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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

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

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!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: Larry David based the “George quitting his job and then coming back to work on Monday pretending not to have quit” on a real life experience he had while working at Saturday Night Live.

When he was working on Sienfeld, Larry David would often contribute plot ideas based on real incidents in his life.

One of the more bizarre incidents was the basis for the second season episode, “The Revenge,” where George (played by Jason Alexander) quits his job on Friday, only to realize that he has no other job prospects, so he decides to come back to work on Monday and pretend like nothing happened.

Larry David amazingly enough actually did that same trick…when he was working at Saturday Night Live!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: Studebaker came up with an interesting way to sponsor Mister Ed.

Studebaker was one of the very earliest car manufacturers in the world, turning their wagon manufacturing company into a car company in the very early 20th Century.

Well, by the 1950s, things were looking pretty bleak for Studebaker.

They had been eclipsed by a number of more modern car companies, particularly when it came to the production of newer vehicles.

Studebaker basically had one last shot at sticking around – they (effectively) introduced the compact car in 1959 with the Studebaker Lark.

To promote the Lark, Studebaker became the sponsor for a new syndicated television program that would soon become quite popular – Mister Ed, the show about a man and his talking horse!

Here Alan Young (playing the lead character of Wilbur Post) and Mister Ed shill for Studebaker during an early episode of Mister Ed…

Wilbur and his wife, by the way, drove a Lark on the show in the first season.

This is all fairly typical stuff, but there’s a significant twist.

You see, like I mentioned, Studebaker was not doing so well, financially. So as it turned out, they really could not AFFORD to sponsor a television show, at least not with company money.

So Studebaker came up with a fairly ingenious plan to afford the show Read the rest of this entry »

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about musicals and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the musical urban legends featured so far.

MUSICAL URBAN LEGEND: Paul Robeson originated the role of Joe (and as a result, first sang the song “Old Man River”) in Show Boat.

One of Paul Robeson’s most famous songs is the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein song, “Old Man River.”

The song is from the 1927 musical, Show Boat, by Kern and Hammerstein.

They specifically wrote the song for Robeson, and even created the character of “Joe” in the play for him.

So the song was written specifically for Robeson (it really works beautifully for his deep voice), it’s his most famous song, so naturally, people presume he performed it for the musical Showboat.

However, he did not.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: The Wampa attack on Luke Skywalker in the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back was written to explain away Mark Hamill’s facial injuries he suffered in a car accident.

Few events in Star Wars history are quite as complicated as Mark Hamill’s infamous car accident he suffered after primary filming was complete on the original Star Wars film. Since the accident occurred before the first film was released, Hamill was not yet a major star and as a result there was little to no media coverage of the accident at the time. Heck, there is even some debate over when the accident occurred (it’s not a significant debate, though, basically just a matter of whether it happened in December 1976 or January 1977. I think January 1977 is correct). So when people are forced to cover a story after the fact, quite naturally the accounts of the accident have become varied, from “He just broke his nose and one of his cheek bones” to “they had to reattach his nose.” Accounts of the accident are all over the place. One story about the accident, though, that has remained fairly consistent is that the scene early in The Empire Strikes Back

when Luke Skywalker is assaulted by the Yeti-like creature known as the Wampa was written into the film to explain away Mark Hamill’s facial injuries for the rest of the film.

Is that true?
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about musicals and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the musical urban legends featured so far.

MUSICAL URBAN LEGEND: Into the Woods was almost made into a film by Jim Henson Productions.

Into the Woods was Stephen Sondheim’s second straight classic musical that had unfortunate timing on the year in which is was released. Sondheim’s previous musical, Sunday in the Park With George, ended up losing the Best Musical Tony Award to La Cage aux Folles, and Into the Woods had the misfortune to come out the same year as Phantom of the Opera.

Still, Into the Woods still held its own when it came to award season, and actually beat Phantom for the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical, plus won the Tony for Best Book, Best Score and Best Lead Actress in a Musical. However, Phantom won the Tony Award for Best Musical.

Into the Woods was still a commercial success, though, and it’s really one of the more crowd-pleasing of Sondheim’s musicals, except perhaps some of the downbeat aspects of the Second Act.

The musical is loosely inspired by Bruno Bettelheim’s book about fairy tales, The Uses of Enchantment…

It follows a group of various characters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, including Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk fame), Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf and more than one Prince Charming.

It’s one of Sondheim’s more accessible stories, so it should not be a big surprise that it is being made into a film vy director Rob Marshall with big names stars attached to it like Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film is scheduled to come out next Christmas.

However, surprisingly enough, this modern film adaptation is far from the first attempt to turn it into a movie. But who originally wanted to do it? Jim Henson Pictures! And it was going to star Muppets!

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about musicals and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the musical urban legends featured so far.

MUSICAL URBAN LEGEND: Andrew Lloyd Webber had a hit dance single on the British charts in 1992 with a song about Tetris (featuring music from the video game).

Whatever else you might think of Andrew Lloyd Webber, you have to give the guy some credit for just how eclectic he has been in his pursuits.

Already famous for his musicals Evita and Cats, Webber entered a whole other stratosphere of fame when he released his musical Phantom of the Opera in 1986

Lloyd Webber was now perhaps the most famous musical composer in the world.

In 1992, he was knighted by the Queen of England (five years later, he became a Baron).

In 1992, Webber had another, perhaps less noble, distinction to his long line of distinctions – he had a top ten hit on the UK Singles chart with, of all things, a dance song!

That’s odd enough, but even better, the dance song was called….”Tetris.”
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: More than 40 actors in Philadelphia died of AIDS within a few years of the film’s release.

In an old Movie Urban Legends Revealed, I made reference to how of the 50 or so openly gay actors who appeared in the film Philadelphia, 40 or so of them were dead within a few years of the film’s release.

Reader Mike took a bit of an issue with that statement…

I read today the Movie Urban Legends Revealed featuring Tom Hanks. I was particularly interested in the Philadelphia one. The stat you mentioned at the end about 40+ of the 50 gay actors who were in the movie dieing by 1995 warrants a feature in it’s own right. I noticed that the IMDB has the same stat with no other information. Was this your source for this item or did you find more info elsewhere?

This just seems too over the top to be true. It obviously gives the assumption that they died of AIDS related conditions. But unless they specifically hired AIDS afflicted actors, it would seem very unlikely that 43 would succomb to the disease in the next few years. If they did hire 40+ actors with advanced HIV or AIDS, it would render the main point of that legend (about an actor almost denied being in the film due to having AIDS) a little odd.

Alternatively if they didn’t die from AIDS related conditions, I think a follow up legend that cleared that up would be interesting (perhaps there was a wrap party catastrophe that killed 80% of the cast and crew, gay or straight). I think the stat as it is would seem to promote a stereotype that most gay men have AIDS.

It’s a fair point, Mike, that I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that last little bit without going into it any further, and I certainly did not wish to promote any sort of stereotype about gay men.

As it was, the whole story turns on the term “actors.”
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. attended Harvard University.

When it comes right down to it, it’s amazing how far you can go with a story just by flat-out lying.

For his entire life, the great star of the silent pictures (and right into the Sound era), Douglas Fairbanks, talked about attending Harvard University.

Even today, a quick glance at the internet finds statements about Fairbanks like…

After graduating from Harvard he became an actor.

His family moved to New York in 1900 and Douglas Fairbanks attended Harvard.

He attended Harvard, traveled to Europe, worked on a cattle freighter, in a hardware store and as a clerk on Wall Street

Naturally, it was all a pretty bald-faced lie on Fairbanks’ part.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory originally had a typical sexual appetite.

One of the hardest parts about any television series is getting the lead characters right. Many legends have developed over the years about some of the difficulties classic series have had with casting their lead characters. Whether it is Brandon Tartikoff claiming that Michael J. Fox could never make it as a lead on Family Ties or The Cosby Show originally looking for a Dominican Clair Huxtable, so much can change before you actually make your pilot episode. Even then, though, things can change dramatically based on audience reactions to the pilot, like audiences loving the killer in the pilot of 77 Sunset Strip so much that they re-cast the villain as one of the show’s lead characters. Negative audience reaction was the issue with the original, unsuccessful pilot of CBS’s hit show The Big Bang Theory.

Jim Parsons stars on The Big Bang Theory as Sheldon Cooper, the egotistical and socially awkward genius who drives many of The Big Bang Theory plots as his friends clash with his fastidious nature. His roommate, the slightly less awkward Leonard Hofstadter (played by Johnny Galecki) bears the brunt of most of Sheldon’s odd behavior, while Leonard’s girlfriend Penny (played by Kaley Cuoco) often challenges Sheldon over his behavior (but in an understanding fashion). Parsons has won three Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy for the role.

One of the defining characteristics of Sheldon is his asexual tendencies, which constantly frustrate his girlfriend, Amy Farrah Fowler (played by Mayim Bialik). It is fascinating to note, then, that the original vision that show creators Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre had for Sheldon Cooper was much different than the Sheldon we would all come to know and love (well, tolerate).
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