Classic Cohn

For Beesknees

While writing a pivotal scene one day (in which a business tycoon gives a speech to his board of directors), a certain Columbia Pictures screenwriter decided to use Spartacus's legendary oration to his gladiators. When he discovered the speech in the script, Columbia chief Harry Cohn was not impressed. "What the hell is this!?" he cried. When the writer tried to explain himself, Cohn grew even more annoyed. "I don't want any of that crap," he exclaimed. "I want a speech that every person in the audience will recognize immediately." "You mean like Hamlet's soliloquy?" the writer suggested. "No! No!" Cohn screamed. "I mean something like, 'To be or not to be!'"

Paderewski was once invited by an English duchess to perform at one of her dinner parties. Irked, however, by the pianist's fee, she opted not to invite him for the meal itself. "Dear Maestro," she wrote in a note, "accept my regrets for not inviting you to dinner. As a professional artist you will be more at ease in a nice room where you can rest before the concert." "Dear Duchess," Paderewski replied, "thank you for your letter. As you so kindly inform me that I am not obliged to be present at your dinner, I shall be satisfied with half of my fee."