Friday, September 28, 2012

Amazing Trivia for October

Back in 1976 I watched a made-for-TV movie titled The Lonliest Runner which was the story of a  fourteen year old bed-wetter who ran home from school every day to retrieve the wet sheet his mother had hung from his bedroom window to punish him. He races to get there before any of his friends pass the house.  All this running helps him become a gold medalist in the Olympics.

The kicker is... At the end of the movie the adult Olympian is played by Little Joe Cartwright, Michael Landon, from Bonanza (... and Little House)   Turns out, Michael Landon wrote the script and directed the movie.  Turns out, the script was autobiographical.

Michael Landon (born Eugene Maurice Orowitz) wet the bed till he was 14, and his mother would display his unwashed bed sheets on her clothes line for the entire neighborhood to see.  Landon ran track and field in high school and performed well enough to win a scholarship to USC.

I'm pretty sure that everyone named Eugene Maurice wets the bed.

Amazing.

....

4 comments:

Bekah said...

I appreciate the .000003 font nod to Little House.

And was that seriously his name???

Malott said...

Yes Bekah-Bek, that was his name... Obviously his mother's cruelty began at the naming.

I was approximately three years too old to appreciate Little House... Same with The Brady Bunch. When I was a senior at Milligan College, a freshman friend told me that his heart belonged to Marsha Brady. I could not relate.

Grammy said...

I'm still trying to wrap my head around him being half Jewish/half Irish Catholic from Queens. Did anyone ever look more like a WASP from Omaha???? When I was in 4th grade I was helplessly in love with him. I remember saving my allowance for months and buying all the iron-on letters to spell out Miccael Landon on the back of a sweater that I then wore every day.

Malott said...

Grammy... Love the sweater story. Did you ever have a crush on Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman?

Can't imagine you as a little girl... You never showed us photos. Can't imagine you as a zister sister either.