Read, Solve, then Follow the Instructions

This puzzles was originally posted on the NY Times games forum

The following puzzle is along the lines of a "Follow the Instructions" puzzle. Take the phrase CUP OF COFFEE and write it out, without spaces. Follow each of the instructions until the end, where you’ll get an phrase (4-3-5) that punnily defines CUP OF COFFEE.

As you know however, I love to throw monkey wrenches into a puzzle, so the instructions contain trivia questions which you’ll need to solve first.

1. Write the letters CUP OF COFFEE without any spaces between them.
2. Delete the letters in the [Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman movie -3]th and [Bo Derek/Dudley Moore movie divided by 2]th positions.
3. Move the first letter to the last position
4. Change [the initials of the first and middle name of the writer of Santa Claus (A Morality)] to [the initials of the first and middle name of the creator of Tarzan].
5. Change [the abbreviation of the state where Mile High Stadium is located] to [the abbreviation of the state where Three Rivers Stadium is located].
6. Switch the places of [an abbreviation for very loud] and [the name of the TV series featuring George Clooney as a doctor named Ace]
7. Replace the last letter with the letter that is [Number in the name of a play with a dog named Crab and servant named Speed] places ahead of it in the alphabet
8. Rearrange the middle three letters into [the common term for the amendment that expired without being ratified on June 30, 1982]
9. Replace the 6th letter with [the first name of the actress who played aged Leticia Van Allen in a 1970 movie version of a Gore Vidal novel]
10. Move the first two letters to the end
11. Insert [the name of the main character in Franz Kafka’s The Trial] before [the name of a character played by both Bernard Lee and Robert Brown].
12. Remove all occurrences of the [first letter of the sixth book in a series of mystery novels featuring a detective whose landlord is a former crossword constructor]
13. Copy (don’t just move) the first [number of complete presidential terms served by the US President whose first name is the same as that of the 14th president] letters to the end
14. Remove [the letters commonly used to refer to the channel which features Biography]

Solution

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