Trivia: Peter Lawford was a bushy-browed, slender, aristocratic, good-looking British leading man in Hollywood films. At age eight he appeared in the film Poor Old Bill (1931); seven years later he visited Hollywood and appeared in a supporting role as a Cockney boy in Lord Jeff (1938). In 1942 he began regularly appearing onscreen, first in minor supporting roles; by the late 1940s he was a breezy romantic star, and his studio promised him (incorrectly) that he would be the "new Ronald Colman." His clipped British accent, poise, looks, and charm made him popular with teenage girls and young women, but he outgrew his typecast parts by the mid '50s and spent several years working on TV, starring in the series Dear Phoebe and The Thin Man. Off screen he was known as a jet-setter playboy; a member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack," he married Patricia Kennedy and became President John F. Kennedy's brother-in-law. From the 1960s he appeared mainly in character roles; his production company, Chrislaw, made several feature films, and he was credited as executive producer of three films, two in co-producer partnership with Sammy Davis Jr. In 1971-72 he was a regular on the TV sitcom The Doris Day Show. He divorced Kennedy in 1966 and later married the daughter of comedian Dan Rowan. He rarely acted onscreen after the mid-'70s.

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: Of Swedish-American heritage, Virginia Christine (born Virginia Kraft) grew up in largely Scandinavian communities in Iowa and Minnesota. As a high schooler, Christine won a National Forensic League award, which led to her first professional engagement on a Chicago radio station. When her family moved to Los Angeles, Christine sought out radio work while attending college. She was trained for a theatrical career by actor/director Fritz Feld, who later became her husband. In 1942, she signed a contract with Warner Bros., appearing in bits in such films as Edge of Darkness (1943) and Mission to Moscow (1944). As a free-lance actress, Christine played the female lead in The Mummy's Curse (1945), a picture she later described as "ghastly." Maturing into a much-in-demand character actress, Christine appeared in four Stanley Kramer productions: The Men (1950), Not as a Stranger (1955), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). Other movie assignments ranged from the heights of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) to the depths of Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1978). To a generation of Americans who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, Christine will forever be Mrs. Olson, the helpful Swedish neighbor in scores of Folger's Coffee commercials.

Trivia: As a boy growing up in Sacramento, Robert Warwick sang in his church choir. Encouraged to pursue music as a vocation, Warwick studied in Paris for an operatic career. He abandoned singing for straight acting when, in 1903, he was hired by Clyde Fitch as an understudy in the Broadway play Glad of It. Within a few year, Warwick was a major stage star in New York. He managed to retain his matinee-idol status when he switched from stage to screen, starring in such films as A Modern Othello and Alias Jimmy Valentine and at one point heading his own production company. He returned to the stage in 1920, then resumed his Hollywood career in authoritative supporting roles. His pear-shaped tones ideally suited for talkies, Warwick played such characters as Neptune in Night Life of the Gods (1933), Sir Francis Knolly in Mary of Scotland (1936) and Lord Montague in Romeo and Juliet (1936). He appeared in many of the Errol Flynn "historicals" at Warner Bros. (Prince and the Pauper, Adventures of Robin Hood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex); in more contemporary fare, he could usually be found in a military uniform or wing-collared tuxedo. From The Great McGinty (1940) onward, Warwick was a particular favorite of producer/director Preston Sturges, who was fond of providing plum acting opportunities to veteran character actors. Warwick's best performance under Sturges' guidance was as the brusque Hollywood executive who insists upon injecting "a little sex" in all of his studio's product in Sullivan's Travels (1942). During the 1950s, Warwick played several variations on "Charles Waterman," the broken-down Shakespearean ham that he'd portrayed in In a Lonely Place (1950). He remained in harness until his eighties, playing key roles on such TV series as The Twilight Zone and The Law and Mr. Jones. Robert Warwick was married twice, to actresses Josephine Whittell and Stella Lattimore.

Trivia: Tall, stony-faced, white-maned Frank Gerstle is most familiar to the baby-boomer generation for his many TV commercial appearances. In films from 1949 through 1967, Gerstle was generally cast as military officers, no-nonsense doctors and plainclothes detectives. His screen roles include Dr. MacDonald in DOA (1949), "machine" politician Dave Dietz in Slightly Scarlet (1954) and the district attorney in I Mobster (1959). Some of his more sizeable film assignments could be found in the realm of science fiction, e.g. Killers From Space (1953), The Magnetic Monster (1953) and Wasp Woman (1960). A prolific voiceover artist, Frank Gerstle pitched dozens of products in hundreds of TV and radio ads, and was a semi-regular on the 1961 prime-time cartoon series Calvin and the Colonel.