The Duke’s tallest story
QUESTION Matt Damon, 5 ft 10 in, played 6 ft 5 in South Africa rugby union captain Francois Pienaar in the movie Invictus. Is this the most notable movie mismatch?
The most ridiculous casting of all time must be John Wayne in the 1956 epic The Conqueror, about the rise to power of 12th- century Mongol warlord Genghis Khan. The Duke apparently dug the script out of director Dick Powell’s waste paper bin and decided it was the role he was born to perform.
Very little is known about Genghis Khan’s appearance, but a 2012 paper in the Journal of Archaeology suggests the average Mongol male of the medieval era was 5 ft 2 in. Wayne was 6 ft 4 in.
The golden era of hollywood was no stranger to ‘white-washing’ actors: Burt Lancaster as Massai in Apache in 1954 and Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi in 1961’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s are silly examples, but Wayne takes the biscuit.
To play the part of Genghis Khan, he applied a thick coat of make-up, shaved off his eyebrows, added fake eyelids and glued rubber bands to the top of the head with spirit gum to pull up the corners of his eyes. he grew a Fu Manchu- style moustache to complete the effect.
To make matters worse, Wayne couldn’t cope with the faux archaic language in Oscar Millard’s script, with lines such as: ‘She is a woman. Much woman. Should her perfidy be less than that of other women.’
After the first few scenes, Wayne gave up and simply delivered the lines in his trademark cowboy drawl.
The film was a mega-flop. hollywood mogul howard hughes spent millions trying to buy up every reel to destroy this stain on his reputation.
Jennifer Cotter, Amesbury, Wilts.
FAnS of Jack Reacher, the rugged hero of Lee Child’s 20-plus books, were looking forward to the first movie of many featuring 6 ft 5 in ,18 st, muscle-packed, scar-faced hero Jack, with fists the ‘size of a supermarket chicken’.
Imagine our chagrin when 5 ft 7 in Tom Cruise took on the role.
Without f i st f i ghts with American quarterback rednecks, but with camera angles to make Tom look as tall as possible, it was laughable.
Colin Campbell, Sunderland.
InTeRVIeW With The Vampire author Anne Rice was famously irked by the idea of Tom Cruise playing her vampire Lestat in the movie adaptation of her best- selling book. The 6 ft character is described as having blazing blond hair and grey eyes.
‘Cruise is no more my vampire Lestat than edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler,’ she said before filming. To give Cruise his due, he acted his socks off and changed everyone’s mind — even Rice’s.
‘From the moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me. he has the immense physical and moral presence; he was defiant and yet never without conscience; the guy was great,’ she said.
In stark contrast, Keanu Reeves looked l i ke Bram Stoker’s description of Jonathan harker in Dracula — until he opened his mouth to deliver the worst British accent since Dick Van Dyke’s in Mary Poppins.
To say his acting was wooden would be an insult to a tree.
Tiffany Campbell, Market Drayton, Shropshire.
QUESTION How do scientists calculate the weight of the Earth and other planets?
FIRST, we have to understand the difference between weight and mass. This is important because a mass of 1kg only has a weight of 1kg when it is being dragged downwards by the force of gravity at the earth’s surface.
Weight is the everyday experience — without gravity, objects are weightless yet still have mass, observable as inertia.
Mass can be measured in at least two ways, both being t he practical application of fundamental physics equations for inertia or gravitational attraction, by solving f or ‘ m’ ( the symbol for mass). You then get an equation that calculates ‘m’ from other known or measurable quantities.
The first modern scientific measurement of the earth’s mass was conducted in 1774 by measuring the deflection of a pendulum caused by a nearby large object of known mass. The large object chosen was Schiehallion, a mountain in Perthshire.
Its symmetry made it possible to guess its volume, and therefore its mass, by knowing the density of the rock. The deflection then reveals the overall mass of the earth.
It took several years to complete the survey and calculate an average density for the earth of 4,500 kg per cubic metre — about 20 per cent too little.
The masses of the planets can be calculated by observing orbiting objects — the time of an orbit depends on distance and combined mass — or the deviations they cause in the positions of other planets, which is how neptune was discovered.
The mass of the earth is known precisely — six million million million million kilograms — by observing the orbits of artificial satellites. Masses of distant objects are best estimates based on size and assumptions of composition (is it gassy or rocky?) in comparison with known closer objects.
Ken Wood, Newport, Gwent.
QUESTION Was the career of 1960s pop star P. J. Proby ruined after his trousers split on stage?
FuRTheR to previous answers, when P. J. Proby’s troublesome trousers gave way in northampton, he was promptly arrested for public lewdness. The arresting officer was PC Bryn harris, father of ‘Whispering’ Bob harris, the DJ who presented the BBC’s music show The Old Grey Whistle Test.
having seen Proby on many occasions, I’d say he certainly has a great voice.
Sue Varcoe, Cheddar, Somerset.
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