Gordon Bennett
Born in 1841, the son of an already wealthy newspaper proprietor, Gordon Bennett Jnr’s name became synonymous with the expletive “Gordon Bennett!!”, uttered as a polite alternative to the more profane exclamations that his behaviour encouraged amongst a suffering populace. Famed as an outrageous personality for a number of exploits (including flying his aeroplane through the open doors of a barn), Gordon Bennett’s favourite jape, on entering a restaurant, was to seize the table cloth at some hapless diners’ table and whisk it off, exclaiming “wheee!”. He would then shower the food-covered unfortunates with sufficient 100-dollar bills to more than cover the damage suffered, before proceeding on his merry way. No wonder that customers exclaimed “Gordon Bennett!!” on observing his entrance to where they were dining, a phrase that then passed into more general usage.