The Funniest People in Movies: 250 Anecdotes

This book contains 250 anecdotes about movies, including this one: Late in Peter Lorre's career, after he had begun to make bad films, a fan wrote him, "I would love to be tortured by you." Mr. Lorre wrote back, "You have been tortured enough by going to my pictures."

This is a short, quick, and easy read.

Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK, but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends.

Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism.

Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking.

- In 1988, Jodie Foster won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Accused. Following her acceptance speech, she joked backstage that she would immediately put the Oscar to good use: "I rented three videos last night ... and they said if I brought this in I would get them free."

- Craig Russell, a Canadian female impersonator of genius, wrote and starred in the cult classic movie Outrageous. When the film was shown at the Virgin Islands Film Festival, Mr. Russell had the pleasure of winning awards for both Best Actor and Best Actress. A comedian, Mr. Russell used to say, "I'm a drag queen. I'm a transvestite. I'm a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a homosexual. Other than that, I'm perfectly normal." He died of AIDS at the age of 42 on Oct. 30, 1990.

- Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and their families once ate breakfast together while traveling on a train. Mr. Rathbone excused himself from the table, picked up the morning paper, then began to leave the dining car. Ever-mischievous Mr. Bruce asked Cynthia, Mr. Rathbone's young daughter, "Darling, where's Daddy going?" Cynthia's answer filled the crowded dining car: "Daddy's going to do after-breakfast plop-plops."

- Jack Palence excellently played a bad guy in the 1953 movie classic Shane. However, he was a bad horseman. After several tries, he made a perfect dismount, so director George Stevens used that shot in the movie every time Mr. Palence dismounted -- and, by running the film backward, every time Mr. Palence mounted. In addition, in one scene Mr. Palence was supposed to gallop into town. But Mr. Palence was such a poor horseman, he finally was told to walk the horse into town. (This scene works very well in the movie.)