The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep: The Friday Quiz: That's Entertainment

Two questions for your immediate and ruthless dispatch today, both tenuously and pointlessly linked by their actorly content:

On April 2, 1891, the English newspaper the St. James Gazette noted the accidental death of an actor from loss of blood. What had happened, and what famous role had the actor been playing?

What performer was offered the lead in an unlikely 1976 ABC sitcom called Our Man in a Rataan, about a reporter working in an isolated outpost in North Africa? The plans for the show fell apart when, in a meeting with Michael Eisner (then ABC's programming head), Eisner asked "Where do you see this character in three years?" and the actor answered "Suicide."

First correct answer posted to comments wins a Rataan sofa, sagging in the middle but perfect to adorn your never-used side porch. No Googling or sauntering over to your climate-controlled archive of 19th-century periodicals. One guess per comment but feel free to let those comments know who is boss of the comments (hint: it's you!)

Comments

Hamlet, after a bad swordfight?

Al Pacino?

Posted by: gavinedwards | February 29, 2008 10:43 AM

Romeo, with a real knife substituted for a fake one?

Dennis Hopper?

Posted by: hackly_fracture | February 29, 2008 10:57 AM

A gun hung over the mantel went off before the final curtain?

The actor was playing Peter Pan?

McLean Stevenson?

Posted by: boxjam | February 29, 2008 10:59 AM

He was a hemophiliac actor who'd been pricked as he was playing Prince Alexis of Russia.

George Clooney?

Posted by: bootsy3000 | February 29, 2008 11:13 AM

One close on #1. Nothing on #2.

Posted by: BT | February 29, 2008 11:17 AM

He fell from a faulty harness as he was 'flying,' playing Dracula?

Freddie Prinze?

Posted by: boxjam | February 29, 2008 11:43 AM

For #2: Paul Lynde

Posted by: boxjam | February 29, 2008 11:44 AM

Robin Goodfellow died when, ironically, an auto-erotic asphyxiation scene in a groundbreaking production on Midsummer Night's Dream involving a collar prop cut his jugular?

Posted by: boxjam | February 29, 2008 02:18 PM

2: Richard Pryor

Posted by: Scraps | February 29, 2008 02:42 PM

I think he does this to embarrass us.

1. somebody slipped during the blinding scene in King Lear (is there a blinding scene in King Lear? O, how sharper than a serpent's tooth, to not know a damn thing.)

2. Bob Denver

Posted by: Jonathan | February 29, 2008 03:49 PM

I think so ("out, out, vile jelly").

#2 - Andy Kaufman. Which, if true, makes me wish the show had been produced.

Posted by: boxjam | February 29, 2008 04:05 PM

The Scottish play, dagger slips, oops.

Kaufman is a genius answer. Ed Asner.

Posted by: art | February 29, 2008 04:15 PM

Or Bob Newhart.

Posted by: art | February 29, 2008 04:16 PM

Oh, no matter who the actor was, THIS SHOW SHOULD HAVE AIRED! It would have been legendary.

Abe Vigoda.

Posted by: hackly_fracture | February 29, 2008 07:16 PM

Bill Bigsby

Posted by: Jonathan | March 1, 2008 12:33 AM

Fred Grandy

Posted by: Jonathan | March 1, 2008 12:34 AM

Robin Williams

Posted by: Jonathan | March 1, 2008 12:36 AM

I've quite forgotten who Shylock extracts his pound of flesh from in Merchant of Venice....Antonio? Which now makes me think of Vincent Price's great Theatre of Blood and the multiple death scenes (Robert Morley, poodles, et al.)

George Carlin.

Posted by: art | March 1, 2008 02:55 AM

Bob Newhart would be the buttoned-down man in a rataan, I guess.

Bill Cosby (tho' I guess the Cos was never so biting)

Posted by: art | March 1, 2008 02:58 AM

The actor got shot when hit by a bullet or fragment shot out of a prop gun.

In an early post-modern interpretation of Othello, re-imagined as happening in the American South.

Oh, and the guy was Othello.

And for #2, Leonard Nimoy.

Posted by: boxjam | March 1, 2008 08:33 AM

For #1, Mercutio in the sword fight, in the Drawing Room.

Posted by: Jonathan | March 1, 2008 06:45 PM

#2 Nipsy Russell

Posted by: boxjam | March 1, 2008 11:06 PM

#2 Redd Foxx

Posted by: boxjam | March 1, 2008 11:07 PM

#2 The guy who played Lamont

#2 John Schuck

Posted by: boxjam | March 1, 2008 11:08 PM

#2 Chuck Barris

Posted by: Jonathan | March 1, 2008 11:18 PM

I think #1 was Polonius getting the sharp end of the sword during Hamlet. No basis for this, but I like to think that Lee Majors was the second answer.

Posted by: james | March 3, 2008 02:54 PM

#2 Steve McQueen

Posted by: Jonathan | March 3, 2008 08:08 PM

1. Julius Cesar
2. Bob Hope, Mr. Bob Hope

Posted by: herbivorous | March 3, 2008 09:44 PM

2. William F. Buckley

Posted by: Jonathan | March 5, 2008 01:31 PM

Steven Wright? (Or am I having a brain problem again? You know the deadpan guy...)

Posted by: art | March 7, 2008 03:45 AM