Trivia: Gene Autry, the archetype of the guitar strumming, singing Hollywood cowboy, is one of American cinema's most beloved figures. Born Orvon Autry, his entry to showbiz has a story book quality. During the 1920s he was working as a telegraph operator when American folk hero Will Rogers overheard him singing and convinced him to give show business a try. By 1928 he was singing regularly on a small radio station. Three years later, he was starring in his own national radio show (The National Barn Dance) and making records for Columbia. He first made his mark in films starring roles in the 13-part Republic serial Phantom Empire (1935) and the movie Tumblin' Tumbleweeds (1935). Then he went on to make dozens of Westerns, usually with his famed horse Champion and his comic sidekick Smiley Burnette. He was the top Western star at the box office from 1937-42, and is the only Western actor ever to make the list of Hollywood's top ten attractions, an achievement attained in 1940, '41, and '42. His career was interrupted by service in World War II (he served as a flight officer), during which his place was supplanted at Republic by singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Between 1947 and 1954, now working for Columbia Pictures, Autry trailed behind Rogers as the second most popular western star. His films focus exclusively on action, with little romantic interest. Autry's special twist, though, was to pause from time to time for an easy-going song, creating a new genre of action films that is considered by film historians to constitute a revolution in B-movies (one that went on to have many imitators). As a recording artist, he had nine million-sellers; and as a songwriter, he penned 200 popular songs including the holiday classic "Here Comes Santa Claus." After 20 years as a singing cowboy, Autry retired from movies in 1954 to further his career as a highly successful businessman (among many other investments, he eventually bought the California Angels, a major league baseball team). However, he continued performing on television until the '60s. In 1978 he published his autobiography Back in the Saddle Again, titled after his signature song.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the '40s.

Trivia: The living image of the man on the Monopoly cards, Thurston Hall began his six-decade acting career on the New England stock-company circuit. Forming his own troupe, Hall toured America, Africa and New Zealand. On Broadway, he was starred in such venerable productions as Ben-Hur and Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. In films from 1915, Hall appeared in dozens of silents, notably the 1917 Theda Bara version of Cleopatra, in which he played Mark Antony. After 15 years on Broadway, Hall returned to films in 1935, spending the next 20 years portraying many a fatuous businessman, pompous politician, dyspeptic judge or crooked "ward heeler." From 1953 through 1955, Hall was seen as the choleric bank president Mr. Schuyler on the TV sitcom Topper. Towards the end of his life, a thinner, goateed Thurston Hall appeared in several TV commercials as the Kentucky-colonel spokesman for a leading chicken pot pie manufacturer.

Trivia: The screen's premiere "Old Codger," American actor Clem Bevans didn't make his movie debut until he was 55 years old. His acting career was launched in 1900 with a vaudeville boy-girl act costarring Grace Emmett. Bevans moved on to burlesque, stock shows, Broadway and light opera. In 1935, Bevans first stepped before the movie cameras as Doc Wiggins in Way Down East. It was the first of many toothless, stubble-chinned geezers that Bevans would portray for the next 27 years. On occasion, producers and directors would use Bevans' established screen persona to throw the audience off the track. In Happy Go Lucky (1942), he unexpectedly shows up as a voyeuristic millionaire with a fondness for female knees; in Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), he is a likeable old desert rat who turns out to be a Nazi spy! Clem Bevans continued playing farmers, hillbillies, and "town's oldest citizen" roles into the early 1960s. The octogenarian actor could be seen in a 1962 episode of Twilight Zone ("Hocus Pocus and Frisby") looking and sounding just the same as he had way back in 1935.

Trivia: Born in Colorado and raised in Oregon, actor Walter Sande was a music student from age six. He dropped out of college to organize his own band, then for many years served as musical director for the West Coast Fox Theater chain. In 1937, Sande entered films with a small role in Goldwyn Follies (1938). He fluctuated thereafter between bits in films like Citizen Kane (1941), in which he played one of the many reporters, and supporting roles in films like To Have and Have Not (1944), in which he portrayed the defaulting customer who is punched out by a boat-renting Humphrey Bogart. On television, Walter Sande played Horatio Bullwinkle on Tugboat Annie (1958) and Papa Holstrum on The Farmer's Daughter (1963-1966).

Trivia: Following his graduation from the University of Iowa and World War II service, Jock Mahoney came to Hollywood as a stuntman. Quickly establishing a reputation as one of the best and most courageous purveyors of his trade, Mahoney graduated to speaking roles in 1946. Billed as Jacques O'Mahoney, he played villains and secondary roles in Republic and Columbia westerns, showed up as a parodied "strong and silent" leading man in a handful of Three Stooges 2-reelers, and, while doubling for Errol Flynn, performed the legendary staircase leap in 1949's The Adventures of Don Juan. In 1951, Gene Autry hired Mahoney (who was now billing himself as Jack Mahoney) to star in the popular TV western series The Range Rider. This led to leading roles in such features as Overland Pacific (1954), Showdown at Abilene (1956) and I've Lived Before (1956). In 1958, Mahoney starred in another weekly TV western, Yancey Derringer. Two years later he played the villain in a Tarzan picture starring Gordon Scott, succeeding Scott as the "lord of the jungle" in Tarzan Goes to India (1962) -- during the filming of which he fell deathly ill, a fact that is painfully obvious in the completed picture. Suffering a severe stroke in 1973, Mahoney made a near-complete recovery in the last five years of his life, performing his final stunt (tumbling from a wheelchair) in Burt Reynolds' The End. Reynolds exhibited his admiration for Mahoney in his 1980 vehicle Hooper, in which the stuntman character played by Brian Keith was named "Jocko." Mahoney's last film work was as stunt coordinator for John Derek's otherwise wretched 1981 remake of Tarzan of the Apes. Married for many years to actress Mary Field, whom he'd met while filming Range Rider, Jock Mahoney was the stepfather of Oscar-winning actress Sally Field.

Trivia: Blessed with matinee idol looks, an athletic physique, and a generous supply of talent, Francis J. McDonald entered films in 1912 after brief stage experience. A popular leading man of the teen years, McDonald segued into villainous characterizations in the 1920s, notably as the title character in Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926). He remained busy during the talkie era, primarily as a mustachioed heavy in "B" westerns and a featured player in the films of Cecil B. DeMille. Francis J. McDonald was at one time the husband of the "ever popular" Mae Busch.

Trivia: Also billed as Armelita Ward and Lita Ward, this dark-eyed, dark-haired American actress began appearing in films around 1942. Ward was an RKO contractee during most of the war years, appearing in the studios' various radio series, including The Falcon and The Great Gildersleeve. On occasion, she was loaned out to smaller studios to play larger parts. Active until 1949, Amelita Ward was one of a handful of performers who appeared with Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and others in both their East Side Kids and Bowery Boys incarnations, playing young heiresses in the East Side Kids entry Clancy Street Boys (1943) and the Bowery Boys opus Smuggler's Cove (1948).

Trivia: The son of a patent medicine manufacturer, American actor Alan Hale chose a theatrical career at a time when, according to his son Alan Hale Jr., boarding houses would post signs reading "No Dogs or Actors Allowed." Undaunted, Hale spent several years on stage after graduating from Philadelphia University, entering films as a slapstick comedian for Philly's Lubin Co. in 1911. Bolstering his acting income with odd jobs as a newspaperman and itinerant inventor (at one point he considered becoming an osteopath!), Hale finally enjoyed a measure of security as a much-in-demand character actor in the 1920s, usually as hard-hearted villains. One of his more benign roles was as Little John in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922), a role he would repeat opposite Errol Flynn in 1938 and John Derek in 1950. Talkies made Hale more popular than ever, especially in his many roles as Irishmen, blusterers and "best pals" for Warner Bros. Throughout his career, Hale never lost his love for inventing things, and reportedly patented or financed items as commonplace as auto brakes and as esoteric as greaseless potato chips. Alan Hale contracted pneumonia and died while working on the Warner Bros. western Montana (1950), which starred Hale's perennial screen cohort Errol Flynn.

Trivia: Had he been born a decade earlier, American actor Denver Pyle might well have joined the ranks of western-movie comedy sidekicks. Instead, Pyle, a Colorado farm boy, opted for studying law, working his way through school by playing drums in a dance band. Suddenly one day, Pyle became disenchanted with law and returned to his family farm, with nary an idea what he wanted to do with his life. Working in the oil fields of Oklahoma, he moved on to the shrimp boats of Galveston, Texas. A short stint as a page at NBC radio studios in 1940 didn't immediately lead to a showbiz career, as it has for so many others; instead, Pyle was inspired to perform by a mute oilfield coworker who was able to convey his thought with body language. Studying under such masters as Michael Chekhov and Maria Ouspenskaya, Pyle was able to achieve small movie and TV roles. He worked frequently on the western series of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; not yet bearded and grizzled, Pyle was often seen as deputies, farmers and cattle rustlers. When his hair turned prematurely grey in his early '30s, Pyle graduated to banker, sheriff and judge roles in theatrical westerns -- though never of the comic variety. He also was a regular on two TV series, Code 3 (1956) and Tammy (1966). But his real breakthrough role didn't happen until 1967, when Pyle was cast as the taciturn sheriff in Bonnie and Clyde who is kidnapped and humilated by the robbers -- and then shows up at the end of the film to supervise the bloody machine-gun deaths of B&C. This virtually nonspeaking role won worldwide fame for Pyle, as well as verbal and physical assalts from the LA hippie community who regarded Bonnie and Clyde as folk heroes! From this point forward, Denver Pyle's billing, roles and salary were vastly improved -- and his screen image was softened and humanized by a full, bushy beard. Returning to TV, Pyle played the star's father on The Doris Day Show (1968-73); was Mad Jack, the costar/narrator of Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1978-80); and best of all, spent six years (1979-85) as Uncle Jesse Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. Looking stockier but otherwise unchanged, Denver Pyle was briefly seen in the 1994 hit Maverick, playing an elegantly dishonest cardshark who jauntily doffs his hat as he's dumped off of a riverboat. Pyle died of lung cancer at Burbank's Providence St. Joseph Medical Center at age 77.

Trivia: Often cast as American Indians, tough-looking stunt man/supporting player Boyd Stockman appeared in more than 50 B-Westerns and serials between 1946 and 1956, and was equally busy on such television shows as Gene Autry Show, The Range Rider, Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock, and Sky King. A namesake son (1938-1992) also worked as a Hollywood stunt man in the 1950s.

Trivia: Six-foot-tall American actor Rory Mallinson launched his screen career at the end of WW II. Mallinson was signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1945, making his first appearance in Price of the Marines. In 1947, he began free-lancing at Republic, Columbia and other "B"-picture mills. One of his larger roles was Hodge in the 1952 Columbia serial Blackhawk. Rory Mallinson made his last film in 1963.

Trivia: From In Old Santa Fe (1934) and all through the television years, songwriter/steel guitarist Frankie Marvin (born Frank James Marvin) was a highly visible member of Gene Autry's onscreen coterie. Marvin, who had earlier performed with Autry on radio, would occasionally play a minor role as well, often as Gene's foreman, a ranch hand, or a cowboy. He would even join the bad guys in non-Autry vehicles such as the 1941 serial Adventures of Red Ryder, in which he attempted to poison the Circle R's water supply. In all, Marvin appeared in more than 80 feature Westerns and at least six serials.

Trivia: One look at Alan Hale Jr. and no one could ever assume he was adopted; Hale Jr. so closely resembled his father, veteran character actor Alan Hale Sr., that at times it appeared that the older fellow had returned to the land of the living. In films from 1933, Alan Jr. was originally cast in beefy, athletic good-guy roles (at 6'3", he could hardly play hen-pecked husbands). After the death of his father in 1950, Alan dropped the "Junior" from his professional name. He starred in a brace of TV action series, Biff Baker USA (1953) and Casey Jones (1957), before his he-man image melted into comedy parts. From 1964 through 1967, Hale played The Skipper (aka Jonas Grumby) on the low-brow but high-rated Gilligan's Island. Though he worked steadily after Gilligan's cancellation, he found that the blustery, slow-burning Skipper had typed him to the extent that he lost more roles than he won. In his last two decades, Alan Hale supplemented his acting income as the owner of a successful West Hollywood restaurant, the Lobster Barrel.

Trivia: American movie stunt man John McKee began accepting acting roles somewhere around 1945. Though his name is not listed in The Baseball Encyclopedia, we can safely assume that McKee had some pro baseball experience of some sort. He was seen as a ballplayer in such films as It Happens Every Spring (1949), Three Little Words (1950), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Pride of St. Louis (1952), The Big Leaguer (1953) and The Kid From Left Field (1953). As late as 1978 he was still in uniform, playing Ralph Houk in the made-for-TV One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story. John McKee was also on call for military-officer roles, notably in the war films The Gallant Hours (1960) and McArthur (1976).

Trivia: Bobby Clark was a comedy star three times over (four, if you count his stint as a clown with the Ringling Bros. circus) in vaudeville and in movies in partnership with Paul McCullough, and finally on Broadway. Clark was born in Springfield, OH, in 1888, and as a boy he befriended the slightly older McCullough. The two learned to play music together -- especially the bugle -- and later took a tumbling class at the YMCA and got their first engagement as an acrobatic act at a local Elks Club-sponsored circus. They began hiring themselves out as entertainers and worked in minstrel shows as tumblers, buglers, and general handymen. Clark also had aspirations to act that he never gave up -- and which would serve him well four decades later -- and made his debut in a legitimate play called Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks in 1902. He was soon partnered again with McCullough, working a minstrel show touring the southern and midwestern states. In 1906, they were hired by the Ringling Brothers as clowns, and in 1912 they made the leap to vaudeville. For the next ten years, their reputations as comics grew, and in 1922 they made their European debut in London in Chuckles of 1922. They worked in the Music Box Revue on Broadway that same year and, after two more Music Box Revues, the duo, billed as "Clark & McCullough," got star billing in The Ramblers on Broadway in 1926. The year 1928 brought them to the big screen in a series of excruciating funny short films for Fox, which were so successful that the studio signed them to make a series of full-sound featurettes, some running to three and four reels each. They followed these up in the early '30s with a series of shorts for RKO, which proved to be their most enduring legacy. One of the reasons for their success was that Clark & McCullough defied the expectations of audiences -- though they were billed as "Clark & McCullough," which would have led audiences to expect Clark to be the straightman and McCullough the comic, originally both of these guys were funny in complimentary ways. Clark was a ridiculous-looking dialogue comedian with painted-on glasses, spouting rapid-fire verbal shots, and was also given to spontaneous improvisation on the soundstage -- for that reason, the producers of their films liked to keep at least two cameras running at all times, to follow him in his moments of inspiration; the heavier, more physically imposing McCullough usually sported a racoon coat and a toothbrush mustache, and gradually moved into Clark's shadow as the '30s wore on. By the mid '30s, Clark was identified as the more creatively engaged half of the team, working with the director and the crew to lay out the stunts and comic bits, and doing the rehearsals while McCullough only showed up for the actual shooting. Overall, Clark & McCullough were like a two-man answer to the early Marx Brothers, although they never graduated to feature-length movies or got writers of the caliber of George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, et al. Eventually, Clark became the dominant member of the team while McCullough became the straight man feeding him lines and setting up his humor, but when asked, the older man professed not to mind the change in the dynamic between them. The duo never entirely abandoned the stage, had another success in 1935 with Thumb's Up, both on Broadway and on tour. The following year, they spent a season in 1936 with Earl Carroll's Vanities, doing an abbreviated version of the same show -- it was to be the last time they would work together. In March of 1936, following the end of the production, McCullough entered a sanitarium suffering from what was thought to be exhaustion. According to one source, later that month, Clark was driving McCullough home after leaving the sanitarium when his partner remarked that he needed a shave -- stopping at a barber shop, he went in and sat down in a barber chair, talking to the barber, and suddenly slashed his own throat with the razor; McCullough died two days later. Clark was so grief stricken over the sudden loss of his partner that he never went back to movie work or went forward with the duo comedy act again. In effect, he remade himself and was reborn -- keeping some of the same trademark attributes, including the painted-on glasses -- as a comic actor and star on the legitimate stage. Clark appeared in a string of stage successes over the next decade and a half, including Streets of Paris, Love for Sale, Star and Garter, Mexican Hayride, Sweethearts, and As the Girls Go. He also directed some of the scenes in the 1950 production of Peep Show, and made his last stage appearance in a touring company of Damn Yankees in 1958. He passed away of a heart attack in 1960 at the age of 71, after three successful runs at stardom in a career of nearly 60 years. Because his work after 1936 was confined almost entirely to the stage (apart from an appearance in The Goldwyn Follies and some television work in the early '50s), the visual record of his work is confined to the earlier phase of his career, the RKO shorts that he made with McCullough. The latter were revived in the late '60s and syndicated to television along with similar short subjects by Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol under the title "Reel Camp."