Mishaps
• Operatic tenor Leo Slezak was a big man — six-foot-four and 300 pounds. Once, while singing the role of Adolar in Weber’s Euryanthe, he accidentally stepped on a female singer’s toes. She had to stay in bed for a month and lost all the toenails on one foot. Whenever he saw the singer, Ms. Ludmilla, afterward, she always took one step backward, then said, “Take my soul, my life, my all — but for God’s sake take care not to tread on my toes, dear Adolar!”
• Unfortunately, at some operas, the music and the singers don’t finish at the same time. Orchestra leader Gottfried Schmidt once told of finishing five full seconds before the singers in the second act of a 1981 performance of Carmen. In fact, Mr. Schmidt boasted, “Next time we shall beat them by 10 seconds.”
• Ballerinas have amazing flexibility. Tanaquil Le Clerq once showed up for practice with a bandage on her nose. Why? She had practiced a forward kick (a grand battement) — and she had karate-kicked herself right in the nose!
Money
• Microsoft founder Bill Gates enjoys a good party. At one of the parties he threw for Microsoft employees, he had six tons of sand brought in, and then he held a contest to see who could build the best sand castle. By the way, Mr. Gates is a billionaire, and he has a mansion that could belong only to a billionaire. It has 40,000 square feet, a garage for 30 cars, video walls that show ever-changing displays of electronic art, a swimming pool with an underwater stereo system, and a room with a 25-foot-high vaulted ceiling to house his trampoline. His “yard” includes a trout stream. Also by the way, two of the world’s richest men, Mr. Gates and Warren Buffett, took a two-week trip together through China in October 1995. While riding a train along the Yangtze River, they became engrossed in playing bridge and missed the spectacular scenery until some of their fellow passengers drew their attention to it.
• Early in Charlie Chaplin’s career, he was very popular and he wanted to be paid in proportion to his popularity. Essanay Film Company executives were on the verge of giving him a contract for $1,250 per week, but they hesitated because this was a lot of money, especially back then when a usual normal salary was $6 per week. Mr. Chaplin hired a messenger to walk through a hotel where he was meeting with Essanay executives and to call out his name. People passing by, hearing Mr. Chaplin’s name, created quite a commotion and quite a crowd, and Mr. Chaplin got his contract. By the way, because Mr. Chaplin was a silent film star early in his career none of his fans knew what he sounded like. Just for the fun of it, he sometimes spoke in a high-pitched squeaky voice to fans who recognized him.
• In the early 1900s in Italy many opera singers were cheated. The impresario of an opera company used to hire people to attend the opera and boo the singer, then the impresario would come backstage and say that because the singer was so unpopular, he was forced to cancel the singer’s contract. The impresario would then say that the singer could continue to work if he was willing to sign a new contract for a much lower salary. One impresario tried to play this trick on tenor Enrico Caruso — Mr. Caruso punched him in the face, then left town.
• Major Woodward S. VanDyke II, USMC, was a Hollywood director who knew how to get a bonus. When he directed a movie, he would finish the first print early, in plenty of time to get a bonus for being ahead of schedule, and then he would start doing retakes and really direct his movie. According to actor Sheldon Leonard, “It was not uncommon for VanDyke to take longer on his retakes than on his original production.”
• Mark Twain was once down on his luck in San Francisco and almost resorted to begging. Here’s how he tells it: “I remember a certain day in San Francisco, when, if I hadn’t picked up a dime that I found lying in the street, I should have asked someone for a quarter. Only a matter of a few hours and I’d have been a beggar. That dime saved me, and I have never begged — never.”
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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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