Hello Again,
My latest list is of things that almost happened. If some of these had actually happened, we might be looking at some things very differently. The close calls:
After the Spanish-American war ended in 1898, we almost made Cuba a state! Instead, President William McKinley lobbied for, and got independence for Cuba.
A young actor signed to a contract at Columbia Pictures in the early 50s was meeting with studio chief Harry Cohn for the express purpose of finding a suitable stage name. The name they chose for him was John Lennon. The actor's real name was John Uhler Lemmon III. We all knew him as Jack.
The center of the movie universe was almost San Bernardino, Ca, about 70 miles East of Hollywood. With its location adjacent to both desert & mountain environs, it was considered ideal for the fledgling industry. Many early film companies set up shop there. Wyatt Earp, who was living in SB at the time, appeared in some films made there. The still-controversial 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation was partially filmed in the area, and Director D. W. Griffith had the film's production office located there. The movie-makers were driven out by local church leaders & landlords who would not rent to movie people. Look at San Bernardino now, if you can bear to.
While the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, owner Walter O'Malley tried in vain to get a new stadium built at the Penn RR site at the corner of Atlantic & Flatbush. He arranged for a scale model of the proposed new ballpark to be made, and it impressed people, but the city fathers didn't bite, the Dodgers left for the coast, and the architectual plans & scale model were eventually sold to Harris County, TX, where it became the Astrodome.
RKO Pictures might still be around today if not for, of all people, John F. Kennedy. His father wanted to buy the studio and have Jack run it, but JFK decided to go into politics instead.
More Dodger stuff: Even though Dodger Stadium was built with private funds, it had to pass a city referendum, which it barely did. If it hadn't, Walter O'Malley had a tentative agreement to move the team to Phoenix.
The lead in Casablanca was offered first to a young actor named Ronald Reagan. He didn't think it would do much, so he turned it down. It was then offered to George Raft. He wanted too many script changes, so out of desparation, Warner Brothers offered it to Humphrey Bogart.
When Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick retired after the 1965 season, his post was offered to lifelong baseball lover Richard Nixon. He was tempted. He was already living in NYC working as a lawyer for Pepsi-Cola. He slept on it, and decided to give politics one last stab. I wonder if he thought about that decision after 1974?
In the late-30s, even though there was a thriving film industry in Germany, Adolf Hitler, through a Swiss intermediary, tried to interest Hollywood studios into making a film about, and starring Eva Braun. Only one studio, Walt Disney, showed any interest, then shied away fearing public backlash.
More Disney stuff: Leonard Goldenson, founding father of ABC, loaned Walt Disney $17 million to build Disneyland. The deal included exclusive rights to Disney programs, a partial percentage of Disney profits, and the option to buy Walt Disney Productions at any time during the length of the contract. That option was never exercised. Today, The Walt Disney Company owns ABC.
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright almost got a green light from the city of Chicago to construct a lakeside building exactly one mile high. To give you a better idea, the World Trade Center twin towers would have been only 1/4 the size of the building. The proposed building would have been over 30 blocks wide, and could accommodate over 100,000 people.
At different times, the cities of Baltimore, Oakland & Cleveland all threatened to seize their respective NFL teams via Eminent Domain. They all left, although one came back with the understanding that Eminent Domain would not be used as part of the new agreement.
It just goes to show you how one decision can affect and alter lives.
Thanks for reading. As Always, Anne Alogy