Trivial Pursuit...

I hope you're ready for more...

Katharine Hepburn
"I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid. "

Katharine Hepburn walked around the studio in her underwear in the early 1930s when the costume department stole her slacks from her dressing room. She refused to put anything else on until they were returned.

She was nearly decapitated by an aeroplane propeller when she was rushing about an airport, avoiding the press.

Hepburn did all her own stunts because the stunt woman never stood up straight enough.

Suffered from pyrophobia (fear of fire).

In terms of acting talent, she particularly disliked Meryl Streep, claiming she could recognise Streep's constant search for tactics during a performance. Hepburn also thought Glenn Close was talented, but said openly Close's feet were too big for audiences to take her seriously as an actress.

Greta Garbo
"I wish I were supernaturally strong so I could put right everything that is wrong."

Greta Garbo disliked Clark Gable, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.

Before making it big, she worked as a soap-latherer in a barber's shop back in Sweden.

During filming, whenever there was something going on that wasn't to her liking, Garbo would simply say "I think I'll go back to Sweden!" which frightened the studio heads so much that they gave in to her every whim.

Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres, and answered no fan mail.

Greta Garbo was Adolf Hitler's favorite actress.

Joan Crawford

"Send me flowers while I'm alive. They won't do me a damn bit of good after I'm dead."

In 1933, Joan Crawford appeared in a Coca-Cola print advertisement. Some years later, in 1955, she married Pepsi-Cola board chairman Alfred N. Steele.

Crawford's costar Bette Davis had been nominated for Best Actress in their film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). If Davis had won, it would have set a record number of wins for an actress. According to the book Bette & Joan - The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine, the two had a life-long mutual hatred, and a jealous Crawford actively campaigned against Davis for winning Best Actress, and even told Anne Bancroft, nominated the same year, that if Anne won and was unable to accept the Award, Crawford would be happy to accept it on her behalf. According to the book, on Oscar night, Bette Davis was standing in the wings of the theatre waiting to hear the name of the winner. When it was announced that Anne Bancroft had won Best Actress for The Miracle Worker (1962), Davis felt an icy hand on her shoulder as Joan Crawford said "Excuse me, I have an Oscar to accept".

After her husband died, she still continued to set a place for him at the dinner table.

Her popularity grew so quickly after her name was changed to Joan Crawford that two films in which she was still billed as Lucille Le Sueur, Old Clothes (1925) and The Only Thing (1925) were recalled, and the billings were altered.

Her final words before dying were quoted as being "damn it...don't you dare ask God to help me." which was said to her housekeeper, who had begun to pray aloud.

Gregory Peck
"[on his opinion of stars being paid $30 million per film] I was born too soon!"

Stating he was worried about the 600,000 jobs hanging on the survival of the Chrysler Corporation, Gregory Peck volunteered to become an unpaid TV pitchman for the company in 1980.

Formed a solid friendship with Mary Badham, who played his daughter "Scout" in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). They remained in contact until his passing. According to Badham, she always called him "Atticus" and he always called her "Scout".

During the Vietnam War, Peck was a vocal supporter of teenagers who dodged the draft, calling them "patriots" and "heroes" and saying that burning their draft cards was part of their civic duty. He produced an anti-war film, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) using his own money in order to provoke more opposition to the conflict.

In 1997, as a presenter at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) awards ceremony, he said, "It just seems silly to me that something so right and simple has to be fought for at all."

He took in former co-star Ava Gardner's housekeeper and dog after her death in 1990.

Many, many more to come.
Until next time...


Romany

[photos courtesy of selectsmart.com, dannymiller.typepad.com, sodahead.com and persephonereads.wordpress.com]