My mother-in-law asks the darndest questions. "Tony Martin is coming to town. Who was he married to again?" Or "What was that movie where the little girl kept saying 'They're heeeere!' to the TV?" Or "Who sang that song in the Demi Moore movie with the pottery?" She'll call at the flip of a cell phone and quiz me, because over the course of a decade I've become her showbiz go-to guy. The man with the answers.
I don't mind being the razzle-dazzle reference librarian. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. In the days of Trivial Pursuit, I always got the pink wedge first and I've won wads of virtual dollars telling a televised Alex Trebeck things like "I'll take 'Stephen Sondheim Lyrics' for $1,000, please!" For some reason, my internal hard drive just retains all these entertaining entertainment data bits, gleaned from a lifelong love of almost all things showbiz.
Just the facts, Ma'am!
In the internet age, my value as the performing arts data Pez dispenser has diminished a bit in some areas, but I don't mind. The web is a an incredible resource for information.
Got a burning question? Without following the links, do you know how many Oscars were won by Cary Grant, who played Darren on Bewitched, or what group gave Fergie her musical start? Here's your online research syllabus for quick and easy answers in the four major entertainment categories!
General Reference
Google - We all google, and most of the time we use Google to do so! As Maria sings in The Sound of Music: 'It's a very good place to start!" In addition to its search engine capabilities, Google offers a great tool for the celebrity sleuth or star gazer: Google Alerts! Set up a free account and create standing searches on your favorite show or performer. You'll get up to the minute links via email on stories relating to the object of your affection!
Wikipedia - Called 'The Free Encyclopedia" and containing over 2.6 million entries in English alone, Wikipedia can be a great place to gather in-depth knowledge of your subject. Entries range from a summary paragraph to multiple pages of biography, critical assessment, professional credits and links to other resources.
Performer Websites
Feeling lucky? Try adding a www. and a .com to your favorite star's name. You may get an officially sanctioned site or a lovingly crafted, though sometimes creaky fansite shrine. Then again you might bump into what I call a URL pirate site. Many a performer's name has been hijacked by questionable entrepreneurs hoping to extort a big payday by selling the eponymous domain to the presumedly rich and famous performer. Comedian David Brenner recently told me that someone tried to sell him www.davidbrenner.com for a cool $50K. By comparison, singer Darlene Love was getting a steal, so to speak - only $10K for the right to use her own name as a web address. Both artists passed.
In addition to a professional personal site, many music artists and other performers have launched pages on MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube as a way of reaching out to fans from a safe distance. Search the membership pages. You might be surprised!
The bigger that star, the more likely you'll find a site. At the same time, the bigger the star, the less likely it is they will have any direct connection to the site or even know what is on it. It's always good to remember that the person reading your "let's be friends" invite is probably several degrees of Kevin Bacon away from the person to whom you are sending it.
Awards
The lovely and talented Rita Moreno has long been touted as the first Emmy-Grammy-Tony-Oscar winning woman in history, No disrespect, but it just ain't so. As we enter awards season, win those bets and get a jump on the office pool by studying the following sites. However, as the previous two conflicting links will show you it's always good to double check your facts before trying to collect your winnings!
PS: If you add the Golden Globes to the mix, then Moreno wins!
Movies
The Internet Movie Database - IMDb for short, is the grandaddy of entertainment reference sites, covering all things past, present and future for films, television and related fields such as documentaries, music video and even video games. You can also sign-up for a free account and inventory your movie collection onlne. Need more data? IMDb offers a subscription service, IMDbPro, that offers "insider" industry information on box office, celebrity representation and in-production works.
Television
Built by CNET, which was acquired this year by CBS Interactive, TV.com is a fan-driven site containing data on thousands of shows including cast lists, episode guides, blogs, forums, video clips and, of course, where to buy episodes on DVD or download.
The Classic TV Database covers a lot of the same ground, but a great feature of this site is the list of year-by-year prime-time lineups and a section on TV theme songs with lyrics and links to YouTube clips of the opening sequences.
Theatre
Run by The Broadway League and the Theatre Development Fund, which manages the famous TKTS half-price ticket booth on Times Square in New York City, the Internet Broadway Database covers Great White Way data like no other.
Named for legendary producer Lucille Lortel, the Lortel Archives is where you'll find anything that's been on off-Broadway.
Music
More than any other entertainment medium, music offers the widest range of styles and genres. No one site offers comprehensine data, but a good place to start is allmusic, which provides thumbnail views of a wide range of artists from pop and jazz to rap and classical, including mini biographies, discographies and cross-referencing links to composers, musical influences and similar artists. Sister sites include allmovie and, for the joystick jockeys among you, allgame.
Ever wonder where iTunes gets its data? Gracenote, formerly the CDDB, serves up the info for your play lists and you can search the site directly. A pair of equally valuable reference sites are ASCAP and BMI, the music industry licensing agencies that allow you to search by recording artist, composer and lyricist. These sites are epecially useful for tracking different versions of a particular song. If you interest runs to how a song, album or artist performed on the charts, Billboard allows limited search cababilites before requiring a subscription.
Finally, for afficionados of soundtracks or musicals, you need go no further than Soundtrack Collector and CASTALBUMS. Both sites offer extremely in-depth data on their respective fields and, if you sign up for free registration, you can catalog your collection online!
And there you have just the tip of the digital data iceberg. Depending on where you start, it can be an entertaining trip through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole or, to use another literary reference: Oh, the places you'll go!
Got a favorite showbiz website? Post it in a comment and I'll check it out.
Comments