Trivia: British actor John Williams is noted for his suave, perfectly-mannered characters. He is best remembered for his portrayal as Inspector Hubbard on the stage, screen and television versions of Dial M for Murder. Born in Chalfon St. Giles, England, Williams began his career on the stage at 13. By the age of 21, he was playing leads and sophisticated characters in Broadway plays. Beginning in the mid '30s, he began appearing in British films. By the '40s he was playing in Hollywood productions; he continued in film until the late '70s.

Trivia: Though no one in his family had ever pursued a theatrical career (one of his more illustrious relatives was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain), Alan Napier was stagestruck from childhood. After graduating from Clifton College, the tall, booming-voiced Napier studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with such raw young talent as John Gielgud and Robert Morley. He continued working with the cream of Britain's acting crop during his ten years (1929-1939) on the West End stages. Napier came to New York in 1940 to co-star with Gladys George in Lady in Waiting. Though his film career had begun in England in the 1930s, Napier had very little success before the cameras until he arrived in Hollywood in 1941. He essayed dignified, sometimes waspish roles of all sizes in such films as Cat People (1942), The Uninvited (1943), and House of Horror (1946); among his off-the-beaten-track assignments were the bizarre High Priest in Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948) and a most elegant Captain Kidd in the 1950 Donald O'Connor vehicle Double Crossbones. In 1966, Alan Napier was cast as Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, on the smash-hit TV series Batman, a role he played until the series' cancellation in 1968. Alan Napier's career extended into the 1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as QB VII and such weeklies as The Paper Chase.

Trivia: Actress Roxanne Arlen was usually cast as a sexpot in "B" films of the '50s and '60s. Later she began writing plays about her experiences in film. During the last years of her life, Arlen lived in England and wrote plays for the Oval House Theater in London.

Trivia: Known for her stage work and solid supporting performances in film and television, Rosemary Harris has earned particular praise for her ability to skillfully portray formidable characters, despite a petite frame and delicate features that would normally belie such a strong aura of authority. Harris grew up in India and did not plan on pursuing a career in acting -- in fact, her original career choice was nursing. She would, however, change course and begin acting studies at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. By 1951, Harris made her U.S. stage debut with great success in a Broadway production of Moss Hart's Climate of Eden, and returned to England to participate in the British premiere of The Seven Year Itch.Harris continued to act -- both on-stage, on the small screen, and in the film world -- throughout the '50s and '60s, starring opposite some of the industry's most prominent figures, including Richard Burton, Jason Robards, Rex Harrison, Laurence Olivier, and Peter O'Toole. After winning a British Tony award in 1966, Harris impressed critics and audiences with her portrayal of a Jewish doctor's wife in the multi-Emmy award-winning television production of Holocaust in 1978, and again in 1979, when she played the matriarch of an 1844 Virginian pioneer family in The Chisholms. Holocaust wasn't Harris' introduction to the Emmys -- one of the actress' most celebrated performances was for her role in the 1975 Masterpiece Theatre production of The Notorious Woman, a portrait of flamboyant novelist George Sand.Harris' 1954 film debut as the unrequited love interest of Stewart Granger in Beau Brummell was met exceedingly well; in fact, the actress was offered a variety of long-term roles from Hollywood, but she turned them down to pursue theater. Ten years later, however, Harris would return to the big screen for her supporting role in the thriller The Boys From Brazil (1978), and later co-starred in TV's The Ploughman's Lunch, a 1983 political drama. After performing at her typical standard in film and television, as well as traveling across continents for her theater career, Harris gave a volatile performance as renowned author T.S. Eliot's mother-in-law in Tom & Viv (1994) -- earning her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. This, however, was only after earning critical praise for a series of mid-'90s theater roles, including those of a diabetic's mother in the 1991 tearjerker Steel Magnolias, an imposing grandmother in Lost in Yonkers (1992), and a troubled wife in An Inspector Calls (1994). After Harris' Oscar recognition, Kenneth Branagh felt it only appropriate to cast her as the Player Queen opposite Charlton Heston's Player King in Hamlet (1996). In 2002, Harris portrayed Peter Parker's aunt in Spider-Man, and reprised the role in Spider-Man 2 (2004).

Trivia: British actor Melville Cooper was 18 when he made his first stage appearance at Stratford-on-Avon. He settled in the U.S. in 1934, after making an excellent impression in the Alexander Korda-produced film The Private Life of Don Juan. The Pickwick-like Cooper was generally cast as snobbish, ineffectual society types or confidence tricksters; occasionally, as in 1939's The Sun Never Sets, he was given a chance at a more heroic role. Among Cooper's most famous screen portrayals were the Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), the amorous Reverend Collins (altered to "Mr. Collins" to avoid censor problems) in Pride and Prejudice (1940), and the officious wedding-rehearsal supervisor in Father of the Bride (1950). Retiring from films in 1958, Melville Cooper returned to the stage, where he essayed such roles as Reverend Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Trivia: Yale grad John Hoyt had been a history instructor, acting teacher and nightclub comedian before linking up with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in 1937. He remained with Welles until he joined the Army in 1945. After the war, the grey-haired, deadly-eyed Hoyt built up a screen reputation as one of most hissable "heavies" around, notably as the notorious political weathervane Talleyrand in Desiree (1954). He was a bit kinder onscreen as the Prophet Elijah in Sins of Jezebel. Nearly always associated with mainstream films, Hoyt surprised many of his professional friends when he agreed to co-star in the softcore porn spoof Flesh Gordon; those closest to him, however, knew that Hoyt had been a bit of a Bohemian all his life, especially during his frequent nudist colony vacations. TV fans of the '80s generation will remember John Hoyt as Grandpa Stanley Kanisky on the TV sitcom Gimme a Break; those with longer memories might recall that Hoyt played the doctor who told Ben Gazzara that he had only two years to live on the pilot for the 1960s TV series Run For Your Life. Hoyt also holds a footnote in Star Trek history playing the doctor in the first pilot episode, "The Cage."

Trivia: Scottish-born character actor Anthony Dawson first appeared onscreen in the '40s and was often cast as sadistic characters.