The Mammoth Book of Useless Information. Noel Botham

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СКАЧАТЬ In The Empire Strikes Back, legendary actor Alec Guinness performed all his appearances in six hours.

      • The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of £1 billion to reunite.

      • In 1962, the Mashed Potato, the Loco-Motion, the Frug, the Monkey and the Funky Chicken were all popular dances.

      • Friends star Lisa Kudrow has a degree in biology from Vassar College.

      • Hollywood legend Paul Newman was colour-blind.

      • Miss Congeniality (2000) star Sandra Bullock is allergic to horses.

      • US actress Lara Flynn Boyle is dyslexic.

      • 9 ½Weeks Star Kim Basinger has suffered panic attacks during which she cannot leave the house.

      • Austin Powers star Mike Myers has an aversion to being touched.

      • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) star Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns.

      • Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) actress Andie MacDowell worked at McDonald’s and Pizza Hut as a teenager.

      • US funnyman Steve Martin once worked at Disneyland selling maps and guidebooks.

      • Matrix star Keanu Reeves’s father has served time in prison for cocaine possession.

      • Cheers actor Woody Harrelson’s father has served time in prison for murder.

      • Red Dragon (2002) actor Edward Norton’s father invented the shopping mall.

      • ER actress Julianna Margulies’s father wrote the ‘Plop-Plop, Fizz-Fizz’ Alka-Seltzer commercial.

      • The great-uncle of Baywatch star David Hasselhoff was Karl Hasselhoff, the inventor of inflatable sheep.

      • Singer Eric Clapton owns one-fifth of the planet Mars.

      • In the film Forrest Gump (1994), all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed.

      • Toto the dog was paid £65 per week while filming The Wizard of Oz.

      • Kelsey Grammar sings and plays the piano for the theme song of Frasier.

      • The director of 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton, spent millions on training squirrels to crack nuts to recreate the ‘Nut Room’ scene.

      • Cinderella’s slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator.

      • Pupils at a US school have been offered counselling after a teacher showed them clips of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004).

      • A fan of Pop Idol runner-up Gareth Gates missed meeting him when he turned up at her home because her dad had the television on too loud.

      • An elderly actor who broke his leg on stage during a performance of Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist in Bosnia had to endure laughs and taunts from the audience who thought his cries of pain were part of the show.

      • Pinocchio was made of pine.

      • In the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indy escapes with the golden idol in a seaplane with the registration number OB-3PO. This of course refers to Obi-wan and C-3PO from Star Wars.

      • The ‘Mexican Hat Dance’ is the official dance of Mexico.

      • Professional ballerinas use about twelve pairs of toe shoes per week.

      • US singer Macy Gray has stunned fans by performing naked on stage – apart from a pair of designer shoes.

      • For Star Wars’ 20th anniversary, the first episode film renovation cost as much as the original movie.

      • Former Generation-X singer Billy Idol has revealed he shaves his grey pubic hair.

      • Over eight years of Seinfeld, ‘Cosmo’ Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment door 284 times.

      • Actress Elizabeth Hurley has twelve piercings in her ears and a pierced nose.

      • Buskers in Budapest are to have to take a yearly exam to protect tourists from musically incompetent beggars.

      • A rock fan who paid £1,000 for a guitar signed by Queen’s Brian May rubbed off the signature with his sleeve when he played it.

      • In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon.

      • Prince Charles sent a bottle of whisky to recovering alcoholic Ozzy Osbourne after his quad bike crash.

      • When director George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti (1973) soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an ‘R’ and numbered the dialogue starting with a ‘D’. Sound designer Walter Murch would ask George for Reel 2, Dialogue 2 by saying ‘R2D2’. George liked the way that sounded so much he integrated it into another project he was working on.

      • Singer Janet Jackson’s boob flash at the Super Bowl has become the most searched event in the history of the Internet.

      • It was illegal to sell E.T. dolls in France because there is a law there against selling dolls without human faces.

      • DJ Jo Whiley has gone under the knife to have a third nipple removed. She had thought it was a mole until doctors informed her otherwise.

      • The Paramount logo contains twenty-two stars.

      • Donald Duck lives at 1313 Webfoot Walk, Duckburg, Calisota.

      • The small actor hiding inside R2-D2 is named Kenny Baker. He is less than 4ft (1.2m) tall.

      • Canadian singer Bryan Adams’s song ‘Everything I Do (I Do It For You)’ is the track most couples pick for the first dance at their weddings.

      • By the time an American child finishes primary school he will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television.

      • Veteran crooner Tony Christie has landed a £50,000 contract to become the face of Stilton cheese.

      • Sections of the under-construction Death Star in Star Wars resemble the San Francisco skyline, the silhouette of a favourite city of George Lucas.

      • In 1912, the Archbishop of Paris declared dancing the tango a sin.

      • Karmuela Searlel, one of the many Tarzans, was mauled to death on the set by a raging elephant.

      • The most popular TV show in Venezuela is the Miss Venezuela Pageant.

      • A man who lost £20,000 worth of prizes СКАЧАТЬ