Don’t you just love reading about those amazing coincidences that defy the odds and make you scratch your head in downright disbelief? If you don’t then it’s time to switch off the PC and put on blooming Masterchef or some other nonsense.
Violet Jessop and the Multiple Sinkings
If there is one person in the history of mankind that you didn’t want to see on the same sea vessel as you it was Violet Jessop. She worked as a stewardess on ocean liners and she was travelling on the Titanic when Leonardo DiCaprio and that actress who always takes off her clothes were on it. That’s not all though; this lucky Irish lady had earlier survived the sinking of the RMS Olympic, which was the biggest passenger liner in the world at the time. After surviving the Titanic (unlike Leonardo she was probably smart enough to realise when there was room for 2 people on a bit of wreckage) she was onboard the Britannic when it become the biggest ship to get sunk during WWI, after hitting a mine. She survived that as well.
The Wizard of Oz Jacket
I honestly didn’t believe this amazing coincidence when I first read it. However, it appears to be completely true. The story is that actor Frank Morgan was chosen to play in The Wizard of Oz. He’s the guy who plays a few parts, including that of the Wizard himself. Anyway, they sent him out with some other dude to find a jacket for him to wear in the film. They wanted a kind of seedy look suggesting someone who has known better times but whose life is now a bit of a shambles. They found the perfect jacket in a second hand store and took it back to the studio. What did they find when they turned a pocket inside out? They found a name tag telling them that it had belonged to L.Frank Baum in the past. That’s L.Frank “writer of the Wizard of Oz” Baum. His wife and tailor later confirmed that it was indeed the writer’s old jacket.
The Eleanor Rigby Coincidence
Personally, I find this coincidence a bit less shocking than the others featured. However, I’ve added it here because it’s one of the most famous coincidences in music. A young Paul McCartney was looking for a couple of names to use for his latest ballad. After a lot of soul searching he came up with Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie by looking in the phone book, stealing a company name and generally being all creative. It was later discovered that in his home city of Liverpool there is a grave with Eleanor Rigby’s name on it, right next to one for somebody called McKenzie. Actually, not right next to it but kind of close in a creepy sort of way. Strangely, it was discovered that the graves are just yards away from where Lennon and McCartney first met and where they spent a lot of time. Some people think that maybe McCartney was subconsciously inspired by the graves.
The Bullet of Destiny
When I was a kid I had a book about serendipity and this story was in it, meaning I used to spend ages thinking about Henry Zieglkand. You see, in 1883 his ex-girlfriend’s brother tried to shoot him but the bullet only grazed lucky old Henry and lodged itself in a tree in his garden. Lucky old Henry, eh? Sadly, he turned into poor old Henry a few years later when he wanted to chop the same tree down. It was a tough tree so he ended up using dynamite. At this point, the same bullet shot out from the tree, hit him in the head and killed him.
Anthony Hopkins and the Lost Book
This is another amazing coincidence that blew my mind when I first read it. You already know who the actor Anthony Hopkins is. He has kind of scary eyes and he’ll eat your brains if you aren’t careful. Well, before he developed a taste for human organs he was given a part in the film The Girl From Petrovka, by George Feifer. Hopkins couldn’t find a copy of the book so he travelled to London where he finally found one with hand-written notes on it, which someone had left on a bench in an underground station. When they were filming a couple of years later in Vienna Feifer said that he had lost his own copy of the book, with his hand written notes on it, when he lent it to a friend. Hopkins presumably put on his best scary look as he licked his lips as he brought out the author’s long lost book from his pocket.
