When it comes to professional legacy acts there are few that can stand next to The Fabulous Moolah's, male or female. Hailing from Kershaw County, South Carolina, The Fabulous Moolah born, Mary Lillian Ellisor had a rather peculiar entry into the wrestling scene. At the tender age of just 14-years-old, Ellisor married 21-year-old Walter Caroll. At 15, Ellisor had a child and divorced Caroll and left her child with a friend to pursue a career in wrestling.
In 1949, Ellisor found herself in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and won the NWA World Women's Championship in 1956 and held the belt for a total of 28 years making her the longest holder of the belt in history. Over the course of the next 27 years, The Fabulous Moolah would become the first woman 'allowed' to wrestle in Madison Square Garden, Moolah later helped lift the ban from women wrestling the state of New York. From 1983 up until her death in 2007, Ellisor was a major contributor to the WWF/WWE ushering in new female talent and wrestling herself. The Fabulous Moolah is the first woman to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
When we think of inventors, the image that comes to mind is usually that of a frazzled scientist toiling away in a lab, not celebrities pulled from the pages of Us Weekly. However, a number of well-known public figures hold patents for various innovations. Some are related to the work that made them famous, while others are offshoots of hobbies or just a single great idea.
Part of guitar wizard Eddie Van Halen's signature sound was his two-handed tapping technique, but letting all ten fingers fly while simultaneously holding up the guitar's neck could get a bit tricky. Van Halen came up with a novel way to get around this problem, though; he invented a support (top) that could flip out of the back of his axe's body to raise and stabilize the fretboard so he could tap out searing songs like "Eruption." While Van Halen was obviously interested in improving his guitar work, the patent application he filed in 1985 notes that the device would work with any stringed instrument. Want to tap out a scorching mandolin solo? Find someone selling Eddie's device.
It’s probably not surprising that James Cameron—who designed a submersible to take him to the deepest known part of the ocean—will often invent technology to make his films if what he needs doesn’t exist. He holds a number of patents, including US Patent No. 4996938, “apparatus for propelling a user in an underwater environment,” that he and his brother, Michael, created to film The Abyss and patented in 1989. The device is basically an underwater dolly equipped with propellers that makes it easy for a camera operator to maneuver in the water—and allowed Cameron to capture the shots he wanted for the 1989 film, part of which was filmed in an abandoned nuclear reactor.
In 1987 Jamie Lee Curtis designed and patented a disposable diaper that included a waterproof pocket that held baby wipes. She hasn't profited from her idea yet, though, since she refuses to license the patent until diaper companies make biodegradable products.
You know him as a rock legend, but Neil Young also loves trains—so much that he owns a stake in a model train manufacturing company and has an extensive collection. He also holds seven patents related to model trains, including Patent No. US5441223, "Model train controller using electromagnetic field between track and ground."