Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Carol Burnett had a weird, great story of the amazing Jerry Lewis: When he was rehearsing for a guest gig on Burnett's variety TV show (I think late 1970's), Jerry Lewis met each dancer/actor on Burnett's staff he was rehearsing with, and he verbally asked and recieved each of their Social Security numbers. Then, in the days after, when rehearsing with them, he called each one by their numbers, not their name! As in, he'd say "Come over here 459-91-4301". Very strange and funny thing to do to demonstrate number memory skills.
Hard to say whether it's true or not, but as a cop once said to me: "too bizarre not to be true".
Incidentally doing the same thing in Canada (asking for a Social Insurance Number) is a crime, if you're not one of the authorized users (bank if you have an account that pays interest, employer, income tax agency, securities trading broker). It's also legal to ask on a loan application, but you are not obliged to provide it, and refusing to provide it can't prejudice your application. I've never provided it to a Credit Card issuer, Mortgage lender, etc.
The Government of Canada even recommends that you never carry your SIN card with you, instead keeping it in a safe place, or destroying it.