ANECDOTES

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous line, "I'll be back" in Terminator was originally scripted as "I'll come back."

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In a session of the Academy of Sciences of the (former) USSR, the agronomist Lysenko, founder of “Creative Darwinism,” gave a talk on the inheritance of acquired traits.

When he finished his report, Lev Landau, who was in attendance, asked, “So, you argue that if we will cut off the ear of a cow, and the ear of its offspring, and so on, sooner or later the earless cows will start to be born?”

Lysenko replied, “Yes, that’s right.”

“Then,” started Landau, “how you explain the virgins still being born?”

Lev Landau

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President John F Kennedy once told that during an election campaign his father sent him the following telegram: “Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.”

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Another item about JFK . . .

In 1962, when Kennedy was President, he arranged a White House dinner for a group of intellectuals, most of them Nobel Prize winners in their respective fields.

He welcomed them with a short speech, during which he said, “There has never been such a collection of talent and intellect gathered in this room since Thomas Jefferson dined here alone.”

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Secretary of State William H Seward visited the White House and found President Lincoln blacking his own shoes.

“Mr. President,” said the Secretary of State, “in Washington, we do not black our own shoes.”

Lincoln looked up and said “Well, Mr. Secretary, whose shoes do you black?”

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During the beginning of filming Alfred Hitchcock's drama film 'Lifeboat', actress Mary Anderson asked Hitchcock, "What is my best side Mr Hitchcock?"

Hitchcock dryly responded, "You're sitting on it, my dear."

Mary Anderson, at rear

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Bette Midler on Princess Anne:

“She loves nature, in spite of what it did to her.”

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One day in 1978, President Jimmy Carter attended a service at the Chapel of the Transfiguration, a small Episcopal log chapel in Grand Teton National Park, beneath the towering Tetons near Jackson, Wyoming. The chapel was sited and built to frame a view of the Cathedral Group of peaks in a large window behind the altar.

Following a long-standing tradition, worshipers were asked to introduce themselves.

When his turn arrived, Carter rose and remarked, "I'm Jimmy Carter from Plains, Georgia, but I'm living for a while in Washington, D.C."

Chapel of the Transfiguration, Grand Teon National Park

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"Polls may show that the public is forgiving Teddy Kennedy for Chappaquiddick [where Kennedy left the scene after his car drove off a bridge, killing Mary Jo Kopechne]," People magazine reported in 1978, "but his fellow politicians apparently have not forgotten. Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis [a Carter supporter] was asked at a press conference whether he thought Kennedy's appearance at the national governors' convention in Boston was a first step toward a presidential bid. Dukakis responded, 'We'll look at that bridge'—and then smothered his face with his hand."

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Don Rickles once observed Sinatra entering the room in the middle of his act. "Come right in, Frankie," said Rickles from the stage. "Make yourself at home—hit somebody."

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Singer Tom Jones, whose fans were famous for throwing undergarments at him on the stage, once appeared as a guest on Michael Parkinson's talk show, Parkinson.

"His agent came to us and said, on the threat of death, 'You must not throw knickers at him, at all,'" Parkinson later recalled. "I was in charge of not throwing knickers." Parkinson did his duty swimmingly, until he made the mistake of telling Jones' fellow guest, comedienne Dawn French, about the ban. "Of course, he was covered in large bloomers."

"I think I had about 12 pairs on," French recalled. "I was just peeling them off and throwing them..."

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Simon Cowell briefly worked as a runner in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. He polished Jack Nicholson’s axe.

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