valli and co-founder Bob Gaudio) who would sing the lead vocals for the group while Valli would contribute occasional bridges, just to make his presence felt in the group (as he WAS still the most famous member of the group). New drummer Gerry Polci and bassist Don Ciccone were the two main vocalists on the album Who Loves You…

Polci was the lead vocalist on the song that became “December, 1964 (Oh What a Night).”

The tune would become a massive hit, and helped cement the Four Seasons as a group able to succeed in the (then) current pop charts.

The song was a catchy tune about a young man losing his virginity.

However, the original title of the song showed what the original topic of the song was.

Originally, the tune was titled “December 5th, 1933,” which happens to be the day that the Constitutional Amendment was passed repealing Prohibition.

So the song was initially a tune about the day Prohibition ended, which certainly would be a cool backdrop for a wild night, I am sure.

But Valli felt that the topic wasn’t interesting enough, so he asked Gaudio (who co-wrote the song, along with his wife, Judy Parker) to change it. Parker was not a big fan of the topic, either, so they complied and, well, the rest is hit single history!

Isn’t it funny how they kept the same title structure of the original tune?

MUSIC LEGEND: Kanye West wrote “Gold Digger” after seeing Jamie Foxx play Ray Charles in “Ray.”

STATUS: Surprisingly False

“Gold Digger” was a massive hit single by Kanye West that came out in 2005. You practically couldn’t go anywhere in the late Summer/early Fall of 2005 without hearing this tune on the radio (I was on a road trip down to Washington DC from New York that August and we literally heard it six times on five different stations in an hour - yes, one station played it more than once in an hour!).

The song samples the classic Ray Charles hit “I Got a Woman”…

Jamie Foxx sings the Charles parts of the song, which is interpolated throughout the song.

Foxx, of course, won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Charles in the 2004 film, Ray.

So naturally, folks believed that West wrote the song after seeing Foxx in Ray. However, West actually wrote the song a number of years earlier (before the Ray film even began pre-production), with the intention of giving it to a female rapper.

When rapper Shawnna decided to pass on the track, West sat on it until 2005, when he decided to re-write the tune, which was originally from a female’s perspective (presumably a “Gold Digging” woman).

Around THIS time, West HAD seen the film Ray, and yes, his viewing of the film inspired him to add the Charles sample and have Foxx sing that part of the song.

However, the song was written first.

MUSIC LEGEND: David Bowie adapted the song Paul Anka used to write “My Way” before Anka!

STATUS: Basically True

In 1967, Claude François had a hit in France with the Jacques Revaux song “Comme D’Habitude” (lyrics by Claude François and Gilles Thibaut)…

In 1969, singer/songwriter Paul Anka acquired the rights to the song and used the tune to write a brand-new song (lyric-wise) called “My Way.”

Anka gave the song to Frank Sinatra, who used it as the title track to his 1969 album…

It was a big hit for Sinatra, and is now one of his most famous songs.

However, interestingly enough, another artist actually used the song BEFORE Anka got to it! And that artist was a young unknown singer by the name of David Bowie!

In 1968, Bowie (who had released an album already, but it was a small release and he was not very well known at all) wrote the song “Even a Fool Learns to Love,” based on the tune from “Comme D’Habitude.”

Bowie could not get a company to release the song as a single, and before he knew it, “My Way” was international success.

Bowie luckily found success in 1969 with his own hit single, “Space Oddity,” and his career was well on its way, but he did not forget about the whole “My Way” incident, and on his 1971 album Hunky Dory he had a song called “Life on Mars?” which is an ever so slight satire of Sinatra’s style of songs, especially “My Way.”

So in the end, while Bowie had to wait a little bit longer to become famous, we at least got two great songs out of the bargain, “My Way” and “Life on Mars?,” so we, the listener, come out pretty well in this affair!

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