HERBERT LOM

Early in 1939, shortly before the Nazis over-ran what was left of Czechoslovakia, Czech-born actor Herbert Lom arrived in Britain with his Jewish girlfriend, Didi, seeking asylum. Tragically, she was sent back at Dover because she did not have the correct papers. Her subsequent death in a concentration camp haunted Lom all his life. In a 2004 interview, he said that he had not even been aware she was Jewish. The actor’s own mother, incidentally, was of Jewish descent.

KATHERINE HEIGL in My Father the Hero

As of 2014, actress Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy fame, is a lifelong animal lover who owns eight dogs, four cats, nine horses, two donkeys, two goats and eight chickens! Her American pit-bull is named Apollo.

VING RHAMES

If you have ever wondered about Ving Rhames’ unusual Christian name, well, wonder no more. His real name is Irving. Whilst he was rooming with Stanley Tucci when they were starting out as actors, Stanley began calling him Ving and the name stuck.

Actor Steve Buscemi was a New York City fireman from 1980 to 1984 with Manhattan Engine Company # 55 in the Little Italy section of New York City. He showed up at his old firehouse the day after the World Trade Centre tragedy in New York to volunteer. He worked twelve-hour shifts for a week after the terrorist act, digging through rubble with his old comrades looking for missing firefighters, doing so anonymously.

DENNIS MORGAN

It would probably surprise readers to learn that the highest paid star at Warner Bros during the 1940s was not Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart or other luminaries, but none other than singer Dennis Morgan! Furthermore, when he received his big musical film break singing ‘A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody’ in the 1936 musical The Great Ziegfeld, his voice was actually dubbed by Allan Jones! In 1943, he was originally cast to play Rick Blaine in Casablanca, but opted to make Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) instead.

LUPE VELEZ

During her involvement with screen star Gary Cooper, Lupe Velez acquired a parrot, which she taught to call her future husband, swimmer/actor Johnny Weissmuller, ‘Gary’. In the middle of a particularly heated altercation with Johnny she lied about killing his pet dog. In retaliation Weissmuller killed the parrot and then left her for good. He admitted years later that he had to persuade Lupe to return home from Cooper’s house many times throughout their marriage.

Lupe was briefly engaged to western character actor Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams. The couple were visiting close friend Errol Flynn when she broke off the engagement by hitting her fiancée on the head with a framed photograph of himself. According to Flynn, she also urinated on the photo later! In December 1944, rather than face the stigma of having an ‘illegitimate’ child, Velez took her own life with an intentional drug overdose.

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS

Actor Lou Diamond Phillips was named by his father for the highly decorated Gunnery Sergeant Leland ‘Lou’ Diamond, USMC, who enlisted in the Marines at the age of twenty-seven, in 1917, and saw action in both world wars. To this day ‘Lou’ Diamond is considered one of the finest marines of all time, and is known as ‘Mr. Leatherneck’.

ALAN HALE JR. as ‘The Skipper’

Alan Hale Junior portrayed ‘the Skipper’ on the enormously popular TV series Gilligan’s Island in 1964. He passed away from cancer in 1990. During his final days in the hospital, although very sick with the disease, he still took time to visit the children in the cancer ward. While battling cancer, he lost a great deal of weight. When a child inquired about this weight loss, Hale confidentially informed him that he was going to be playing Gilligan in a new series of Gilligan’s Island.

ALAN & DAWN WELLS in Gilligan’s Island

Unlike several other cast members of Gilligan’s Island, Hale enjoyed the image that his role on the show gave him. This included usually wearing a skipper’s cap at most times, often donating his used ones for charity purposes. He was forty-three when the series began and became close friends with Bob Denver who played Gilligan. Hale also lived not too far from another co-star, Dawn Wells, who portrayed Mary-Ann, and often took her out to lunch, especially dining at the restaurant he owned. She was the only surviving cast member to attend his funeral, six months after co-star Jim Backus had passed away.

LUCILLE BALL & DESI ARNAZ

In 1950, along with his wife Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz formed a production company with $5,000 of their own money, in an effort to find a way to work together. They named the company ‘Desilu’, which is what they named their ranch in Chatsworth, California. Desi remained president of the company until selling his interest to his then ex-wife Lucy in 1962 for three million dollars. Back in 1957, in an effort to expand Desilu, he sold the couples’ rights to 179 episodes of I Love Lucy for $4,500,000. They also sold their rights to the series December Bride for $500,000. They then gave CBS exclusive rights to their public appearances for ten years for an additional one million dollars! With these profits Lucy and Desi purchased RKO Studios for $6,125,000. Not bad for a man who once worked as a bird-cage cleaner!

ALBERT FRANCIS ‘SONNY’ CAPONE

According to Mafia boss turned government informant, Jimmy ‘The Weasel’ Fratianno, in his book, ‘The Last Mafioso’, several top members of the Chicago Mafia family were furious about the portrayal of Italians in general and the Mafia in particular in the Desilu series The Untouchables (1959). They decided to put out a contract on Desi Arnaz’s life, (him being executive producer of the series). Several mob hitmen hid in the bushes and behind trees outside his house one night, intent on shooting him in his driveway when he returned home. For some unknown reason Desi did not come home that night. Cooler heads eventually prevailed and the murder plot was ultimately called off. Evidently, Arnaz never found out how close he came to being murdered. Ironically, Desi grew up being best friends with Albert Francis ‘Sonny’ Capone. Sonny was the son of the gangster to end all gangsters – Alphonse Capone.