HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: LORETTA YOUNG & CLARK GABLE

URBAN LEGEND: DID LORETTA YOUNG HAVE A LOVE CHILD OUT OF WEDLOCK TO FELLOW ACTOR CLARK GABLE?

ANSWER: YES! 

Judy Lewis (1935-2011) was the out of wedlock offspring of screen legends Loretta Young and Clark Gable. At the time of her birth, Gable was married, Young was unmarried. Young covered up the fact of her pregnancy, later announcing she had adopted the girl. Judy graduated from Marymount High School in 1953. She moved to New York and began her acting career, landing a small part on Ponds Theater (1953). She appeared on Broadway in Jean Kerr's "Mary, Mary", and became a featured performer on a number of daytime series, including The Secret Storm (1954) and General Hospital (1963). Judy had a successful career behind the camera, as well. It took her eight years, when she was 31 and appearing on the soap opera “The Secret Storm,” to confront her mother. Young, after throwing up in the bathroom, told her that Gable indeed was her father. Loretta then made Judy keep the truth secret until 1994 when she wrote a book exposing the truth. Loretta Young refused to talk to her daughter for three years until 1997. Loretta died in 2000...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: MAE WEST

URBAN LEGEND: Was Mae West really a man?

ANSWER: NO! 

Before Mae West's death in 1980, at the age of 87, there were rumours of a dark, deep secret which would be revealed only posthumously. The received wisdom, based in part on the drag-act appeal of her screen persona, was that she had really been a man. Watts authoritatively dismisses this on page one as an unworthy canard: 'Her death certificate, signed by a physician and an undertaker, confirms that she was all woman.' But she spends the next 373 pages insinuating another deep, dark secret in its place: that whiter-than-white Mae West was really black.

Professor Watts adduces no genealogical evidence for this startling claim, beyond the fact that the 'ethnicity' of West's paternal grandfather, a hardy seafarer named John Edwin West, is 'harder to pinpoint' than those of her other three 'undisputedly European' grandparents....

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: FRED ASTAIRE

 URBAN LEGEND: Was Fred Astaire a skateboarder?

ANSWER: Yes indeed!

Fred Astaire was more than his generation’s most widely acclaimed dancer. Always up for new challenges, and a man who clearly loved to move, he took up skateboarding after he finally retired from dancing.

Astaire was awarded a Lifetime Membership to the National Skate Board Society of America — he brought name recognition to the sport which was not then the worldwide phenomenon it is today. He took up skateboarding with his grandchildren, and he was quite good at it. At seventy-eight, he broke his left wrist while skateboarding in his driveway doing a complicated stunt! At the time Astaire remarked: "Gene Kelly warned me not to be a damned fool, but I’d seen the things those kids got up to on television doing all sorts of tricks. What a routine I could have worked up for a film sequence if they had existed a few years ago."

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: FAY WRAY

URBAN LEGEND: Was actress Fay Wray supposed to appear in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong?

ANSWER: According to Peter Jackson - YES!

In 2004, Wray was approached by director Peter Jackson to appear in a small cameo for the 2005 remake of King Kong. She met with Naomi Watts, who was to play the role of Ann Darrow. She politely declined the cameo, and claimed that the original "Kong" was the true "King." However, according to director Peter Jackson, he implored on her to make an appearance in his movie. Fay Wray was supposed to appear at the very end of the movie and say the iconic line "It was not the airplane that killed Kong, it was beauty that killed the beast".

Before the filming of the remake commenced, Wray died in her sleep of natural causes on August 8, 2004, in her apartment in Manhattan, five weeks before her 97th birthday. The movie was released on December 14, 2005...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: PETER FALK

URBAN LEGEND: Did a trip to the dentist cause Peter Falk's dementia?

ANSWER:  There is a scientifical possibility that it did.

For the last four years of his life, TV actor Peter Falk, who died in June of 2011 at the age of  83, suffered from severe Alzheimer’s disease.

Tragically, his family revealed that he was even unable to recall his most famous role as Lieutenant Columbo, the shabby detective whose apparent absentmindedness hid a razor-sharp brain.

Yet at the beginning of 2007 he was still intellectually sharp enough to be working. But within weeks he ‘rapidly slipped into dementia after a series of dental operations’, according to his own doctor.

Researchers from Southampton University report compelling evidence that surgery, as well as injury and infection, can dramatically accelerate the disease and the rate of brain death in people who already have early Alzheimer’s disease.

The first stages of this type of dementia make the brain abnormally sensitive to the inflammatory proteins that the body produces to promote recovery, triggering severe Alzheimer’s.

Falk’s own doctors had no explanation for the sudden onset of the disease — though they suggested his sudden decline could be due to the anaesthetics or some other reaction to his dental surgery...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: BUDDY EBSEN

URBAN LEGEND: Was Buddy Ebsen supposed to play The Tin Man in 1939's Wizard Of Oz

ANSWER: Definitely Yes!

As part of the shifting casting that often goes on in the lead-up to motion picture productions, the person first cast to play the Tin Woodman in MGM’s 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz was Ray Bolger. Buddy Ebsen (later to become familiar to generations of TV viewers as Jed clampett, the patriarch of The Beverly Hillbillies sitcom family), was originally intended for the role of the Scarecrow, but Ray Bolger eventually managed to convince MGM to allow him to swap parts with Ebsen (not, as is often claimed, because a clause in Bolger’s contract stipulated that he could play the part of the Scarecrow if MGM ever made The Wizard of Oz).

MGM initially had no idea exactly how to costume Ebsen for his role. They tried a variety of materials for his clothing (real tin, silver paper, cardboard covered with silver cloth) and makeup before finally settling on aluminum dust (applied over clown white) for the latter. When The Wizard of Oz began principal photography on 12 October 1938, Ebsen had finished all his costume and makeup tests, recorded his songs for the film soundtrack, and completed four weeks of rehearsal. Nine days later, he was rushed to the hospital and placed in an oxygen tent when his lungs failed. As Ebsen described the onset of symptoms in his autobiography:

"It was several days later when my cramps began. My first symptoms had been a noticeable shortness of breath. I would breathe and exhale and then get the panicky feeling I hadn’t breathed at all. Then I would gasp for another quick breath with the same result. My fingers began to cramp, and then my toes. For a time I could control this unusual cramping by forcibly straightening out my fingers and toes.

One night in bed I woke up screaming. My arms were cramping from my fingers upward and curling simultaneously so that I could not use one arm to uncurl the other. My wife tried to pull my arm straight with some success, just as my toes began to curl; then my feet and legs bent backward at the knees. I panicked. What was happening to me? Next came the worst. The cramps in my arms advanced into my chest to the muscles that controlled my breathing. If this continued, I wouldn’t even be able to take a breath. I was sure I was dying."

The aluminum dust used in Ebsen’s makeup had caused an allergic reaction or infection in his lungs that left him scarcely able to breathe, and he ended up spending two weeks in the hospital and another month recuperating in San Diego.

While Ebsen was recovering from his illness, producer Mervyn LeRoy hired Jack Haley to replace him. (The aluminum makeup was modified as well, changing from a powder that was brushed on to a paste that was painted on. Haley missed four days of filming when the new makeup caused an eye infection, but treatment was rendered in time to prevent any permanent damage.)

Because Ebsen had fallen ill away from the set, just before production was shut down for several days when original Oz director Richard Thorpe was fired, the rest of the cast was unaware of what happened to him. Haley and others assumed that he had been fired along with Thorpe. Although Ebsen was replaced before filming resumed, his voice can still be heard in the soundtrack, when the quartet of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion sings "We’re Off To See the Wizard"...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: DORIS DAY

URBAN LEGEND: Was Doris Day really the "girl next door"

ANSWER: Not 100% true

While Doris Day was alive she was one of the charitable celebrities of her day. She gave millions of dollars to charities, especially her work on behalf of animals. However, in regards to her relationships with men - that was a different story.

Doris Day married her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden when she was 19. He was abusive, and three more husbands would follow for Day. Doris had an illicit affair with producer Marty Melcher as well. Melcher was then the husband of Patti Andrews (of the Andrews Sisters). They were married from 1947 to 1950. During that time, Patti returned from the recording studio one day to find Melcher and Doris Day literally in bed together. After Marty divorced Patti, he married Doris Day in 1951.

When Marty died in 1968, it was discovered that he had spent all of Doris Day's money and signed contracts on her behalf that she was not aware of.  Again, Doris Day was not a horrible person, she was just not the girl next door...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: LOU COSTELLO

URBAN LEGEND: Were Lou Costello's last words, "That was the best ice cream I ever had"?

ANSWER: Not 100% sure but probably not!

Shortly after completion of The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock — his only starring film appearance without  Bud Abbott — Lou Costello suffered a heart attack. He died at Doctors Hospital in Beverly Hills on March 3, 1959, three days before his 53rd birthday. Sources conflict on the circumstances of his last day and final words. By some accounts, restated in numerous "quotes" aggregates, he told visitors that the strawberry ice-cream soda he had just finished was "the best I ever tasted", then expired. By other reports, including several contemporaneous obituaries, the ice-cream soda exchange occurred earlier in the day; later, after his wife and friends had left, he asked his private-duty nurse to adjust his position in bed. "I think I'll be more comfortable", he said; but before the nurse could comply, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: JIMMY DURANTE

URBAN LEGEND: When comedian Jimmy Durante would refer to "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash" at the end of his performances, he was refering to his deceased wife.

STATUS: Yes, it is true.

The mysterious "Mrs. Calabash" was indeed Jimmy's late wife Jeanne Olson, but "Calabash" was a reference to Calabasas, California, where she was hospitalized in her later years. His first love was Jeanne, whom he married on June 19, 1921. She was born in Ohio on August 31, 1896. She was 46 years old when she died on Valentine's Day in 1943, after a lingering heart ailment of about two years, although different newspaper accounts of her death suggest she was 45 or perhaps 52. As her death was not immediately expected, Durante was touring in New York at the time and returned to Los Angeles right away to complete the funeral arrangements.

Jimmy confirmed in a 1966 interview with the National Pres Club, that "Mrs. Calabash" was indeed a tribute to his first wife...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: JACK BENNY

URBAN LEGEND: Did comedian Jack Benny have a rose delivered to his wife every day even after he died.

STATUS: 100% True!

Comedian Jack Benny was so in love with his wife and his fellow performer Mary Livingstone that since they got married he sent her a red rose a day. Even if they were away performing or he was performing overseas, Jack always sent Mary a rose.

In December of 1974, Jack died suddenly of cancer at the age of 80. Mary was inconsolable. The day after the funeral, to her surprise, a single rose was delivered for Mrs. Benny.

After several days with the red roses continuing to arrive daily, Mrs. Benny went to the florist and said, “I don’t know if you realize this or not, but Mr. Benny passed away. I know it is kind of you, but you don’t need to do this any longer.”

The florist responded, “Mrs. Benny, you don’t understand. Jack made provisions years ago to provide you a single red rose every day you are alive.” And, the lovely red roses continued to arrive every day for the next eight years until Mary’s death, as a memorial to Jack’s devotion to Mary...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: STAN LAUREL & OLIVER HARDY

URBAN LEGEND: Did Stan Laurel refuse to work in anything after the death of his comedy partner Oliver Hardy?

STATUS: Yes, it is 100% true!

As much as they were inseparable friends and “partners in crime” in all of their mischiefs on the big screen, they were just as close in real life. In 1957, when Oliver Hardy passed away, Laurel, devastated by his best friend’s death, never fully recovered and so, retired from acting, refusing to perform on stage or act in another film without his best pal. Stan Laurel was courted by every movie director in the business to come out of retirement, including Stanley Kramer who wanted Laurel for his comedy epic It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World in 1963, but Laurel said no to all offers. Stan Laurel would die eight years after his partner on February 23, 1965...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: MARTHA RAYE

URBAN LEGEND: Actress and comedian Martha Raye tended to wounded soldiers while performing during the Vietnam War

STATUS: 100% True

Many may be too young to have known the comedian, Martha Raye. She was a loud mouth actress/comedian from several years ago, much unlike the foul mouthed four letter word spewing comics of today. This is a little known fact about what she did, but truly a patriotic, good American by any standards.

For going to Vietnam, Col. Raye was considered a “hawk”. Hollywood blacklisted her for more then ten years. Most of the old time entertainers were made out of a lot sterner stuff than today’s crop of activists and whiners.

The following is from an Army Aviator friend who takes another trip down memory lane:

It was just before Thanksgiving ’67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west of Pleiku, Vietnam. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back.

All of a sudden, we heard a ‘take-charge’ woman’s voice in the rear. There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces) beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard. ‘Maggie’ had been visiting her SF ‘heroes’ out ‘west’.

We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku. As we all started unloading our sad pax’s, a ‘Smart-Ass’ USAF Captain said to Martha…. Ms Ray, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would not be time for your show!

To all of our surprise, she pulled on her right collar and said… Captain, see this eagle? I am a full ‘Bird’ Colonel in the US Army Reserve, and on this is a ‘Caduceus’ which means I am a Nurse, with a surgical specialty…. now, take me to your wounded. He said, yes ma’am…. Follow me.

Several times at the Army Field Hospital in Pleiku, she would ‘cover’ a surgical shift, giving a nurse a well-deserved break.

Martha is the only woman buried in the SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft. Bragg...

SOURCE

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: WALT DISNEY

URBAN LEGEND: Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen.

STATUS: 100% Not True

Beloved animator and theme park-founder Walt Disney passed away in 1966, at the age of 65. The movie legend had been a heavy smoker all of his life, and eventually contracted lung cancer, dying in hospital of circulatory collapse only a month after his diagnosis. His remains were cremated two days later, and his ashes scattered at Forest Lawn Memorial Lake in Glendale, California.

Although that’s the official story, there is a persistent rumor that Disney decided to try and extend his life by having his body cryogenically frozen, in the hope that he could be revived sometime in the future. However, this rumor is definitely false.

The urban legend came about because Bob Nelson, head of the California Cryogenics Society, said that Disney wanted to be frozen, but as he didn’t state it in writing his family opted to cremate him instead.

The first instance of a corpse being cryogenically frozen was performed in 1967, after a year after Disney’s death, meaning if he had gone ahead with it he would have been the first person to ever do so...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: BILL MURRAY

URBAN LEGEND: Comedy legend Bill Murray does not have a cell phone, and the only way to contact him is through his 1-800 line.

STATUS: It is 100% True!

Bill Murray famously doesn't have an agent -- or assistant or anything -- so if you want to make an appointment with him, you have to call and leave a message at his 1-800 number. It doesn't matter if you're a director or a dentist, that's the only way you'll get to Murray (that, or have a wedding).

He recently told GQ why he only screens movie pitches through his voicemail: "Well, it's what I finally went to. I have this phone number that they call and talk. And then I listen." I hope the director of Garfield 3 does not have his number!...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: PEG ENWISTLE

URBAN LEGEND: Does the ghost of actress Peg Enwistle haunt the Hollywood sign?

STATUS: Some people say it is true!

One of the more well-known urban legends of Los Angeles has to do with the famous Hollywood sign. Back in 1932, a stage actress named Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping off of the sign's "H" after failing in her attempt at film stardom. In her purse was a note that read, "I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E."

Multiple people have since reported seeing Entwistle's ghost in the area surrounding the sign: A couple walking their dog saw a woman in 1930s clothing appear and then disappear in the road, a jogger claimed she saw the same figure accompanied by the smell of gardenias, and a park ranger reported an apparition as well.

The creepiest part? According to legend, a letter arrived at Entwistle's home a few days after her death. The note was from the Hollywood Playhouse, offering her a role in a play as a woman who commits suicide....

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: ORSON WELLES

URBAN LEGEND: Does Hollywood icon Orson Welles still haunt his favorite restaurant?

STATUS: The people who work at the restaurant say it is 100% true!

This actor, producer, director and writer is still Hollywood royalty for his role in what was a brand new industry in his time. He is most well known for playing the lead role in film student must-see Citizen Kane. Orson Welles’ ghost is said to still frequent his favorite restaurant for a cigar and a bourbon. Many of the staff of Melrose Avenue restaurant Sweet Lady Jane’s have had encountered with Welles from beyond the grave.

In these accounts, Orson Welles is generally wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a dark cape. It is also said that someone interacting with his spirit will pick up the aromas of his favorite bourbon and cigars. Although the dark spirit is somewhat ominous not one restaurant employee has reported a malicious presence along with these paranormal experiences. Sweet Lady Jane’s is still running and diners still have the chance to sit with their favorite Hollywood legend...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGENDS: CHARLIE CHAPLIN

URBAN LEGEND: Was legendary star Charlie Chaplin's body stolen by grave robbers?

STATUS: Unfortunately, it is 100% true

In one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching, two men steal the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva, near Lausanne, Switzerland, on this day in 1978.

A comic actor who was perhaps most famous for his alter ego, the Little Tramp, Chaplin was also a respected filmmaker whose career spanned Hollywood’s silent film era and the momentous transition to “talkies” in the late 1920s. Chaplin died on Christmas Day in 1977, at the age of 88. Two months later, his body was stolen from the Swiss cemetery, sparking a police investigation and a hunt for the culprits.

After Chaplin’s widow, Oona, received a ransom demand of some $600,000, police began monitoring her phone and watching 200 phone kiosks in the region. Oona had refused to pay the ransom, saying that her husband would have thought the demand “ridiculous.” The callers later made threats against her two youngest children. Oona Chaplin was Charlie’s fourth wife (after Mildred Harris, Lita Grey and Paulette Goddard) and the daughter of the playwright Eugene O’Neill. She and Chaplin were married in 1943, when she was 18 and he was 54; they had eight children together. The family had settled in Switzerland in 1952 after the controversial Chaplin--whom his enemies accused of being a Communist sympathizer--learned he would be denied a reentry visa to the United States en route to the London premiere of his film Limelight.

After a five-week investigation, police arrested two auto mechanics--Roman Wardas, of Poland, and Gantscho Ganev, of Bulgaria--who on May 17 led them to Chaplin’s body, which they had buried in a cornfield about one mile from the Chaplin family’s home in Corsier. That December, Wardas and Ganev were convicted of grave robbing and attempted extortion. Political refugees from Eastern Europe, Wardas and Ganev apparently stole Chaplin’s body in an attempt to solve their financial difficulties. Wardas, identified as the mastermind of the plot, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years of hard labor. As he told it, he was inspired by a similar crime that he had read about in an Italian newspaper. Ganev was given an 18-month suspended sentence, as he was believed to have limited responsibility for the crime. As for Chaplin, his family reburied his body in a concrete grave to prevent future theft attempts....

SOURCE

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: FRED ASTAIRE

URBAN LEGEND: Does Fred Astaire's will stipulate that he can never be depicted on film?

STATUS: It is 100% true!

Fred Astaire’s will stipulates that he never be portrayed in a film.

Fred Astaire is likely the most famous ballroom dancer of the 20th Century, although he was a lot more than just a dancer. The American Film Institute named him the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time.

For a man who was so famous on the silver screen, Astaire made a curious demand upon his death in 1987. In the decade or so leading up to his death, Astaire had been turning down requests for “official” film versions of his life, and upon his death, Astaire went one better.

In his will, Astaire stipulated that he never been portrayed in a film.

He felt that he should be judged by his life, and his life only, and not what some filmmaker may wish to say about his life in a film.

Oddly enough, in 1997, his widow, Robin, allowed Dirt Devil to use digital technology to make it appear as though Astaire was dancing with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner.

Astaire’s daughter was aghast – she stated that she was ”saddened that after Fred’s wonderful career, he was sold to the devil” (as you might imagine, Astaire’s daughter is not a fan of her step-mother – a woman that I am pretty sure is younger than her).

So there will never be a Ginger Rogers bio-pic, because you can not have a movie about Ginger Rogers without Fred Astaire!

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: MARILYN MONROE

URBAN LEGEND: Screen goddess Marilyn Monroe was born with six toes.

STATUS: 100% not true.

There have been countless rumors about Marilyn Monroe, both during her short time on this earth...36 years and in the fifty plus years since her untimely death. One of the most interesting and absurd rumors is she was born with a birth defect that caused her to have six toes on one foot!

For some people, there just had to be something wrong with the perfect Norma Jeane Baker. So when a snap taken during a shoot with photographer Joseph Jasgur on Zuma Beach in California emerged appearing to show Marilyn with an extra toe on her left foot, it was immediately seized upon.

Jasgur himself seized upon it to help the sales of his book, saying he could prove it with his pictures. Sadly, the widespread circulation of pictures of her with the more standard five seem to prove the point. The mystery sixth is believed by almost everyone as just a lump of sand and a trick of the light...

HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: CLARK GABLE

URBAN LEGEND: Matinee idol and movie heartthrob Clark Gable had horrible bad breath.

STATUS: This foul mouthed rumor is 100% TRUE.

By the time he was 32 years old, William Clark Gable had almost a full set of dentures. The pin-up actor and star of Gone with the Wind suffered with gum problems when he was young and a serious bout of pyorrhea in 1933 led to his dentist extracting most of his teeth. After being hospitalised for several days, Gable retreated to Canada to rest and to allow his gums to recover enough for dentures. After being fitted with a dental plate, the infection returned and Gable was again hospitalised. This time he had his gall bladder removed. Out of action for a month, the star’s illness caused delays to the filming of Dancing Lady and the movie went $150,000 over budget. MGM’s Louis Mayer was so annoyed that he withheld a fortnight’s pay from Gable and loaned him out to the struggling Columbia Pictures studio to teach him a lesson. Although this move turned out well for Gable, with his appearance in It Happened One Night winning him his only Oscar, it left a lot of ill-feeling between him and Meyer.

Gable’s mouthful of dentures left him with persistent halitosis and he became known throughout Hollywood for his bad breath, particularly among his leading ladies. His Gone with the Wind co-star, Vivien Leigh, complained about his breath on more than one occasion over the course of filming...