Again, by insistent demand from Funfare’s “above-50” readers, let me do another round of Hollywood to test your “Hollywood Intelligence Quotient (IQ),” with the help of the book Hollywood Trivia by Aubrey Malone, the same one given to me by my friends Drs. Willie and Liza Ong, to which I turn when my readers want a breather from local showbiz stuff and crave for Hollywood dessert.
• From the chapter “Brief Encounters” (20 marriages that didn’t last very long):
• Jean Arthur and Julian Ankar — one day
• Rudolf Valentino and Jane Acker — one day
• Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips — eight days
• Zsa Zsa Gabor and Felipe de Alba — eight days
• Patty Duke and Michael Tell — 13 days
• Katharine Hepburn (photo) and Ludlow Ogden Smith — three weeks
• Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman — three weeks
• Gig Young and Kim Schmidt — three weeks
• Gloria Swanson and Wallace Berry — three weeks
• Debra Paget and Budd Boetticher — 22 days
• Leif Erickson and Maggie Hayes — one month
• Burt Lancaster and June Ernst — one month
• Greer Garson and Edward Snelson — five weeks
• Drew Barrymore and Jeremy Thomas — six weeks
• Sammy Davis Jr. and Loray White — two months
• Carole Landis and Willis Hunt Jr. — two months
• James Caan (photo) and Sheila Ryan — three months
• Richard Pryor and Flynn Belaise — four months
• James Woods and Sarah Owen — four months
• Ava Gardner and Artie Shaw — seven months
* * *
• From “The Marrying Kind” (10 stars who got married repeatedly):
• Judy Garland — Married five times in all. When she invited her daughter, Liza Minnelli, to her fifth wedding, Minnelli replied, “I can’t make it, Mama, but I promise I’ll come to your next one.”
• Brigitte Bardot — Was married five times before she realized that she preferred dogs. “Men took their pleasure,” she said, “and ran.”
• Zsa Zsa Gabor — Had nine husbands in all, causing Milton Berle to quip, “Every woman in Beverly Hills is wondering what to get her husband for Christmas. Zsa Zsa Gabor is wondering what husband to get for Christmas.”
• Lana Turner — Said her ambition in life was to have one husband and seven children, but it worked out the other way around!
• Johnny Carson — Married four times, with many fireworks. “You know why divorces cost so much?” he asked rhetorically, “because they’re worth it!”
• Stan Laurel — Married eight times, but there were only four different women involved, as he married two of them three times each. His Russian bride, Llemara, claimed that he brought one of his exes on their honeymoon — and that he tried to dig her grave on another occasion.
• Ava Gardner — Married Artie Shaw, Mickey Rooney and Frank Sinatra, but all three marriages hit the rocks. Not surprising, perhaps, when we consider that her husbands had 19 wives between them: Shaw with seven, Rooney with eight and Sinatra with four.
• Bette Davis — Married four times. She said of her fourth husband Gary Merrill, “Gary was a macho man, but none of my husbands was ever man enough to become Mr. Bette Davis.”
• Jane Wyman — Was married five times in all, including once to a future president (Ronald Reagan). “I recommend marriage highly,” she once said, “to everyone but me.”
* * *
• From “Here’s To The Losers”
• 10 great actors who never won Oscars:
2. Kirk Douglas
3. Robert Mitchum
4. Orson Welles
5. Montgomery Clift
6. Steve McQueen
7. Peter Sellers
8. W.C. Fields
9. Charlie Chaplin
10. Richard Burton
• 10 great actresses who never won Oscars:
1. Greta Garbo
2. Barbara Stanwyck
3. Marlene Dietrich
4. Jean Harlow
6. Judy Garland
7. Natalie Wood
8. Rita Hayworth
9. Gloria Swanson
10. Lana Turner
• 10 non-Oscar winners with the most number of nominations:
1. Richard Burton (7)
2. Peter O’Toole (7)
3. Deborah Kerr (6)
4. Thelma Ritter (6)
5. Arthur Kennedy (5)
6. Glenn Close (5)
7. Alfred Hitchcock (photo, 4)
8. Mickey Rooney (4)
9. Albert Finney (4)
10. Marsha Mason (4)
* * *
• From “Uncle Oscar” (5 Oscar facts):
1. It’s 13.5 inches high (photo).
2. It’s cast in solid Britannia metal electroplated with 28-carat gold.
3. It weighs 8.5 lbs.
4. It’s worth approximately $400. But if a winner wants to sell it, he first has to offer it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
5. The name Oscar itself was conceived by director Margaret Herrick who observed that the little statues reminded her of her Uncle Oscar.
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