A missing watch was not the most audacious theft involving a dead actor.
In 1978, two men stole Charlie Chaplin's entire coffin from a Swiss cemetery and demanded $600k from his family.
Police caught them after monitoring more than 200 public telephone boxes. The coffin was found buried in a cornfield beside Lake Geneva and returned to the cemetery, this time inside a reinforced concrete tomb.
Instead of saying “once upon a time,” Korean folktales often begin with the phrase, “back when tigers used to smoke.”
The Korean expression “호랑이 담배피던 시절” roughly translates to “back when tigers used to smoke” or “in the days when tigers smoked.”
Tobacco reached Korea around the early 1600s and became widespread during the Joseon period. People commonly smoked through traditional pipes called dambatdae, made from materials such as bamboo and metal. Long pipes known as jangjuk became especially associated with wealthier Koreans and could even serve as status symbols.
Tigers once lived throughout the Korean Peninsula and became central figures in Korean folklore. They could appear as terrifying predators, mountain spirits, guardians, comic characters, or creatures that behaved almost like humans.
That made the tiger an instantly recognizable character for opening an old Korean folktale. The symbolism remains strong today: a white tiger named Soohorang was chosen as the official mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.