Trivia: Born Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich ze Schluderpacheru, Herbert Lom enjoyed a successful acting career in his native Czechoslovakia, principally in theater. He made his screen debut in Zena Pod Krizem (1937) and made one more movie in Czechoslovakia before emigrating to England in 1938. He acted at The Old Vic in London, among other companies, before turning to British films, where his good looks, cultured accent and mannerisms, and intense eyes got him cast in such unusual roles as Napoleon Bonaparte (in The Young Mr. Pitt) in between slightly more anonymous parts. Lom's real breakthrough role was in Compton Bennett's 1946 psychological drama The Seventh Veil, as Dr. Larsen, the psychiatrist treating neuroses of the pianist portrayed by Ann Todd. Lom might have become a kind of Eastern (or Middle) European successor to Charles Boyer, but he was too good an actor to limit himself to romantic parts; instead, he was more like a Czech Jean Gabin. Lom often played highly motivated villains in the 1950s and '60s, most notably in Jules Dassin's Night and the City (1950), in which he brought surprising humanity to the role of a brutal, vengeful gangster, and Sidney Gilliat's State Secret (1950). He reprised the role of Napoleon in King Vidor's sprawling 1956 production of War and Peace, and was a memorably humane, well-spoken Captain Nemo in the Ray Harryhausen production of Mysterious Island (1961); he also played the title role in a 1962 production of The Phantom of the Opera, but Lom's best movie during this period -- despite having some of his shortest screen time -- was Anthony Mann's El Cid, in which he played the Muslim leader Ben Yussuf. He counter-balanced this work with a newly revealed flair for comedy, utilized in the Pink Panther movies, starting with A Shot in the Dark, where his long-suffering bureau chief Dreyfus was forever dreading Inspector Clouseau's latest blunder. He was also Simon Legree in the 1965 German musical production of Uncle Tom's Cabin (as Onkel Tom's Hütte). During the late '60s and '70s, he began appearing in horror films of various types, following a path similar to that blazed by his British-born contemporary Michael Gough. He has kept his hand in gentler and more complex roles, however, including that of the sardonically humorous Soviet bureau chief in Ronald Neame's Hopscotch (1980), and a sympathetic physician in David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone (1983). In 2012, Lom passed away in his sleep at the age of 95.

Trivia: A product of London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Heather Sears made her stage debut in 1955's The Love Match. Two years later, Sears made her first London appearance as Alison Porter in John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. Her blossoming career received a booster shot when she was cast in the 1957 film melodrama The Story of Esther Costello, in which she played the title character, a psychosomatic deaf-mute. She was most active in films in the years 1960-62, appearing in Room at the Top (1960), Sons and Lovers (1960; as Miriam Leivers) and Phantom of the Opera (1962; as Christine). After her film career ended, Sears remained active in television (notably the 1975 version of Great Expectations) and on stage, working extensively with The Haymarket Theatre in Leicester. Heather Sears has also toured the English-speaking world in her one-woman show Viriginia Woolf.

Trivia: Born in Malaya (now Malaysia) to British parents, Michael Gough attended Wye Agricultural College before realigning his career goals by taking classes at the Old Vic. Gough made his first theatrical appearance in 1936 and his first film in 1948. He listed King Lear as his favorite stage role, though one suspects that he was equally fond of the character he portrayed in the 1979 Broadway hit Bedroom Farce, for which he won the Tony Award. Movie historian Bill Warren has noted that Gough, by accident or design, adopted two distinct film-acting styles. In such "straight" roles as Montrose in Rob Roy (1954), Norfolk in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), Van der Luyden in The Age of Innocence (1993) and Bertrand Russell in Wittgenstein (1993), he was subtle and restrained; but when starring in such scarefests as Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and Black Zoo (1962), his eye-bulging hamminess knew no bounds. Most contemporary filmgoers are familiar with Gough through his appearances as Alfred the Butler in the Batman theatrical features. Gough died at age 94 in the spring of 2011.

Trivia: Beefy British actor Thorley Walters was appearing in "quota quickies" as early as 1934's First Love. But it was in the '50s that Walters truly came into his own as an irresistably deflatable authority figure in such British comedies as Private's Progress (1955), Carleton Brown of the FO (1958) and Two Way Stretch (1961). Even in cameo roles, Walters made his acting weight effectively felt, as witness Rotten to the Core (1965) and Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1965). Thorley Walters was also a excellent Dr. Watson, essaying the role in the German-made Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) and Gene Wilder's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1977).

Trivia: Jowly, sharp-nosed British theatrical personality Miles Malleson dabbled in virtually every aspect of the dramatic arts from his 1911 stage debut onward. As a writer (he penned his first play in 1913) he was responsible for the screenplays of such treasured films as Nell Gwyn (1934), Victoria the Great (1937) and Mister Emmanuel (1944). As a producer/director, Malleson staged several notable West End plays, among them the original production of Emlyn Williams' Night Must Fall. And as an actor, Malleson contributed a bottomless reserve of screen characterizations: the childish caliph in Thief of Baghdad (1940) (which he also scripted); the spectral coachman ("Room for one more, sir') in Dead of Night (1946); the cheery hangman in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949); Reverend Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest (1952); and a vast array of family retainers, doddering civil servants, faffling aristocrats, stern judges and rural rustics. Miles Malleson worked into his late 70s, until failing eyesight overtook him.

Trivia: British character actress, onscreen from the '50s; she was also a singer.

Trivia: Rubber-faced British character actor Harold Goodwin first appeared onscreen in 1950.

Trivia: British actor Ian Wilson started in films in 1922, but didn't thrive until the talkie era. With wire-rim spectacles, pursed lips and a brusque manner, Wilson was perfectly cast as clerks, minor officials and snoopy bystanders. His busiest years were the '50s in such movies as Seven Days to Noon (1950), The Magic Box (1951), Tonight at 8:30 (1952), Crest of the Wave (1954) and The Good Companions (1958); he also showed up in that melancholy milestone Bela Lugosi's fading career, Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952). According to historian David Quinlan, Ian Wilson was something of a "good luck charm" to the Boulting Brothers production firm, in that the actor appeared in some capacity in just about every Boulting film.

Trivia: Anglo-Indian character actor, onscreen from the '50s; he often plays Arabs and Asians.

Trivia: British actor Michael Ripper labored in relative obscurity until the late 1950s. With the formation of Hammer Studios, Ripper became, in the words of horror-film historian Bill Warren, "almost the Hammer equivalent of Dwight Frye." Cast as cockney coachmen, nervous peasants, cretinous lab assistants, gravediggers and general hangers-on, Ripper enlivened the proceedings of such frightfests as The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Brides of Dracula (1960), Secret of Blood Island (1965) and Plague of the Zombies. Michael Ripper was married to actress Catherine Finn.

Trivia: British stage actor Patrick Troughton made the transition to films in 1948's Escape. His movie credits included the Laurence Olivier Shakespearean productions Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955), Disney's Treasure Island (1950), Hammer Films' Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and the Ray Harryhausen special effects banquets Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. From 1966 through 1968, Troughton played the eccentric time traveler Doctor Who in the BBC TV series of the same name, succeeding the first Who William Hartnell. Patrick Troughton's association with this series assured him a standing ovation whenever he appeared at science fiction conventions in the 1970s and 1980s; it was while appearing at a Who convention in Georgia that the 67-year-old Troughton died of a heart attack.

Trivia: Irish actor Liam Redmond spent his first twelve professional years at Dublin's Abbey Players, where he made his debut in 1935's The Silver Tassel. Redmond doubled as producer in ten of the fifty Abbey productions in which he appeared. In 1947, he made his London theatrical bow in The White Steed. Seven years later, he won the George Jean Nathan award for his portrayal of Canon McCooey in The Wayward Saint. In films since 1945's I See A Dark Stranger, Liam Redmond showed up before the cameras on both sides of the Atlantic, appearing with actors ranging from Dirk Bogarde (The Gentle Gunman) to Don Knotts (The Ghost and Mr. Chicken).