Untrue "Folklore" about Tv shows, Movies and Celebrities

Other way around for me.
1st wife ( for 3 years in a long ago world and time) was a Filipino.
My present redhead wife for 40 years now.

 

Regarding the Milton Berle legend, I heard someone in the biz say that when they buried him, they needed two caskets, one for him, and one for....
Which of course would make no sense at all coffin-wise, even if the legend were true, as I think the actor that said it was in a group of mixed company and was trying to be as tactful as possible.

I also heard from several show-folk through the years, that James Woods now holds torch that was passed on by Berle.


This one was not only a horrible rumor started by an extremely jealous person, and/or by one of those people who are so bent on being the one to tell others of some important news, and if it's bad news, they give themselves extra points.

The kid in the following commercial won the hearts of so many people across America, kids and adults were quoting the commercial's tag line.

The rumor was he was playing in the street or crossing the street when he was struck by a car and killed instantly, IIRC.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, it went on to state his face was so badly mangled, they had to use his dental charts for ID.

At the time of this posting, I just realized...was he even old enough to have been to the dentist in the first place?...geez.

I researched this via Google, of course, about a year ago and he's still alive and well.


Children's Bayer Aspirin commercial:




Closing on a lighter note, here's one that I would love to see resolved regarding comedian Jackie Mason's alleged infamous appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The story goes, his act was running over and he was getting hand signals to cut it short or just end it.

He then allegedly verbally related that to the live audience and followed it by saying something to the effect of,
"Well I got a hand signal for you", wherein he supposedly flashed half of a peace sign to the camera, the PA, or Ed himself.

Fact, fiction, wishful thinking?

 

Have you seen the restored version of THE KING OF JAZZ(1930)?

 

MGM generally took good care of their materials. If you wan't to see eye-popping color from even earlier, the mid-30s, look for the VITAPHONE CAVALCADE OF MUSICAL COMEDY SHORTS on DVD from Warner Archive.

 

What about Walter Matthau? Or the director Michael Curtiz?

 

That is my understanding as well.

 

No I have not, but I have seen it discussed on one of the Facebook restoration groups.

 

Getting back to the fictitious Frances Farmer lobotomy, there's a trope a lot of people post that her institutionalization was punishment for being an independent, fun-loving Woman in the 30s. The past is a different country!

 

I always heard the "murdered" girl in Love Rollercoaster was actually the album cover model that was covered in honey. The story went that the honey clogged the pores of her skin and it was slowly killing her, so the band's management just put her out of her misery quickly and that it was caught on tape while they were recording the song.

Funny how these stories can get so elaborate.

 

Not sure if this counts as "folklore" or if it's just a case of stuff you hear on the playground that ends up being totally inaccurate.... but a lot of people used to believe that Faces of Death was comprised entirely of real, genuine footage. It was a pretty notorious film while I was growing up, anyway.

 

Yeah. Everybody in high school talked
About it. I thought there was some real crash stunt footage and stuff

 

It's no "Red Asphalt".

 

What is Red Asphalt?

Maybe I shouldn't have asked?

 

It's been a long time since I watched the film, but as I recall, there were maybe one or two brief clips of real accident footage... but the other 95% of the film is totally staged. I doubt anyone viewing the movie these days for the first time would be fooled, though.

On the other hand, a couple similarly-styled "documentaries" that followed in its footsteps, Traces of Death and Death Scenes, are both comprised of mostly real footage and are quite uncomfortable to sit through....

 

And then they disposed of her body in the same unmarked grave where the actress from GOLDFINGER wound up after asphyxiating as a result of being covered with gold paint.

 

"Red Asphalt" was a film that was shown to high school drivers ed students. Along with another film called "The Last Prom", it used "staged" gory car accident footage to hammer home the consequences of poor driving.

 

And it's up on YouTube. Really cheaply-made film from 1960, but it scared the F out of us young teenagers in driver's ed...

 

I remember seeing the infamous Signal 30 in driver's ed training, where the gory accident footage was the real deal.

 

When I was a nine year old kid faithfully watching repeats of Superman on the family black and white television I was told by a friend of my sisters that George Reeves died because he had taken some LSD, had gone to the top of a building and had thought that he could "fly in the sky" like his character!

 

I may have missed it in this thread but how about the Newlywed Game where the question was "Where is the strangest place you and your husband made whoopee?" One of the wives responded in a particular place on the body instead of a geographical place.

For years, people swore this was actually broadcast with the wife's answer bleeped. But the show and Bob Eubanks denied that it happened. Finally a clip of the show was located and actually shown on one of the bloopers shows years later. They even had Bob Eubanks come on the show and he was amazed that it actually happened and he did not remember it.

FACT CHECK: 'Up the Butt, Bob'

 

The claim that Three Stooges mentor Ted Healy was an a***hole, and was beaten to death by Wallace Beery and Cubby Broccoli. In reality, Healy died of Nephritis and only got hit once by Broccoli("Nobody's Stooge" by Bill Cassara").

 

I think it contains footage of the aftermath of the 1978 San Diego plane crash. I recall seeing innards and bits of bodies in the street in some of the footage.

 

It was said art Linkletters son died liked that. That’s what I heard as a kid. Was that true?

 

Does anyone know if it is true that Chuck Barris was a hit man for the CIA?

 

It was Art's daughter. She committed suicide by jumping out the window of her apartment. Art didn't want to accept it and blamed her suicide on a bad LSD flashback.