SLEEPING WITH THE STARS
Here’s to beds, bedfellows and zzz’s in memorable movies and TV shows.
Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk
Hollywood’s notoriously strict Hays Code prohibited the depiction of men and women in bed together for decades. But that didn’t keep the Three Stooges out of the sack in dozens of their comedy shorts, beginning in the 1930s.
TV Trials
TV censors famously kept real-life couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz sleeping in twin beds on I Love Lucy (1951–1957). Their singles were pushed together in early episodes, then separated after the birth of their TV son, Little Ricky. But another series (Mary Kay and Johnny) broke ground years earlier (1947–50) as the first sitcom on network television in the United States—and the first to show its stars, real-life married couple Mary Kay and Johnny Stearns, actually sharing a bed.
What a Kiss
Walt Disney’s 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty popularized the age-old fairy tale about a beautiful princess, an evil witch, a handsome prince— and a sleeping curse that could be undone only by a lover’s kiss.
Bedroom Shocker
Comedian Bob Newhart famously ended his 1982–90 network sitcom,
Newhart, with a real shocker, not because it showed him in bed—but because it showed him in bed with his “wife” (Suzanne Pleshette) from his 1970s sitcom, The Bob Newhart
Show. It revealed that the entire Newhart series had been a crazy dream!
Same Ol’ Same Ol’
Bill Murray sleeps alone in Groundhog Day (1993), but gets caught in a time loop and wakes up over and over again to relive the same day— repeatedly. His clock-radio alarm rouses him every morning to Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.”
Dreamy Leo
There are lots of folks who think Leonardo DiCaprio is one dreamy movie star. In the sci-fi mindbender movie Inception (2010), he plays a thief who steals corporate secrets through “dream-sharing” technology—and even plants ideas and dream scenarios into his marks’ noggins so he can poke around.
The Big Snore
Homer Simpson’s snoring kept Marge awake for several seasons. Her sleep didn't improve until a 2014 episode of The Simpsons when Homer, apparently diagnosed with sleep apnea, got a CPAP machine.