Tinseltown Trivia: 43 Surprising Facts About Hollywood Actors – Part 4

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1Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is one of only two actors (the other being Alec Baldwin) to have a standing offer from Lorne Michaels to host Saturday Night Live whenever his schedule permits. Thus far, he has hosted the show 7 times, his most famous appearance being the "More Cowbell!" sketch.


2. When actor Raul Julia was terminally ill, he decided that his last performance would be as the villain in Street Fighter, as his children were fans of the game it was based on. The movie received terrible reviews, but Julia's performance was critically acclaimed.


3. Glenn Shadix, the actor who played Otho in Beetlejuice, was subjected to “ex-gay” electrical shock treatments when he came out to his parent. When this failed to change his orientation, he attempted suicide and survived a 3-day coma. After the incident, his parents accepted his sexuality.


4. Actor Dick Van Dike didn't know his actual birthday until he was 18. His parents lied to him about his birth date to cover up the fact that he was conceived out of wedlock.


5. Leonard Nimoy once gave a cab ride to JFK. The future president told the aspiring actor, “Lots of competition in your business, just like in mine. Just remember there’s always room for one more good one.”


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6Jackie Coogan

Jackie Coogan

Jackie Coogan, the silent film child actor who was famously exploited by his parents for his earnings, found renewed screen success later in life playing Uncle Fester on the Addams Family.


7. "Pinhead" actor Doug Bradley became so adept at applying and removing his prosthetic makeup that he was given an Assistant Make-up Artist credit on some Hellraiser films.


8. Superman actor Christopher Reeve was interested in Scientology until he was auditing and told them about a “past life” that was really a story from Greek mythology. He was disillusioned that they believed his lie and stopped pursuing Scientology.


9. Sylvester Stallone was not the actor that the producers wanted to star in 'Rocky'. With just $106 in his bank account, Stallone turned down a $300,000 offer — the equivalent of $1 million today — for the rights to 'Rocky' so that he could star in the film himself.


10. Clint Eastwood insisted on removing some of the dialogue in the original script for his character 'The Man with no Name' in the Dollars trilogy so that it could make the character more mysterious. As the trilogy progressed the character became even more stoic and silent.


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11Rory McCann

Rory McCann

Rory McCann ('The Hound', Game of Thrones) was incredibly anti-social until he learned that fellow actors in the show's group, the 'Brotherhood Without Banners' (Thoros, Lord Beric) were musicians, and formed a band called 'Brotherhood Without Banjos' with them.


12. Victor Mature, after being denied membership of the Los Angeles Country Club because he was an actor, replied: "I am not an actor - and I've got 64 films to prove it."


13. Actor John Banner, famous for his iconic role as Master Sergeant Hans Georg Schultz in CBS' Hogan's Heroes, was an Austrian-born Jew. He emigrated to the United States in 1938, and sadly, lost most of his family in the Holocaust.


14. Once during flight, actor Nicolas Cage as a prank used the PA system to say that he was the pilot and he was not feeling well. At the airport, police prepared to arrest Cage and his traveling partner Charlie Sheen. After Cage politely talked his way out of it, he later discovered that Sheen was carrying cocaine on him.


15. Matt Damon could only say his name in Team America because his puppet came in looking mentally deficient and they didn’t have time to change it, so Parker and Stone just made him mentally challenged.


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16Mickey Rourke

Mickey Rourke

Actor Mickey Rourke attributed his comeback to his dogs and credited them during his Golden Globe acceptance speech in 2009. “Sometimes when a man's alone, all you got is your dog, and they've meant the world to me.”


17. Actor Joe Pesci started as a singer and guitar player and played in the same band as Jimi Hendrix.


18. Actor Clint Walker was pierced through the heart with a ski pole. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, but a doctor detected faint signs of life and rushed Walker to surgery, where his damaged heart was repaired. Within two months Walker was again working.


19. An actor named Del Close died in 1999 and in his will, he bequeathed his skull to a local theatre so that he could still play the part of Yorick, a dead court jester, in productions of Hamlet. However, no one wanted to remove his head after death, robbing him of one of his final wishes.


20. Actor Rob Riggle was a Marine for 23 years. He was a lieutenant colonel, and has received a combat award for his service in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Liberia.


21Vinnie Jones

Vinnie Jones

Actor Vinnie Jones still holds the record for the quickest yellow card in professional Football history: 3 seconds into a match.


22. David Zayas, the actor who played Detective Angel Batista in the show Dexter, was an actual police officer in the NYPD for 15 years.


23. For 4 years, Hugh Grant pretended to be his own talent agent under the name James Howe Ealy. He communicated with people via a fake email account and even disguised his voice with a Scottish accent on the phone. “I saved myself an absolute fortune,” he said.


24. Daniel Day-Lewis was so convincing as a killer in “Gangs of New York” that the mom of his 10-year-old co-star for “There Will Be Blood” saw the movie, and didn't want her son acting alongside him anymore. The studio sent her “The Age of Innocence” to reassure her Day-Lewis wasn't actually bad.


25. Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the role for Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.

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