Movie Star Trivia

If you are a fan of movies and Hollywood of days gone by, one of the best time-wasters on the Internet is to visit the Internet Movie Database site. Here you can find seemingly everything you'd ever want to know about every actor, actress or movie that ever existed.

One of my favorite leisure activities is to visit the entry for a movie, actor or actress and click through to the "Trivia" section. You can find some amazing little tidbits you've never heard before. Of course, since I believe that virtually anyone can submit these, I never know for sure if every single "fact" shown is 100 percent true.

Here's just a few of the interesting trivia facts I've found from past trips to IMDB:

Sophia Loren derives great pleasure from rolling her bare feet over a wooden rolling pin while watching TV.

Production of the Tom Hanks movie “Cast Away” was halted for a year so Hanks could lose 50 pounds and grow out his hair for his time spent on the deserted island. During this hiatus, director Robert Zemeckis used the same crew to film “What Lies Beneath” in 2000. It's also interesting to know that actual lines of dialogue were written for" Wilson the Volleyball" in the movie, to help Hanks have a more natural interaction with the inanimate object. Wilson even has his own credit and write-up in IMDB with his own IMDB page, which begins: "Wilson the Volleyball is one of Hollywood's most loved volleyballs."

Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart on the TV series “Get Smart,” had seven children with first wife Adelaide Adams. One of the kids they named Beige.

While Rhonda Fleming (called “the Queen of Technicolor") was always a competent actress, she was more renowned for her exquisite beauty, and the camera absolutely adored her. At one time a cameraman on one of her films remarked on how he was so struck by her beauty that, as a gag, he intentionally tried to photograph her badly. He was astonished to discover that no matter how deliberately he botched it, she still came out looking ravishing.

Suzanne Pleshette, best known as Bob Newhart's first TV wife, was the producers’ original choice for the role on Catwoman on the "Batman" TV show in 1966. When negotiations broke down, the part went to Julie Newmar, who made it her own.

Slim 1960s fashion model Leslie Hornby was known by a distinctive nickname. She was first nicknamed “Sticks” because of her reed-thin figure, but then switched it to “Twigs” and, finally “Twiggy.” According to “Celebrity Sleuth” magazine, her measurements were 31AA-22-32 at age 17, 32-23-32 during the peak of her 60s modeling career, 32B-24-32 in 1976 at age 27 and 36B-20-33 when measured in 1986.

“Alien” star Sigourney Weaver was born Susan Alexandra Weaver in 1949. Her father, a famous TV producer, originally wanted to name her Flavia, because of his passion for Roman history (he had already named her elder brother Trajan). In grade school, Susan Weaver was quite a bit taller than most of her other classmates (at the age of 13, she was already 5’ 10”), resulting in her constantly being laughed at and picked on. In order to gain their acceptance, she took on the role of class clown. In 1963, she changed her name to “Sigourney” after the character “Sigourney Howard” in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.