Tweet Off-Screen; At Their Worst- Stories From Bios & Memoirs

They are smarter, more ambitious, and better looking than most of us.
But, alas, they sometimes share the flaws of folks we know.
Here are some stories taken verbatim from biographies and memoirs.

I noticed that he had several really tough-looking guys hanging around off the aft rail of the back end of the ship. They sort of leaned on their knuckles. They were pretty rough. You sort of avoided them. I finally said to George when we were sitting together, “Who are these guys? What are they doing here?’ and he said, “These are bodyguards.” And I said bodyguards? Who’s attacking you?” And he said ,”No, you don’t understand. They’re protecting other people from me.”
Fritz Weaver quote from pages 236-237 Rage And Glory The Volatile Life And Career Of George C Scott by David Sheward
Among Scott's unprotected victims : Ava Gardner and wife Colleen Dewhurst …

He was a “man’s man,” with a man’s man sense of humor. When the score of Big Boy was completed, he invited Georgie Jessel over to his apartment to hear the numbers. Joseph Meyer, who composed the score with James F. Hanley, was Al’s accompanist for the occasion. ”I was playing along, when I heard Jessel laugh at the top of his lungs. Then I felt a warmth on my sock. I turned around and there was Jolson with his fly open, pissing on me.”
Al played golf at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 1940s. If he lost, he’d buy the winner a new suit or pay him an agreed on sum of money. If he won, the bet said he was allowed to urinate on the loser. Boxing great Joe Louis told sports journalist Art Rust, Jr., that he saw Jolson claim the bet on at least one occasion. Al pissed on a lot of people.
Page 174 Jolson The Legend Comes To Life by Herbert G. Goldman

A funny story. He [Lloyd Ahern] was over in Hawaii doing Hawaii Five-0 with Jack Lord, they were doing a scene and Jack Lord was very taken with himself. He got upset with something and started yelling at one of the extras or crew members. Lloyd, who is really a gentle guy, came out from behind the camera and went over to Lord and grabbed him and said,"Don't talk to people like that!"
Lord knocked Lloyd down, jumped on top of him, grabbed him by the throat, and started choking him, saying, "you're fired! Get off my island!"
Page 146 Hollywood Trail Boss by writer/director Burt Kennedy

A funny story. He [Lloyd Ahern] was over in Hawaii doing Hawaii Five-0 with Jack Lord, they were doing a scene and Jack Lord was very taken with himself. He got upset with something and started yelling at one of the extras or crew members. Lloyd, who is really a gentle guy, came out from behind the camera and went over to Lord and grabbed him and said,"Don't talk to people like that!"
Lord knocked Lloyd down, jumped on top of him, grabbed him by the throat, and started choking him, saying, "you're fired! Get off my island!"
Page 146 Hollywood Trail Boss by writer/director Burt Kennedy

Huh, I remember reading somewhere that Jack Lord was being considered for the James Kirk role in Star Trek. William Shatner's gotten a lot of press over the decades about his ego, but reading about what might have happened if Lord had been Kirk, I'm liking Shatner more and more.

"I've always been so glad I was in 8H that day because this tale has become legend. An oboe player was having problems, it just wasn't his day. After he had made the same mistake twice, the Maestro read the riot act to him. When he erred the third time, Toscanini really let him have it with both barrels. But the fourth time was too much. The terrible-tempered Toscanini in all his fury ordered him to pack up his instrument and to leave the studio forthwith, or the Italian equivalent of same, and to never return.
Instead of appearing distraught as one might expect in such a situation, Mr. Oboe Player was seemingly calm, cool, and collected and was taking forever to pack his oboe. Deliberately so. Meanwhile on the podium stood the Great One, arms folded and breathing fire, silently staring at the musician's laborious closing of his instrument case.
Finally the ejected one left his place and sauntered, almost casually, with his beloved instrument in one hand in the direction of the door. As he was passing the podium, he paused, looked up at the Maestro, raised his free hand toward his mouth and very loudly gave him the Bronx cheer, which, for the uninitiated, is a noisy expulsion of the breath through nearly closed lips with tongue protruded. The almost apoplectic Arturo Toscanini nearly fell off the podium as he screamed, "Iss a too late for apology! Too late for apology!"

Page 87 I Have A Lady In The Balcony by George Ansbro

The old time radio announcer's memoir also has a section on the Cliff Edwards, and Howard Cosell, radio shows, plus a chapter on working with Buddy Rogers on his radio show, detailing the decades-long friendship he formed with Mary Pickford and Buddy (including a tale of a drag club visit with Buddy where one of the performers did a Pickford tribute...

"Country fairs were a unique part of those years, gay and festive
times, and I always learned from them. It was between shows
one day, strolling around the midway, that Pat Buttram met
Colonel Tom Parker in Du Quoin, Illinois.
Of course, this was many years before he became immortal as
the man who discovered Elvis Presley (and Eddy Arnold, before him).
He was in front of a tent with a sign that said,
"COLONEL TOM PARKER AND HIS DANCING TURKEYS,"
and he was acting as his own barker. He was giving his spiel
to a growing crowd of farmers: "They dance, they do the hoochie-coochie,
come in and see these amazing creatures. Only a quarter."
It developed that he had a large table with sawdust on it and
underneath was a metal plate. He would arrange about twenty
live turkeys on it and then he'd throw on a switch and it would
become, literally, a hot plate. At the same time the colonel would
turn on the record player and the turkeys would seem to
be jumping around in rhythm to the music. The farmers would
turn to their wives and say, "Ma, how does he do it?" And the
little kids would go home and beat their pet turkeys, trying to
teach them to dance.
Pat asked the colonel just one question: When the temperature
picked up, how did he get them to stay in time to the music?
He said, "That's easy. I got a thermostat in there and when I want
them to dance faster I just turn it up a little hotter."
I knew then that he was destined for greatness. It didn't
surprise me when Tom Parker emerged as the genius behind
Elvis. He saw the whole world as a carnival. Years later, when
Buttram played a character called Mr. Haney on the television
series "Green Acres," he patterned him after Colonel Parker."



Pages 132-133 Back in the Saddle Again (1977) by Gene Autry

Elvis Presley died August 16 (the same year Autry's memoir
was published) likely unaware of the turkey-Elvis analogy
(and of the word analogy).