Dead birds

While sitting on a platform waiting to speak, the seventy-eight-year-old Churchill was handed a note by an aide. 

Churchill glanced at the message, which advised, "Prime Minister—your fly is unbuttoned." 

It read, "Never fear. Dead birds do not drop out of nests."

Steve Jobs polishing rocks

"When I was a young kid, there was a widowed man who lived up the street. He was in his 80s and a little scary looking and I got to know him a little bit, he might have paid me to cut his lawn or something like that. One day he said “come into my garage, I want to show you something.” He pulled out this dusty old rock tumbler. It had a motor and a coffee can and a little band between them. We went out into the backyard and collected some rocks; just some regular old, ugly rocks. We put them into the can with a little bit of liquid and little bit of grit powder. We closed the lid up and turned it on and he said “come back tomorrow”. The can was making a racket as the stones were tumbling around. I came back the next day and we opened the can and we took out these amazingly beautiful, polished rocks. Those common stones that had gone in, through rubbing up against each other (Steve starts slapping his hands, emulating the stones hitting each other), creating a bit of friction, a bit of noise, had produced these beautiful, polished rocks. And that’s always, in my mind, been my metaphor for a team that is working really hard on something they’re passionate about. It’s through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people, bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes. Making some noise. And, working together, they polish each other and they polish the ideas and what comes out are really beautiful stones."

Meryl Streep

One day during the production of 'Sophie's Choice', Meryl Streep was required to shoot the pivotal scene in which her character, standing with her young son and daughter in a "selection line" in a Nazi concentration camp, is forced by a German guard to choose one of the children to be sent for extermination. 

As the scene came to an end Streep, who later called it the most emotionally grueling of her career, was surprised that Pakula, for whom she felt a great emotional kinship, had not called 'cut.' "I thought, 'My God, he's overwhelmed...'" 

Streep promptly looked over to where the director was sitting with his cinematographer - and was shocked to find that both men, with their heads tilted back, had fallen sound asleep!

Emil Zátopek gold medal

Emil Zátopek was a giant of long distance running. His record still stands as the only person to win gold in the 5000 metre, the 10000 metre and the marathon at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics. Apparently running the marathon was a last minute decision.

In 1968 Australian runner, Ron Clarke, visited Emil in his home country of Czechoslovakia. Emil respected Ron’s abilities. He had broken many of Emil’s records but had a string of bad luck. In Mexico City Ron suffered from altitude sickness and nearly died on the track. So despite being the world record holder he never won an Olympic gold. The two runners became friends and as Emil said goodbye at the airport, he gave Ron a hug and put a small parcel in his hand and said “this is because you deserve it, not because we are friends. Open it when you get to London.”

Ron immediately started to wonder what was in the parcel. Was it contraband? Was it a message Emil wanted smuggled out to the West. After the plane took off Ron went to the lavatory to open the parcel. When he unwrapped the box, there, with his name and the day’s date inscribed inside, was Emil’s 10000 Olympic gold medal. Ron just sat there and wept.

Alfred Hitchcock

Driving through a Swiss city one day, Alfred Hitchcock suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen."

His companion was surprised to see nothing more alarming than a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the child's shoulder.

"Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning out of the car. "Run for your life!"

Peter O'Toole

O'Toole met up with an old friend, and they went to a bar.

O'Toole and his friend get EXTREMELY drunk and decide that they are going to leave the pub.

They decide to go watch a play, and get seats in a theatre on the West End. The lights go down and the overture begins playing.

At that moment O'Toole's friend hears Peter swear loudly and rush off, saying "I'm in this play!"

Oscar Pearl Harbour

Akira Kurosawa, John Huston and Billy Wilder are presenting best picture at the 1985 Oscars. Kurosawa is nearly blind, Huston has been attached to an oxygen machine while seated because of his emphyzema, only Wilder is fairly spry.

The nominees are listed, and they get the envelope. Huston doesn't even try to open it, hands it to Kurosawa. It is beyond his capacity to tear it open. Wilder grabs it, rips it open, announces Out of Africa as the winner.

Sydney Pollack returns to the stage, makes his speech. He then goes with the three titans as they go offstage.

He then hears Billy Wilder say, loud enough only for the four of them to hear - "They had no problem bombing Pearl Harbor, but they can't tear open a fucking envelope." Pollack bursts out laughing, not at all certain if Kurosawa's limited English caught what Wilder was saying.

Very polite suicide

Following the Nazi annexation of Austria, the famed Viennese author, critic, and theatre director Egon Friedell died when he hurled himself through an office window to avoid capture by Gestapo agents. 

His last words? "Watch out, please!"

Leonard Nimoy

"I had an embarrassing experience once, many years ago," he told The New York Times in 2009. "I was invited to go to Caltech and was introduced to a number of very brilliant young people who were working on interesting projects. ... And they'd say to me, 'What do you think?' Expecting me to have some very sound advice. And I would nod very quietly and very sagely I would say, 'You're on the right track.' "

Go Russ Go!

Go, Russ, Go!

 

On the set of the Australian film Proof, Russell Crowe is said to have seduced a young ingenue in his trailer.

Though he later denied it, passersby who knew what Crowe was up to swear that, during the act, he was overheard shouting "Go, Russ, go!" at the top of his lungs.

Jack Nicholson

“I was working valet at the mansion. We used to park the nicer cars in the roundabout just for show. At 2 AM Jack (Nicholson) comes out with a tall blond girl. She couldn’t have been a day over 25 and they start going at it on top of a 1952 Jaguar Roadster. It wasn’t the kissy-kissy stuff either. They were both drunk.

I’m watching this when the owner of the Jag walks up to me. It was James Caan. I thought he was going to kill me for allowing this to happen. Caan was a nice guy but he had a temper.

I said, “Mr. Caan, Shall I go fetch your car.”

James Caan looked at me and said,

“Son, you don’t take meat away from a lion when it’s eating. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Schwarzenegger

Schwarzenegger - Guess ?

One day Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a heavy woman and noticed that she was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the 'Guess' logo. Arnold's response? "I said, 'Thyroid problem?'"

Bill Murray - Charlies Angels

Bill Murray and Lucy Liu didn’t get along on the set of the first Charlie’s Angels. Bill was always uncomfortable around her and nobody knew why until one day a huge fight erupted between the two while they were filming a scene. People Magazine reported the Bill ‘loudly complained about her technique.’ People was being gentle.

What actually transpired was much more intense. Bill Murray stopped a scene in progress and pointed to Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu saying in order, “I get why you’re here, and you’ve got talent….but what in the hell are you doing here. You can’t act!” At that, Liu blew her lid and attacked Murray, wildly throwing punches. The actors had to be separated to opposite corners of the room while they lobbed verbal hand grenades at each other.

With a Columbia Pictures gun to their heads, both actors would publicly downplay in incident but insiders know better. Bill Murray would not do any sequel with Liu attached and was subsequently replaced by Bernie Mac.

Harriason Ford

Harrison Ford: "I have this funny thing that happens to me. When I see famous people on the street, I turn away so as not to embarrass them by staring. But sometimes it's someone I know, only I've forgotten I know them. I think I'm only imagining I know them because they're famous. Jack Nicholson has been a friend for 15 years, but every time I see him, my instinct is to turn away, to preserve his privacy. I have to remind myself that I can't do that; I do know Jack and I've got to say hi."

Damn liar

Mark Twain

Mark Twain loved to brag about his hunting and fishing exploits. He once spent three weeks fishing in the Maine woods, regardless of the fact that it was the state's closed season for fishing. Relaxing in the lounge car of the train on his return journey to New York, his catch iced down in the baggage car, he looked for someone to whom he could relate the story of his successful holiday.

The stranger to whom he began to boast of his sizable catch appeared at first unresponsive, then positively grim. "By the way, who are you, sir?" inquired Twain airily. "I'm the state game warden," was the unwelcome response. "Who are you?" Twain nearly swallowed his cigar. "Well, to be perfectly truthful, warden," he said hastily, "I'm the biggest damn liar in the whole United States."

Poison

Churchill

Nancy Astor was a native Virginian who became Britain’s first woman member of the House of Commons. In the 1930’s she headed a clique in the House of Commons that found something to admire in Hitler’s Germany. Churchill described an Astorite as an appeaser "who feeds the crocodile hoping that it will eat him last." One time shortly thereafter, Churchill found himself at Cliveden, the Astor mansion.

After dinner Lady Astor presided over the pouring of coffee. When Churchill came by, she glared and said. "Winston, if I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee." "Nancy," Churchill replied to the acid-tongued woman, "if I were your husband, I’d drink it."

Biscuits

Some years ago the following exchange was broadcast on an Open University sociology TV programme.

An interviewer was talking to a female production-line worker in a biscuit factory. The dialogue went like this:
Interviewer: How long have you worked here?

Production Lady: Since I left school (probably about 15 years).
Interviewer: What do you do?
Production Lady: I take packets of biscuits off the conveyor belt and put them into cardboard boxes.
Interviewer: Have you always done the same job?
Production Lady: Yes.
Interviewer: Do you enjoy it?
Production Lady: Oooh Yes, it's great, everyone is so nice and friendly, we have a good laugh.
Interviewer (with a hint of disbelief): Really? Don't you find it a bit boring?
Production Lady: Oh no, sometimes they change the biscuits...

Ugly

Morning After

One night in the House of Commons, Churchill, after imbibing a few drinks, stumbled into Bessie Braddock, a corpulent Labourite member from Liverpool. 

An angry Bessie straightened her clothes and addressed the British statesman.

"Winston," she roared. "You are drunk, and what’s more, you are disgustingly drunk."

Churchill, surveying Bessie, replied, "And might I say, Mrs. Braddock, you are ugly, and what’s more, disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow,"

Churchill added, "I shall be sober."