Page 287 - Celebrity Facts

Goofy used to be a smoker.

The Disney cartoon "No Smoking" features a chain-smoking nicotine-addicted Goofy (named "George" in this cartoon) trying to break the habit and suffering from bizarre withdrawal symptoms. Because of its content, this cartoon has been kept off the air, and was even re-released with a more uplifting ending. To its credit, it's a much more negative depiction of smoking than the Flintstones. Here's the whole unedited cartoon:

Abraham Lincoln got the idea to grow a beard from an 11-year-old girl.

In late October 1860, at the tail end of the crucial 1860 presidential election, Grace Bedell offered sage advice to then Congressman Lincoln on how to win the presidency. In a letter to Lincoln she suggested that, with such a thin face, he would be better off "letting his whiskers grow". This way he would be guaranteed to win the votes of her 4 brothers and would inspire American women to convince their husbands to vote for him (1860s American women couldn't vote, but they loved beards).

Later, in February 1861, President-Elect Lincoln visited Bedell during his inaugural trip from Illinois to the White House to show off his beard. Bedell contacted Lincoln again in 1864, asking for a job in the Treasury Department to support her family that had fallen on hard times. It's not known if Lincoln ever read or responded to this one, though. Her original letter has since become a piece of folk legend. Both of her letters, as well as Lincoln's 1860 letter in response have been copied and can be read at the Grace Bedell Foundation's website.

In 1964, the BBC accidentally reported that Ringo Starr of the Beatles had his toenails removed.

The mixup was broadcast by BBC announcer Roy Williams after Ringo had his TONSILS removed. Williams later apologized in a follow-up broadcast, saying, "I misread the item. It happens to all of us, and I bet Ringo is glad I'm not his surgeon."
(source)

China tried to pass off clips of the movie Top Gun as footage of their air force.

China tried to pass off clips of the movie Top Gun as footage of their air force.

Recently, China Central Television (a state-owned television station) aired footage of air force training exercises during a news program. The clips featured an American plane being shot down. Internet commenters were quick to point out that the plane was the same plane that Tom Cruise flies in Top Gun. In fact the footage appears to be identical from a scene in that movie.

You can compare the frames from the broadcast with the frames from the corresponding Top Gun scene at Gizmodo or on this Wall Street Journal video. (The original footage has been taken off of the CCTV website).

The nude sketch of Kate Winslet in the film Titanic was drawn by the film's director, James Cameron.

Cameron actually drew all of the pictures in Jack's sketchbook! The hands that were filmed sketching Winslet's naked form do not belong to Leonardo DiCaprio; they are Cameron's. However, James Cameron is left-handed and DiCaprio is not, so in post-production these shots had to be mirror-imaged!

...and once again, we're borrowing a picture from the "Stormtroopers 365" series.
(Sources: 1, 2)