Trivia: Born into a poor San Francisco family, Raymond Bailey dropped out of school in the 10th grade to help make ends meet. He took on a variety of short-term jobs before escaping his lot by hopping a freight to New York. He tried in vain to find work as an actor, eventually signing on as a mess boy on a freighter. While docked in Honolulu, Bailey once more gave acting a try, and also sang on a local radio station. In Hollywood from 1932 on, Bailey took any nickel-and-dime job that was remotely connected to show business, but when World War II began, he once more headed out to sea, this time with the Merchant Marine. Only after the war was Bailey able to make a living as a character actor on stage and in TV and films. In 1962, he was cast as covetous bank president Milburn Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbillies, a role that made him a household name and one which he played for nine seasons (ironically, he'd once briefly worked in a bank during his teen years). After the show was cancelled in 1971, Bailey dropped out of sight and became somewhat of a recluse.

Trivia: Whimsical, expressive comic actor Charles Ruggles was the son of a Los Angeles wholesale druggist. Intending to become a doctor, Ruggles was sidetracked into theatre, making his debut in a 1905 San Francisco stock company production of Nathan Hale. Because of his medium height and flexible facial and vocal expressions, Ruggles was able to play everything from teenagers to grandpas during his formative years in stock. In 1914, the actor first set foot on a Broadway stage in Help Wanted. One year later, he appeared in his first film, a now-lost adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Though there would be a smattering of subsequent silent film appearances, Ruggles' heart remained in his stage work -- he starred in such long-running productions as The Passing Show of 1918 (1918), The Demi-Virgin (1921), Battling Butler (1923), and his biggest stage success, Queen High (1930). While appearing in the Rodgers and Hart musical Spring is Here (1929), Ruggles made his talking picture bow in Gentleman of the Press (1929), portraying the first in what would turn out to be a long line of drunken reporters. In 1932, Ruggles was teamed with Mary Boland in If I Had A Million. The two farceurs worked so well together that they would subsequently costar in such memorable film comedies as Six of a Kind (1934), Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Early to Bed (1936), and Boy Trouble (1939). By the late 1930s, Ruggles was securely established as one of Hollywood's favorite befuddled comedy-relief players, though in such films as Exclusive (1937) and The Parson of Panamint (1941) he proved equally expert at straight dramatics. In 1949, Ruggles began a 12-year movie moratorium, returning to the stage and distinguishing himself in television. He headlined two early TV series, The Ruggles and The World of Mr. Sweeney, and lent his vocal skills (sans screen credit) to the "Aesop and Son" component of the classic cartoon weeklies "Rocky and His Friends" (1959-61) and "The Bullwinkle Show" (1961-62). He returned to films in 1961, recreating his award-winning Broadway role in The Pleasure of His Company. Ruggles' best-remembered TV work of the 1960s included his recurring role as Mrs. Drysdale's rakish father in the popular sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies." With the Disney film Follow Me, Boys! (1966) and the 1967 TV staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, Ruggles quietly brought his six-decade acting career to a close. A few years before his death in December of 1970, Ruggles was asked by a reporter what his future plans were. With the wry smile, twinkling eyes, and self-effacing humor that characterized his best screen work, Charlie Ruggles answered, "Forest Lawn, I guess. After you've played everything I have, there ain't no more."

Trivia: For as long as she could remember, Irene Ryan was performing on some stage or other. From the 1920s onward, she and her husband Timothy Ryan formed the popular vaudeville duo Tim and Irene. They carried over their song, dance and snappy patter into a brief series of two-reel comedies and several radio programs. During her first burst of filmmaking activity in the 1940s, Ryan played comedy relief parts in a number of B pictures scripted by her husband. Her standard characterization at this time was the traditional wisecracking, man-hungry spinster. During and after her divorce, Ryan continued accepting roles of varying sizes in such pictures as Woman on the Beach (1948), My Dear Secretary (1948), Mighty Joe Young (1949), Bonzo Goes to College (1952) and Blackbeard the Pirate (1952). By the early 1960s, Ryan was (as she would later cheerfully admit) pretty much washed up in show business. All this changed when she was invited to audition for an upcoming sitcom about a family of mountaineers who suddenly come into a fortune. Ryan read one single line and was hired on the spot: she played Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies from 1962 through 1971, never missing an opportunity to express gratitude for her involvement in so popular a project. No sooner had Hillbillies folded than Irene Ryan was cast in a show-stopping role in the 1971 Broadway musical Pippin, scoring yet another personal success--which, sadly, turned out to be her last.

Trivia: Tall, silver-maned character actor Roy Roberts began his film career as a 20th Century-Fox contractee in 1943. Nearly always cast in roles of well-tailored authority, Roberts was most effective when conveying smug villainy. As a hotel desk clerk in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), he suavely but smarmily refused to allow Jews to check into his establishment; nineteen years later, Roberts was back behind the desk and up to his old tricks, patronizingly barring a black couple from signing the register in Hotel (1966). As the forties drew to a close, Roberts figured into two of the key film noirs of the era; he was the carnival owner who opined that down-at-heels Tyrone Power had sunk so low because "he reached too high" at the end of Nightmare Alley (1947), while in 1948's He Walked By Night, Roberts enjoyed one of his few sympathetic roles as a psycho-hunting plainclothesman. And in the 3-D classic House of Wax, Roberts played the crooked business partner of Vincent Price, whose impulsive decision to burn down Price's wax museum has horrible consequences. With the role of bombastic Captain Huxley on the popular Gale Storm TV series Oh, Susanna (1956-1960), Gordon inaugurated his dignified-foil period. He later played long-suffering executive types on The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and The Lucy Show. Roy Roberts last appeared on screen as the mayor in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974).

Trivia: After her eye-catching debut as Nurse Dish in the 1970 film version of MASH, American leading lady Jo Ann Pflug remained on call for sexy, come-hither roles. Pflug spent the bulk of her career on television, playing regular roles on Operation Petticoat (1978-79, as Lieutenant Katherine O'Hara) and The Fall Guy (1981-82 as "Big Jack"). She also played Nora Charles in an abortive mid-1970s attempt to revive The Thin Man as a weekly series. While starring as Taylor von Platen on the syndicated soap opera Rituals (1984), Jo Ann Pflug became a born-again Christian; rebelling against the prurient content of Rituals, Pflug quit the program, thereafter devoting herself to religious radio and television projects.