Shortly after the filming of From Hell (starring Johnny Depp), Albert Hughes (who directed the film with his brother Allen), was approached by "a major woman producer" outside The Ivy, a restaurant in Hollywood.

The producer handed Albert a piece of paper. Was she interested in working with him in the future? Yes, in a manner of speaking: she had handed him... her valet slip!

["This has happened a couple of times," Allen later explained, "but it's like, just because we're dark-complexioned..." As black-Armenian biracial kids, the Hughes once recalled, "we weren't accepted by white people when we were growing up, and we weren't accepted by a lot of black people either.. We've been outsiders our whole lives."]