Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: Before saying goodbye for the last time before Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, Waylon Jennings told Holly that he hoped his plane crashes.

STATUS: True

Reader Ed R. asked me recently:

I read online today that before Buddy Holly’s fateful plane crash, Holly told Waylon Jennings that he hoped his “ol’ bus freezes up,” to which Jennings replied, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes.”

Do you know if there’s any truth to that legend?

Strangely enough, yes, Ed.

Before he passed away in 2002 at the age of 64, Waylon Jennings put together a remarkable musical career, winning numerous country music awards.

But in the late 1950s, while he was in his early 20s, Jennings was a member of Buddy Holly’s back-up group, the Crickets (the original Crickets had recently broken up, so Holly had put together a brand new version of the group consisting of guitarist Tommy Allsup and drummer Carl “Goose” Bunch). Jennings joined the group for a tour of the Midwest in 1959.

Waylon is on the left in the picture above.

The “Winter Dance Party Tour” also included singer Richie Havens, singer Jay “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Dion and the Belmonts. The bands traveled by bus, and not exactly a fancy bus, either, as one of the buses was so pathetic that Bunch actually developed frostbite while on the bus!!! Havens and a member of the Belmonts had to play drums for the Crickets while Bunch recovered in the hospital!

When a new tour date was added, Holly was frustrated enough to look into chartering a plane. The plane had room for three passengers, Holly and his two remaining bandmates. However, individually, both Jennings and Alssup gave up their seats to Richardson and Havens, respectively.

As you well know, the plane crashed on February 3, 1959, killing all three passengers and the pilot.

And apparently, according to Jennings, and I don’t know why he would make something like this up, when Holly went off to catch the plane, he joked to Jennings that he hoped that their bus froze, and Jennings retorted that he hoped Holly’s plane crashed.

Jennings later recalled:

I was so afraid for many years that somebody was going to find out I said that. Somehow I blamed myself. Compounding that was the guilty feeling that I was still alive. I hadn’t contributed anything to the world at that time compared to Buddy. Why would he die and not me? It took a long time to figure that out, and it brought about some big changes in my life - the way I thought about things.

So there you go, Ed!

Thanks to Ed for the suggestion and thanks to Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair’s book, Serpents in the Garden: Liaisons With Culture & Sex (Counterpunch Anthology), for the great quote from Jennings!

MUSIC LEGEND: Outkast was sued by Rosa Parks for a song named after her.

STATUS: True

Outkast is one of the most successful hip hop groups of all time, managing to balance commercial success with critical acclaim, as well, including winning the Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year in 2004 for their novel release Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (where the two members of the group, Andre 3000 and Big Boi, each did a solo album and then released them together as a group double album).

Their 1998 hit album Aquemi featured a song called “Rosa Parks”…

The song was the biggest hit off of the album.

Rosa Parks, of course, is the civil rights icon who made history by being arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in 1955. Her actions sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a major event in the pursuit of equal rights for African-Americans in the United States.

The intent of the song is to demonstrate how, like Parks changed the world of civil rights, Outkast was changing the world of hip hop. The only part of the song that actually refers to Parks is the chorus, which goes “Ah ha, hush that fuss / Everybody move to the back of the bus / Do you want to bump and slump with us / We the type of people make the club get crunk.”

It is certainly a bit iffy to draw comparisons between being influential hip hop artists and being a civil rights icon, but in any event, the guys clearly intended the song as an homage (if a bizarre one) to Parks.

However, in 1999, Parks (through her legal representatives) filed a lawsuit against Outkast and their record label - Rosa Parks v. LaFace Records.

The theory behind the suit was that the group used Parks’ name without her permission in a song that was objectionable to her and caused damage to her public reputation (the song contained profanity). The case was a very interesting intellectual property case. As you might well know, pretty much anyone can write a song ABOUT someone (even there, of course, you can run afoul of stuff like libel), but that was the key here - as I noted before, the song really was not ABOUT Rosa Parks. However, it still was TITLED “Rosa Parks,” so the theory was that they were merely trading on the fame of her name, and if THAT is the case, then yes, she has rights to protect the use of her famous name.

Still, at each level, Outkast was winning. However, the higher courts kept accepting the case on appeals, so the case continued for a number of years. As the case dragged on, Parks’ family began to believe that her lawyers were more concerned about their legal fees then what Parks herself wanted (she was in her late 80s and suffering from dementia).

In October of 2004, a judge named former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer the overseer of Parks’ legal affairs, and in early 2005 the case was finally settled. Outkast admitted no wrongdoing, but paid Parks a monetary settlement and agreed to do some work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.

Parks passed away in October of 2005 at the age of 92.

MUSIC LEGEND: American Idol’s parent company and/or Simon Cowell owns the publishing rights to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

STATUS: False

Leonard Cohen’s song, “Hallelujah,” off of his 1984 album, Various Positions, was not exactly a hit right away.

Artist John Cale recorded the song in 1991 for a Leonard Cohen cover album. It was Cale’s version that inspired singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley to cover the song for his 1994 album, Grace.

Buckley’s version was well-received, critically, but it was not exactly an instant hit. In fact, at the time of Buckley’s death, the song was not nearly as popular as it soon would become as it began to be covered by other artists (most notably by singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright) and used in a number of films and television shows.

One television show, in particular, who uses the show frequently, is American Idol.

In 2008, contestant Jason Castro did a version of the song popular enough that it got Buckley’s version back into the list of top downloads in the country!

Castro put the song on his debut album.

In 2010, the song was used TWICE on the show! Early in the season, contestant Tim Urban used it, and later in the season, Simon Cowell chose the song for contestant Lee DeWyze to sing. DeWyze would eventually win the 2010 American Idol contest.

Meanwhile, over in England, in 2008, Cowell’s OTHER show, The X-Factor, saw its 2008 winner, Alexandra Burke, ALSO do a version of the song, breaking sales records with her single of the tune (and being “honored” with having the “Christmas single,” the British tradition of singling out the song that is #1 on the charts on Christmas Day - Burke won despite a campaign to get Buckley’s version back on to the chart as a sort of protest against X-Factor. Burke ultimately won out, but Buckley’s version did end up #2 on the charts).

In addition, Il Divo, ANOTHER group of Cowell’s, ALSO recorded the song.

All of this Cowell involvement in the song led to an interesting rumor in early 2010 that Cowell, or the company behind American Idol, had acquired the publishing rights to “Hallelujah,” which is why they were promoting the song so much.

This, however, is not true. The publishing rights are owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Still, if an artist from Cowell’s record company has a hit with the song, obviously he makes money off the song THAT way, but that’s just straightforward music stuff, not some secret conspiracy where he secretly owns the rights to the song.

Thanks to Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Slezak, for the information on this one!

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

This week is a special theme week - all legends related to the TV series Lassie!

Let’s begin!

TV LEGEND: MGM gave up the rights to Lassie in exchange for not paying $40,000 in back pay to owner/trainer Rudd Weatherwax.

STATUS: True

Rudd Weatherwax and his brother Frank trained the dog Pal who starred in the hit 1943 film, Lassie Come Home (co-starring a young Roddy McDowell), which was adapted from the Eric Knight novel of the same name.

The movie was popular enough to spin off a series of sequels, including, among others, one film featuring a young Elizabeth Taylor…

In 1951, the film series was dried up and MGM was looking for a way to get out of their contract with Weatherwax. They still owed him another $40,000, which certainly was not chump change in 1951. Weatherwax agreed to be released from his contract in exchange for the full rights (including trademark) to Lassie.

At the time, all Weatherwax had in mind was to tour the country doing fairs with Pal performing as Lassie. MGM agreed to the deal, so Weatherwax now owned the Lassie name outright.

A couple of years later, TV producer Robert Maxwell was looking for ideas to adapt into television series, and he thought Lassie was a good one. Finding that Weatherwax owned the right, he approached him and the two men worked out a deal to shoot a pilot, which CBS picked up for the 1954 TV season. It would air on CBS for the next 17 seasons!!

Naturally, as soon as word got out that CBS was doing a series based on Lassie, MGM got involved, claiming that they still owned the rights, but Weatherwax had a pretty straightforward contract so MGM had to back off.

A few years later, Jack Wrather purchased the rights to the TV show for over $3 million. Presumably Weatherwax made out pretty well in that deal (and, of course, he supplied canine actors to play Lassie for all 19 seasons that Lassie was on the air, including the two syndicated seasons after CBS had to let the show go due to changes in the rules by the FCC which I have detailed in a past TV Legends Revealed here, so he was doing pretty well no matter what).

Who knows how TV history would have been different if MGM had never given up their rights to the Lassie name?

Thanks to Ace Collins’ nifty Lassie biography, Lassie: A Dog’s Life, The First Fifty Years, for the lowdown on the situation.

TV LEGEND: Lassie frequently saved Timmy after the boy fell down a well.

STATUS: False

After being the pet of a young boy named Jeff for the first four seasons of Lassie, Lassie settled in with a new owner named Timmy for the next seven seasons. Timmy (played by Jon Provost) is the most famous of Lassie’s owners, which also included some Park Rangers in later seasons and a children’s orphanage in the last two syndicated seasons.

There is a famous joke about the standard plot on an episode of Lassie. I don’t know exactly where it is from - it certainly could be Saturday Night Live, but I have an idea that it is likely older than that (as Lassie ran from 1954-1973, so you figure SOME comedian must have made fun of the show during those years), but it goes like this.

Lassie comes running in to Timmy’s mother and barks a couple of times. The mother (played most famously by June Lockhart, although Cloris Leachman originated the role) replies, “What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?”

The joke mocks the way that Lassie was able to so accurately communicate with the adults on the show to let them know of the trouble Timmy got into, and boy did Timmy get into a lot of trouble!

The website Lassie Web once detailed a bunch of the problems Timmy got into. Here is a sampling…

.let a rabid dog out of a cage (”Graduation”)
…ate deadly nightshade berries (”Berrypickers”)
…threatened by an escaped female circus elephant (”The Elephant”)
…hides out in the treehouse when he has pneumonia (”Spartan”)
…threatened by a mother wolf (”The Wolf Cub”)
…falls into the lake (”Transition” and “The House Guest”)
…develops a high fever from the measles (”The Crisis”)
…is almost shot by Paul (”Hungry Deer”)
…ignores severe stomach pains; he’s diagnosed with appendicitis (”Hospital”)
…is trapped in an abandoned house with Boomer (”Trapped”)
…wanders into a live mine field (”Junior GIs”)
…is menaced by a bear (”Campout” and “The Renegade”)
…is trapped in a mine (”Old Henry”)
…gets a black eye playing football (”Growing Pains”)
…nearly flies a home-made glider off a cliff (”Flying Machine”)
…runs into a burning house to save a neighbor lady and passes out (”The Whopper”)
…is endangered by dynamite picked up by an escaped lab chimp (”The Man from Mars”)

And that is truly just a sampling of the problems he got into over the seven seasons he was the lead character on the show.

You’ll notice what is NOT on that list.

Timmy never actually fell down a well in any of the seven seasons he was on the show. Nor did the earlier owner, Jeff, ever fall down a well. It appears as though the only character on the show to EVER fall down a well was Lassie herself, in a Season 17 episode (Season 17 was an odd season where Lassie was without an owner).

The “What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?” joke became SO universal, though, that it was just accepted that Timmy did, in fact, fall down wells with some frequency. And really, he DID fall down things with great frequency, they were just storm drains, pipes, etc. Just never a well.

Amusingly enough, Jon provost still named his auto-biography, Timmy’s in the Well: The Jon Provost Story (he does note in the book that never actually fell down a well).

Thanks to Lassie Web for the great list! Go check out their site to find out a list of all the problems he had over the years.

TV LEGEND: A blacklisted writer used his wife as a front to write episodes of Lassie.

STATUS: True

Adrian Scott was a writer and producer who had a good deal of success in the late 1940s with a series of notable noir films, most famously Crossfire, with Roberts Young, Mitchum and Ryan (I couldn’t help myself, I had to phrase it that way), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1948.

Scott worked with Director Edward Dmytryk and screenwriter John Paxton frequently in those days.

Well, in late 1947, with their movie already a hit in the theaters, both Scott and Dmytryk were called to testify in front of the US Congress’ House Committee on Un-American Activities. They, along with eight other men, refused to testify.

The “Hollywood Ten” consisted of (thanks to Wikipedia for the list)…

* Alvah Bessie, screenwriter
* Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director
* Lester Cole, screenwriter
* Edward Dmytryk, director
* Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter
* John Howard Lawson, screenwriter
* Albert Maltz, screenwriter
* Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter
* Adrian Scott, producer and screenwriter
* Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter

Here they all are (Dmytryk and Scott are in the back row - Dmytryk is in the middle, Scott on the right)…

They were all held in contempt by Congress and sentenced to a year in federal prison. In addition, the studios made a big public show of “banning” each of those men from ever working for the studios again. Dmytryk got off of the “blacklist” a few years later by testifying and claiming that Scott forced him to work Communist ideology into their films.

In any event, Scott’s beliefs cost him his job, his freedom (he was sent to prison for a year in 1950 - he served 10 months, getting out a few months after Dmytryk had named Scott’s name in front of Congress) and it also cost him his wife, as his wife, actress Anne Shirley, divorced him in April of 1948 (Shirley did not care that he was a Communist, but she did care that she married a rich producer and now she was married to a poor writer who couldn’t even work in the States. Her letter to Scott informing him of their separation is pretty rough, essentially saying that she couldn’t live without Beverly Hills). Reader Matthew Johnson pointed out that I had an earlier Movie Legends Revealed feature on Anne Shirley, which you can check out here. Thanks for the reminder, Matthew!

In 1955, Scott re-married, marrying fellow screenwriter (and fellow Communist) Joan LaCour.

While LaCour was blacklisted as well, she was basically totally unknown in Hollywood, so she merely had to use the pseudonym Joanne Court to write for television. So Scott would use his new wife as a front to write for TV.

So, as Joanne Court, Joan would write for a number of shows, including Lassie, but it was really Adrian who was writing the episodes. Joan, though, would attend story conferences and bring back notes for Adrian to adjust his scripts accordingly.

He wrote two episodes of the show using her as a front. However, she eventually began to write for the show herself as she carved out a career as a TV screenwriter on her own, as well (she wrote five episodes in the early 1960s).

By the early 1970s, the blacklist was basically over with, and Adrian Scott was able to write under his own name again, but sadly he would pass away from cancer in 1973, mere months before his first screen credit since the blacklist appeared.

Thanks to Jennifer Langdon’s Caught in the Crossfire: Adrian Scott and the Politics of Americanism in 1940s Hollywood, for the great information about Scott’s life!

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

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

Let’s begin!

ARCHITECTURE LEGEND: There is a law in Washington D.C. that states that no building be as tall as the Washington Monument.

STATUS: False (Although Effectively True)

A common “fact” that gets bandied about often when visiting the District of Columbia is that there is a law that states that no building in Washington D.C. be as tall as the Washington Monument.

It IS true that there are no buildings in Washington D.C. as tall as the 555 foot tall Washington Monument, and it is also true that the heights of buildings within the district ARE restricted. However, the two are not necessarily connected.

I say “necessarily” because, yes, since there IS a restriction on the heights of buildings, then, by extension, there is, in fact, a law that keeps buildings shorter than the Washington Monument. The law just happens to not invoke the monument at all.

The original Height of Buildings Act was passed by the United States Congress in 1899 (in response to the building of the Cairo Hotel in 1894, the 164 foot building was surely only the first in a number of buildings designed to, well, scrape the sky), and at the time, it used the United States Capitol, not the Washington Monument, as its measurement.

This was later adapted by the 1910 version of the Act (D.C. Code § 6-601.05), which is the current version.

Under the current law, buildings are restricted to be no taller than 20 feet higher than the width of the adjacent street (with further restrictions the closer you get to the White House). There have been a few exceptions made over the years, mostly for religious buildings.

So yes, due to the law, the Washington Monument remains the tallest structure in Washington D.C., but that is coincidence, not intention.

ARCHITECTURE LEGEND: A California family had a house constructed entirely out of a recycled Boeing 747 airplane!

STATUS: True

Francine Rehwald is a 65-year-old retiree who lives in Malibu Hills, California.

When she came to David Hertz for ideas of her retirement house in 2005, she wanted something that “environmentally friendly” and also be a real feminine design with, as Rehwald describes it, “curves.”

Hertz came up with a brilliant idea - build the house out of a recycled Boeing 747 airplane!!

And that’s just what they did, with the planning, permit granting and construction taking pretty much all of the last five years, with the project reportedly soon finally coming to fruition some time this year.

Here’s the design of the house, which uses the salvaged wings and tail flaps of the plane to serve as the roof of the multilevel home…

And as you can tell, such an endeavor presents some strange construction details, as shown here by the delivery of pieces of the plane…

An interesting aspect of the construction is the fact that, besides the overall point that they are making good use to all of the materials of the plane, there really is not anything particularly “green” about the design of the house. The only “green” thing about the house is what it is made out of. I only mention that because of the initial intent was to be environmentally friendly. And while yes, re-using a discarded plane is better than, say, trashing it, it is still somewhat odd that the house does not have other “environmentally friendly” aspects to it.

Still, what a cool house!!!

ARCHITECTURE LEGEND: Frank Lloyd Wright used massive amount of college student urine to treat the copper in his buildings at Florida Southern College.

STATUS: True

It seems positively strange, but the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in one place is on the campus of the small private Methodist college, Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, Florida (Oak Hill Park in Illinois still has the largest collection of houses designed by Wright, but as you might imagine, a college campus has all of the buildings together, something that would not really be possible anywhere else).

The collection of buildings is called “The Child of the Sun” and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here are a few of the pieces…

The story of HOW the buildings were built is pretty remarkable. Wright was in his 70s, and obviously at the tail end of his career in 1938 when Dr. Ludd M. Spivey, the president of Florida Southern, offered Wright a challenge. He could not afford to pay Wright much, but he would offer him carte blanche in being able to design the “college of the future,” plus Spivey would offer up the entire student population as basically indentured servants to do any work Wright needed done that didn’t need to be done by specialists (when the male students went to war in World War II, the female population picked up the slack).

Wright, who tended to be a bit whimsical like that (especially later in life), agreed.

One of the most amusing stories in the whole deal is how Wright dealt with the aging of the copper he used in the buildings. If you did not know this already, urine reacts with copper to help along the aging process. Wright happened to be a major proponent of using urine to treat copper. So when Spivey said that the students were available to Wright in any way, I don’t think he expected that to include massive contributions of student urine!

And yet, that’s what happened - I suppose you could say that, in a way, there is a piece of all the students of Florida Southern College in their school!

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

Let’s begin!

MOVIE LEGEND: All timepieces in Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20.

STATUS: False

A very popular “true fact” is about a cute little drug reference in the film, Pulp Fiction.

As you will see in many different places, it is stated as true that:

All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” read 4:20.

4:20, of course, being a popular reference to marijuana enthusiasm (which evolved from a time when teens would smoke marijuana after school to the point where April 20th is practically a holiday now for fans of marijuana).

However, much like a recent Comic Book Legends Revealed that I did that stated that there is a reference to Superman in every episode of Seinfeld, what we have here is simply a case of exaggeration from an actual true occurrence in Pulp Fiction.

A bunch of clocks ARE set to 4:20 in Pulp Fiction, but, before we even look at ALL of the clocks, note that the most famous timepiece in the movie, Butch Coolidge’s watch, is shown not set to 4:20 when it is given to him as a child.

(click to enlarge)

But if you want to argue that that does not count as a clock, fair enough.

So here is a clock in the film NOT set to 4:20.

(click to enlarge)

So yeah, it is just an exaggeration.

MOVIE LEGEND: Ten months after the release of Forrest Gump, Winston Groom had not received any money from his 3% take on the net profits of the film!

STATUS: True

In 1986, Winston Groom wrote a novel called Forrest Gump…

It didn’t do particularly well, but in the early 1990s, Robert Zemeckis and Paramount Pictures optioned the book for a movie. He agreed to a $350,00 up front fee, plus 3% of the net profits of the film.

The movie then went on to become one of the biggest movie hits ever upon its release in July of 1994.

The film won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Tom hanks) at the Academy Awards, and by May 1995, it had sold over $600 million in ticket sales worldwide (and the VHS home movie had just recently been released).

However, by May 1995, Groom had yet to be paid ANYthing past his initial salary!

You see, Winston Groom, along with a few other people involved in the film (including the screenwriter, Eric Roth, and producers Wendy Finerman and Steve Tisch), only got percentages of the films’ NET profits, and in May of 1995, Paramount had yet to acknowledge that the film had actually MADE money yet!

Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis ALSO had percentage deals, but THEIR deals were off of the GROSS profits of the film, so by May 1995, each man had earned roughly $30 million for the film. In fact, Hanks and Zemeckis’ pay-outs were partially what were keeping the other four people from making any money.

Paramount’s position is that their accounting practices were completely valid.

They claimed that as of December 1994, after splitting the ticket sales with the movie theaters, they took in $191 million on the film, then $62 million went to Hanks and Zemeckis (net now $129 million), $50 million went to paying off production costs of the movie (net now $79 million), $74 million went to promoting the film (net now $5 million), $6 million went to interest payments on the financing of the film (now showing a net LOSS of $1 million) and then $62 million for distribution expenses, resulting in a net loss of roughly $63 million!!

Groom felt that this was bogus, and hired a lawyer to assert as much. Paramount responded by giving him another $250,000 (on top of his $350,000 original fee) as an “advance against future profits,” stating that they were sure that once the home video sales and the additional ticket sales came in, the movie would make a sizable net profit.

Still, it’s pretty amazing to see how a film as big as Forrest Gump could be said to have LOST $62 million six months after its release, and that it had not yet officially MADE money TEN months after its release!

Thanks to Bernard Weinraub of the New York Times for the information behind this legend.

MOVIE LEGEND: The airport scene at the end of Casablanca was produced using a cardboard model of a plane and little people actors in the background!!

STATUS: True

The majority of the classic 1942 film, Casablanca, was filmed on the studio lots.

However, they did, in fact, have an actual Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior for the final scene in the film where Rick forces Ilsa to go with her husband, Victor Laszlo.

The problem was, they could not film the plane actually taking OFF. There are competing theories as to WHY, either they did not have the time/space/money or there were airport restrictions on filming a plane taking off at night.

Either way, they were stuck - they had a plane but they could not film it taking off, and the studio lot was not big enough to build a life-sized airport to house the plane.

So the filmmakers came up with an ingenious, if slightly odd, solution.

They built a cardboard model airplane to LOOK like the Lockheed plane, then they filmed in a fashion to make the perspective look like it was much further away than it really was. To aid in this endeavor, they hired a group of little people actors/extras to work on the plane to make it look bigger.

You’ll note that when Laszlo goes to put their bags on to the plane (to give Rick and Ilsa time alone), he doesn’t walk TO the plane, but off camera, stage right…

So when Rick and Ilsa have their climactic scene together, they’re not all that far away from the plane!

Fog is added to disguise the fact that the plane is a model. It’s a pretty darn good job, I think.

Again, when Laszlo and Ilsa leave, they again don’t walk to the plane, but rather stage right…

Here’s the model, with some heavy fog to disguise it…

Again, I think it looks pretty darn good.

This DOES serve to put Rick’s speech into new context, though - “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people…”

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 two-hundred and sixty-ninth in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous two hundred and sixty-eight.

Click here to read them!

Plus, read on for links to #256-268, as well!

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Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: “Windy” was originally written about the hippie boyfriend of the songwriter, with the lyrics re-written by The Association to be about a woman.

STATUS: Mostly False, With Perhaps Some Truth Mixed In

The infectious pop classic, “Windy,” was released by the band The Association in 1967 and was a smash hit, going all the way to #1 on the Billboard charts.

The song is about an engaging young woman named Windy, about whom it was sung:

Who’s trippin’ down the streets of the city
smiling at everybody she sees
whose reaching out to capture a moment
everyone knows it’s Windy…

For years, the rumor was that while the character in the song is definitely a woman, that the son initially was written about a MAN, the hippy boyfriend of the songwriter, before the Association changed it.

For example, here’s a quote from the book, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader (a collection of interesting facts and lists):

Although the Association sang about a girl named Windy, the song was actually written about a man. The composer was Ruthann Friedman and Windy, her boyfriend, was an original hippie. In that context the lyrics make a lot more sense. Example: he’s “tripping” down the streets of the city.

Friedman has long denied this story. However, she has admittedly been not all together consistent in her description of the story, but one thing she HAS been consistent about is denying that it was about either her a boyfriend of hers or about a hippie at all (which, in turn, specifically refutes the whole “it’s ‘tripping’ as in ‘tripping on drugs,’ man!!” interpretation of the song). So I think it’s pretty safe to say that it is not about a hippy and/or her boyfriend at the time.

The most recent version of the story that I have seen came from Songfacts, who Friedman told:

[H]e was another singer/songwriter, and not “a freewheeling Haight Ashbury Hippy” as often reported. Friedman says of the song: “I have heard so many different permutations of what the song was about. Here is the TRUTH. I was sitting on my bed - the apartment on the first floor of David Crosby’s house in Beverly Glenn - and there was a fellow who came to visit and was sitting there staring at me as if he was going to suck the life out of me. So I started to fantasize about what kind of a guy I would like to be with, and that was Windy - a guy (fantasy).

Thanks to Songfacts for getting the information and thanks to Ruthann Friedman (whose website can be found here) for giving the information!

MUSIC LEGEND: Not only did C + C Music Factory use a different singer to lip sync to the music sung by another singer for the music video AND some live performances of their hit song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” they did not even CREDIT the actual singer on the song!

STATUS: True

David Cole and, Robert Clivillés were a production duo who put together the “group” C + C Music Factory, quotes because they would just hire different singers according to what they felt the song needed.

One of their most popular songs was “Things That Make You Go ‘Hmm’”…

but their biggest hit by far was the title track to their 1991 smash album, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”…

In the popular music video for the song, the booming hook of the female singer singing “Everybody Dance Now” is depicted as this woman, Zelma Davis…

Heck, it even credits her by NAME…

Davis did, indeed, sing on more than a few tracks on the album. However, she did NOT do the singing on this song.

No, the singing came courtesy of Martha Wash, seen below from a 1980s music video for her hit song “It’s Raining Men,” from her singing duo, The Weather Girls (along with Izora Rhodes, who she met when both women were working as backup singers during the late 1970s/early 1980s).

As you can see, Wash is a bit less svelte than Davis, and as a result, the producers of the group and the record label felt that she was “unmarketable.” Not only would Davis lip sync to her singing on the music video, but she would also do the same on certain live performances, like when C + C Music Factory was on Saturday Night Live.

Not only that, but Wash was not even CREDITED on the album’s liner notes!

Eventually, almost certainly buoyed by the lip syncing scandal involving the pop group, Milli Vanilli, Wash sued the record label (Columbia) to get credit (and royalties from the song’s success) and she succeeded. Not only did she succeed, but her actions at least partially inspired Congress to pass legislation making proper crediting mandatory on song releases.

It’s nice to see a happy ending!

MUSIC LEGEND: Before becoming a judge on American Idol, Kara DioGuardi was part of a musical hoax along with Dave Stewart.

STATUS: True

Nowadays, Kara DioGuardi is best known for being on the judges on the hit TV show, American Idol (heck, at the moment, she is only one of two judges assured of returning this upcoming season, with Simon Cowell departing and Ellen DeGeneres up in the air about whether she will return)…

but DioGuardi GOT the chance to be a judge based on her successful career as a songwriter, writing many hit songs for a number of pop singers, including more than a few former American Idol contestants.

It was while working as a songwriter in 2004 that she found herself as part of an elaborate, and fairly odd, musical hoax.

In 2004, DioGuardi collaborated with Dave Stewart on some songs for the pop group, the Pussycat Dolls. Dave Stewart is best known for being one-half (with Annie Lennox being the other) of the Eurythmics.

After working on the songs for awhile, the pair felt that the music they were coming up with did not really sound like Pussycat Dolls music, but rather felt like old pop songs, similar to mid-70s Fleetwood Mac, for instance.

So the duo came up with an idea - they would release an album of their new songs themselves, but pretend that they were LOST songs from the 1970s!

The album showed up in 2005, and the band was called Platinum Weird and they put a lot of effort into maintaining the facade (all in good fun, of course, they weren’t seriously trying to convince people)…

A mockumentary was made about the group, and many famous people (including Mick Jagger) gave testimonials for a special done for Vh1 about the group, specifically its enigmatic lead singer, Erin Grace (played by DioGuardi).

The songs were meant to be from 1973, when Stewart met the young singer, Grace (who, coincidentally, would years later turn out to be DioGuardi’s neighbor in New York - you can’t make this stuff up…oh wait…).

The album was called Make Believe (wink wink)…

The album is really quite pleasant, and DioGuardi’s vocal are good. A major problem is that 90% of the songs don’t sound like they’re from the 1970s at all, but hey, at least it’s a nice pop album!

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!

TV LEGEND: The head of CBS insisted on making an alternate version of Gilligan’s Island to show why his ideas for the show were better than Gilligan’s Island creator, Sherwood Schwartz.

STATUS: True

Hot off of his stint as head writer for the Red Skeleton Show, for which he won the 1961 Emmy Award for Best Comedy Writing, Sherwood Schwartz got a development deal at CBS.

His first idea for a show was Gilligan’s Island, a show about a small group of castaways living on an island, sort of a comedic version of Robinson Crusoe…

James T. Aubrey liked the general idea of Gilligan and the Skipper, but he thought that the idea of limiting yourself to a cast of only seven characters (the castaways) was far too limiting of a concept. So instead, he suggested that Schwartz take Gilligan and the Skipper…

and make them the stars of a show in which they would take people out of on three-hour charter tours and wacky hijinx would ensue. In some ways, it actually mirrored the basic format of the love boat (as different guest stars would show up each week to take a tour, and on that tour, presumably their lives would change in some manner or fashion).

Schwartz would not agree to change the show.

So instead, Aubrey actually had ANOTHER producer put out ANOTHER show that same season (1964-65), utilizing Aubrey’s idea - so basically, Gilligan’s Island without the shipwreck.

Actor Paul Ford was the “Skipper” of the show…

the titular “Baily” in the show The Baileys of Balboa…

Sterling Holloway (best known for his voice work as the voice of Winnie the Pooh) was his “Gilligan”…

there was even a Millionaire who they were in conflict with!!

But there was also Bailey’s two kids (he was a widower), including his youngest, played by a young Clint Howard!!

The Baileys of Balboa lasted just one season. Gilligan’s Island did slightly better. The show actually lasted longer than Aubrey! It lasted until the end of the 1964-65 season - he was fired in February.

TV LEGEND: All in the Family was re-named Archie Bunker’s Place once Jean Stapleton left the show.

STATUS: False

Probably the most famous episode of Archie Bunker’s Place was the episode where Archie deals with the passing of his wife, Edith.

The scenes of Archie (who has been solemn the whole episode) discovering Edith’s slipper at the end of the episode…

causing him to break down…

were so powerful that it was no surprise that actor Carrol O’Connor won a Peabody Award for his performance.

However, the sheer fame of that episode is likely the “culprit” behind a misconception around Archie Bunker’s Place - that the show got its name (changed from All in the Family) because Edith was no longer a character on the show due to her death.

That is not the case.

It is true that after nine seasons of playing Edith Bunker, Jean Stapleton no longer wanted to do All in the Family anymore. And Norman Lear, also, was fine with the show ending after a long run at the top.

CBS, of course, did not want to lose the show, and they asked Carrol O’Connor if he could keep the show going.

He conferred with Lear, who agreed, under the condition that the show no longer be called All in the Family and the familiar opening no longer be used (with Archie and Edith at the piano that served the original series well for so many years)…

with that change in place, Stapleton actually agreed to remain an ostensible cast member of the new show, with the opening credits going…

then…

and finally the title of the show…

Stapleton would only appear in a half-dozen or so episodes of the first season (with the show taking place mostly at the bar/restaurant that Archie bought into) as she was referred to but not shown on screen.

Stapleton finally quit at the end of the first season, although they kept referring to her offscreen at the end of the season. For the second season premiere, though, they decided to write her off of the show as having died.

Similarly to Stapleton still being on the show after the name changed, there is a misconception that Danielle Brisebois was added to the show WHEN the name changed, but she actually joined in the final season of All in the Family.

Here she is with Edith in a Season 9 episode…

Without Edith, the show went on for three more season, running a remarkable 13 years with O’Connor in the Archie Bunker role!!

Amazingly enough, the British show that All in the Family was based on, Till Death Do Us Part, later ALSO had a sequel series, In Sickness and in Health where they ALSO had to write off the wife character as dying after the first season of the sequel series (the real life actress passed away). That’s a weird coincidence!

TV LEGEND: A TV writer’s pseudonym had his own parking space at Paramount!

STATUS: True

One of the (many, many MANY) differences between television nowadays, or heck, television over the past twenty years or so and television of the past is that the role of the writer has become a major aspect of popular culture. People know who Joss Whedon is - a show will be marketed as being written by David E. Kelley and so on and so forth.

This was not really the case forty years ago (although Norman Lear certainly began to change things in the 1970s, then guys like Stephen J. Cannell in the 80s were part of a real movement to make the creator of the show a brand (notice how Cannell had his trademark at the end of his shows, as did Gary David Goldberg with his “Sit, Ubu, sit” closer to Family Ties).

In fact, one notable TV creator specifically went out of his way to NOT get as much public credit as he “deserved.”

Roy Huggins was one of the most prolific creators in television history, creating or co-creating such legendary television programs as…

The Fugitive….

Maverick…

Alias Smith and Jones…

and The Rockford Files (among many, many others)…

However, for the most part, if you were just a typical television viewer, you’d be hard-pressed to tell that Roy Huggins had anything to do with the production of these programs. The Fugitive, for instance, is credited to QM Productions (Quinn Martin’s production company).

This was because Huggins, who had been taken advantage of earlier in his career in television, later worked out contracts that protected him so well that he felt no need to make a big show out of his credits. The studios, after all, knew who he was.

In fact, Huggins thought that it looked bad for a single name to be on a show too much, figuring that it would look bad to the audience (presumably the same theory behind magazines with small writing staffs giving their writers pseudonyms so it seems like they have a diverse staff of writers).

So Huggins invented a pseudonym based on the names of his three sons from his second marriage, John Thomas James.

He used the name on dozens (likely hundreds) of shows that he worked on, like this Alias Smith and Jones episode…

or this Rockford Files one…

Typically James would just be credited with the story, but occasionally “he’d” find time to write a teleplay.

Huggins decided to have some fun with the alias and try to create a persona for James. So he had “James” join the Writer’s Guild and, as part of Huggins’ contract with the studio, James even had “his” own parking space at Universal!!

Huggins later noted that he would always make a point to look at the membership guide to see if the Writers Guild still listed James as a member (they did for years - I would imagine they no longer do, with Huggins being dead for 8 years now).

It’s hard to imagine a writer ever being that modest nowadays (and for good reason, as even Huggins noted later in life that he probably would have been better off taking all the credit for himself)!

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

This is the third 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: Charles Dickens was paid by the word.

STATUS: Misleading Enough for a False

Reader Audrey sent in this one awhile back, and it’s a very popular one - the notion that noted novelist Charles Dickens was paid by the word for his work.

This one is a bit tricky, as I suppose depending on the way you look at it, you could make some sort of argument to that effect, but I think it is such a stretch that it is effectively so misleading that “false” is still the best option.

You see, Dickens’ work was initially released, like many other writers, in serial form before then being collected into a novel and sold as one big story.

Most of Dickens’ early works were serialized in the literary magazine, Bentley’s Miscelleny, where Dickens was an editor for a time.

It was here that the standard format of Dickens’ novels were established, a format that he would bring over to later publishers, as well.

Dickens would produce 20 chapters, which would be released one chapter (contaning 32 pages of text and 2 pages of drawings) at a time for one shilling each. The last installment would have chapters 19-20 together and would be two shillings.

He followed this format fairly sternly, and since he was paid by the installment, I suppose that there is something to be said for the fact that, since he “had” to do at least 20 chapters that “had” to be 32 pages each, then that he was being paid by how much he produced.

That said, how’s that different from any serialized writer? Is a comic book writer “paid by the word”? Is a TV series writer? You could make the argument, but it is so misleading that I think it’s effectively false. If he were actually paid differently depending on how many words he wrote, then yeah, it’s fair to say he was paid by the word. But he wasn’t - so long as he produced 32 pages of text, he was paid.

Granted, that likely DID result in him “padding” his stories a bit, but do note that since the public were following these stories monthly, he had to be certain to keep them entertaining enough that the readers would keep buying the next installment, so it’s not like there was giant chunks of filler designed just to add more words.

And since the term seems to be specifically addressed to Dickens as though his arrangement is somehow different than, say, a magazine writer being told “give me 5,000 words on Topic X,” I think it’s fair to say that it is misleading enough for a false.

Thanks to Audrey for the question!

NOVEL LEGEND: The Central Intelligence Agency aided Boris Pasternak’s Nobel Prize chances in 1958.

STATUS: I’m Going With True

While he began work on it decades earlier, it was not until after World War II that Boris Pasternak seriously began to devote time to finishing his novel, which ultimately became known as Doctor Zhivago, about a man torn between two women during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War that followed.

The story is now best known for the epic film adaptation by David Lean during the 1960s…

but in 1958, the year following its release, it was also noteworthy for winnings its author the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Sadly, due to disapproval from the Soviet Union, where Pasternak and his family lived, Pasternak was forced to turn down the Nobel Prize.

Initially, he received the news of his award with great interest, sending a telegram (after being informed of his victory) that he was “Immensely thankful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed” but a few days later he wrote another one, “Considering the meaning this award has been given in the society to which I belong, I must reject this undeserved prize which has been presented to me. Please do not receive my voluntary rejection with displeasure.”

This was because the novel was seen as somewhat derogatory toward the Communist view on life. It was banned from the Soviet Union, and in fact, after Pasternak’s death in 1960, his mistress, Olga Ivinskaya (who may have been the inspiration for the Lara character in Zhivago), and their daughter, were later sent to prison for allegedly receiving money from the sale of Doctor Zhivago outside the Soviet Union. That’s how hardcore the Soviets were about this book.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was that interested in helping the book get MORE notice outside the USSR!

You see, Pasternak originally tried to get the book published in Russia, but he also sent out a few copies to friends in Europe. One friend got him into contact with an Italian publisher who ultimately was the one who published the novel (and translations were made from this Italian publication).

Even before it was published, Pasternak’s novel was condemned by Soviet authorities.

But AFTER it was published - hoo boy, they were not happy campers. The book was a sensation - a critical and commercial success, translated and published into many different non-Communist bloc countries, including the United States of America.

So when it came time for the Nobel Prize Committte to pick the winner for the Nobel Prize for Literature, well, Pasternak was a leading contender. In fact, Pasternak had already been nominated from 1946-1950 for his poetry, so his name was already well known.

There was just one “problem” - there was no version of the book in the original Russian! And while there is no specific rule against books being considered only on their translations, it certainly was frowned upon.

This is where the CIA stepped in, according to Ivan Tolstoy’s just released (in Russia) book on the topic, as they had intercepted a copy of the original Russian manuscript (one of the copies Pasternak had sent to friends in Europe) and made copies.

Now, with the deadline for the Nobel Prize coming soon, a Russian version was mysteriously published by an unknown publishing house and sent to the Nobel Prize Committee. Pasternak’s Italian publisher believed that the CIA arranged for it to be published. So did the KGB in the USSR, as since-released memos have revealed.

With their records on the matter sealed, it’s difficult to ever prove it to a certainty, but I think Tolstoy has collected enough evidence over the past thirty years to present a convincing case that the CIA did, indeed, help the process along a bit.

Pasternak’s son, though, is irritated at the notion, stating that all they did was move it up a bit, as a Russian edition ended up being published the next year (not in the USSR, but by the University of Michigan), so Pasternak likely would have just won the award the NEXT year. Pasternak’s son, by the way, ended up accepting Pasternak’s Nobel Prize in 1989 - more than thirty years after it was awarded, and almost thirty years after Pasternak passed away.

Doctor Zhivago was finally released in the Soviet Union in 1988.

NOVEL LEGEND: Graham Greene came in second in a contest to parody Graham Greene’s writing style.

STATUS: True

Graham Greene was a popular and critically acclaimed novelist, playwright, screenwriter and critic during the 20th Century (he was born in 1904 and died in 1991).

Many of his works have been turned into films.

Perhaps the most famous movie based on a Graham Greene story is Carol Reed’s The Third Man…

While his works tended to be quite serious in nature, Greene also had a sense of humor about himself.

This was especially noted in 1949, when the British magazine, The New Statesman (below is a recent cover)…

ran a contest asking readers to submit their best parodies of Greene’s writing style.

Greene sent in a few entries himself under pseudonyms. One of them, a “N. Wilkinson,” won second prize! Greene’s entry was the first few paragraphs from an unfinished novel he had been working on somewhat recently.

Years later, that unfinished work, The Stranger’s Hand, was turned into a film of the same name!

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

Let’s begin!

MOVIE LEGEND: Sergeant Alvin York had as a condition that he would authorize a film based on his life that Gary Cooper had to play him.

STATUS: False

Sergeant Alivin York was probably the most famous American soldier from World War I, as he single-handedly killed over 20 German soldiers while capturing 132 (128 troops plus 4 officers).

York was a Born Again Christian who initially resisted being involved in the War due to his pacifism. He was ultimately convinced that war could be “moral” and “Christian,” so for the rest of the war he dropped any
protests he might have once had.

But he was still a pretty modest fellow, even after winning the Medal of Honor.

So when Hollywood came a-calling during the early days of movies to make a movie out of his story, he consistently turned them down.

He did so for more than two decades, until something changed - the world was once again at war.

With the United States’ participation in World War II seemingly looming over the horizon, York softened his initial “no” position.

This time around, he would tell Warner Brothers that he would be willing to do the film, provided a certain amount of conditions were met (note that when he was first discussing doing the film with Warner Brothers, he was insisting on it focusing on his POST-War life as an educational reformer, but as the news from Europe got bleaker and bleaker, York understandably allowed them to play up the war aspects of the film).

First of all, he wanted no fabricated heroics in the film. Just an attempt to recreate the events of his life in
as accurate of a fashion as possible. That was fair enough, as his real life story was more fanciful than many fabricated war stories!

Secondly, his wife was not to be played by a “glamour girl”. Well, while undeniably pretty, Joan Leslie likely did not count as a “glamour girl,” so that part was fine, too.

Those were his only conditions, but history tends to repeat a third - that he would only authorize the film if he was played by Gary Cooper.

Cooper, at the time, was already one of the biggest male box office stars.

But he was also already well respected for the sort of quiet dignity he tended to bring to his roles, and I would presume that would be what York would say drew him to having Cooper portray him on film (it is true that York DID want Cooper to play him).

Cooper, for his part, thought that that task of playing someone like York was too daunting, and initially turned down the role.

It was here that the story of York’s demands were invented.

First of all, the producer of the film, Jesse Lasky, who had spent a great deal of time trying to bring York’s story to the screen (so he was not about to let anything screw it up), sent Cooper a telegram and signed York’s name to it, purporting that York was sending him the telegram.

The telegram read:

I have just agreed to let the motion picture producer Jesse L. Lasky film the story of my life. I have great admiration for you as an actor and as a man, and I would be honored, sir, to see you on the screen as myself.

Even after receiving the telegram, Cooper did not want to do the film. The fact that York was still alive was a major factor, as Cooper felt it restricted what he could do with the role.

It was around this time that, as part of their pestering, they planted the story that York would ONLY do the film if Cooper signed on. That certainly did not hurt, leverage-wise.

Eventually, Lasky and the film’s director, the great Howard Hawks, pestered Cooper constantly until he finally agree to do the film (provided that MGM, the studio he was signed with, allowed him to do the film - they worked out a trade with Warner Brothers - one film for MGM by Bette Davis in exchange for York for Warners).

So the film was made, with Cooper winning the Best Actor Academy Award and the film becoming the highest grossing film of 1941.

York might have driven a hard bargain, but it turned out to be a winning one for all involved! York, in particular, made over $150,000 from the film, which helped his educational work immensely.

MOVIE LEGEND: While still a fugitive from a chain gang, Robert E. Burns sneaked into California to work on the film adaptation of his book, I Am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang.

STATUS: True

Robert E. Burns was living a hobo’s lifestyle when he was roped into committing a robbery of a grocer in Atlanta, Georgia in 1922. Burns actually tried to leave, but was caught trying to hitch a ride on a train by the train’s conductor and kicked off. With nowhere else to go (and, according to him, being forced at gunpoint to comply - that seems a bit hard to believe), he worked with the other two men.

Burns and two other men robbed the grocer and got away with a whopping $5.80. They were arrested minutes later.

Burns was sentenced to six to ten years of hard labor in a Georgia Chain Gang.

After a few months, Burns escaped to Chicago.

He recreated his life there, becoming a prominent member of the community in Chicago. Many years passed before a jilted ex-wife spilled the beans to the media, and soon the Georgia authorities were looking for Burns to be extradited back to Georgia.

He ultimately agreed to return, but only if he would serve a month of “easy” time.

Naturally, as soon as he returned in July of 1929, he was instead sent back to hard labor for over a year.

Granted, Burns eventually was made a trustee due to good behavior, so his time in prison the second time around was not nearly as bad as the first time around. Still, he was not pleased with the idea that he might have to serve the entire original term (which most of the nation agreed was excessive).

So once again, he escaped from the chain gang - this time using his privileges as a trustee to sneak a ride in the back of a watermelon truck.

He ended up in New Jersey, where his story “I Escaped From a Georgia Chain Gang” was serialized in True Detective Magazine in 1931 and became a massive sensation.

Naturally, Georgia once again asked for him to be extradited. This time around, though, the state of New Jersey refused. Burns was effectively a free man - so long as he stayed in New Jersey.

Well, first his story was turned into a book.

Then that book was turned into a movie starring Paul Muni in 1932.

But get this - Burns, who was only “safe” when he was in New Jersey, actually decided to travel to California to work on the film!!

Using a fake name, Burns traveled across the country and showed up on set and was given various jobs (that was really how he would end up spending most of the rest of his life - working odd jobs and writing about his experiences).

The film was a massive success, only the name was changed to drop “Georgia” from the title.

The film still ended up getting sued by the wardens depicted in the film (the studio ended up settling for a fairly large sum).

MOVIE LEGEND: Just months after being filmed for a scene in the Will Ferrell comedy, Semi-Pro, a bear killed its trainer.

STATUS: True

In 2008, the Will Ferrell comedy, Semi-Pro, was released.

The movie was about an American Basketball Association team in Flint, Michigan, owned by Will Ferrell’s character (who is also the coach AND plays for the team) that is not doing very well with the fans. When the ABA announces that they are closing up shop and only four teams will be allowed to merge into the NBA, Ferrell’s character, Jackie Moon, comes up with various outlandish stunts to raise attendance so that his Flint Tropics team might have a shot at making the NBA.

One of these ridiculous stunts is that he, Jackie Moon, will wrestle a bear.

Here is the trained grizzly bear named Rocky that Ferrell’s character was to wrestle…

In the film, one of Rocky’s two trainers, Randy Miller, (two cousins, Randy and Stephan Miller, who both worked for Randy Miller’s animal training company, “Predators in Action”) stood in for Ferrell in the scenes where the bear fights with Ferrell’s character…

The film was released in February of 2008.

In April of 2008, Stephan Miller was dead, killed by Rocky the Bear!

In just a normal training exercise, the seven and a half foot tall, seven hundred pound bear just reached over and snapped its jaws around Millar’s neck, opening up his throat and delivering a fatal blow to the 39-year-old man.

In an interview given around the release of the film, Randy Miller noted that “If one of these animals gets a hold of your throat, you’re finished.”

And that’s exactly what happened to his cousin.

Miller’s company is one of the most acclaimed animal training companies around, and they were fully up to code and everything - you just can’t fully predict how wild animals are going to react.

Hearing that news, though, you can only imagine what Ferrell must have been thinking, knowing that just weeks earlier he was filming a scene with the bear (although not directly interacting with it like Randy Miller was).

Months later, officials still were undecided about whether to euthanize the bear. Honestly, I can’t find out if they ultimately did so.

Does anyone know one way or the other?

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

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