You know Orson Welles was one of the most revered actors and directors of the 20th century, but how much do you know about his sketchy big break or his deft efforts to make rabbits disappear? Let’s take a look at five surprising things about Welles.

1. He Knew How to Fib

Welles got his first acting gig before he turned 10; he received $25 a day to dress up as Peter Rabbit and stand in the window at Chicago’s Marshall Field’s department store. His real breakthrough came when he was traveling through Europe when he was 16. While in Dublin, Welles showed up at the Gate Theatre one night and proudly proclaimed that he was a big Theatre Guild star from New York.

Welles wasn’t a real star of the stage, but he was convincing enough as an actor to get the theater to fall for his lie. Thanks to his fabricated resume he landed a lead role right off the bat and spent the entire season acting in Dublin’s biggest theaters. By the time he left Ireland, he had real acting experience.

2. William Randolph Hearst Wasn’t a Fan

It’s no secret that Welles’ signature film, Citizen Kane, was loosely based on newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, and the portrayal isn’t what anyone would call flattering. (more…)

© Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

For anyone under 30, the name “DeLorean” conjures images of the time machine from Back to the Future. The famous car bore the surname of John DeLorean, a 1960s Detroit legend who later became something of an auto industry goat. Let’s take a look at five things you may not know about the man behind those gull-wing doors.

1. He Made Some Terrific Muscle Cars

Although DeLorean is best remembered for the later car that bore his name, in the early 1960s he was one of Detroit’s biggest stars. As chief engineer at Pontiac, he helped transform the division from a maker of practical, conservative cars into one of Detroit’s leading producers of muscle.

DeLorean received credit for a slew of practical innovations like concealed windshield wipers and vertically stacked headlights, but his major coup was dropping a giant 6.4-liter V8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest. The souped-up new model became known as the Pontiac GTO, one of Detroit’s most legendary muscle cars. Pontiac also introduced the Firebird under DeLorean’s watch before he eventually left the division to take the reins at Chevrolet.

2. The DeLorean DMC-12 Wasn’t So Great

(more…)

Actor Bryan Cranston finally made his triumphant return as Breaking Bad’s Walter White last week. In honor of the critically acclaimed show’s fourth season, let’s take a look at five things you may not know about its Emmy-winning leading man.

1. He’s Got Experience as a Carny

Cranston earned a two-year degree in police science, but he didn’t go into a law enforcement job after graduation. Instead, he took a decidedly different tack: he and his brother took to the road on their motorcycles. As Cranston told IGN in 2003, the pair traveled the country and camped out in their sleeping bags.

The trip was a great idea until they ran out of money in Texas. The brothers started picking up odd jobs, including gigs operating game booths for carnivals. “We never stayed long enough to work up to, like, a ride operator – because you’d make more money – because we’d want to move on,” Cranston told IGN.

2. He’s (Sort of) a Power Ranger

Fans of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series may remember that the Blue Ranger’s true identity was named Billy Cranston. That surname isn’t just a coincidence. In 2008 Bryan Cranston explained to IGN that early in his career, he picked up extra money dubbing voiceovers for foreign shows and films. One of his steady gigs was at Saban Entertainment, the production company behind MMPR. When production started on the show, the company stuck their longtime freelancer’s last name on the Blue Ranger. As Cranston joked in the same IGN interview, “He’s the fey one. That’s the problem.” (more…)

A 1989 Washington Post poll revealed that only nine percent of Americans could correctly identify William Rehnquist as the Chief Justice of the United States. In news that surely made civics teachers everywhere cringe, though, a stout 54 percent of Americans knew that Joseph Wapner was the judge on The People’s Court. Let’s take a look at five things you might not know about the most famous TV judge of the 1980s.

1. His Show Was Almost Very Different

If NBC had gotten its way, Wapner would never have appeared on the bench of The People’s Court. The show made its TV debut in 1981, but executive producer Stu Billett had been futilely trying to sell the concept since 1975. Only NBC had any interest in Billett’s idea, but the network wanted something quite a bit different.

NBC’s idea went something like this: an African-American comedian (preferably Nipsey Russell or Pigmeat Markham) would act as the “judge” in a civil case and toss out some zingers as the details unfolded. During a commercial break, a real judge would coach the comedian on what to say in his verdict, and the comedian would then hand down some comic justice.

Executive producer Billett thought this was “a stupid idea,” but he agreed to make a pilot of the comedic show provided he could also produce a more serious pilot. In the end, though, he only taped the serious pilot starring Wapner.

2. His “Courtroom” Wasn’t Actually a Courtroom

(more…)

Abraham Zapruder’s amateur footage of the John F. Kennedy assassination is one of the world’s most instantly recognizable clips. Zapruder himself doesn’t get quite as much press, so let’s take a look at five things you might not know about the cameraman and the odd journey his film has taken.

1. He Wasn’t a Professional Cameraman

Most of us remember Zapruder as the man behind the most famous home movie of all time, but he wasn’t a professional filmmaker. His real work was in the dress game.

Zapruder, who had immigrated to New York from the Ukrainian city of Kovel as a teenager, found work in the garment industry and eventually opened Jennifer Juniors in Dallas. His offices were in the Dal-Tex building located across the street from the Texas School Book Depository from which Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shots at the presidential motorcade.

2. He Didn’t Even Want to Take His Camera

The famous film might not even exist if not for the persistence of Zapruder’s secretary. (more…)

© Kimberly White/Reuters/Corbis

You know Sally Ride as the first American woman to travel into space. Today let’s take a look at five things you might not know about the astronaut.

1. She Proved There Is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question

When Ride made her first space flight in 1983, she was both the first American woman and the youngest American to make the journey to the final frontier. Both of those distinctions show just how qualified and devoted Ride was, but they also opened her up to a slew of absurd questions from the media.

Journalist Michael Ryan recounted some of the sillier questions that had been posed to Ride in a June 1983 profile for People. Among the highlights:

Q: “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?”
A: “There’s no evidence of that.”

Q: “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?”
A: “How come nobody ever asks (a male fellow astronaut) those questions?”

Forget going into space; Ride’s most impressive achievement might have been maintaining her composure in the face of such offensive questions.

2. She Might Have Been a Tennis Pro

(more…)

The world hasn’t been quite as funny since we lost John Candy in 1994. Let’s remember the star of great comedies like Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles by taking a look at five things you may not have known about Candy.

1. He Was Almost a Ghostbuster

By 1983, Candy’s national celebrity had grown to the point that he could command $350,000 per movie. Director Ivan Reitman, who had worked with Candy on Stripes, approached the comedian about appearing in his next film, Ghostbusters. Candy’s old pals Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis had supposedly written the Louis Tully role in the script specifically for him, but Candy balked at taking a pay cut from his normal $350,000 fee. The role ended up going to Rick Moranis instead.

Candy may have refused to appear in the film, but he did find a small footnote in Ghostbusters lore. He made an appearance in the video for Ray Parker Jr.’s chart-topping theme song for the film. See if you can spot him. (Fair warning: It’s not exactly Where’s Waldo? difficult.) (more…)

You probably know Jonas Salk as the man behind the polio vaccine. You may not know about his scientific rivalries, love life, and non-polio projects, though. Let’s take a look at five unheralded aspects of the doctor’s life.

1. He Wasn’t Big on Patents

Shortly after Salk’s vaccine breakthrough, legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow sat down with the scientist for an interview. At one point, Murrow asked Salk who owned the patent on the vaccine, and Salk responded with one of the most famous quotes of his career: “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Salk wasn’t just being generous with his answer; he was also being humble. In his book Polio: An American Story, David M. Oshinsky writes a more complete look at the issue. According to his account, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the University of Pittsburgh (where he conducted his work) had taken a long look at patenting the vaccine, but Salk’s objections were a major reason why the institutions eventually backed down.

2. He Had a Rival

(more…)

You may have a box of Duncan Hines cake mix in your cupboard, but you may not have known that, unlike Betty Crocker, Hines was a real person. Here are five things about the patron saint of powdered dessert mixes that might surprise you.

1. He Got His Start as a Salesman

Hines wasn’t a chef or a master baker himself. In fact, he was a traveling salesman for a printing company. The job doesn’t sound like it would help someone become a food expert, but since Hines was forever on the road – he averaged 40,000-60,000 miles of car travel a year – he ate most of his meals in restaurants. He and his wife, Florence, loved to travel on weekends, which made meals at home even more rare for Hines.

All of those restaurant dinners and lunches started to add up, and Hines soon found himself extremely knowledgeable on the best place to get a bite to eat in towns all over the country. Eventually he and Florence had a fun idea: they compiled a list of recommendations for their favorite restaurants in various cities around the country and sent it to friends as Christmas gifts.

It would be hard to top Hines’ restaurant list for the title of “Most Successful Christmas Newsletter of All Time.” His friends loved it so much that in 1935 Hines turned his travels into a book, Adventures in Good Eating. Book buyers adored Hines’ opinions as much as his friends did, and in 1938 he released a companion book, Lodging for a Night, that told travelers where to stay when they were seeking out these delicious meals. Hines soon became America’s favorite restaurant and hotel critic.

2. The Public Really, Really Trusted Him

(more…)

Charles Lindbergh was born 109 years ago today. In honor of the famed aviator’s birthday, let’s hop onto five things you might not know about The Lone Eagle.

1. He Was Time’s First Man of the Year

After Lindbergh made his celebrated transatlantic flight in May 1927, he found his picture splashed on the cover of every newspaper and magazine in the country. Well, almost every magazine. Time made the curious decision not to run with Lindbergh as its cover subject for the next edition, a choice that editors quickly regretted.

By the end of the year, though, the same editors struck on a clever way to rectify their omission and also move some magazines. When faced with a slow news week, they decided to devote an entire issue to Lindbergh’s influential flight. The magazine slapped a portrait of Lindy on its cover and dubbed him “Man of the Year.”

Although the article began a beloved tradition for Time’s readers, it reads a little awkwardly now. The article begins by listing Lindbergh’s height, age, eye color, cheek color (pink, in case you were wondering), and foot size. (“Large. When he arrived at the Embassy in France no shoes big enough were handy.”) The article then lists Lindbergh’s habits: “Smokes not; drinks not. Does not gamble. Eats a thorough-going breakfast. Prefers light luncheon and dinner when permitted. Avoids rich dishes. Likes sweets.” The piece an analysis of his handwriting, which showed “Superiority, intellectualism, cerebration, idealism, even mysticism.”

2. He Helped Invent an Artificial Heart

(more…)