Class Actor

need to push them forward in life. And those parents expect their children to follow through to build themselves up using the foundation that was laid for them. Of course, some kids fall through the cracks. Kids like to Forest. DeForest was born in New York City on Christmas Day. His father, Belmont, was a successful surgeon, while his mother worked as a commercial illustrator and eventually the art director of a popular magazine. The family grew up on New

York's Upper West Side. The Forest his parents and his two sisters. While his mother and father weren't as emotionally supportive as he might have liked, they made sure he was given everything he needed to succeed in life. If only he had shown any gratitude. The Forest wasn't a studious pupil. After bouncing from one private school to another, he was sent to Phillips Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts. But it wasn't his grades that got him in.

Someone in his family had pulled some strings in an effort to put the young troublemaker on a path toward Yale. But sometimes paths diverge, as they did for de Forest, who stopped attending the academy in nineteen eighteen. According to the stories, he was either expelled for shoving the headmaster into a pond, or he failed his way out. Regardless of the reason, it left a Forest with few other options. Instead of more school, he turned to one of his

first loves, the open sea. The boating trips of his youth had instilled in him a passion for sailing, which he carried with him into the Navy when he was eighteen years old. His service during World War One brought him all over Europe, an experience that seemed to push his rebellious nature right out of him. He was described by his superiors as a model sailor, but once he returned home to America, his disdain for authority and lack

of patience came back. He wasn't helped by the condition of his family, who had lost most of their money by investing poorly. The Forest had no funds to fall back on, so he did what he did best. He went his own way, seeking work wherever he could get it. He was an old friend from childhood who helped him rediscover another former passion of his from when he was younger, the arts. The Forest often liked to put on Little Place to entertain his family when they were visiting the

lake House Upstates. His buddy, Bill Brady Jr. Had been working at his father's production company and gave the Forest a job as a stage manager on a play by Bill's sister, Alice. But the Forest still wasn't satisfied. He wanted to do more than run rehearsals and keep actors on cueue. DeForest wanted to write the plays. He wanted to direct and attach his name to projects in meaningful ways. Months after his first stage managing job, he was given the chance to show everyone what he was capable of,

but not as a writer or a director. As an actor, DeForest cut his teeth in Alice Brady's nineteen one play called Drifting with a single line of dialogue. It wasn't much, but it was enough to plant a seed that would blossom into a brand new obsession for him. His parents, on the other hand, wouldn't approve of his new line of work. It felt actors were beneath them, but DeForest loved the admiration from his audiences. Critics were less kind.

They gave his performances middling and sometimes unkind reviews, but he didn't let them get him down. He worked harder and got better. That was the kind of guy. He brought himself up to be a fighter, and that persona carried over into his performances as well. In he made the jump from the stage to the screen, taking on bit parts in short films. Before signing with Fox, de

Forest debuted alongside another newcomer named Spencer Tracy. Tracy, also a former Broadway star, took a shine to the up and coming actor, and though they would only ever work together on one film, they spent huge amounts of time together, hanging out off screen and enjoying the not so occasional drink. Tracy liked the Forest so much he even gave him

a nickname. It was a name de Forest would carry with him throughout his entire career, a name that would conjure a clear image that could only be described with a single word cool, a lit cigarette, a double breasted suit, a tipped fedora, his granite like voice tying it all together. The forest you see was his middle name. Tracy simply called him Bogey after a while, so did everyone else. But on movie posters in mark Keys, the man the world fell in love with would always be Humphrey Bogart.

Many of the world's greatest inventions came about by accident. Richard James was developing springs to stabilize shipments at See when he accidentally dropped one. As it tumbled, he thought it would make a better toy than a tool, and thus the slinky was born. Silly Putty came about while an engineer named James Wright was trying to make a synthetic rubber during World War Two, and in n Earl Dixon and his wife Josephine also invented something by accident,

mainly because she was so accident prone herself. Josephine spent a lot of time working around her New Jersey home while her husband was at the office. She cleaned, and she did the laundry, but she spent most of her time in the kitchen. Despite her best efforts, her meal preparations were undermined by her clumsiness. Josephine often found herself on the receiving end of burns and cuts while cooking

throughout the day, but she powered through her injuries. At the time, there was no easy way for her to treat them herself. Her options were limited since she was on her own, and none of the methods she had protected her from infection. For example, a scrap of cloth wrapped around her cut finger wouldn't keep out dirt and often slipped as she worked around the house. Josephine eventually waited for her husband to return from work and ask him to tape individual strips of gauze to each wound.

Gauze and medical tape were in great supply in the Dixon home. Earl worked for Johnson and Johnson as a cotton buyer. After several weeks of patching up his wife, however,

he realized he needed to find a better way. Josephine had to be able to dress her scrapes and cuts on her own to keep them from getting infected, so Earle went to work literally Johnson and Johnson was already in the business of selling steriles urgical items to doctor's offices and hospitals, so he dipped into the supply closets and brought home surgical tape and antiseptic cotton gauze. To achieve his plan, he unwound a strip of tape eighteen

inches long by three inches wide. Then he pressed a thin piece of gauze down the center of the tape and covered it with crinoline. Finally, Earl rolled the whole thing up and gave it to his wife. Now, when she injured herself in the kitchen, she could unroll the gauze tape combination, cut off as much as she needed, and covered the abrasion herself. And Josephine loved it. Even Earl was impressed with his impromptu solution, he thought it might be useful to the company as well, so he

brought it to work the following day. His supervisor loved the idea and took it straight to James Wood Johnson, one of the founders. With a few minor tweaks, Johnson and Johnson soon put Dixon's invention in store shelves everywhere in nine Now clumsy customers could walk into any drug store and buy a roll of adhesive bandages for their own personal use. After a few years, though, it seemed Johnson and Johnson might have overestimated demand for such product.

Sales were rough in the first year, amounting to little more than three thousand dollars. The company started sending salesman on the road to pitch the bandages to pharmacists and doctors everywhere. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough to increase sales. Johnson and Johnson went back to the drawing board. They understood the product needed to be easier to use, preferably without requiring scissors, so they had new machines created to

mass produce smaller, individually wrapped bandages. In n the updated version of Earl Dixon's original invention went on sale and grew much more popular. Now all someone had to do was tug a small red string on the wrapper and pull out a single bandage, perfectly sized for the average cut or scrape. Customers love the new design and showed their appreciation with their wallets. Today, Earl's creation is sold in stores all over the world in all shapes, sizes,

and colors. Dixon himself moved up within the company, eventually becoming a vice president and a member of the board of directors. In two thousands seventeen, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and his contribution the band aid I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky

in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,