Prolific screenwriter and director Steven de Souza ran into a language problem when filming his first film in the 1990s. He was attempting to turn the popular video game "Street Fighter" into a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme in Thailand. The film had countless scenes with hundreds of extras, many who were students and international tourists from more than a half-dozen countries. They all spoke different languages, from Dutch to Japanese. De Souza explained how they ultimately sped up the slow translation process while filming: "Finally we decided to direct them with numbered flashcards. One meant you were happy, 2 meant you were sad, and 3 meant get in your boat."
Puerto Vallarta was touted in the 1950s as a "little Acapulco." Tiny PV (as regulars call it) changed forever when movie director John Huston chose to film his classic Night of the Iguana here. Once the media and the world discovered that film box-office queen Elizabeth Taylor was hanging out here with new lover Richard Burton, the quiet Mexican village exploded with tourism.
Quincy Jones composed the musical score for the TV miniseries Roots.
Quite a few actors have played the same role both on stage and in film These include Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke ("The Miracle Worker"), Humphrey Bogart ("The Petrified Forest"), Yul Brynner ("The King and I"), Stockard Channing ("Six Degrees of Separation"), Joel Grey ("Cabaret"), Juanita Hall ("South Pacific"), Rex Harrison ("My Fair Lady"), James Earl Jones ("The Great White Hope"), Rita Moreno ("The Ritz"), Robert Preston ("The Music Man"), Dick Van Dyke ("Bye, Bye Birdie"), and Julie Walters ("Educating Rita"), to name but a few.
Ragtime music was quite the rage at the turn of the century. The most prolific composer of ragtime music was Scott Joplin. He published approximately 50 rags, and it has been estimated that he composed about 600. The most famous of Joplin's rags was "Maple Leaf Rag" which sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the first ten years it was published.
Ragtime music was tremendously popular, and it flourished for more than 20 years. When the music publishing industry, called "Tin Pan Alley," began selling rags in the late 1800's, the music was too complicated for the average pianist to play. Sheet music had to be considerably simplified for sales. Ragtime musicians often earned substantial income by teaching the ragtime style.
Rap artist Sean "Puffy" Combs had his first job at age two when he modeled in an ad for Baskin-Robbins ice-cream shops.
Rap music star - Vanilla Ice's real name is Robert Van Winkle.
Reportedly, box office stars Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy never appeared in a film together because they never agreed on who would get top billing.
Reportedly, Clint Eastwood wore the same poncho in all three of his famous spaghetti Westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) directed by Sergio Leone in the 1960s.
Reportedly, country singer/actress Dolly Parton has her breasts insured for $600,000.
Reportedly, teen actress Natalie Portman who played Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, missed the film's premiere party in New York because she had to study for her high school final exams.
Reportedly, unused film footage from the movies Top Gun (1986) and The Hunt for Red October (1990) have been used in the intense Navy TV drama series JAG, starring David James Elliott as Lt.Cmdr. Harmon "Harm" Rabb, Jr. One of the show's episodes was shot on the set of Crimson Tide (1995). The show debuted in 1995 on NBC, where it struggled for an audience. NBC cancelled it, but JAG was quickly scooped up by CBS, where it became a ratings success and an Emmy winner.
Restoration of an old film costs from $15,000 to $40,000. Nearly 75 percent of the films produced between the years 1893 and 1930 have disintegrated and are lost forever. They were made on a nitrate-based stock, which has a life span from 40 to 80 years, and only under ideal conditions. Active efforts are currently underway to preserve what old films still remain. This action has been spearheaded by UCLA, Ted Turner, and other concerned industry members.
Rhythmic Chicago Dixieland music has never lost its appeal. When Dixieland is played today, it is almost always "Chicago style." Many musicians are not aware that there is more than one style of Dixieland music. There are clubs and societies dedicated to the preservation of Dixieland music. However, this music is seldom played exactly as it was played in the 1920's.
Ricou Browning, a former lifeguard who earned limited fame after playing the monster in 1954's horror film Creature From the Black Lagoon, personally trained TV's first Flipper, a female dolphin named Mitzi. Browning is the one responsible for developing the show's premise, and got his inspiration from his own kids' favorite TV show at the time, Lassie.
Rising rap star Coolio, whose hit "Gangsta's Paradise" surprisingly impressed some older music critics (the song was used in the Michelle Pfeiffer film Dangerous Minds), was born Artis Ivey.
River Phoenix was originally slotted for the role of the interviewer in Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire (1994), opposite Tom Cruise. Phoenix's untimely death from a drug/alcohol overdose outside of actor Johnny Depp's Hollywood nightclub on Halloween night 1993 gave Christian Slater the opportunity to co-star in one of the biggest box office hits of that year.
RKO stands for Radio-Keith-Orpheum, formed by the merger of RCA and the Keith-Orpheum theater chain in 1921.
Robert Blake and Scott Wilson were not the first choices to play the cold-blooded murderers in Truman Capote's film adaptation of In Cold Blood (1967). Studio heads at Columbia Pictures originally wanted Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in the lead roles. Newman chose instead to star in the film hits Cool Hand Luke and Hombre that year; McQueen worked on The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt. Blake, a former child actor best known for his work in the "Little Rascals" film shorts in the 1930s, earned critical attention for his chilling performance, and his floundering film career got a boost. Eight years later, he starred in the Emmy-winning series Baretta. Wilson was not so fortunate, and never became the household name that Blake did.
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