MISSING LINKS

HOW two seemingly unrelated figures in the news are joined by a series of unexpected connections.

NICHELLE NICHOLS

The pioneering Star Trek actress died last week, aged 89. Thanks to her role as Lieutenant Uhura, she has an asteroid named after her – an honour she shares with Lenin, all of Monty Python, Bill Haley (apt, given his band was The Comets) and…

LEMMY

… the late lead singer of Motorhead. He also had an extinct crocodile relative, Lemmysuchus, ‘one of the nastiest sea creatures to have ever inhabited the Earth’, named in his honour. Lemmy was once seen in a Kit Kat advert playing classical violin as a ‘break’ from his normal image, alongside Daleks demanding a cuddle. And although he did not embrace the ideology, the rocker was a collector of Nazi memorabilia. As is…

BRAD PITT

Specifically, he paid about £300,000 in 2015 for a threewheeled motorcycle that Hitler’s army used in Crete. One of Pitt’s pre-fame jobs was dressing as a giant chicken to advertise fast-food chain El Pollo Loco on the streets of Los Angeles. Also once donning a giant costume was…

MEGAN FOX

… who dressed as a banana to lure customers into the Florida smoothie shop where she once worked. The US actress has papyrophobia – a fear of dry paper – which means that she can’t touch newspapers or, more inconveniently, scripts.

She’s also afraid of the dark (nyctophobia) and of flying (aviophobia) – a fear she shares with…

SEAN BEAN

When filming The Lord Of The Rings in a remote mountain location, most of the cast went by helicopter, but the Sheffield hardman walked two miles in full costume. He once appeared in a photostrip for Viz magazine, in a story of an ugly man who had plastic surgery to be more successful with women. Somebody who starred in a real-life photo casebook is…

LISA NANDY

… who appeared naked in bed with another woman in a student magazine in her youth. Last week, she and fellow Labour MPs defied Sir Keir Starmer by joining strikers on a picket line.