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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to board games and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of all board game urban legends so far. BOARD GAME URBAN LEGEND: Milton Bradley got into board games because Abraham Lincoln grew a beard. Milton Bradley (1836-1911) […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to opera and operettas and whether they are true or false. OPERA URBAN LEGEND: Richard Wilbur, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry and the second United States Poet Laureate, actually wrote the lyrics to a number of songs from Candide, including “Glitter […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to opera and operettas and whether they are true or false. OPERA URBAN LEGEND: The great opera singer Leo Slezak once convinced an audience of reporters that he had just received a compliment from Christoph Willibald Gluck. Leo Slezak is one of […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to opera and operettas and whether they are true or false. OPERA URBAN LEGEND: The Pirates of Penzance was named as such after copyright piracy. Librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan formed one of the most famous musical partnerships this […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to poetry and poets and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of all poetry legends featured so far. POETRY URBAN LEGEND: The famed poet T.S. Eliot came up with the name for Djuna Barnes’ classic novel, Nightwood. […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to poetry and poets and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of all poetry legends featured so far. POETRY URBAN LEGEND: The first winner of an Olympic Gold medal for Literature went to a poem written by […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to poetry and poets and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of all poetry legends featured so far. POETRY URBAN LEGEND: Oliver St. John Gogarty wrote a poem dedicated to the returning Irish soldiers from the Boer […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to vaudeville and whether they are true or false. VAUDEVILLE URBAN LEGEND: Will Rogers first made a name for himself in the New York scene by heroically roping a steer that had gone into the crowd during a Western performance at Madison […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to vaudeville and whether they are true or false. VAUDEVILLE URBAN LEGEND: Buster Keaton received his nickname from Harry Houdini. Joseph Frank Keaton broke into the vaudeville business in 1899 as a member of his family’s vaudeville act, The Three Keatons when […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends related to vaudeville and whether they are true or false. VAUDEVILLE URBAN LEGEND: Jack Benny’s stage name came from not one, but TWO separate legal issues, one for each part of his name. Benjamin Kubelsky was born in Chicago in 1894 and by […]