h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This sort of thing definitely happens. Actor Peter Butterworth was shot down during the Second World War and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, where he was involved in the 'wooden horse' POW escape, but when in 1949 he applied to be cast in the film adaptation 'The Wooden Horse' he was told he didn't look convincing...

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I believe it!

Audie Murphy was unusual in that he was both a successful actor and a decorated veteran. He starred in the film version of his own autobiography.

I did some more digging and found out that John Houseman (a British veteran, not the Romanian/British/American actor) played himself in 'Ill-Met by Moonlight', which is one of the funniest war pictures I've ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ahvCt9r4R4

(Brief appearances by Christopher Lee and David McCallum in this, too.)

Lt Meyrick Edward Clifton James wrote an autobiography titled 'I was Monty's Double' in which he wrote of his efforts to impersonate Montgomery during the Second World War in the lead up to D-Day, by touring Gibraltar and North Africa in order to give the impression that an invasion of the south of France was imminent.
He later played himself in the film 'I Was Monty's Double' (1958) based on his as well as doubling to play Field Marshall Montgomery too.

Apparently in the US the film was released as 'Hell, Heaven or Hoboken' which I take to be some US slang or phrase

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'Heaven, hell, or Hoboken' was General Pershing's motto in the Great War - meaning, by Christmas, the troops would either be in the afterlife or on their way home. I think Hoboken, New Jersey, was the port of choice. It turned out to take longer than that.

http://www.hobokenmuseum.org/exhibition/heaven-hell-or-hoboken-a-city-transformed-by-world-war-i/#:~:text=The%20designation%20as%20a%20port,dragged%20on%20for%20another%20year.

I don't know why they'd use that for the title of 'I Was Monty's Double', either. I remember that book, very entertaining. I read most of the famous WW2 books growing up - they were available back in the dark ages in libraries, I was interested, and personal narratives are the absolute best. 'I Was a Male War Bride' is great, so is 'You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger'.

I know why they renamed 'Ill Met by Moonlight' to 'Night Ambush'. They figured their target audience didn't know enough Shakespeare.

Aha! So the marketing department in charge of renamings got the war wrong.
You'd think that by 1917 they'd've realised that saying 'The war will be over by Christmas' was unlikely...

I must admit when I hear 'Pershing' I think of the tank M26 Pershing, and the debate over whether or not it should replace the M4 Sherman during the Second World War. On paper the Pershing was superior to the Sherman, but untested, and so the American army on the ground preferred the Sherman as it was reliable and familiar, while back in the US tank doctrine and usage was controlled by Lesley McNair, who had no combat experience. He was obsessed with the idea that American tanks should never, ever fight German tanks, which would instead only be engaged only with tank destroyers that he designed.
McNair believed that German tanks would charge across battlefields like the cavalry. German tanks didn't follow that doctrine at all and instead used combined arms warfare tactics, against which the tank destroyer was extremely vulnerable. His concept should have been scrapped as unworkable but he stubbornly stuck to his flawed theory.
But that said, McNair was excellent at officer training, otherwise adapting the US army to mechanised warfare and particularly war admin and they do say a successful army is 10% tactics, 90% logistics.

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I didn't know that.

The only thing I associate Black Jack Pershing with is chasing Pancho Villa all over the countryside. Which means I hear 'La Cucaracha' in my head.

Also, I think Eddie Rickenbacker was his driver for awhile. Rickenbacker arguably became as famous as Pershing, what with being the top US ace, running a postwar airline, and then getting stranded in the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. His book was one of those number thingies, like Seven Came Through, I think.

We were supposed to be inspired by him, but I think what I learned from that book was 'never fly over a large body of water during a war. Things could get uncomfortable.'