Untrue "Folklore" about Tv shows, Movies and Celebrities

My Dad was always pointing out stuff when we were watching TV as a kid. Here's a couple that he heard and turned out not to be true:

1. Sandy Duncan has a glass eye---I thought this was true well into adulthood. Sandy Duncan was all over the place on TV back in the 70's. Every time Dad pointed the glass eye out (same with Sammy Davis JR, Peter Faulk, etc). Sandy did lose vision due to a optical nerve cancer or disease....but no glass eye.

2. Wizard of Oz was "hand colored"-- I do not know where he got this one. I do not think this was even a rumor, just something Dad heard himself. The fact is that most of WOO was actually shot on color film. Now, I think Dad may have heard that the "house" interior was painted mono -charcoal gray for the transition scene into the color section...and he mistakenly took that as colorizing the B&W film.


Any more popular myths that were actually proven false?

 

That Dawn Wells continued to receive residuals from Gilligan's Island.

 

That Ted Danson wore a hairpiece on Cheers......



Oh wait he did

 

Do I dare bring up Rod Stewart?

 

The "hanging munchkin" allegedly in the Wizard of Oz is actually a large bird in the background. Similarly, the "ghost boy" rumors about Three Men and a Baby, the "ghost" is actually a cardboard cutout, not an actual ghost. Both of these rumors were passed around as truth in the pre-internet days.

 

Not unless there is video.

Since this is in the Visual Arts forum I took this to only be about movies or TV shows.

 

That most of Judy Garland's tales of Munchkin 'madness' and 'debauchery' were Judy looking for press.

 

Not a TV show but “Mikey” from the Life cereal commercial supposedly died from eating Pop Rocks and drinking coke at the same time.

 

Only with a stomach pump.

 

That Milton Berle had the biggest ____ in Hollywood. That was Hedda Hopper.




If that doesn't age me, nothing will.

 

Is this where Green Day got that title to one of their songs?^^

 

Yes.

But it is of course just an Urban Legend. You can eat Pop Rocks candy and drink Coca-Cola at the same time if you want to without risking your head exploding.

 

Jerry Mathers (Beaver Cleaver) was killed in Vietnam.



"Hey guys it's me, I'm still alive!"

 

Was this ever disproven?

 

One thing I always remember hearing as a kid was that it took 10 years to film the scene were Charlton Heston parts the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments.

 

The guy who played Paul on The Wonder Years grew up to be Marilyn Manson.

 

I just did a spit-take all over my monitor. When Rod Stewart was out promoting his autobiography, he went on the Howard Stern Show and he covered this rumor in detail. TL;DR: ugly rumor by a publicist Stewart had fired.

Tie between him and Forest Tucker. (So I've been told.)

 

I bet some folks are STILL sore about this!

 

I won't ask how you know.

 

I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to who actually believe that Fred Rogers was a sniper, an absolute killing machine, in World War II.

 

I had to google this. I never heard this. Do I have to turn in my badge?

 

That Eddie Haskell became Alice Cooper.

 

Walt Disney was anti-Semitic. He did hang out with some odious people, sometimes out of necessity (the film business is a dirty one.) However, none of his associates, nor even his enemies, would label him as such. It's a fun trope to roll out, though, especially if you don't like him to begin with.

 

I heard it from Marilyn Monroe (via Truman Capote). And Marilyn's reaction was: "Who cares?"

 

Let's see, oh this could be such a juicy scandal-ridden thread. Well, Kenneth Anger's reportage that James Dean was known as the "human ashtray" because he would have rough trade put out cigs on his chest, and his chest was a web of keloid scars. Well, photos of a shirtless Dean, taken on the set of 'Giant" just days before his death, prove otherwise. No marks at all. So there, I dispelled a nasty rumor in this thread!