Trivia: The last in a long line of British actors, Reginald Denny left school at 16 to enter the family trade. His first important assignment was the role of Prince Danilo in a travelling company of The Merry Widow. He first came to the U.S. in a 1912 production of Quaker Girl, then returned to England to star in musical productions. After World War I service as a Lieutenant in the 112th squadron of the British Flying Corps, Denny appeared in several Broadway productions and made his film bow at the New Jersey-based world film studios. Hired on the basis of his finely tuned physiques, Denny starred in Universal's boxing short-subject series The Leather Pushers before being promoted to features. During the 1920s, Denny was one of Universal's most popular stars, headlining a series of frothy domestic comedies, most of which co-starred Laura LaPlante and were directed by William A. Seiter. In talkies, Denny's British accent made it difficult for him to continue in the "all-American" roles he'd been playing at Universal, but he continued to flourish as a character actor, showing up in everything from Romeo and Juliet (1936) to Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1937). He also played the "silly ass" second lead of Algy in several Bulldog Drummond "B" pictures. Since his World War I experience, Denny remained active in aviation; he was a pioneer in the field of radio-controlled aircraft. In fact, the U.S. Navy prototype radio aircraft TDD was named in his honor (the initials stood for Target Drone Denny). A busy actor on films and television into the 1960s, Reginald Denny returned to Broadway in 1958 to replace Robert Coote as Col. Pickering in My Fair Lady.

Trivia: Vince Barnett was the son of Luke Barnett, a well-known comedian who specialized in insulting and pulling practical jokes on his audiences (Luke's professional nickname was "Old Man Ribber"). Vince remained in the family business by hiring himself out to Hollywood parties, where he would insult the guests in a thick German accent, spill the soup and drop the trays--all to the great delight of hosts who enjoyed watching their friends squirm and mutter "Who hired that jerk?" The diminutive, chrome-domed Barnett also appeared in the 1926 edition of Earl Carroll's Vanities. He began appearing in films in 1930, playing hundreds of comedy bits and supporting parts until retiring in 1975. Among Vince Barnett's more sizeable screen roles was the moronic, illiterate gangster "secretary" in Scarface (1931).

Trivia: In vaudeville with her parents from childhood, blonde, silent-movie leading lady Esther Ralston was in films from 1916. Her first important role was the heroine in the 12-chapter Universal serial The Phantom Fortune. A major star at Paramount in the 1920s, Ralston was touted as "The American Venus" after appearing (with a bare-minimum wardrobe) in a 1926 film of the same name. Ever seeking out a variety of parts, Ralston played Rose Maylie in Oliver Twist (1923), Mrs. Darling in Peter Pan (1924), and the Fairy Godmother in A Kiss for Cinderella (1925); she was at her best when exuding an air of highly defendable virtue in films like Old Ironsides (1926). Ralston prepared for talkies by training at Edward Everett Horton's California-based stock company. She continued playing worthwhile roles in features of various importance until her first retirement in 1941, and thereafter briefly acted on radio soap operas. After the breakup of her marriage, Ralston found the financial going rough and took whatever jobs she could; in the mid-'50s she toiled as a Manhattan department store saleswoman, denying that she was Esther Ralston to customers who thought they recognized her. Also in that decade, she briefly managed the career of her daughter, a nightclub singer. Esther Ralston returned before the cameras on the 1962 NBC TV daytime drama Our Five Daughters.

Trivia: Auburn-haired Ziegfeld girl Eleanor Hunt blazed onto the screen in 1930, as Eddie Cantor's leading lady in the phenomenally successful Whoopee. She signed with Fox but was then wasted in a couple of so-so roles in so-so films. By 1934, she was playing John Wayne's leading lady in the Western Blue Steel, but the studio was Monogram and Wayne merely an also-ran cowboy at the time. She made four minor action adventures with the fading Conrad Nagel, produced by Condor Pictures, but it was too little, too late and she retired. Hunt was the wife of B-movie perennial Rex Lease.

Trivia: A showgirl in the 1927 Ziegfeld Follies and the understudy for its star, Irene Delroy, blonde, blue-eyed leading lady Claudia Dell had been educated in San Antonio, TX, and Mexico City. Imported to Hollywood in the heady early days of sound, the porcelain pretty Dell made a potentially important screen debut in the title role of Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930). But the Regency romance, really an operetta but without the music, tanked at the box office despite the added attraction of two-strip Technicolor, and a co-starring role opposite Al Jolson in Big Boy did as little for her as Sonny Boy (1929) had for the equally blonde Josephine Dunn. Warner Bros. subsequently dropped her option and she was relegated to Poverty Row. Rebounding at Universal, Dell did Destry Rides Again (1932) with Tom Mix, the first of four B-Westerns, and she was the nominal heroine in a very cheap action serial, The Lost City (1935). Dell was playing bit roles by the end of the decade and the 1940s saw her cast in low-grade Monogram antics such as Black Magic (1944), a Charlie Chan series entry, and Call of the Jungle (1944), a humid potboiler starring stripper Ann Corio. Divorced from theatrical agent Edwin Stilton, Claudia Dell later worked as a beauty shop receptionist and appeared in early television dramas.

Trivia: Born in Germany, Anders was billed under his given name of Rudolph Amendt when he made his American screen bow in Stamboul Quest (1934). He became "Robert O. Davis" for such roles as Franz Joseph in Champagne Waltz (1937) and "His Excellency" in the 1941 serial King of the Texas Rangers. During the war years, when character actors with Germanic names became bankable commodities, he settled upon "Rudolph Anders," and remained so until his retirement in 1964. Anders flourished in sinister roles, often playing Nazis or communist spies. In the early 1950s, he was seen as Teutonic scientists in the sci-fiers Phantom from Space (1953) and The Snow Creature (1954). And on TV, he played Dr. Von Meter on the kiddie serial Space Patrol. Rudolph Anders was back at work for Der Fatherland as a Nazi doctor in his final film, 36 Hours (1964).

Trivia: Bearded and scruffy-looking, William Merrill McCormick became one of the busiest character actors in B-Western history. Beginning his screen career in the late 1910s, McCormick excelled at playing unshaven henchmen, rustlers, stage robbers, and a host of other less-than-desirable prairie varmints. Rarely the main villain, he could usually be spotted sneering in the background alongside such fellow bit part players as Jim Corey, Bill Gillis, and Al Ferguson. Taking time out to direct good friend Marin Sais in a couple of very inexpensive oaters in 1923, McCormick kept up a hectic acting schedule that lasted well into the television era. He died of a heart attack right after finishing a scene for the television series The Roy Rogers Show.