The Blue Angel (1930)

Film: The Blue Angel (1930)

Stars: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich

Director: Josef von Sternberg

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Marlene Dietrich: click here to learn more about Ms. Dietrich (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Marlene Dietrich is purposefully getting five Saturday's this month both because she's one of my favorite onscreen performers (I've yet to see a bad performance from her, though double check back with me when the month is done) and because her career was very, very long.  We could honestly do a year on Dietrich and not get to everything.  So we're going to start at the very beginning, with a film that launched her career, and the first feature-length sound film to be shot in German.  The movie was directed by Josef von Sternberg, who would become the "Svengali" to Dietrich early in her career (more on him next week), making seven films together, almost all of which are regarded today as classics.  Dietrich was cast in this film from relative obscurity (she had been doing musicals in Berlin and Vienna at the time in increasingly larger roles), and it made enough money for Paramount (the US distributor of the film) for them to sign Dietrich to a long-term star contract, primarily in hopes that she could do for their studio what Greta Garbo was doing for MGM (the two two stars have had so much gossip written about their relationship it's impossible to tell truth-from-fiction...they were either one-time lovers or rivals that claimed they'd never met).  She would come to equal Garbo, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  Let's discuss this week the one film this month we'll talk about where Dietrich is speaking her native language of German, The Blue Angel.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses primarily not on Dietrich, but on Oscar-winner (and the bigger star at the time) Emil Jannings, playing a stuffy professor named Immanuel Rath, who one night goes to the club the Blue Angel, which allegedly his male students (who mock him mercilessly but also fear him) have been sneaking off to and are obsessed with a headliner there named Lola Lola (Dietrich).  Rath becomes infatuated with Lola, slowly-but-steadily making rasher decisions (including spending the night with her), which his students find out about, and stage a huge rebellion against him, now basically blackmailing him collectively, which causes him to have his job threatened.  Rather than leave Lola, he marries her and quits his job, but they cannot remain happy.  Lola is not interested in monogamy, and he is consumed by jealousy as he sees her lusted at every night by adoring men, including other men in the troupe who try to bed her.  Humiliated, and dependent on a woman who doesn't respect him for money, he takes a job as a clown in the club, eventually being seen by his former students & fellow professors as a fallen man, all the while his wife is cheating right in front of him (literally, she's kissing another man) while he's trying to make money onstage.  He leaves the club, sneaks back to his classroom, and dies.

The story of The Blue Angel, a fallen man who gives up everything for the love of a woman he doesn't understand, has been told countless times in film history, and I suspect even in 1930 wasn't "new."  The first 45 minutes of this movie, to be honest, is kind of a snore, with Jannings' professor a giant killjoy and the movie not really sure whether to make him truly absurd or just bemused (they fail in the balance there).  The back half is much better, and the tragedy works because Jannings plays his gruff teacher not as someone that automatically invites sympathy (he is, in the beginning, too stuffy & self-righteous), but instead as someone who tried to see the world, but couldn't understand it.  From a modern lens, he is very much a fool, and one who tries to tame a woman who has no interest in being tamed (a look we don't really celebrate in men anymore, and for good reason), but it's hard not to pity him in the final moments, not because of his jealousy, but because he has no concept of what love is, and that is his downfall.

Dietrich has a smaller role here than you'd assume, and were this released today, we'd have a serious argument about whether this is "supporting or lead" in terms of category fraud.  She's good though.  Dietrich was not yet on solid ground with her onscreen persona (that'd take a few more years), but you can see the shock & awe of her here.  Sexy, perfect bone structure, and that sultry baritone already prepackaged, she steals pretty much every scene she's in (and Jannings is good in this movie, so that's not an easy task), playing her character not as someone who is intentionally cruel, but who has such a different worldview than Jannings, she can't comprehend how much more serious he is about her than she is about him.  It's a tough part to play, making Lola not be a true villain (which I think the script wants her to be), but Dietrich is capable in her first major role.

Oscar's Rare "Sole Nomination" Lineups

One of my favorite under-reported aspects of this year's Oscar race has been around the randomness of the Best Original Song category.  The field is a bit weak this year; Disney seems to be in a position of power with probable nominations for Frozen II and The Lion King (the allure of giving Beyonce an Oscar is going to be too hard for Oscar to ignore), but overall there's no clear frontrunner for the win, and quite frankly you'd be hard-pressed to find a song that's an obvious frontrunner this year for even a nomination (pretty much everything is "on the bubble")?

One of the tunes that has been getting praise and buzz, despite coming from an under-seen movie, is "Glasgow" from Wild Rose, a British musical film that came out earlier this year with little fanfare.  The song in it, though, is written by Oscar-winning actress Mary Steenburgen.  Steenburgen, star of films like Melvin and Howard, Ragtime, and The Help, is not a noted songwriter, and isn't even in the film as an actor, but contributed the song and as a result could be looking at her second Oscar nomination nearly forty years after she won Best Supporting Actress.

Steenburgen's potential nomination also sets up something unique for Oscar trivia lovers-it could put to end one of the rarest of acting fields: a list of people who won their only nomination for that specific performance.  This is a wonky bit of trivia, so let me explain.  In 1980, the nominees were all first-timers: Steenburgen, Cathy Moriarty, Eileen Brennan, Eva La Galliene, and Diana Scarwid.  This is unusual, but not totally rare-in 1999, for example, all of the Best Supporting Actress nominees were first-timers as well.  What is strange for 1980 is that none of these women would ever be nominated for an Oscar again (in 1999, for comparison's sake, Angelina Jolie, Samantha Morton, and Catherine Keener would all be cited in the future).  This is extremely rare-in fact, it's only happened five times in the history of the Academy.

Steenburgen's nomination would end this streak, though it'd be one of the rare times this happened because of a non-acting nomination (another case of this is 1973's Best Supporting Actor race, where John Houseman is the only double nominee, not for acting but instead producing 1953's Julius Caesar).  I thought since we haven't done an Oscar trivia article in a bit that it'd be fun to look at the five times this has happened, and whether any other years will ever be broken.

Honorable Mention: This has never happened in Best Actress (all other categories have had it happen at least once).  1928-29 and 1932-33 are the only years where only one woman was nominated more than once (Ruth Chatterton and Katharine Hepburn, respectively), and considering how much they like to repeat in this category with actors such as Ingrid Bergman, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and of course Hepburn herself, it's probable that this may never have an all-new lineup again, much less one that stays "only one nomination for the full field" indefinitely.

1927-28 Best Actor

The Nominees: This is the only Best Actor contest this has happened in, and part of that is that there were only two nominees: Emil Jannings (winning for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh) and Richard Barthelmess (The Patent Leather Kid and The Noose).
Who Got the Closest: Arguably this one doesn't count, since while the nomination was together, both men were cited for two different films, so you could argue Barthelmess, at the very least, got two nominations in the same year (some people count him as a double-nominee).  If it does count, though, the closest to another nomination was Jannings.  He would star the following year in the Best Picture nominee The Patriot, which has the unfortunate distinction of being the only "lost film" to ever be nominated for Best Picture; his costar Lewis Stone got the Best Actor nomination instead.
Could We See This Broken?: No-Jannings died in 1950, after a horrible career turn starring in Nazi propaganda films during World War II, and Barthelmess died in 1963, after also fighting in the war (for the Allies).

1962 Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees: Ed Begley (the father of actor and activist Ed Begley Jr.) won for Sweet Bird of Youth over Victor Buono (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), Telly Savalas (Birdman of Alcatraz), Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia), and Terence Stamp (Billy Budd)
Who Got the Closest: Considering the legendary status of a few of these actors, I'm stunned it wasn't broken at some point.  Sharif certainly came the closest, as he is one of only four people (the others being Spencer Tracy, Anthony Franciosa, & Jim Carrey) to win the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama (for Doctor Zhivago) and not go on to get an Oscar nomination.  Savalas would also get a Globe nod for film acting (for 1965's Battle of the Bulge) and was surely in the conversation for 1967's The Dirty Dozen.  And of course there's Terence Stamp, who won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Prize in 1965 (The Collector-a film that Oscar would cite for Best Actress, Director, & Screenplay but not Best Actor) and was cited by the Globes & BAFTA in 1994 (for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) but was never nominated again.
Could We See This Broken?: Yes, it could.  The only living person from this lineup is Stamp, who is now 81-years-old and regularly works in high-profile projects (just this past year he starred opposite Adam Sandler & Jennifer Aniston in Murder Mystery).  His recent filmography is notable for a man in his 80's, but doesn't necessarily lend itself credence to "on track for another Oscar nod."  Next year he'll be seen in Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho with Thomasin McKenzie & Diana Rigg.

1980 Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees: As I mentioned above, the nominees were Eileen Brennan (Private Benjamin), Eva Le Gallienne (Resurrection), Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull), Diana Scarwid (Inside Moves), and the victorious Mary Steenburgen (Melvin and Howard)
Who Got the Closest: Surely Steenburgen.  The year after her win for Melvin and Howard, Steenburgen would get a Golden Globe nomination for her work in Ragtime, though Oscar would pick one of her costars Elizabeth McGovern when they were giving out citations.  If not Steenburgen, one could make the argument that Brennan had a shot at a nomination years before Private Benjamin had she been included for The Last Picture Show, which also favored her costars (in this case Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn), despite Brennan getting a BAFTA nod for the film (I have seen the film, and Brennan is significantly better than Burstyn, and the two have such similar names I'm still suspicious that Oscar voters just mixed up the names).
Could We See This Broken?: Obviously, as I mentioned above, Steenburgen is in play and could end this category's streak this year if she's nominated for Wild Rose.  Otherwise, this remains the most promising list regardless; Steenburgen works regularly (she was on big screens last year in Book Club), as does Moriarty (she had a notable role in Patti Cake$ a few years back).  Scarwid is still alive, but hasn't made anything in either years, while Brennan passed away in 2013 and Le Gallienne (who was always more of a stage actress anyway) died in 1991.

1985 Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees: Legendary actor Don Ameche (Cocoon) won, beating Klaus Maria Brandauer (Out of Africa), William Hickey (Prizzi's Honor), Robert Loggia (Jagged Edge), and Eric Roberts (Runaway Train)
Who Got the Closest: Roberts was a Golden Globe nominee for 1983's Star 80 before he made it to the Oscars (four years before his sister) with Runaway Train.  Otherwise none of these actors really (before or after) had a shot at the Oscar.  Don Ameche had been working in films for decades before his career revival in the 1980's with Trading Places and Cocoon, but none of those films stand out as near misses or even "I should get a Ralph Bellamy in The Awful Truth" style contenders.
Could We See This Broken?: Probably not.  Of the nominees, the only two that are still living are Brandauer and Roberts, but Brandauer very rarely works in America (usually preferring German television), and Roberts works constantly (though it's hard to quantify such things, it's claimed he has more film and TV credits than any other actor), his work in more mainstream Hollywood films that people might actually see is more in films like The Expendables and Lovelace than in prestige fare such as Inherent Vice (his most noted film of the decade)...and mostly he just appears in pictures that aren't even worth creating a Wikipedia page they're so small.

1987 Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees: Oscar went with Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis's cousin Olympia (for Moonstruck) with the other nominees being an eclectic bunch of character actors & screen legends: Norma Aleandro (Gaby: A True Story), Anne Archer (Fatal Attraction), Anne Ramsey (Throw Momma from the Train), and Ann Sothern (The Whales of August)
Who Got the Closest: Aleandro, maybe?  Her work in The Official Story definitely had buzz in 1985 (it would win the Oscar Best Foreign Language Film as well as be nominated for Original Screenplay, and Aleandro would take the top prizes from the NYFCC and Cannes), so I think she would have been in contention that year before eventually being cited for Gaby.  Otherwise Sothern had a significant role for A Letter to Three Wives (perhaps skipped due to internal competition from costars Jeanne Crain and Linda Darnell?), and Anne Archer was a part of the gigantic cast of Short Cuts.
Could We See This Broken?: I doubt it, as most of these women were far more known for their work in television (Sothern, Ramsey, Dukakis) than for movies.  Dukakis, Aleandro, and Archer are all still alive, but they don't star in movies that would get this kind of recognition, and mostly relegate themselves to infrequent work in TV and the stage.

Oscar-Connected Lost Films, Part 1

As it is 31 Days of Oscar, the only true holiday that happens in February in my humbled opinion, it is time to note a few of the films that are missing in the world of cinema.  As (quite often) presumably lost films are found in the attics of the children and grandchildren of studio heads, long-ago cinematographers and producers and directors, I figured I'd put together a list of twenty standout films that either are missing and are Oscar-nominated, or are connected to an Oscar-nominated star or director.  This list isn't complete, but more focused on twenty films that stand out to me as missing because of their Oscar connections-share some more in the comments!

Note: For the sake of the article I stuck to feature-length films, though I'm aware there are some short films that have been nominated for Oscar and are missing.  If you find those, we'll be just as excited-I promise!

Second Note: I'm not counting films that might be partially lost (A Star is Born, The Dove, and Sorrell and Son come to mind).  If I'm missing a feature-length film that was nominated for an Oscar that is considered lost, please let me know and I shall amend this article.

10. The Magic Flame (1927)

A weird entry on the list, as it's not exactly clear if this is just partially lost or completely lost.  Nominated for Best Cinematography at the first Academy Awards, the film stars future Oscar-winner Ronald Colman as a clown.  It's unclear whether the George Eastman House actually has a copy of this (or a partial copy of this) or not based on what I've found online.  Any representative from the organization want to clear things up?

9. The Devil Dancer (1927)

This one seems to be confirmed to be lost, so I put it one higher.  George Barnes was nominated for Best Cinematography for a number of films at the first Oscars, two of which are considered lost, including this one which starred Clive Brook and Anna May Wong.

8. The Awakening (1928)

Not related in any way to the novel by Kate Chopin, The Awakening is one of those 1929-30 nominees that's not "actually a nominee" so it's hard to tell how it stands here, but considering AMPAS Database lists it, I am keeping it on the list.  The film was directed by Victor Fleming, who eleven years later would have his Oscar glory realized, directing both The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.

6 (tie). The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930) and Song of the Flame (1930)

I'm grouping these together as they were both nominated the same year for Best Sound Recording, and both lost.  Sergeant Grischa starred Oscar nominee Betty Compson and Jean Hersholt, the latter of which got a statue named after him by AMPAS, while Song of the Flame was the first color film ever to feature a widescreen sequence.

5. The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

The Private Life of Helen of Troy was nominated for Best Title Writing (the first and only time that was a category), and also was the first time that someone (in this case, Gerald Duffy), was nominated posthumously.  I put this slightly higher than the Sound nominees as I really want to see what set apart this film's Title Writing.

4. 4 Devils (1928)

In terms of seeing an actual quality picture and not just crossing a line off of a list, the movie I most want to see of this run-up is 4 Devils, and that's thanks to the magic brought about by its director and star in a film from the previous year.  4 Devils features Janet Gaynor and is helmed by FW Murnau, both of whom made Oscar magic the year prior for the masterpiece Sunrise.  The film was cited for its Cinematography by AMPAS.

3. The Rogue Song (1930)
Again, my penchant for the Oscar Viewing Project comes around, though this one makes it higher as it's one of only three films (that I'm aware of-correct me in the comments if I'm wrong) that feature Oscar-nominated performances that are considered lost.  In this case, it's Lawrence Tibbett's Best Actor performance in a film that also features Laurel & Hardy in a series of comic guest bits.

1 & 2. The Way of All Flesh (1927) and The Patriot (1928)
I couldn't pick between these two films, both of which star controversial actor Emil Jannings (also a Nazi sympathizer, he purportedly waved his Oscar to Allied troops to prove his association with Hollywood).  Jannings won his Oscar in part for The Way of All Flesh, making it the only Oscar-winning performance in a lost film.  The Patriot, on the other hand, is the only Best Picture nominee to be lost, and it also features Lewis Stone in an Oscar-nominated performance.  In fact, of the five films that Jannings made in Hollywood before his thick accent ended his career in the Sound Era, only The Last Command (the other film for which Jannings won his Best Actor Oscar) remains.

There you have it-the ten lost feature-length films of Oscar's past.  Did I miss any others?  If not, which would you most like to see?  And anyone who is related to a film producer or studio head, get to thy attic and start searching!

My 10 Favorite Trivia Questions

I love trivia.  It's one of my absolute favorite things-I cannot get enough of it, and I am a bit of a fountain for it.  One of my goals in life is to know at least five minutes worth of conversation about any given topic.  As a result of this, I have MANY different trivia questions that I love to whip out to stump people, but here are ten of my favorites:

Gov. Samuel J. Tilden (D-NY)

1. Which Men Lost the Presidency by One Vote?

These are not in order of personal preference, except for this one, as this is one that I came up with myself and it's my favorite stumper.  Three men have lost the presidency by one vote.  The first was in 1868.  President Andrew Johnson was on trial at the time and was impeached by Congress.  As a result, his removal from office was put to a vote and 36 "guilty" votes were required to remove him as president.  Only 35 were cast, however, so he stayed as president by one vote.  Had one more vote been cast, Senate President Pro Tempore Benjamin Wade of Ohio would have assumed the presidency.  Wade would have a rough year in 1868: he lost the presidency by one vote, was denied the vice presidency when Ulysses S. Grant refused to give in to party pressure and nominate him, and then would lose reelection to his Senate seat later that year.  Were it not for one vote, he would have become our nation's 18th president for about ten months in 1868.

The second man was eight years later, and his name is Samuel J. Tilden, at the time a New York governor who was running for the presidency.  Tilden actually won the popular vote by a healthy three-points in 1876, but the electoral college was basically a tie against Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes.  Several states (Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon) had electors that were disputed whether or not the Republican or the Democrat had won.  Since Tilden had 184 electors already locked up, had he taken just one of the twenty electoral votes these states had, he would have won the election.  Since no one could properly decide who won the states, Congress decided a commission of seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one Supreme Court justice would decide on the victors.  Justice David Davis, famously independent, was to be that justice, but the Illinois State Senate, in hopes of bribing Davis to pick Tilden, offered him a Senate seat, which he took, but as a result had to resign his position on the Court.  As a result, there were only Republicans left on the court and the commission voted 8-7 on all twenty electoral college votes, effectively handing the election to Hayes.

The final instance happened relatively recently, with Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush.  With the election being hauntingly close (though Gore won the popular vote), everything came down to Florida.  The recounts intricacies were so minute (this was the closest statewide election in the history of the Republic, so pretty much any nuance you could find in election law could result in a switch of the victor) that the Supreme Court's decision may well have cost Vice President Gore the election (the media in subsequent analysis decided that a victory for Gore at the high court would have resulted in anything from a win for Governor Bush by 496 votes to a victory for the Vice President by 161 votes).  The Supreme Court denied Gore's recount in select counties in Florida by a 5-4 decision, effectively handing the White House to Governor Bush.

It should be noted that we actually know who cast these three deciding votes: Sen. Edmund Ross of Kansas was the final Republican defector in 1868, denying Wade the presidency, Justice Joseph Bradley was the Supreme Court justice who got Republicans their eighth vote in the Tilden/Hayes elections, and based on the order in which the Supreme Court votes, Justice Clarence Thomas (who was appointed by George W. Bush's father, coincidentally enough) would have been the fifth vote in 2000.  It's also worth noting that Wade, Tilden, and (so far) Gore never ran for the White House again.

Emil Jannings

2. What Oscar Winner used his Oscar statue to prove to Allied troops he was from Hollywood?

Emil Jannings was a German actor who won the first Best Actor Oscar (I believe it was actually the first award of the night, so he won the first Oscar, period) for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh.  Later in his career, the man with a thick German accent couldn't transition into talkies, but did find his way into Nazi propaganda films, many under the supervision of Joseph Goebbels.  As a result of this, when the Allied troops came to Germany in the Spring of 1945, he was potentially in danger, and as a result, reportedly came out into the streets waving his Oscar over his head in hopes of them recognizing his association with Hollywood.  Jannings was subject to denazification, and as a result never made another motion picture after the war.

It's worth noting that Jannings is associated with two other pieces of Oscar trivia, both also quite sad.  His performance in The Way of All Flesh is the only Oscar-winning performance to currently be considered "lost," while his performance in The Patriot is also lost.  The Patriot is the only Best Picture nominee to have that designation.  In fact, only one of Jannings' five Hollywood films (The Last Command) is fully-intact.  Jannings played a role in a later Best Picture, however, as he was a character (played by Hilmar Eichhorn) in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

Park Young-Seok

3. What is a True Explorers' Grand Slam, and who was the first person to complete it?

If there is a Mount Everest of adventuring, it oddly enough doesn't end with Mount Everest.  It's the True Explorers' Grand Slam, which is topping all of the Seven Summits (the seven highest mountains on each continent), as well all of the 8000-meter mountains in the word (there are 14 of them, all in the Himalayas), and also reaching the North and South Pole.  This feat was first accomplished in 2005 by Park Young-Seok, who reached the North Pole in 2005 after completing all of the other mountains and expeditions.  Young-Seok went missing six years later while mounting Annapurna (one of the more treacherous eight-thousanders), and is considered dead, but lives on in adventuring legend for this accomplishment.

Gabriel in Da Vinci's Annunciation

4. How many angels are there in the Bible?

The answer is roughly 2.5, cheekily enough.  Two full-on angels are named in the Bible: Gabriel, who is the most mentioned angel in the Bible by name, who appears in the Book of Daniel as well as is the angel who announces the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, and then there's Michael, the archangel who appears in the Books of Daniel and Jude.

However, there are two angels that appear in the Bible that are "fallen angels," so 2.5 seems like a more appropriate answer.  The first of these is Lucifer, who is mentioned in the Books of Isaiah and Luke, and was considered the "most beautiful and powerful" angel until his fall, and he is generally associated with Satan.  Then there is Abaddon, who is briefly mentioned in Revelation 9:11 as the king of an army of locusts.

It's worth noting that there are two other angels that feature prominently in sects of the Christian faith, though are not mentioned in all different versions of the Bible.  Raphael, for example, features prominently in the Book of Tobit, which is part of the Catholic Bible but not part of the Protestant or Jewish Bibles, while the Book of Enoch (which is part of some Orthodox liturgy) features the angel Uriel.

Gen. Galusha Pennypacker

5. What General Couldn't Vote for His President?

Galusha Pennypacker is not just a man with the greatest name you've ever heard, he's also a famous overachiever.  During the Civil War, Pennypacker was in the Second Battle of Fort Fisher and fought valiantly, though received what at the time was thought to be a fatal wound, and was promised by General Alfred Terry that he would receive a brevet promotion for his bravery that day.  As a result, he was promoted to brigadier general on January 15, 1865.

However, Pennypacker actually survived this incident, and won a full promotion on February 18th, just four months shy of his 21st birthday.  As the voting age at the time was 21, Pennypacker became the first and so far only man to hold the office of general while not being able to legally vote for his president (he also received the Medal of Honor).  Considering that the voting age and the age for admission into the Army are now the same, it seems extremely likely that this is a distinction that Pennypacker will hold forever.  Pennypacker did eventually die of his Civil War injuries, but not until fifty years later, and is buried at Philadelphia National Cemetary

Queen Elizabeth II

6. What is the Royal Family's Last Name?

The (as of today) still unnamed princess born to William and Kate may not have a first name yet, but she does have a last name, even if it isn't widely-known by the public.  The last name of members of the Royal Family is either Mountbatten-Windsor or just Windsor.

The distinction is between those who have their "royal family" status as a result of Queen Elizabeth II and those that have it as a result of George V.  The former were given their last name as a result of an Order in Council issued by the Queen in 1960, which combined the royal names of Prince Philip's family and her majesty's family.  Prince Philip's family (he was a Greek prince) actually assumed Mountbatten during the war after a request from Prince Louis to King George V to move from Battenberg to Mountbatten.  Prince Louis of Battenberg was the grandfather of Prince Philip.

The House of Windsor started in 1917. At the time, anti-German sentiment was high in England and there was an emerging anti-monarchy sentiment across the continent (resulting in the assassinations of Emperor Nicholas II and his family in Russia).  As Nicholas II was a cousin of King George V, the monarch was convinced to change the family's name, which was the extremely German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to something a bit more British.  They chose Windsor since it was the name of a well-known castle, and declared it by royal proclamation in 1917.

As a result of this, any member of the royal family who derives their royal status from Queen Elizabeth II (such as her children and male-line grandchildren) have the last name of Mountbatten-Windsor, while any members of the royal family who derive their royal status from King George V (these would be the Queen's cousins, such as the Duke of Gloucester and Prince Michael of Kent) have the last name Windsor.

Eva, Zsa Zsa, and Magda Gabor

7. How many times did the Gabor sisters get married?

Long before the Kardashians became the fodder of every tabloid story known to man, there was another trio of sisters whose every move and romance was chronicled by the press: the Gabors.  Extremely glamorous, the sisters were famed occasionally for their acting but mostly for their gossip-ready marriages.  Throughout their lives, the sisters married a combined total of twenty men (so far-Zsa Zsa is still kicking at age 98, though is reportedly in extremely bad health, so this number will probably remain concrete).  Amongst their conquests were plastic surgeons, stock brokers, millionaires, playwrights, hotel magnates, a count, a prince (Zsa Zsa's current husband) and most famously an Oscar-winning actor, George Sanders.  Sanders has the distinction of being married to both Magda and Zsa Zsa.

It's worth noting that in twenty marriages, only one of them resulted in one of the women having a child (Zsa Zsa and Conrad Hilton had a daughter in 1947...Zsa Zsa also famously slept with her stepson Nicky Hilton during the marriage, and Nicky went on to marry Elizabeth Taylor, another serial bride).  Only two of the marriages didn't end in divorce: Magda's first marriage to Jan Bychowsky ended when Bychowsky died and Zsa Zsa's present marriage to Frederic Prinz von Anhalt is still valid (yes, this is the guy who was one of the men that could have been the father to Anna Nicole Smith's daughter...it's a fine line of millions of dollars and a royal title that distinguishes "trash" from "socialite").

8. What are the only states never to have elected a woman to Congress?

This used to be four states, but with the election of Joni Ernst In Iowa this past fall the list is down to three.  The states are Delaware, Vermont, and Mississippi.  It's worth noting that women have run for Congress in all three of these states, but none have emerged victorious.  Of the three, Mississippi comes across the worst of the trio: not only has no woman won a congressional seat in the state, but the state has never elected a woman as their governor (this isn't the case for Delaware or Vermont, where Ruth Ann Minner and Madeline Kunin have served, respectively).  It's also worth noting that as-of-today, Mississippi has six congressional seats representing it while the other two states only have three.  Mississippi does have a prominent state senator running in the special election to succeed Alan Nunnelee, but it looks to be a very competitive primary so we shall see if this finally removes this distinction.

If you want to expand this a bit, six states have never had a woman serve in the House (in addition to the above three, there's Iowa, North Dakota, and Alaska), but all three of those states have had female senators.  22 states have not had female senators as of today-looking ahead to the upcoming elections the most likely contenders to rectify this (should candidates run and win) are Colorado (where Attorney General Cynthia Coffman is considering a Senate bid) and Nevada (where Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Dina Titus are both looking at running or are already in the race).

Georges Braque's The Birds

9. Who was the first living person to be displayed at the Louvre?

Georges Braque was the first living artist to have his work displayed at the Louvre.  I cannot find the specific piece that it was (a little help in the comments?), but I do know that he had an installation piece called "The Birds" that was put into the Louvre in the 1950's, an extremely high honor for any artist.  Braque's career was significantly overshadowed by his friend and professional rival Pablo Picasso.  Picasso is frequently cited with being the creator of Cubism, but he actually did this in conjunction with Braque.  The two worked together for several years leading up to World War I (when Braque would serve in the French Army), and their art during this period is extremely similar.  Braque never really strayed from Cubism (while Picasso was constantly trying a new artistic style), and therefore has been relegated to more of a footnote status in art history than Picasso, who enjoys a position as one of the "greats."

Sigourney Weaver and Meryl Streep

10. What roles was Meryl Streep turned down for?

Like all things behind-the-scenes in Hollywood, there is some different interpretation for this question, but there are three roles that definitely Streep was turned down for: Miss Kenton in The Remains of the Day, Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth, and Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams.  It's worth noting that all three of these parts (which went to Emma Thompson, Cate Blanchett, and Jessica Lange, respectively) won Oscar nominations, which means that Streep's awards count could, staggeringly enough could be even higher by now.  There's also rumors that she was turned down for the part of Michelle Straton in American Gigolo, while other sources state that she was offered the role (which eventually went to Lauren Hutton) but turned it down because she didn't like the direction of the script.  She also was brought in to read for the part of Dwan in King Kong, but was thought to be "too ugly" by Dino de Laurentiis (this part also went to Jessica Lange).

Streep was also considered for two other Oscar-nominated roles.  She was originally going to star in Thelma and Louise with her pal Goldie Hawn but had to drop out when she got pregnant (not sure who was playing which role, but both parts won Oscar nominations, the same of which can't be said for Hawn/Streep's eventual pairing in the cult classic Death Becomes Her).  She was also considered for the part of Ripley in the Alien films, which won Sigourney Weaver an Oscar nomination in 1986 for Aliens.  Weaver and Streep were classmates at Yale together, and were constantly fighting over parts, with Meryl usually winning the leads (also, if you trade in celebrity gossip, Weaver purportedly dated Don Gummer before Meryl ended up marrying him), so this is probably a nice vindication for Weaver.

And there you have it-ten of my favorite pieces of trivia!  If you like this article, please re-tweet it or share in the comments, and I'll do another one soon!  If any of these trivia pieces surprised you or you have additional shares, put them there as well!