Trivial Pursuit...

Including the original Divine Ms. M...

Marilyn Monroe
"In Hollywood a girl's virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You're judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty."

Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson) started using this name in 1946, but did not legally change it until 1956.

The first time she signed an autograph as Marilyn Monroe, she had to ask how to spell it, as she didn't know where to put the "i" in "Marilyn".

Monroe's ex-husband baseball player Joe DiMaggio put fresh roses at her memorial site for years after her death.

She died with the phone in her hand.

Fearing blemishes, Monroe washed her face fifteen times a day.

She was originally set to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), but Audrey Hepburn played the role instead.

Monroe tried 9 different shades of blond hair color before settling on platinum.

At 168, her IQ was significantly higher than John F. Kennedy's 129 (a score of 100 is considered average and 150 to be highly gifted).

Ava Gardner
"I haven't taken an overdose of sleeping pills and called my agent. I haven't been in jail, and I don't go running to the psychiatrist every two minutes. That's something of an accomplishment these days."

Filming My Forbidden Past (1951), Ava Gardner was attracted to co-star Robert Michum, who was under contract to Howard Hughes. Mitchum called up his boss and asked, "Do you mind if I go to bed with Ava?" "If you don't," Hughes replied, "they'll think you're a pansy."

Years of sexual dissipation and heavy boozing caused Gardner to lose her legendary beauty. Her housekeeper reported that she'd often stare at her face in the mirror and say to her image, "Too many bullfighters, baby. Too many dicks. Too many George C. Scotts. Too many Artie Shaws. Too many Roberts." [referring to Robert Walker, Robert Taylor and Robert Evans]

She never forgot seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton Hotel in Madrid. Gardner went up to her and said, "Miss Davis, I'm Ava Gardner and I'm a great fan of yours." "Of course you are, my dear," Bette replied. "Of course you are." And she swept on.

George Cukor once said of her, "Ava is a gentleman." She claimed it was the nicest thing that's ever been said about her.

Gardner rolled her first cigarette when she was five years old.

Married Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra - all three of them had nineteen wives between them; Rooney with eight, Shaw with seven and Sinatra with four.

None of her ex-husbands attended her funeral.

When Gardner heard Sinatra had married Mia Farrow, she exclaimed, "Hah! I always knew Frank would wind up in bed with a boy."

Paul Newman
"The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films."

Paul Newman was among the celebrities on the famous "Enemies List" kept by President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

Newman was training to be a pilot while in the Navy, but was discovered to be color-blind, ending his flying aspirations.

Early in his acting career, he was often mistaken for Marlon Brando. He claims to have signed around 500 autographs reading, "Best wishes, Marlon Brando."

Newman has donated between $150 million-$175 million to charity since the 1980s.

He is godfather to Jake Gyllenhaal.

Prior to filming The Hustler (1961) , Newman lacked talent at playing pool. But after brushing up on it for the role, he felt very confident in his ability. So he bet co-star Jackie Gleason $50 on a game of pool. Being the excellent pool player he was, Gleason beat Newman. Instead of paying him in dollar bills, Newman dumped $50 worth of pennies on the table for Gleason to take.

Known as an inveterate prankster, he and Robert Redford, in particular, played numerous pranks on each other. One time, Redford, who was also into car racing, had a beaten-up Porsche shell delivered to Newman's porch for Newman's 50th birthday. Newman never said anything, but not long after, Redford found a crate of the (now) molten metal delivered to the living room of a house Redford rented, which dented the floor. Not to be outdone, Redford then had the metal turned into an incredibly ugly sculpture and dropped into Newman's garden.

When Newman failed to receive an Oscar nomination for his performance in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), producer Charles Schnee and director Robert Wise gave him what they called a Noscar. The engraving says, "The Schnee-Wise Noscar award to Paul Newman for best portraying a terrible no-good, for turning him into a charming and lovable sprite, and for thereby doing what Lincoln said should never be done, i.e. fooling all of the people all of the time".

Romany

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