Font ResizeHEATH LEDGER and his sister Kate were named for the two main characters in "Wuthering Heights," later a movie starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. A 1970 version, starring future Bond star Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff, inspired 18-year-old Kate Bush to write "Wuthering Heights," which became one of her most popular songs. Also in Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown compared himself to "an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff."
WHILE DELL was named for Michael Dell, who famously founded the company in a dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin, Gateway was named for its address, 610 Gateway St. in North Sioux City, Iowa. In fact, the company played up its rural origins, using packaging inspired by Holstein cows and including the tagline, "Computers from Iowa?"
SOME BELIEVE the "club" in a club sandwich is the Saratoga Club in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. A line cook named Danny Mears is said to have collected bacon, lettuce and turkey between slices of bread. A different club in Saratoga Springs is credited with inventing potato chips. As the story goes, Chef George Crum got tired of a customer who kept demanding more thinly sliced french fries. At first, potato chips were called Saratoga chips.
THE FUNK BROTHERS played on more No. 1 hits than anybody else, because they were Motown studio's session musicians. Another legendary group of session musicians was the Wrecking Crew, which played on six
KEN FORSSE did animatronics for Disney before creating Teddy Ruxpin, which became a big hit in the '80s. The toy had a standard audiotape in its back, so it could talk, which was super cool back in the day. It even inspired its own cartoon. Sadly, the company that made Teddy Ruxpin was destroyed by the 1987 stock market crash and eventually went under. There have been attempts by other companies to bring him back.
WHITE CASTLE is thought to be the oldest American fast-food hamburger chain, and it is particularly famous for square burgers called sliders, which you can buy by the half-dozen. The chain was started in Wichita, Kan., at a time when ground beef was considered unsanitary, hence the "white castle" image, based on the Chicago Water Tower. Despite this, it came to be associated with stoner cravings, and even allowed its trademark to be used in the first Harold and Kumar film.
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