Welcome to the Celebrity Alumni Page of THe MAFYA

COOL YALE MOVIE TRIVIA

• MTV (in 1998) bought the movie right's to a book by Josh Berezin '01 called "Getting into Yale" (containing Josh's diary of events in his quest to be admitted to Yale) and promptly changed the title to Getting into Harvard.
• The son of a Manhattan surgeon and a magazine illustrator Humphrey Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, sent to Phillips Academy in Andover in preparation for medical studies at Yale. He was exp.elled from Phillips and joined the U.S. Navy instead.
• Angela Bassett, Charles Dutton, John Turturro and Roger Smith were all in the same class at Yale Drama School (which are usually 14-16 people), and all were featured in Spike Lee movies
• The original script for The Boys in Company C (1978) was written by Rick Natkin for a film class at Yale University in 1973.
• Paul Giamatti, who appeared in Private Parts (as "Pig Vomit"), The Truman Show, and Saving Private Ryan, is the son of A. Bartlett Giamatti, late president of Yale. Paul also attended the Yale Drama School.
• Caryn White, who co-starred in Bruce Lee: The True Story (1978), is currently the Director of the Program in International Educational Resources at Yale.
• Dorothy Parker, who wrote A Star is Born and The Fan, once said "If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end-to-end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised." Dorothy Parker did not go to Yale, but she spent a great deal of time in the Taft Hotel--ostensibly "dabbling" in Yale undergraduate life by spending time there with willing Yale men. She wrote extensively about her experiences in New Haven...and about her fondness for Yale men while she stayed at the Taft.
• The Courage of the Common Place (1917) was filmed at Yale.
• Fox's "Class of 1996" (1992) was set in "Havenhurst College" loosely based on Yale University.
• Filmmakers David W. Keller and David Sutherland shot a documentary called HALFTIME: FIVE YALE MEN AT MIDLIFE, on five Yale grads from the class of 1963. The five subjects -- chosen from a questionnaire sent to all grads for their class -- are in some respects a cross-section of American life, but they were wisely chosen more as individuals than as types. Members of the last college class to graduate before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy forever removed the luxury of innocence from American life, these men (with one exception) still exhibit signs of the lingering naivete of their generation being unable to comprehend the larger social issues behind their disillusionment. The five included Hollywood producer, novelist, and former president of Columbia pictures Steve Sohmer. The film was shown at their 25th reunion, as well as on PBS. Executive producer waws David Keller, a '63 alumnus.
• The Nurse of the Year in 1998 made a cameo appearance on ``ER''. Jo Ann Ahern, a nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital, was chosen at this year's Nurse of the Year by the Nursing Spectrum, which represents several nursing organizations.

Sources: Internet Movie Database, Yale Alumni Magazine, Rumpus Magazine, my eyes

COOL YALE MUSIC TRIVIA

• The two main creators of the original Woodstock included 24-year old Joel Rosenman, a Yale Law School graduate. The money for the show was supplied by the multimillion-dollar trust fund of 26-year old John Roberts, heir to a drugstore and toothpaste manufacturing fortune and a University of Pennsylvania graduate. Roberts had seen exactly one rock concert (the Beach Boys) before staging Woodstock. The two met on a golf course.
• In 1995, Michael Bolton was named a Hendon Fellow at Yale University.
• Probably the most famous Jimi Hendrix photo - a shot of Jimi's shadow falling onto a tattered Marshall amplifier - was shot at Yale's Woolsey Hall.