Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers (7 page)

White won her first Emmy in 1951 for her starring role in the sitcom
Life With Elizabeth
. In 2010 she won her seventh Emmy for hosting
Saturday Night Live
.

Where can you see Louis Armstrong’s famous trumpet?

Philip Cohen was a vaudeville performer who went by the name Phil Roy. His son, Jacob, followed in his father’s footsteps, performing under the name Jack Roy, but later changed it to what?

You can’t, but maybe your grandchildren can. That’s because in the year 2000, the U.S. National Archives placed Satchmo’s trumpet into the Millennium Time Capsule, which won’t be opened until 2100—giving our descendants a chance to see a few 20th-century artifacts, including (besides the trumpet) a transistor, a piece of the Berlin Wall, and a film showing Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk.

Rodney Dangerfield. Born in 1921 as Jacob Cohen, he spent years trying to break into the comedy business using the name Jack Roy, but met with failure after failure (because he “lacked a persona,” as he put it). Cohen eventually gave up show business and sold aluminum siding to support his family. But he just couldn’t give up on his dream.

At the age of 45, he returned to the stage, performing his self-deprecating stand-up act in small clubs…and in 1967 landed a spot on
The Ed Sullivan Show
. His act was a hit, but he wanted to distance himself from his previous (failed) career, so he changed his name to Rodney Dangerfield. Where’d he get that name? A nightclub owner gave it to him. Where did the club owner get it from? He heard Ricky Nelson use it on
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
. Where did Nelson get it from? He heard it on the radio: The name of a comical cowboy character on Jack Benny’s radio show in 1941 was…Rodney Dangerfield.

American actor Andy Garcia (
Ocean’s Eleven, The Godfather Part III
) was born with what unusual birth defect?

What movie was playing in the theater that Lee Harvey Oswald ran into after (allegedly) shooting JFK?

Garcia was not born alone. Immediately after his birth, doctors noticed a softball-sized growth on his left shoulder. It turned out to be an underdeveloped, parasitic twin that had stopped growing early in gestation…and lived off of baby Andy in the womb. The doctors immediately removed the conjoined twin, whereupon it died. (Garcia still has a scar on his shoulder.) After he became a famous actor, his sibling became a running joke on
The Howard Stern Show—
Stern mused that the twin was “the one who got all the personality.”

War Is Hell
, a Korean War drama (in black-and-white) directed by Burt Topper and starring Tony Russel. It was the first half of a double feature (the other film was called
Cry of Battle
) playing at the Texas Theater in Dallas on November 22, 1963. A few blocks away, President Kennedy’s motorcade was traveling down Elm Street; the President was shot while riding in the back of his convertible (a Lincoln).

Shortly after the movie started, Oswald ran into the theater without paying the 90-cent admission fee. The manager called the police. While a blaze of gunfire was exploding on the screen, Oswald was captured and taken into custody. Interestingly, the film had been delayed from release for three years because of its alleged anti-American sentiments.

What future Oscar-winning actress was fifth-billed under Justine Bateman, Britta Phillips, and two others as a sex-crazed bass player in the 1988 girl-rocker movie
Satisfaction
? Who got second billing in that film?

Julia Roberts. Her big-screen debut came as Daryle, the sex-crazed bass player in this well-publicized but poorly reviewed movie about a girl band trying to make it big. Directed by Joan Freeman (her second and final feature film—her first was 1985’s
Street-walkin
’),
Satisfaction
was intended to launch the film career of TV star Bateman (Mallory on
Family Ties
). But the movie and Bateman’s feature-film career flopped. (Don’t cry for her—she’s had a successful run as a TV actor and fashion designer.)

Julia Roberts, who was only 20 when
Satisfaction
was filmed, went on to superstardom two years later after she took a role that several better-known, A-list actresses—including Meg Ryan, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Daryl Hannah—turned down: the hooker with a heart in 1990’s
Pretty Woman
. Roberts later won a Best Actress Oscar for her starring role in the 2000 legal drama
Erin Brockovich
.

Second-billed in
Satisfaction
: Liam Neeson. He played a nightclub owner and Bateman’s love interest. The Irish actor claims he only took the role because he’d just completed a much darker film called
Suspect
in which he played a deaf mute accused of murder. After that, Neeson reportedly wanted to spend some time in the sun and be around pretty girls. He claims he’s never actually seen
Satisfaction
…and never plans to.

Who owns Davy Crockett’s pouch?

Only three music artists have sold more than 100 million albums twice—first as part of a band, and then again as a solo act. Two of them are Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney. Who is the third?

Who begged Pete Townshend to let him take over as drummer of the Who after Keith Moon died?

Phil Collins. The British rocker and former Genesis drummer is obsessed with the Alamo; according to some accounts, he believes he was actually there in a past life. Collins owns one of the world’s most extensive collections of Alamo memorabilia, including the pouch in which Davy Crockett kept his musket balls. Several tabloids have reported that a psychic once told the singer he’s the reincarnation of messenger John W. Smith, who played a part in the 1836 battle for Texas independence. But Collins’s lifelong fascination with the Alamo is more than just tabloid fodder; he’s a respected Alamo historian who tours Texas giving lectures on the subject.

Phil Collins. He sold 159 million albums as a member of Genesis, and another 155 million albums as a solo act. He’s also won seven Grammy awards and an Academy Award for the song “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Disney’s
Tarzan
.

Phil Collins. He was a big fan of the Who (more than Genesis, it turned out). In the mid-1970s, Collins told Who frontman Pete Townshend, “If you ever need a drummer, I’m there. I’ll leave Genesis in a moment.” After Moon died of a drug overdose in 1978, Collins asked again. Townshend turned him down and chose former Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones instead.