Universal Studios mogul Carl Laemmle was the manager of the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, branch of Continental Clothing, a clothing retailer.
In 1906, after losing his job in an argument with his boss, he opened a movie theater in Chicago.
He soon became a film distributor and, in 1912, founded Universal.
According to one account, he got the idea for the studio name from a truck that read “Universal Pipe Fittings.”
The play’s author, George Bernard Shaw, who won an Oscar for his adaptation wrote the screenplay for the film Pygmalion.
The actor who played the Mayor of Munchkinland in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Billy Curtis, was four feet, two inches tall. Curtis (1909-1988) was also the star of the first all-little-people Western The Terror of Tiny Town (1938).
The chimp from Bedtime for Bonzo died in a trailer fire in the early 1950s, along with his four stand-ins, on the day he was scheduled to help present the first Patsy Awards for animal achievement.
In The Big Easy (1987), the name of the slush fund into which police graft is being funneled is The Widows and Orphans Fund.
The Life of an American Fireman (1903), by Edwin S. Porter (1869-1941), was the first movie to rely heavily on film editing. Porter was the first person to piece together strips of film containing different scenes in order to tell a story. Before Porter, most movies were shot in one take from one camera position.
Anne Archer’s mother was Marjorie Lord, who played Kathy, the wife of Danny Williams (Danny Thomas) on “The Danny Thomas Show” (ABC, CBS, 1953-64).