Trivia: Swedish actor Warner Oland was educated in Boston, but proudly retained his Scandinavian roots throughout his life, even devoting time to translating the works of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen into English for the benefit of theatrical scholars. Trained at Dr. Curry's Acting School, Oland took on a theatrical career, ultimately tackling the movie industry in 1915 with an appearance in Sin opposite Theda Bara. Oland's curious facial features enabled the occidental actor to specialize in oriental roles, most often as a villain. While his silent film appearances ranged from Cesar Borgia in Don Juan (1926) to Al Jolson's Jewish cantor father in The Jazz Singer (1927), Oland's oriental roles gained him the widest popularity, especially his portrayal as the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu in three early talking pictures. In 1931, Oland was cast as the wily, aphorism-spouting Chinese detective Charlie Chan in Charlie Chan Carries On for the Fox studios (later 20th Century-Fox). He would make annual appearances as Chan until 1934, when Fox decided to use the Earl Derr Biggers character as the focal point of a regular B-movie series; Oland would now be seen as Charlie Chan three times per year, and ultimately the actor would make a total of sixteen Chan pictures. From 1934 onward, Warner Oland was Charlie Chan - and vice versa. He remained in character on the set even when giving an interview or flubbing a line, and during a 1935 visit to China, Oland was mobbed by his enthusiastic Chinese movie fans, some of whom were so enchanted by his performance that (it is said) they actually believed Oland was genuinely Asian. During production of Charlie Chan at the Arena in 1938, Warner Oland died, and the movie was rearranged as a Peter Lorre vehicle, Mr. Moto's Gamble. The movie role of Charlie Chan was inherited by Sidney Toler, and later by Roland Winters.

Trivia: Chicago-born Robert Young carried his inbred "never give up" work ethic into his training at the Pasadena Playhouse. After a few movie-extra roles, he was signed by MGM to play a bit part as Helen Hayes' son in 1931's Sin of Madelon Claudet. At the request of MGM head Irving Thalberg, Young's role was expanded during shooting, thus the young actor was launched on the road to stardom (his first-released film was the Charlie Chan epic Black Camel [1931], which he made while on loan to Fox Studios). Young appeared in as many as nine films per year in the 1930s, usually showing up in bon vivant roles. Alfred Hitchcock sensed a darker side to Young's ebullient nature, and accordingly cast the actor as a likeable American who turns out to be a cold-blooded spy in 1936's The Secret Agent. Some of Young's best film work was in the 1940s, with such roles as the facially disfigured war veteran in The Enchanted Cottage (1945) and the no-good philanderer in They Won't Believe Me (1947). In 1949, Young launched the radio sitcom Father Knows Best, starring as insurance salesman/paterfamilias Jim Anderson (it was his third weekly radio series). The series' title was originally ironic in that Anderson was perhaps one of the most stupidly stubborn of radio dads. By the time Father Knows Best became a TV series in 1954, Young had refined his Jim Anderson characterization into the soul of sagacity. Young became a millionaire thanks to his part-ownership of Father Knows Best, which, despite a shaky beginning, ran successfully until 1960 (less popular was his 1961 TV dramedy Window on Main Street, which barely lasted a full season). His second successful series was Marcus Welby, M.D. (1968-1973). Young's later TV work has included one-shot revivals of Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, and the well-received 1986 TV-movie Mercy or Murder, in which Young essayed the role of a real-life pensioner who killed his wife rather than allow her to endure a painful, lingering illness. Young passed away from respiratory failure at his Westlake Village, CA, home at the age of 91.

Trivia: At the peak of his career in the early '30s, actor Bela Lugosi was the screen's most notorious personification of evil; the most famous and enduring Dracula, he helped usher in an era of new popularity for the horror genre, only to see his own fame quickly evaporate. Béla Ferenc Dezsõ Blaskó was born in Lugos, Hungary, on October 20, 1882. After seeing a touring repertory company as they passed through town, he became fascinated by acting, and began spending all of his time mounting his own dramatic productions with the aid of other children. Upon the death of his father in 1894, Lugosi apprenticed as a miner, later working on the railroad. His first professional theatrical job was as a chorus boy in an operetta, followed by a stint at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts. By 1901, he was a leading actor with Hungary's Royal National Theatre, and around 1917 began appearing in films (sometimes under the name Arisztid Olt) beginning with A Régiséggyüjtö. Lugosi was also intensely active in politics, and he organized an actors' union following the 1918 collapse of the Hungarian monarchy; however, when the leftist forces were defeated a year later he fled to Germany, where he resumed his prolific film career with 1920's Der Wildtöter und Chingachgook. Lugosi remained in Germany through 1921, when he emigrated to the United States. He made his American film debut in 1923's The Silent Command, but struggled to find further work, cast primarily in exotic bit roles on stage and screen. His grasp of English was virtually non-existent, and he learned his lines phonetically, resulting in an accented, resonant baritone which made his readings among the most distinctive and imitated in performing history. In 1924, Lugosi signed on to direct a drama titled The Right to Dream, but unable to communicate with his cast and crew he was quickly fired; he sued the producers, but was found by the court to be unable to helm a theatrical production and was ordered to pay fines totalling close to 70 dollars. When he refused, the contents of his apartment were auctioned off to pay his court costs -- an inauspicious beginning to his life in America, indeed. Lugosi's future remained grim, but in 1927 he was miraculously cast to play the title character in the Broadway adaptation of the Bram Stoker vampire tale Dracula; reviews were poor, but the production was a hit, and he spent three years in the role. In 1929, Lugosi married a wealthy San Francisco widow named Beatrice Weeks, a union which lasted all of three days; their divorce, which named Clara Bow as the other woman, was a media sensation, and it launched him to national notoriety. After a series of subsequent films, however, Lugosi again faded from view until 1931, when he was tapped to reprise his Dracula portrayal on the big screen. He was Universal executives' last choice for the role -- they wanted Lon Chaney Sr., but he was suffering from cancer -- while director Tod Browning insisted upon casting an unknown. When no other suitable choice arose, however, only Lugosi met with mutual, if grudging, agreement. Much to the shock of all involved, Dracula was a massive hit. Despite considerable studio re-editing, it was moody and atmospheric, and remains among the most influential films in American cinema. Dracula also rocketed Lugosi to international fame, and he was immediately offered the role of the monster in James Whale's Frankenstein; he refused -- in order to attach himself to a picture titled Quasimodo -- and the part instead went to Boris Karloff. The project never went beyond the planning stages, however, and in a sense Lugosi's career never righted itself; he remained a prolific screen presence, but the enduring fame which appeared within his reach was lost forever. Moreover, he was eternally typecast: Throughout the remainder of the decade and well into the 1940s, he appeared in a prolific string of horror films, some good (1932's Island of Lost Souls and 1934's The Black Cat, the latter the first of many collaborations with Karloff), but most of them quite forgettable. Lugosi's choice of projects was indiscriminate at best, and his reputation went into rapid decline; most of his performances were variations on his Dracula role, and before long he slipped into outright parodies of the character in pictures like 1948's Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, which was to be his last film for four years.As Lugosi's career withered, he became increasingly eccentric, often appearing in public clad in his Dracula costume. He was also the victim of numerous financial problems, and became addicted to drugs. In 1952, he returned from exile to star in Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, followed later that year by the similarly low-brow My Son, the Vampire and Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. By 1953, Lugosi was firmly aligned with the notorious filmmaker Ed Wood, widely recognized as the worst director in movie history; together they made a pair of films -- Glen or Glenda? and Bride of the Monster -- before Lugosi committed himself in 1955 in order to overcome his drug battles. Upon his release, he and Wood began work on the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space, but after filming only a handful of scenes, Lugosi died of a heart attack on August 15, 1956; he was buried in his Dracula cape. In the decades to come, his stature as a cult figure grew, and in 1994 the noted filmmaker Tim Burton directed the screen biography Ed Wood, casting veteran actor Martin Landau as Lugosi; Landau was brilliant in the role, and won the Oscar which Lugosi himself never came remotely close to earning -- a final irony in a career littered with bittersweet moments.

Trivia: Versatile blond leading lady Sally Eilers studied to be a dancer before heading to Hollywood in her teens. She joined the Mack Sennett troupe in the mid-1920s, graduating from bathing beauty roles to the lead in Sennett's 1928 feature The Good-Bye Kiss; that same year, she was selected as one of the WAMPAS "baby stars." One of the busiest actresses in the early-talkie era, Sally appeared opposite James Dunn in a series of popular Fox vehicles, including Bad Girl (1931), Sailor's Luck (1932) and Arizona to Broadway (1933). She was married to Hoot Gibson in 1930, but the union fell apart as her star soared and his diminished. While never a major star, Eilers retained her popularity into the late 1930s, tackling such tricky roles as the Aimee Semple McPherson-ish heroine in 1938's Tarnished Angels. She eased into character roles in the 1940s, the most intriguing of which was her characterization of James Lydon's mother in the 1945 Hamlet derivation Strange Illusion. Sally Eilers retired from moviemaking in 1951 after completing her work on Stage to Tucson.

Trivia: The daughter of a musician, Doris Velegra worked as a chorus girl and nightclub dancer before making her film debut in 1921's Life's Greatest Question. The following year, she appeared as Dorothy Revier in Broadway Madonna, directed by her first husband, Harry Revier. Never a major star, Revier was a dependable, hardworking leading lady, averaging seven to ten movie appearances per year during the silent era. Perhaps her most celebrated assignment was Milady de Winter in Douglas Fairbanks' The Iron Mask (1929), one of her many "vamp" or evil-seductress roles. Making a successful transition to talkies, Revier kept busy at Fox and Universal, continuing in the femme-fatale mode that had earned her fame. By the mid-'30s, she was consigned almost exclusively to B-pictures, earning the far-from-coveted soubriquet "Queen of Poverty Row." After finishing her duties on a 1936 Buck Jones Western, Dorothy Revier retired from films.

Trivia: Born on the Hungarian/Rumanian border, actor Victor Varconi began his career in Transylvania, then played leads with the Hungarian National Theatre in Budapest. He made his first film, the Hungarian Sarga Csiko, in 1913. The ever-shifting political climate of Europe convinced Varconi to try his luck in America. He was signed by Cecil B. DeMille's company on the strength of his performance in the German-made Sodom und Gomorra (1922). Under DeMille's direction, the smoothly handsome Varconi played a wealthy American tin factory manager om Triumph (1924); had a character role as a bookkeeper in the Afterworld in Feet of Clay (1924); was a Russian prince in The Volga Boatmen; and finally, a disgruntled Pontius Pilate in The King of Kings (1929). His last major silent role was as Lord Nelson in 1929's The Divine Lady. The microphone revealed that Varconi had a pleasant but pronounced Hungarian accent, which limited his range of portrayals in talkies. He played many a continental adventurer and rogueish gigolo during his sound career, and also starred in English-language versions of Anglo/German co-productions. World War II resulted in a boost for Varconi, permitting him to play a variety of Axis agents. Varconi scaled down his workload after 1949; one of his last roles was as Lord of Ashrod in Samson in Delilah (1949), directed by his old boss Cecil B. DeMille. Just before his death in 1976, Victor Varconi published his memoirs, It's Not Enough to Be Hungarian.

Trivia: Hoydenish comedienne Marjorie White spent the late '20s in vaudeville, appearing in an act with her husband, Eddie Tierney. In 1929, White was signed by Fox Studios, where she brightened several of the early Fox musicals, including Sunny Side Up (1929) and Just Imagine (1930). Her first assignment outside of Fox was arguably her best: She played the aggressive, vampish Dolores in the zany Wheeler and Woolsey farce Diplomaniacs (1933). The following year, she starred in the two-reel Columbia "musical novelty" Woman Haters, in which she was supported by a trio called Howard, Fine, and Howard, later and better known as the Three Stooges. Marjorie White's promising film career ended with tragic suddenness when she was killed in a car crash.

Trivia: Prosperous-looking American actor Richard Tucker went from the stage to the Edison Company in 1913, where he played romantic leads before the cameras. Even in his youth, the tall, regal Tucker exuded the air of corporate success, and was best suited to roles as bankers and stockbrokers. After World War I service, Tucker resumed his film career as a character man. In talkies, the newly mustachioed, grey-haired Tucker was seen in innumerable small authoritative roles. His two best-known assignments from this period were in the 1936 serial Flash Gordon, in which he played Flash's scientist father; and in the 1932 Laurel and Hardy feature Pack Up Your Troubles, wherein Tucker was the bank president who turned out to be Mr. Smith, the grandfather of the orphan girl Stan and Ollie were protecting. Actor Richard Tucker's hundreds of film credits are often erronously attributed to latter-day Metropolitan Opera star Richard Tucker, who was born several years after the earlier Tucker had already established himself.

Trivia: Irish actor J. M. Kerrigan was a stalwart of Dublin's Abbey Players, though from time to time he'd make the crossing to America to appear in such films as Little Old New York (1923) and Song O' My Heart (1930) (His film debut was 1916's Food of Love). Kerrigan settled in Hollywood permanently in 1935 when he was brought from Ireland with several other Abbey performers to appear in John Ford's The Informer. Kerrigan was given a generous amount of screen time as the barfly who befriends the suddenly wealthy Victor McLaglen, then drops his "pal" like a hot potato when the money runs out. Not all of Kerrigan's subsequent Hollywood performances were this meaty, and in fact the actor did a lot of day-player work, sometimes showing up for only one or two scenes. It was in one of these minor roles that J. M. Kerrigan shone in Gone with the Wind (1939), playing Johnny Gallegher, the seemingly jovial mill owner who whips his convict labor into "cooperation."

Trivia: Diminutive Scottish stage and screen actress Mary Gordon was seemingly placed on this earth to play care-worn mothers, charwomen and housekeepers. In films from the silent area (watch for her towards the end of the 1928 Joan Crawford feature Our Dancing Daughters), Gordon played roles ranging from silent one-scene bits to full-featured support. She frequently acted with Laurel and Hardy, most prominently as the stern Scots innkeeper Mrs. Bickerdyke in 1935's Bonnie Scotland. Gordon was also a favorite of director John Ford, portraying Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Englishwomen with equal aplomb (and sometimes with the same accent). She was the screen mother of actors as diverse as Jimmy Cagney, Leo Gorcey and Lou Costello; she parodied this grey-haired matriarch image in Olsen and Johnson's See My Lawyer (1945), wherein her tearful court testimony on behalf of her son (Ed Brophy) is accompanied by a live violinist. Mary Gordon is most fondly remembered by film buffs for her recurring role as housekeeper Mrs. Hudson in the Sherlock Holmes films of 1939-46 starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, a role she carried over to the Holmes radio series of the '40s.

Trivia: American actress Violet Dunn played character roles on stage, screen, radio and television for many years. She began in the 1930s and dropped out of films for many years. In 1962, following the death of her husband, she resumed her career.

Trivia: Actor William A. Post Jr. appeared in many films of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. He has also worked on Broadway and frequently appeared on daytime and nighttime television.

Trivia: Born in Kansas and raised in Colorado, Dwight Frye studied for a career in music, and by his mid-teens was a talented concert pianist. He switched to acting when he joined the O.D. Woodward stock company in 1918. During his years on Broadway, Frye specialized in comedy parts. When Hollywood called, however, the actor found himself typed as a neurotic villain. The role that both made and broke him was the bug-eating lunatic Renfield in 1931's Dracula. Though he begged producers to allow him to play comic or "straight" parts, he was hopelessly typed as Renfield, and spent the bulk of his career portraying murderers, grave robbers, crazed hunchbacks and mad scientists. When the first "horror" cycle subsided, Frye found himself accepting nondescript bit roles in films like The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1939). During the 1940s, Frye bounced from one "B" factory to another, doing his usual in such cheap thrillers as Dead Men Walk (1942). In between acting jobs, he supported himself and his family as a designer in an aircraft factory. Dwight Frye was about to undertake the stereotype-breaking role of Secretary of War Newton D. Baker in the lavish 20th Century-Fox biopic Wilson when he died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 44.

Trivia: Actor Robert Emmett Homans seemingly had the map of Ireland stamped on his craggy face. As a result, Homans spent the better part of his film career playing law enforcement officers of all varieties, from humble patrolmen to detective chiefs. After a lengthy stage career, Homans entered films in 1923. A break from his usual microscopic film assignments occured in Public Enemy (1931), where Homans is given an opportunity to deliver reams of exposition (with a pronounced brogue) during a funeral sequence. And in the 1942 Universal horror programmer Night Monster, Robert Emmett Homans is alotted a sizeable role as the ulcerated detective investigating the supernatural goings-on at the home of seemingly helpless invalid Ralph Morgan.