When, not how - Sir Malcolm Sargent

An acquaintance of Sir Malcolm Sargent (1895-1967), famous British conductor, asked him once what does a musician has to know in order to play cymbals in the orchestra.

"Practically nothing,” Sargent replied, "He just has to know when".

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Zuma Fact: #145: Poisonous snake!

Poisonous snake smells like fresh picked cucumber.

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Bagpipes or a pig? – Thomas Beecham and Alfred Hitchcock

A fan of the famous English conductor Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) asked him once what music instrument would he recommend to her baby boy.

"The bagpipes," Beecham suggested, “because they sound exactly the same when you have finished learning them as when you start learning them”.

 

 

 

Famous English film director Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980) also made a funny joke about bagpipes. He said:

"I understand that the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of sound achieved by the pig."

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Zuma Fact: #144: Boxing ring!

A boxing ring is called a “ring” because, in the beginning of boxing, the boxers fought in a marked circle. 

The first square ring was introduced in 1838.

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Santa Claus – Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple (1928), famous American actress and diplomat, who gained international fame in childhood, before she even started going to school, once told a story about how she stopped believing in Santa Claus:

- It was a big disappointment for me. I was six years old. I went with my mother to a department store. In the department where they sell toys, a Santa Claus handed out gifts to children. When he saw me, he jumped, left the kids, threw the gifts on the side and told me "May I have your autograph? I’m your biggest fan. I watched all the movies in which you played many many times!”

- In that moment, I knew that there is no Santa Claus. Santa Claus doesn’t watch movies.

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Zuma Fact: #143: Anesthesia!

 

In 1846, American dentist William T. G. Morton (1819-1868) used ether instead of whiskey for painless tooth extraction. Soon after another doctor followed his example and painlessly removed a tumor from a patient’s neck.

After these events, that medical procedure spread to all parts of the world and was named anesthesia.

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Political Love – Harry Truman and Richard Nixon

During one official dinner at the White House, at the time when Harry Truman (1884-1972) was the President of the United States, it was decided that someone has to hold a toast. And not only that – the one that toasts, has to speak of love.

The young politician named Richard Nixon (1913-1994), who later became the President of United States, stood up.

At the cocktail before that dinner, Nixon desperately tried and failed to persuade Truman to have a drink with him. Therefore, the offended Nixon raised a glass and said:

"When Harry Truman will accept a drink from the hand of Richard Nixon without having someone else taste it first - that's love!"

Harry Truman settled the score later by saying:

“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.”

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Zuma Fact: #142: Small-spotted catshark!

The small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), resident of Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, got its name because of elongated cat-like eyes on top of its head.

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The saddest billionaire- John Paul Getty III

He was known for his enormous wealth and inheritance, but also and for being kidnapped in Italy when he was a boy. Because of a heroin overdose when he was 25, he remained paralyzed for the rest of his life.

Most people do not understand the expression “The rich also cry”, and they are asking themselves why would the rich cry and be sad. However, in the case of billionaire John Paul Getty III (1956-2011), this expression is not far from reality. This successor of great oil empire, who died at the age of 54, had plenty of unfortunate episodes in his life. That is why now, after his death, which occurred due to failure of vital organs, he is called “the saddest billionaire”.

John Paul Getty III was also known as “Golden Hippie”. For those who knew Getty’s lifestyle this nickname is completely logical.  He spent much of his childhood in Rome, where he socialized with artists, and leftist bohemians. The Italian capital was also the place where his teenage idyll was brutally interrupted. There, when he was 16, John Paul Getty was kidnapped. His kidnappers demanded $ 17 million from his family, but Getty’s grandfather, John Paul Getty I (1892-1976), refused to pay them.

“I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay one penny now I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” - said John Paul Getty I, at that time one of the richest people in the world and founder of California's famous museum that bears his name.

At the same time, his father, John Paul Getty II (1932-2003), was unable to pay that sum of money, because, at that time, he was rehabilitating from drug addiction in one rehabilitation center in London.

In the beginning, his family thought that his kidnapping was just a joke and they didn’t do anything. Four months later, a package arrived at the offices of a Rome newspaper. It contained a lock of red hair and a moldy human ear. A message that came along claimed that these belong to Getty, and threatened: "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."

The ransom was paid only after his grandfather, John Paul Getty I, managed to reduce the ransom to the figure of $ 2.8 million in cash with "bargaining". He borrowed that money to his son, Getty II, but he warned him that it was just a “loan” and that he expects his money back with 4% interest.

Soon after that, a truck driver spotted John Paul Getty III along the road, some 160 kilometers south of Naples. He spent five months in captivity. When he wanted to thank his grandfather for saving him, Getty I refused to talk to him.

John Paul Getty III was born in 1956, as the first child of John Paul Getty Jr. and actress Abigail Harris, who were already divorced when he was kidnapped. When he was 18, he married Gisela Martine Schmidt who was a photographer and an artist. In 1975, he got a son with Gisela, Balthazar Getty. He also adopted Gisela’s daughter, Anna from her first marriage, and gave her his surname. He and Gisela divorced in 1993.

Almost a decade before that, more precisely, in 1981, Getty suffered a stroke caused by heroine overdose. From then and on he needed constant care because he was strapped to a wheelchair. As a consequence of the stroke, Getty was quadriplegic and nearly blind.

Life of the Getty family was a movie-like tragic story. Getty dynasty made their first millions dealing with oil, but after that, they expanded their business to almost all branches. What is bizarre in the case of this family is the fact that a large number of its members died of a drug overdose.

Their empire was established by unusual oil tycoon John Paul Getty I, in the first half of the 20th century.  Getty I had five wives and five sons (one of his sons died at the age of 12).

Getty family was always in the spotlight. Until recently, they had  one of the strangest and richest couples in America – curly and physically neglected Peter Getty, who never did anything and is spending his time knitting, watching pornography and playing video games, and his wife Jacqui Getty, which is adorned by Hollywood stars. It is said that behind all those billions, Peter is nothing more than an abuser. His wife didn’t had the strength to leave him until he started to cheat in her with other women. Those who know Peter say that when he is travelling somewhere, he never caries a bag because he buys everything he needs when he arrives where he is going.

In 2006 when she was filing for divorce, Jacqui described her husband as a person who became heavily addicted to cocaine and soon after, started to, mentally and physically, abuse her.

“Peter had a very bad, violent temper during the last year or two of our marriage; he made at least one threat to kill me, he hit me so hard that he broke my forearm (not at a joint), he has choked me and physically pushed me.” – Jacqui described her husband in the divorce documents. “He told me 'I could kill you and get away with it”. She also said that Peter, because of his enormous wealth, has no sense for good and evil and that he often said to her: “I can do anything. Because I'm Getty”.

Anyway, Jacqui Getty is a famous stylist who worked on many movies. Among the first who noticed her talent was Demi Moor, who met Jacqui at one shop in the late eighties. It was Jacqui who picked a dress for Moor in the famous scene of the movie “Indecent proposal”, when Demi approaches Robert Redford.

Howard Hughes – playboy, pilot and a hermit

One of the most bizarre billionaires was Howard Hughes. Hughes was successful in everything he did, whether it was designing aircrafts, piloting, film production...he even managed to seduce Hollywood beauties like Katharine Hepburn.

In 1935, he constructed an airplane with whom he set an airspeed record of 567,46 km/h. Two years later, he set a transcontinental airspeed record for flying from one end of America to another. In 1938, he flew around the world in just 91 hours and 14 minutes.

However, due to an obsessive dedication to work, addiction to drugs and agonizing among many lovers, he suffered his first nervous breakdown. Soon after, he demanded that everyone who comes in contact with him, wears white gloves. After second nervous breakdown, he spent his days in a hotel, in a closed room, where he sat completely naked in a white leather armchair.

He spent the last years of his life wandering around the world. He resided in luxurious hotels but, before his arrival, his employees were obliged to sterilize the rooms where he stayed. When he arrived to Las Vegas in 1967, he didn’t have a reservation for a luxury suite at the Hotel “Desert Inn", so he bought the entire hotel. He also bought television station KLAS-TV, which had to show movies until late into the night so he wouldn’t be bored.

He travelled in a car with welded windows, in which he had installed a special air cleaner that cost more than the vehicle itself and occupied more space then the engine.

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Zuma Fact: #141: The longest border in the world!

Border between Canada and United States is the longest border in the world. 

It is 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi) long.

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Literary compliment – Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe

Works of American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) were not very well received at the time when Poe was alive. Poe's stories and poems were especially despised by writer and journalist Mark Twain (1835-1910) who once in a letter to his friend wrote:

“To me his prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin’s. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane’s. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

Another thing: you grant that God and circumstances sinned against Poe, but you also grant that he sinned against himself—a thing which he couldn’t do and didn’t do.”

 

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Zuma Fact: #140: The first ice-cream!

The first true ice cream was made in 18th century, in the Sicilian town of Taormina, with the help of snow from the slopes of Mount Etna, the only living volcano in Europe.

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Banana peel – Charlie Chaplin

Famous actor David Niven (1910-1983) wrote in his autobiography an anecdote when screenwriter Charles MacArthur (1895-1956) asked Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) for advice on how to design a gag in which a fat lady is walking down the street, slipping on a banana peel and falling down. Since such a stunt was performed thousands of times before, how to do it and make the audience laugh?

Should he first show the banana peel, then the lady approaching, and then the fall? Or, to show the fat lady first, and then the banana peel on which she slips?

Charlie Chaplin immediately replied:

"You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps OVER the banana peel and disappears down a manhole."

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Zuma Fact: #139: Onion in Ancient Egypt!

Onion was worshiped in ancient Egypt, and it was even placed next to Pharaohs when they were buried.

Because of its structure - a circle within a circle - the Egyptians believed that onion symbolizes eternity (eternal life).

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No mercy for Billy the Kid

In 2010, governor of New Mexico refused to give a posthumous pardon for Billy the Kid, the famous Old West outlaw. That decision heated up once again the legends of notorious robber.

The request for posthumous pardon of Old West legend, Billy the Kid, remained lying in the dust of New Mexico  administration, just like his body, in 1881, when  Sheriff Pat Garrett shot him. Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, decided not to pardon Billy the Kid for the murder of Sheriff William Brady, in 1878. 

Billy the Kid (born in New York as William Henry McCarty) gained a reputation as the most famous American robber, during his brief but turbulent life. Legends say that he killed 21 people – one victim for each year of his life. However, other sources say that he killed 27 people. Yet, historical facts are telling us a different story. According to them, Billy the Kid killed "only" nine people.

He was short, lithe, with blue eyes, a smooth complexion, and prominent front teeth. Behind his smile a fierce, wild and cunning nature was hidden, which, in combination with his excellent shooting abilities, made him the most dangerous outlaw. He wore a sombrero decorated with a green band.

The request for pardon was initiated by an attorney from Albuquerque, Randi McGinn, who argued that the former governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallace, promised to pardon the Kid in exchange for his testimony in a murder case. Richardson was asked to pardon this outlaw from 19th century, in order to fulfill that promise.

This request caused a sort of a “silent war” between Billy’s supporters and descendants of Sheriff Pat Garrett. Garrett’s three grandchildren sent a letter to Governor Richardson in which they asked of him not to pardon Billy the Kid because such act would place an unforgivable shame on Garrett.

"I don't believe a thief, a liar, a terroriser of the ordinary people and a multiple cop killer should ever be granted a pardon, period. The Kid was a notorious outlaw and murderer. He was on a rampage for a while. I believe Lew Wallace did what he planned all long, get Billy to testify and then hang him. By granting the Kid a pardon are you excusing the murders he committed?" – said Garrett's grandson J.P. Garrett.

It is interesting that Governor Richardson's mandate expired on 31 December 2010, and he made his decision not to pardon Billy one day before that. Richardson said that he decided against a pardon "because of a lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity as to why Governor Wallace reneged on his promise."

Randi McGinn said that she was disappointed with that decision, but she also expressed her satisfaction to the fact that Billy the Kid still causes great interest. She invited people to come to New Mexico, take a look at the letter that Billy wrote to Governor Wallace and conclude on their own whether he was "Robin Hood of the Wild West or cold-blooded killer".

Sheriff Pat Garrett killed Billy after the famous shootout in which two sheriff deputies were killed during Billy’s escape from Lincoln County jail. A year after he killed Billy, Garrett published a sensational biography called “The Authentic Life of BILLY THE KID”. Although Garrett’s intention with this book was only to justify himself to the public for killing Billy, this book became very popular and made Billy the most famous figure of the Wild West. The mentioned biography became a source of many legends and doubt, which, even after 130 years since Billy died, continued to exist.

Billy the Kid lived long and happily in Texas

Billy the Kid found his place in many songs and films. That only contributed to creation of an image of him as Wild West hero. One of the most famous films about Garrett and the Kid is the one from 1973 (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), directed by Sam Peckinpah. Bob Dylan composed music for that particular film.

Anyway, some historians claim that Billy the Kid wasn’t killed in the shootout with Garrett. They say that he settled in Texas. He allegedly lived there under the name Brushy Bill Roberts, and he died in 1950 from a heart attack.

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Zuma Fact: #138: Oracle bones in Shang Dynasty!

The people from Shang Dynasty (1766 BC and 1122 BC) in Ancient China used raw cattle bones to predict future. They carved questions in to the bones and then sought answers by interpreting the cracks formed after heating the bones.

They called these bones - Oracle bones.

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The Prince – George Friedrich Handel

Famous German composer George Friedrich Handel (1685-1759) spent many years as a composer and music teacher on the English court.

On one occasion, the Queen asked him what he thought of her son’s progress in learning to play cello, and when will her son become a true virtuoso.

Not knowing what to say about the performance of the future king, Handel said:

“Well, His Majesty is playing like a...prince!”

The Queen understood these words the way it suited her, so she decided that the Prince would perform in one part of Handel’s grand concert.

When Handel saw the future holder of the crown on the podium with a cello in his hands, he immediately disappeared from the concert hall.

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Zuma Fact: #137: Early automobilism in Italy!

In the early days of automobiles, the Italians drove on right side of the rode in villages, and on the left side of the road in the cities.

In Milan, this custom was maintained until 1926.

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Interrupted kiss – Alfred Hitchcock

At the time when Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was making  the movie "Notorious", and that was in 1946, the Motion Picture Production Code (in other words - censorship), popularly known as Hays Code (after Hollywood's chief censor of the time, Will H. Hays) prohibited scenes of a kiss longer than three seconds.

However, Hitchcock wanted for the kissing scene of the main characters in this film, actress Ingrid Bergman and actor Cary Grant, to go into the history as the most beautiful movie kiss, and also the longest movie kiss, so he decided to extend that kiss with any means possible.

Finally, cunning Hitchcock edited that kiss like this: Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are kissing for three seconds, then they are saying something to each other for a few seconds, then they are kissing again for three seconds, then they break away for just a second, then kissing again for three seconds, then they are whispering something to each other on the ear, and then again kissing for three seconds, and so on…

Their kiss lasted for two-and-a-half minutes, and it is perhaps the most intimate and erotic movie kiss ever.

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Zuma Fact: #136: Day of the Dead!

Every year, on November 2, the Mexicans are celebrating “Day of the Dead” (Día de los Muertos).

On that day, they are carrying food and drinks on the cemetery for the dead, and in bakeries you can find sweets in the shape of skull or a coffin.

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Waiting for “Waiting for Godot” – Samuel Beckett and Barney Rosset

When Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Irish writer who was awarded with Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote his play "Waiting for Godot" in 1952, Barney Rosset, founder of the publishing house "Grove Press”, reluctantly approved the printing of thousand copies of that books.

He thought that publishing of Beckett’s play would be a total failure.

In the beginning, it was indeed like that. In the first year, less than 400 copies were sold. They were mainly bought by Beckett himself, who then gave those copies of “Waiting for Godot” to his friends, as a gift.

But then the play premiered on the Broadway. It was on the program for just six weeks. The critics have written that it is a pure Communist propaganda... However, after that, readers have begun to buy the book.

In just a short period, the suspicious Barney Rosset realized that he sold over two million copies of "Waiting for Godot".

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Zuma Fact: #135: Weightlifting!

Weightlifters can snatch more than 2,5, and clean and jerk 3 times their body weight.  

 

The first athlete who lifted three times his body weight with clean and jerk technique was Bulgarian Stefan Topurov. He achieved that in 1983, in Moscow.

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Too long – Antoine de Rivarol

French writer Antoine de Rivarol (1753-1801) was once asked by a mediocre poet what he thought of a couplet that the poet just wrote.

"Great song, “said Antoine de Rivarol, "but I think that it’s too long.”

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Zuma Fact: #134: Yogurt and sour cream!

Until 1900, people in Europe didn’t know about yogurt and sour cream. The only exceptions are cattle breeding areas in the Balkans, where these products are made for centuries.

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Marilyn Monroe - Madness and her last days

In the book “Fragments”, which is based on diaries, letters and various writings of Marilyn Monroe, sex symbol of the 20th century, it is revealed that after a series of psychiatric sessions she ended up in mental hospital’s solitary confinement, and that doctor Greenson came there to examine – her breasts.

"Alone!!! I am alone-I am always alone no matter what." – with this begins the earliest of several diaries written by Marilyn Monroe, sexiest and most desirable women of the 20th century, according to "Playboy". Her diaries, sketches, poems, letters, various notes and rare photographs, dating from between 1951 and 1961, are published (in 2010) in a book called "Fragments". They are significant because, for the first time, Marilyn Monroe explains herself – she is presented outside of Hollywood splendor, myths and legends that were woven around her name in recent decades.

That book revealed her fears of sexual abuse, betrayal of her third husband, ghosts of inherited madness, traumas from psychotherapy to which she was forced, and an eerie testimony about the mental hospital in which she was involuntarily taken.

Of countless men who have passed through her life the most famous was John F. Kennedy, the most faithful was Joe DiMaggio… but the most trace in her life left her third husband, playwright Arthur Miller, who managed to make her the happiest and most unhappiest woman in the world.

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were probably in their happiest phase during the summer of 1957, which they spent in a rented house on Long Island. They spent their time there swimming and taking long walks on the beach. She looked splendidly on the photographs from that period. That was the time when she happily stepped into her husband’s world - She was joyful and witty at the dinner in the company of writers Carson McCullers and Isak Dinesen, she became friends with Truman Capote,  and met some of her literary heroes such as poet Carl Sandburg and writer Saul Bellow, with whom she had dinner while she waited for the premiere of “Some Like It Hot" in Chicago. The sexiest blonde knocked Bellow of his feet.

Writers and books were not a coincidence in her life. "Esquire" once published a photo of her reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. There was also a photo of her reading the poetry of Heinrich Heine. Magazine “Life” once depicted Marilyn reading a book in front of a shelve with books. She had her personal library with 400 volumes that included works of history, philosophy, fiction...

In London, where they traveled in the fall of that same year to film her "The Prince and the Showgirl" movie with Laurence Olivier, Miller caused her greatest disappointment in life. 

Marilyn and her husband moved to a magnificent estate in Surrey, near London. Everything seemed perfect. She was producing a film in which played (and was directed by) one of the most respected actors of her generation and she lived in a large country house with the man she loved the most. As an artist she couldn’t have felt more fulfilled, until a coincidence buried her otherwise very fragile self-confidence and her trust in her husband.  She ran into a Miller’s diary in which he complained that he was disappointed with her and that sometimes he is ashamed having her in his company in front of friends. After reading those entries, Marilyn was destroyed.  One of her biggest fears came true - that she will disappoint the man she loves.

Formally speaking, Marilyn Monroe was not an orphan because her mother Gladys Monroe Baker eventually outlived her famous daughter. But since Gladys was a schizophrenic who spent years going in and out of psychiatric institutions, Marilyn was virtually abandoned and raised in a number of adoptive families, including the family of her mother’s close friend Grace Goddard.

Her first husband, James Dougherty, liked the idea of saving a shy and nice girl, who left high school to marry him. It is not surprising that their marriage fell apart - they divorced in September 1946. “My relationship with him was basically insecure from the first night I spent alone with him,” Marilyn wrote in her diary.

Her second marriage with baseball player Joe DiMaggio, who was one of the most famous names in sport‘s world, also failed. Their marriage lasted only nine months. DiMaggio was almost in his forties and he wanted, with all his heart, for his wife to leave Hollywood and become a housewife. Instead, he became "Mr. Monroe”, and that was too much for his jealousy and frustration. However, when she died, for twenty years DiMaggio sent flowers to her grave three times a week.

She began to visit psychotherapists at the urging of her acting teacher Lee Strasberg, to whom she went in the spring of 1955 because she wanted to become a serious actress. Strasberg was more than a teacher to her; he was almost a father she never met. By the wish of Marilyn Monroe, Strasberg became executor of her will, which was then heavy about 13 million of dollars. After Strasberg’s death, his widow, Anna Mizrahi Strasberg, inherited that right. She even today earns about a million dollars thanks to Marilyn Monroe’s name.

Persuaded by Strasberg, and after breaking up her marriage with DiMaggio, Marilyn visited a psychiatrist five times a week. Dr. Margaret Hohenberg managed to pull out from Marilyn’s subconscious memories of a difficult childhood, including memories of sexual abuse and harassment of her aunt, Ida Martin, with whom she stayed a few times when she was between 11 and 13 years old.

Two years later, in 1957, Marilyn stopped seeing Dr. Hohenberg. Strasberg then recommended her another doctor, Marianne Kris, who later caused one of the greatest traumas in Marilyn’s life.  During sessions with her, Marilyn discovered that she was always “deeply terrified to really be someone's wife” because she knew “from life one cannot love another, ever, really”.

Three years later, after being totally rejected by Miller (he didn’t even came to her funeral), Marilyn Monroe became Yves Montand’s mistress. Her new doctor became Ralph Greenson – it is not known how much he managed to help her, but it is certain that he was obsessed with Marilyn. Greenson’s daily therapeutic sessions lasted about five hours, but nevertheless, in 1960, in a state of complete emotional disintegration, and upon the recommendation of Dr. Kris, Marilyn ended up in a psychiatric hospital in New York.

Practically, as soon as she entered, Marilyn started requesting to leave. But the more she was persistent about it, the employees of the hospital was more confident in her disease, and they eventually put her into a solitary confinement. Marilyn wrote a letter to Greenson in which she described what were they doing to her, but instead of getting her out of that hospital, he came to examine – her breasts. From hell that lasted for three days she was rescued by DiMaggio.

Marilyn became acquainted with Kennedy brothers in 1961, but she met some members of that family at least five years earlier. She wrote in her diary, that she fears that Peter Lawford, Kennedy’s brother-in-law, wants to hurt her - the feeling of violence I’ve had lately about being afraid of Peter he might harm me, poison me, etc.

In August 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead. It is assumed that she committed suicide by drinking a large quantity of sleeping pills.

Childhood – Her guardian wanted to rape her when she was just six years old

In her diaries, Marilyn also wrote about her first marriage with an intelligent and attractive James Dougherty. She married Dougherty on June 19, 1942, when she was just 16, and he was five years older. Marilyn described her loneliness and insecurity in that sudden marriage, which was less love and more of a way for Marilyn – then Norma Jeane Baker – to seize the opportunity to escape from the life of an orphan, while her guardians, Grace and Ervin Goddard, were in California. Especially because Ervin tried to rape Marilyn when she was just six years old.

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