Which was insured for the most money, Fred Astaire’s feet, Betty Grable’s legs, or Jimmy Durante’s nose?
Astaire’s feet, insured for $650,000, were at the top of this list.
Grable’s legs were insured for only $250,000, Durante’s nose for $140,000.
Lady Bird Johnson’s real name was Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson (b. 1912). The wife of President Lyndon Johnson got her nickname after the family cook called her “purty as a lady bird.”
The two men who laid the Mason-Dixon line gave it its name. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon laid the line sometime between 1763 and 1767 at 39°43’26” north latitude. Originally it was the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Later it marked the line between slave states and free states.
Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884), a Scotsman who moved to Chicago in 1842. He was deputy sheriff of Cook County before resigning in 1850 to open the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, specializing at first in railway theft cases. The agency’s motto was We Never Sleep, printed under an open eye.
Silent screen siren Clara Bow (1905-1965) picked up the nickname It Girl after starring as a flapper in It in 1927. Gary Cooper was briefly called by this moniker It Boy when he began dating Ms. Bow. He is said to have ended the relationship in order to get rid of the nickname.
Yes. Guinness was head of the company that published the book when it was created by Sir Hugh Beaver, Norris McWhirter, and Ross McWhirter in September 1954. The first Guinness was published in August 1955.
Although there are many likely candidates, the source for the phrase is Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977). He former president and chancellor of the University of Chicago, dean of the Yale Law School, and chairman of the board for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.