So what is the connection between Microsoft Co-founder, Paul Allen and Napoleon Dynamite?

If you guessed that Microsoft’s other Co-founder, Bill Gates (1), had something to do with it, you were right.

Watch Allen’s friend and partner trip the light fantastic with Napoleon Dynamite (2) in this video, which apparently brought down the house at a recent Microsoft conference….

“Bill Gates Goes to College”

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2679657

  

But that is not the only link.  If you include the actor behind the Napoleon Dynamite character, Jon Heder, you’ll find that Heder and Allen go to the same Hollywood parties:

  

http://www.wireimage.com/GalleryListing.asp?navtyp=GLS====155767&c4nvi=3&str=26859&styp=clbi&nbc1=1

http://www.wireimage.com/GalleryListing.asp?navtyp=GLS====155767&c4nvi=3&str=3342&styp=clbi&nbc1=1

  

And know a few of the same people.

Jon Heder recently starred in “School for Scoundrels” with Billy Bob Thornton (1), who also happens to be Angelina Jolie’s (2)  ex-husband.

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462519/

http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/id/1106305

  

Angelina Jolie has worked closely with Peter Gabriel’s (3) human rights foundation, “Witness.”

http://www.socialfunds.com/news/release.cgi?sfArticleId=4548

  

Gabriel is a good friend of Allen’s (4) who has performed with him and collaborated with him on multimedia projects for years…

See…

http://homepages.tesco.net/~david.pye/up.htm 

(and ”Answers to Nelson Mandela”)

 

 

And Angelina’s (2) new beau, Brad Pitt (3) was rumored to have dined with Allen recently at Allen’s Covent Garden creative arts hot spot, “The Hospital.”

See…

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1879509,00.html

  

So there are a few connections between Napoleon Dynamite himself and Allen.  But if you expand the search a little to include the movie, “Napoleon Dynamite,” there are even more links between the two.

 

For example, Haylie Duff (1) , who played Summer Wheatly in the movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” is the sister of Disney favorite, Hilary Duff (2).

Hilary Duff starred in “The Perfect Man” with Heather Locklear (3).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380623/

  

Heather Locklear starred as Officer Stacy Sheridan in  an 80’s T.V. cop show called “T.J. Hooker”,

With a guy named William Shatner (4).

 

For many years, William Shatner played some Captain in a television series, the name of which escapes me right now.

 

 

(O.k.—Captain Kirk in Star Trek :-) …

 

Paul Allen, who named his private investment company Vulcan, Inc.* has been rumored to have watched Star Trek once or twice….

 

At least he’s seen it enough times to want to pay $$$$$ for William Shatner’s Captain’s chair and put it in his Science Fiction Museum.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/play.html?pg=10

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Heather Locklear (3) has other connections too.

 

She starred in a little known project, “Retrosexual: The 80’s”

 

With Kevin Bacon (4),

 

who performed with Paul Allen onstage aboard Allen’s yacht, Octopus.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435578/

See “Cannes do”  and  “About” this blog.

 

 

Locklear also starred in “The First Wives Club” with Diane Keaton (4),

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000181/

 

 

Who starred in a number of Woody Allen (5) movies, most famously “Annie Hall.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Hall

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000095/

 

Woody Allen’s new projects include “Scoop” and “Matchpoint” both recently released and both starring…

 

Scarlett Johansson

 

….of the Perfect Score.

 

 

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And finally, no discussion of Napoleon Dynamite is complete without “The Dance.”

So here it is….:-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsZy2425eY

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Are you ready for the next question? As I told you last week, this is a hard one—

a within 6 degree connection between Microsoft Co-founder, Paul Allen and a couple of people who were famous in the 1800’s.

Stay tuned….

 

Ironically, Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. is not a reference to the Star Trek Vulcan.  According to a Vulcan, Inc. website, the reference is actually to the Roman mythological god of fire and metal-working, as “a metaphor for change and transforming great ideas into reality.” 

See…

http://www.clearblueskyfilms.com/TemplatePress.aspx?id=22