fight scene between live actors and animated skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
• The highest-paid animal actors are bears, which can earn $20,000 a day.
• The real names of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were Frederic Austerlitz Jr and Virginia Katherine McMath respectively.
• Film star Audrey Hepburn was fluent in English, French, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish and Italian, and was a member of the Dutch Resistance in World War II from the age of 15.
• ‘Success is a great deodorant. It takes away all your past smells.’ Elizabeth Taylor
• Leonard Nimoy owned a pet store in the 1960s before playing Mr Spock in Star Trek.
• ‘The duration of a film should not exceed the capacity of the human bladder.’ Alfred Hitchcock
• In the movie Rear Window (1954), Grace Kelly is in a scene arguing with James Stewart, who is sitting in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg. The cast switches from his left leg to his right during the scene.
• In the first Terminator (1984), Arnold Schwarzenegger had only seventeen lines of dialogue.
• The man who opened the world’s first movie theatre in Paris said, ‘The cinema is an invention without any commercial future.’
• In Camelot (1967), when King Arthur (Richard Harris) makes a speech praising his subjects and realm, he has a modern Band Aid plaster on his neck.
• Before he became a film actor, Humphrey Bogart, as the house player for an arcade, charged 50 cents a game to people who wanted to play chess.
• David Niven’s voice had to be dubbed on in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) by Canadian impersonator Rich Little. Niven was so ill while filming that he could not speak. It was his last role and he died the year the film was released.
• The 1999 movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut has the dubious distinction of containing the most swear words in any film – 399 – and the most offensive gestures – 128.
• The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Oscars, but star Alec Guinness’s name was mis-spelled as ‘Guiness’ in the titles.
• Al Capone is shown living in a sumptuous Chicago mansion in the film The St Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967). In fact, he lived in a small house in a working-class district of the city.
• Rock matriarch Sharon Osbourne keeps her hands soft with peanut oil – the same concoction she uses to stop the wooden countertops in her kitchen from drying out.
• Hollywood legend Zsa Zsa Gabor hosted the Rubik’s cube’s launch in America, beginning with a Hollywood party on 5 May 1980.
• US president Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine.
• When the decision was made in 1962 that cartoon family The Flintstones would have a baby, the child was originally going to be a boy. Later, they decided that a girl would make for better merchandising, such as dolls.
• US rapper Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs is such a fan of Al Pacino’s 1983 Scarface movie that he has watched it sixty-three times.
• Former TV Superman Dean Cain was a one-time football star in Buffalo, New York. The actor signed for the Buffalo Bills after leaving Princeton University but seriously injured his knee and had to retire before he had played a game for the team.
• Pop diva Jennifer Lopez demanded her on-set trailer on Shall We Dance? (2004) be stocked with diet cream soda, despite the fact that the drink is unavailable to buy where the movie was being shot in Winnipeg, Canada. Supplies had to be flown in from Seattle.
• One alternative title considered for sitcom Friends was ‘Insomnia Café’.
• American funnyman Jerry Seinfeld received £315,000 for a fifteen-minute gig in Las Vegas.
• Will Smith is currently the world’s highest-paid actor, taking home a massive $80 million a year.
• While attending America’s University of Iowa, actor Ashton Kutcher helped pay his tuition fees by sweeping floors at a local General Mills plant.
• Between takes on movie Shall We Dance?, Jennifer Lopez ate strawberry muffins and ice cream on an almost daily basis.
• US singer and actress Hilary Duff is set to launch a new line of canine clothing called Little Dog Duff, named after her own pooch Little Dog.
• Hard rocker Andrew WK has named his new album after his most loyal fans. The Party Hard star has named his album Wolf after the WK Wolves who follow him on tour.
• Australian pop beauty Holly Valance’s real surname is Vuckadinovic.
• Alexander star Colin Farrell often checks into hotels under the name Tom Foolery, while American Pie actress Tara Reid regularly adopts the moniker Strawberry Shortcake. The Truth About Love star Jennifer Love Hewitt dubs herself Winnie The Pooh.
• The Osbournes star Jack Osbourne has had ‘Mum’ tattooed in a heart on his left shoulder as a special thank-you to mum Sharon, who helped him battle his drug- and alcohol-abuse problems.
• American Idol bosses have banned wannabe pop stars from singing Alicia Keys’s ‘Fallin’’ in try-outs, because judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul are tired of the song.
• Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson failed her first driving test when she hit another car. She passed at the fourth attempt.
• Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney bought a couple of Charlie’s Angels star Lucy Liu’s arty collages when she had a brief stint with him on ER.
• Pop babe Beyoncé Knowles spends £4,000 a week on personal trainer Mark Jenkins in order to maintain her stunning physique.
• Rap mogul Russell Simmons and his wife have different refrigerators because the DEF JAM founder doesn’t want his vegan food mixed with her chicken, fish and dairy products.
• Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen’s triumphant concert at Boston’s Fenway Park on 6 September 2003 was the first rock show in the baseball stadium’s ninety-one-year history.
• Comedienne Ellen DeGeneres has had a ping-pong table installed on the set of her new chat show The Ellen DeGeneres Show to encourage her colleagues to play as hard as they work.
• British women have voted former Spice Girls singer Victoria Beckham as the most boring celebrity to socialise with.
• British singer Robbie Williams refuses to let his lack of a driving licence stop him splashing out on cars. The Los Angeles-based star, who has never passed a driving test, already has a Ferrari and a Jaguar – and now he’s looking at a £200,000 Lamborghini Diablo.
• Rappers 50 Cent and Eminem had very simple backstage requests at the MTV Music Video Awards; while other stars were demanding bowls of raw vegetables
