Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Another connect

More trivia. Less nerdy than usual.


Who connects, the fifteenth Poet Laureate of England, the 'first American hero', the only character to appear in all M*A*S*H* episodes, and the first detective story.

Hint: Think British-born Oscar winner leading male.













Answer: Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis, son of Cecil Day-Lewis, the fifteenth Poet Laureate of England, famously played Hawkeye/Natty Bumppo in The Last of the Mohicans, the movie based on James Fennimore Cooper's novel. The tagline of the movie was the first American hero. Alan Alda's character Hawkeye in M*A*S*H* supposedly got that name because Cooper's famous novel was the only book his father ever read. The movie's director Michael Mann felt the audience would snicker at the name Natty Bumppo. So Day-Lewis' name was changed to Nathaniel Poe. Poe, of course, is credited with writing the first detective story(ok, this one is a slight stretch, but I wanted four :) ).

Related Trivia: Cecil Day-Lewis had strong communist leaning and fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. He also wrote seventeen successful crime novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake, when he initially couldn't make a living as a poet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just obtained/watched the Director's Expanded edition - absolutely fantastic! The scenery is breathtaking and the soundtrack just adds that final touch. Plus, I loved the chemistry between Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe.

Have you seen his 3 Jim Sheridan works? If not, I highly recommend them.

sbkt said...

No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip.
Though my netflix queue is overloaded already :-D .