Sylvia Shults's Blog

The role of John McClane in the movie Die Hard, played to perfection by Bruce Willis, was originally offered to Frank Sinatra. Of course, it was just a formality at that point, as Sinatra was 72 years old by then. Sinatra had starred in a 1968 movie called The Detective, and Die Hard was technically a sequel to it. Sinatra’s contract gave him right of first refusal to any sequels, so he had to be offered the role first. The Detective was the movie adaptation of a book by Roderick Thorp, published in 1966. In 1979, Thorp published the sequel to The Detective, titled Nothing Lasts Forever. In that book, a gang of criminals led by a guy named Gruber takes over an Los Angeles highrise during a company party, and holds John McClane’s family member hostage. Oh, and it’s set during the Christmas season.

Mel Brooks, yes, the comedy film director beloved for Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, fought in World War II. He enlisted in 1944, cutting his senior year in high school short, and was made a combat engineer. One of his contributions to the war effort drew on his wicked sense of humor.

Some of his duties as a combat engineer in the European theater included helping to build bridges that swung out over a river or creek, bridges strong enough to drive a tank across. One dark night, Brooks was in the middle of putting one of these bridges together when he heard Nazi soldiers singing somewhere on the other side of the river.

“The ja, ja at the end of each phrase was a dead giveaway,” Brooks writes in his autobiography All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business. He thought the singing was terrible, so he grabbed a huge bullhorn, went to the bank of the river, and started belting out minstrel tunes by the Jewish singer Al Jolson.

Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, sometimes inspired his fans to feats of their own deduction. Shortly after arriving in Boston to present a lecture, he was approached by a cab driver, who greeted him by name. Conan Doyle was surprised, and asked the man how he knew who he was.

“If you’ll excuse my saying so,” the cab driver replied, “the lapels of your coat look as if they had been grabbed by New York reporters, your hair looks as if it had been cut in Philadelphia, your hat looks as if you had to stand your ground in Chicago, and your right shoe has evident Buffalo mud in the instep, and — and –“

“And what?” the author asked.

“Well, I saw ‘Conan Doyle’ in big white letters on your trunk.”

Agatha Christie was doing a lot of writing when England was being bombed in World War II. She wrote the final stories for the characters of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot in case she didn’t survive the Blitz. She wanted to be the one to finish her characters’ story arcs; she didn’t want to leave that important task to a literary executor. The manuscripts, Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple) and Curtain (Poirot) were locked in a bank vault as soon as she finished them, and stayed there nearly until her death in 1976. Curtain was published in 1975, just months before she passed.

When people want to do an impression of Frankenstein’s monster, they often stagger-walk with their arms stiffly held out. Ever wonder why? That actually comes from the 1943 movie Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man. In the movie, the monster is blinded and has to walk holding his hands out in front of him. In the original script, the blindness is said to be a side effect of Igor’s brain being implanted into the monster at the end of the previous film (The Ghost of Frankenstein, 1942). This is only mentioned, though, in the original script; the dialogue was removed in post-production, and ended up on the cutting room floor.

Experiments conducted by British horticultural students showed that plants thrive when played heavy metal music — particularly by the band Black Sabbath. The plants develop larger flowers and become more resistant to disease.

A house fire in London, England, was caused by a crystal doorknob. Sunlight refracted through the doorknob and reflected onto a nearby nightgown. The concentrated beam of light set the clothing on fire. (from Ripley’s Believe It or Not: Undoubtedly Odd)

A 59-year-old man from Zelenograd, Russia, experienced breathing problems for more than half a century because he had shoved a metal coin up his nose when he was six and then had forgotten all about it. When he eventually had problems breathing through his right nostril, doctors discovered and removed a very old one-kopek coin. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)

More than 1,600 pairs of latex ears and feet were used in the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Each one was cooked in a special oven that ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The feet could not be removed at the end of a day’s filming without damaging them, so each pair could only be used once. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)

Shadows From The Walls of Death, an 1874 book by US author Dr. Robert M. Kedzie, contained samples of green arsenic-pigmented wallpaper and was considered so dangerous that it could kill a careless reader. He had 100 books produced as a way of warning of the dangers of such decoration; about 65 percent of all wallpaper in American homes at the time contained arsenic, which admittedly makes a very pretty green paper. He distributed the book to public libraries across Michigan with a note to librarians telling them not to let children touch the pages. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)