On Jan. 7, 1964, Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage was born. In light of his 50th birthday, NewsFeed has rounded up 50 facts you maybe didn’t know about the movie star. • He was born Nicolas Coppola and told The Huffington Post in 2012 that he decided to change his last name after actors on the set of his first movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) resented him because his uncle is the renowned director Francis Ford Coppola (and his aunt is actress Talia Shire). (Most of his role in that film ended up getting cut.) (The Huffington Post) • To stand out from his famous relatives, he chose “Cage,” inspired by the African-American comic book superhero Luke Cage. (New York Times) • A native of Long Beach, California, he dropped out of Beverly Hills High School after passing the GED, which boasts star alums Rob Reiner, Lenny Kravitz, and Betty White, to name a few. (Current Biography) • When Late Show host David Letterman asked Cage whether he drank beer in high school in 2010, the movie star said one time he and his cat devoured “a bag of mushrooms” that had been in his refrigerator. (Gawker) • When he was four, he would have this recurring dream in which “I was on the toilet and this giant blonde genie woman in a gold bikini would reach into the bathroom window like King Kong and pluck me off of the toilet seat and laugh at me.” (Playboy) • He met his first wife, Patricia Arquette, at a deli in Los Angeles. During their courtship, she asked him to bring her J.D. Salinger’s signature on something to prove that he really loved her (he did). They divorced in 2001. (Playboy) • Cage and Michael Jackson were both married to the same woman: Lisa Marie Presley. (TIME) • Cage and Presley met at a birthday party for rock guitarist Johnny Ramone, and the Ramones star was the best man at their wedding. (Johnny Ramone’s memoir Commando) • One of his favorite lines to deliver in a movie is “Vive la fucking France, man!” in Deadfall (2012). (EmpireOnline.com) • In Birdy (1984), he played a … Continue reading 50 Nicolas Cage Facts for the 50th Birthday of This National Treasure