Trivia: Actor Werner Klemperer seemed destined for a career as a classical musician in his native Germany; his father was legendary orchestra conductor Otto Klemperer, and his mother was an opera singer. Otto Klemperer fled the Nazis in 1933 and secured a job with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then sent for his wife and children. Trained in piano, trumpet and violin, young Werner never lost his love of music, but decided in the early '40s to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. A naturalized American citizen, Klemperer worked in Maurice Evans' special services unit in World War II, which gave Werner invaluable training before all sorts of audiences. Completely bald in his mid 20s, Klemperer had little problem securing theatrical work as older continental types, yet he yearned to broaden his range. To do this, he completely surpressed his German accent, the better to play such all-American character roles as the timorous press agent in the 1957 Cary Grant film Kiss Them for Me (1957). The capture of fugitive Nazi official Adolph Eichmann in 1960 sparked a renewal of interest in war films, and soon Klemperer found himself playing Eichmann (whom he vaguely resembled) in the 1961 quickie Operation Eichmann. He also essayed a suitably slimy role as a former Nazi jurist on trial for war crimes in 1961's Judgment at Nuremberg. Try though he might to break free of the stereotype, Klemperer was stuck in Teutonic roles, so he resigned himself to recultivating his German accent and worked steadily throughout the '60s. A low-comedy variation of Klemperer's standard character made him an international TV favorite: the actor played the heel-clicking, imperious and incredibly stupid Colonel Klink on the popular sitcom Hogan's Heroes from 1965 through 1970. In the '70s, Klemperer returned to his musical roots as a sometimes performer at the Metropolitan Opera, and as a lecturer/narrator for dozens of American symphony orchestras. Having spent most of his professional career chilling the audience's marrow as the archetypal Nazi officer, Werner Klemperer was the soul of geniality as the jovial narrator of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf at regional kiddie concerts of the '80s and '90s.

Trivia: The son of actors, Percy Helton began his own career at age two in a Tony Pastor revue in which his parents were performing. The undersized Helton was a valuable juvenile player for producer David Belasco, making his film debut in a 1915 Belasco production, The Fairy and the Waif. Helton matured into adult roles under the stern guidance of George M. Cohan. After serving in the Army during World War I, Helton established himself on Broadway, appearing in such productions as Young America, One Sunday Afternoon and The Fabulous Invalid. He made his talkie debut in 1947's Miracle on 34th Street, playing the inebriated Macy's Santa Claus whom Edmund Gwenn replaces. Perhaps the quintessential "who is that?" actor, Helton popped up, often uncredited, in over one hundred succinct screen characterizations. Forever hunched over and eternally short of breath, he played many an obnoxious clerk, nosey mailman, irascible bartender, officious train conductor and tremulous stool pigeon. His credits include Fancy Pants (1950), The Robe (1953), White Christmas (1954), Rally Round the Flag Boys (1959), The Music Man (1962) and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1965), as well as two appearances as sweetshop proprietor Mike Clancy in the Bowery Boys series. Thanks to his trademarked squeaky voice, and because he showed up in so many "cult" films (Wicked Woman, Kiss Me Deadly, Sons of Katie Elder), Helton became something of a high-camp icon in his last years. In this vein, Percy Helton was cast as the "Heraldic Messenger" in the bizarre Monkees vehicle Head (he showed up at the Monkees' doorstep with a beautiful blonde manacled to his wrist!), the treacherous Sweetieface in the satirical western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the bedraggled bank clerk Cratchit on the TV series The Beverly Hillbillies.

Trivia: Character actor Art Batanides made a number of appearances in film and television, but will be best remembered for his work on the Police Academy franchise and on the extremely popular late-'70s/early-'80s television series Happy Days. Batanides died in early 2000, at age 77.

Trivia: A tough-looking character actor in Grade-Z Westerns of the 1940s, Terry Frost's screen career was highly affected by a role he didn't get to play. In 1945, Frost, who had been portraying henchmen in Westerns since 1941, was signed to star the title role in Dillinger, a low-budget but highly publicized melodrama depicting the exploits of real life gangster and Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger. The proposed screenplay, however, came in for intense scrutiny by the Production Code censors and when the cameras finally rolled, the part had been re-cast with newcomer Lawrence Tierney, who thus embarked on a long and profitable career portraying public enemies. Frost, in contrast, returned to the realm of low-budget oaters, laboring rather anonymously in countless Western melodramas for also-ran studios Monogram and PRC. He was even busier on television in the 1950s, appearing in seemingly every Western series ever produced, from The Gene Autry Show to Gunsmoke to Rawhide. In his later years, the erstwhile vaudevillian and coffee shop owner became a popular guest speaker at various B-Western conventions, where he would reminisce about everyone from Johnny Mack Brown to Whip Wilson. His death was attributed to a heart attack.