31 His younger sister, Pam, a former actress who appeared as a cheerleader in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, is now a celeb photographer. She took many of the shots that have appeared on his recent albums.

32 Bruce asked Patti Scialfa, who'd had an unsuccessful audition with him years earlier, to join the E Street Band less than a week before the start of the Born in the U.S.A. tour.

33 Several years later, he married Scialfa, with whom he now has three children. The wedding capped a tabloid courtship and divorce from actress Julianne Phillips.

34 Mindful of the marathon length of his concerts, a Houston radio station broadcast a hoax in 1984 in which early-morning deejays claimed Springsteen was still at the Summit performing the show that had begun the night before. The arena's switchboard was flooded with calls from fans.

35 In reality, the longest show Springsteen has ever given lasted four hours and took place on New Year's Eve 1980 at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum. Among the concert's 38 songs were "Merry Christmas Baby," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," "In the Midnight Hour" and, of course, "Auld Lang Syne."

36 Bruce wrote most of the songs that appeared on his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., in the back of a defunct Asbury Park beauty salon, where he kept a piano his aunt had given him.

37 After he won the Academy Award for "Streets of Philadelphia" in 1994, Springsteen was pursued down a backstage hallway by film critic Gene Siskel, who shouted, "Bruce! Which comes first, the words or the music?" Oscar guards put a stop to the unauthorized interview.

38 Bruce was asked not to attend his high school graduation because his long hair was considered disrespectful.

39 One of his first bands, Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom, featured more than a dozen members, several of whom couldn't play an instrument. There were baton twirlers, an emcee and onstage Monopoly players.

40 During his two years at Ocean County Community College, his fellow students petitioned for his dismissal, says Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh, "on grounds of unacceptable weirdness."