SEVERAL PEOPLE have appeared in two consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners. Meryl Streep was in "The Deer Hunter" and "Kramer vs. Kramer." John Gielgud was in "Chariots of Fire" and "Gandhi." And Russell Crowe was in "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind." Can you think of others? Streep and Crowe, by the way, were nominated for Oscars for both roles.

SOME ODD PEOPLE accidentally got canonized by the Catholic Church. Saint Josaphat was probably just Buddha. Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, was accidentally canonized in the fourth century. Castor and Pollux were the now de-canonized St. Cosmas and St. Damian. Other Roman gods who got sainted included Diana, Artemis, Helios, Bacchus, Aphrodite, Mercury and Silvanus. And St. Philomena never existed. Catholics mistook her for a martyr when the word "lumena" (meaning "dear one") was found on catacomb walls.

MODERN DEVICES need patron saints, too. Joseph of Cupertino was picked to be the patron saint of astronauts and air travelers because he could apparently fly. By himself. Claire of Assisi became patron saint of television after she saw visions of a Catholic mass on the wall of her cell. And Isidore is touted as a patron saint of the Internet because of his maniacal quest to gather the world's information on index cards.

TRISTAN DE CUNHA is considered the most isolated populated place on earth. Fewer than 300 people live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,

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1,500 miles away from St. Helena and 1,750 miles from South Africa. The British grabbed the place to keep it away from the Americans and, especially, away from the French, who might have used it as a base to free Napoleon from St. Helena.

DESPITE BEING THE home of Hollywood, for some reason Los Angeles has been snubbed repeatedly at the Oscars. The first movie to be set primarily or entirely in Los Angeles to win a Best Picture Oscar was "Million Dollar Baby," which came out in 2004. And Los Angeles doesn't exactly have a starring role, unlike the only other L.A.-based Best Picture winner, "Crash."

FOUR PEOPLE have been nominated in the Oscar acting category for movies in which they actually played more than one role. They are Jose Ferrer in "Moulin Rouge," Peter Sellers in "Dr. Strangelove," Lee Marvin in "Cat Ballou" and Nicolas Cage in "Adaptation." Of these, Marvin was the only one to win, for his dual role as Kid Shalleen and Tim Strawn, defeating that hack Laurence Olivier, who had been nominated for playing Othello.

AFTER LEAVING Genesis, Peter Gabriel only had one No. 1 hit, but that song was even more famous for its video. The stop-action animated video for "Sledgehammer" was created by Aardman Studios, which you know for "Chicken Run" and "Wallace and Grommit." The video won nine MTV Moonmen and routinely tops lists of the greatest videos ever made.

E-mail Paul Paquet at paul@triviahalloffame.com or visit triviahalloffame.com