Trivia: Arguably the most popular -- and certainly the busiest -- movie leading man in Hollywood history, John Wayne entered the film business while working as a laborer on the Fox lot during summer vacations from U.S.C., which he attended on a football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to make a name for himself in action films, comedies, and dramas. Wayne was cast in small roles in Ford's late-'20s films, occasionally under the name Duke Morrison. It was Ford who recommended Wayne to director Raoul Walsh for the male lead in the 1930 epic Western The Big Trail, and, although it was a failure at the box office, the movie showed Wayne's potential as a leading man. During the next nine years, be busied himself in a multitude of B-Westerns and serials -- most notably Shadow of the Eagle and The Three Mesquiteers series -- in between occasional bit parts in larger features such as Warner Bros.' Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck. But it was in action roles that Wayne excelled, exuding a warm and imposing manliness onscreen to which both men and women could respond. In 1939, Ford cast Wayne as the Ringo Kid in the adventure Stagecoach, a brilliant Western of modest scale but tremendous power (and incalculable importance to the genre), and the actor finally showed what he could do. Wayne nearly stole a picture filled with Oscar-caliber performances, and his career was made. He starred in most of Ford's subsequent major films, whether Westerns (Fort Apache [1948], She Wore a Yellow Ribbon [1949], Rio Grande [1950], The Searchers [1956]); war pictures (They Were Expendable [1945]); or serious dramas (The Quiet Man [1952], in which Wayne also directed some of the action sequences). He also starred in numerous movies for other directors, including several extremely popular World War II thrillers (Flying Tigers [1942], Back to Bataan [1945], Fighting Seabees [1944], Sands of Iwo Jima [1949]); costume action films (Reap the Wild Wind [1942], Wake of the Red Witch [1949]); and Westerns (Red River [1948]). His box-office popularity rose steadily through the 1940s, and by the beginning of the 1950s he'd also begun producing movies through his company Wayne-Fellowes, later Batjac, in association with his sons Michael and Patrick (who also became an actor). Most of these films were extremely successful, and included such titles as Angel and the Badman (1947), Island in the Sky (1953), The High and the Mighty (1954), and Hondo (1953). The 1958 Western Rio Bravo, directed by Howard Hawks, proved so popular that it was remade by Hawks and Wayne twice, once as El Dorado and later as Rio Lobo. At the end of the 1950s, Wayne began taking on bigger films, most notably The Alamo (1960), which he produced and directed, as well as starred in. It was well received but had to be cut to sustain any box-office success (the film was restored to full length in 1992). During the early '60s, concerned over the growing liberal slant in American politics, Wayne emerged as a spokesman for conservative causes, especially support for America's role in Vietnam, which put him at odds with a new generation of journalists and film critics. Coupled with his advancing age, and a seeming tendency to overact, he became a target for liberals and leftists. However, his movies remained popular. McLintock!, which, despite well-articulated statements against racism and the mistreatment of Native Americans, and in support of environmentalism, seemed to confirm the left's worst fears, but also earned more than ten million dollars and made the list of top-grossing films of 1963-1964. Virtually all of his subsequent movies, including the pro-Vietnam War drama The Green Berets (1968), were very popular with audiences, but not with critics. Further controversy erupted with the release of The Cowboys, which outraged liberals with its seeming justification of violence as a solution to lawlessness, but it was successful enough to generate a short-lived television series. Amid all of the shouting and agonizing over his politics, Wayne won an Oscar for his role as marshal Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, a part that he later reprised in a sequel. Wayne weathered the Vietnam War, but, by then, time had become his enemy. His action films saw him working alongside increasingly younger co-stars, and the decline in popularity of the Western ended up putting him into awkward contemporary action films like McQ (1974). Following his final film, The Shootist (1976) -- possibly his best Western since The Searchers -- the news that Wayne was stricken ill with cancer (which eventually took his life in 1979) wiped the slate clean, and his support for the Panama Canal Treaty at the end of the 1970s belatedly made him a hero for the left. Wayne finished his life honored by the film community, the U.S. Congress, and the American people as had no actor before or since. He remains among the most popular actors of his generation, as evidenced by the continual rereleases of his films on home video.

Trivia: Lucille Brown was only five and living in an orphanage when she was discovered by movie mogul Hal Roach who cast her as Farina in his "Our Gang" comedies. She played the role for about a year. Later she played minor roles in several all-African American films during the '30s and '40s. Lucille Brown spent many years singing and dancing as the headliner of Babe Barlow and the Sugar Drops.

Trivia: The quintessential "Big Boss" heavy in B-Westerns, with or without a mustache, LeRoy Mason entered films in the mid-'20s as Roy Mason, playing mostly juveniles. After the advent of talkies, he was usually on the wrong side of the law, appearing opposite nearly every Western star on the Hollywood prairie, a career that included quite a few action serials as well. By the 1940s, he had become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, switching from 20th Century Fox to Republic and back again with seemingly little time to recuperate. In 1943, he signed a "term player" contract with Republic and became busier than ever. The hectic schedule took an awful toll, however, when he suffered a fatal heart attack on the set of the 1947 Monte Hale Western California Firebrand. Mason was married to Rita Carewe, who briefly billed herself Rita Mason, a former actress and the daughter of silent screen director Edwin Carewe.

Trivia: Virtually the prototype of all grizzled old-codger western sidekicks, George "Gabby" Hayes professed in real life to hate westerns, complaining that they all looked and sounded alike. For his first few decades in show business, he appeared in everything but westerns, including travelling stock companies, vaudeville, and musical comedy. He began appearing in films in 1928, just in time to benefit from the talkie explosion. In contrast to his later unshaven, toothless screen persona, George Hayes (not yet Gabby) frequently showed up in clean-faced, well groomed articulate characterizations, sometimes as the villain. In 1933 he appeared in several of the Lone Star westerns featuring young John Wayne, alternating between heavies and comedy roles. Wayne is among the many cowboy stars who has credited Hayes with giving them valuable acting tips in their formative days. In 1935, Hayes replaced an ailing Al St. John in a supporting role in the first Hopalong Cassidy film, costarring with William Boyd; Hayes' character died halfway through this film, but audience response was so strong that he was later brought back into the Hoppy series as a regular. It was while sidekicking for Roy Rogers at Republic that Hayes, who by now never appeared in pictures with his store-bought teeth, earned the soubriquet "Gabby", peppering the soundtrack with such slurred epithets as "Why, you goldurned whipersnapper" and "Consarn it!" He would occasionally enjoy an A-picture assignment in films like Dark Command (1940) and Tall in the Saddle (1944), but from the moment he became "Gabby", Hayes was more or less consigned exclusively to "B"s. After making his last film appearance in 1952, Hayes turned his attentions to television, where he starred in the popular Saturday-morning Gabby Hayes Show ("Hullo out thar in televisium land!") and for a while was the corporate spokesman for Popsicles. Retiring after a round of personal appearance tours, Hayes settled down on his Nevada ranch, overseeing his many business holdings until his death at age 83.

Trivia: A kindergarten teacher in her native Cleveland, Margaret Hamilton began her acting career there in community theatre and with the prestigious Cleveland Playhouse. In 1933, Hamilton was invited to repeat her stage role of the sarcastic daughter-in-law in the Broadway play Another Language for the MGM film version. Though only in her early '30s, the gloriously unpretty Hamilton subsequently played dozens of busybodies, gossips, old maids, and housekeepers in films bearing such titles as Hat, Coat and Glove (1934), Way Down East (1935) and These Three (1936). She proved an excellent foil for such comedians as W.C. Fields (in 1940's My Little Chickadee) and Harold Lloyd (in 1946's The Sin of Harold Diddlebock). Her most famous film assignment was the dual role of Elvira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West in the imperishable 1939 gem The Wizard of Oz -- a role which nearly cost her her life when her green copper makeup caught fire during one of her "disappearance" scenes. She played several smaller but no less impressive roles at 20th Century-Fox, including the first-scene plot motivator in People Will Talk (1951) and Carrie Nation in Wabash Avenue (1950). She alternated her film work with stage assignments in the 1950s and 1960s, frequently returning to her home base at the Cleveland Playhouse. Achieving "icon" status in the 1970s by virtue of The Wizard of Oz, Hamilton sometimes found herself being cast for "camp" effect (e.g. Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud), but also enjoyed some of her best-ever parts, including the role of professorial occult expert in the 1972 TV movie The Night Strangler. Despite her menacing demeanor, Hamilton was a gentle, soft-spoken woman; she was especially fond of children, and showed up regularly on such PBS programs as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. In the 1970s, Margaret Hamilton added another sharply etched portrayal to her gallery of characters as general-store proprietor Cora on a popular series of Maxwell House coffee commercials -- one of which ran during a telecast of The Wizard of Oz!

Trivia: A well-known horse-breeder turned movie stunt man, Bert Dillard (sometimes given as Burt Dillard) appeared in scores of low-budget Westerns and serials 1935-1951, never receiving onscreen credits, but almost always playing one of the villain's henchmen. Dillard, who appeared in scores of television Westerns as well, died of a heart attack.

Trivia: An important screen director in the 1910s, Illinois-born Lloyd Ingraham had been a stock manager for California entrepreneur Oliver Morosco prior to entering films directing Broncho Billy Westerns for Essanay in the early 1910s. He went on to direct some of the silent era's biggest stars, including Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and would specialize in robust outdoor adventures and Westerns. An equally busy supporting player who appeared in scores of silent films ranging from Intolerance (1916) to Scaramouche (1923), the white-haired, ascetic-looking veteran became an actor for hire after the advent of sound, appearing mostly in low-budget Westerns and almost always playing the heroine's father or a lawman. Spending his final years as a resident of the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, Ingraham's death was attributed to pneumonia.

Trivia: Yakima Canutt was the most innovative stunt performer and coordinator ever to risk life and limb for the art of Hollywood illusion. Cheating death at every turn, many of the tricks of the trade he first developed in the Westerns of the silent era remain fixtures of the craft even today. Born Enos Edward Canutt on November 29, 1895, in Colfax, WA, he began working on ranches while in his youth and at the age of 17 signed on as a trick rider with a Wild West show, where he ultimately won the title of Rodeo World Champion. Billing himself as Eddie Canutt, "the Man From Yakima," in 1917 he met Hollywood cowboy star Tom Mix, who recruited him as a stunt man. Quickly he became one of the leading fall guys in the industry, with a knack for horse spills and wagon wrecks. Over and over again, Canutt brought Western reelers to a rousing finale by doubling as the hero as he leapt from his horse to tackle a villain attempting to flee from the long arm of the law. In 1920, Canutt first earned billing for his work in The Girl Who Dared. Soon his name was appearing in the credits of several Westerns each year, all highlighted by his daredevil antics. His reputation rested on his ability to mastermind larger-than-life sequences -- cattle stampedes, covered-wagon races, and the like -- as well as intricate battles between frontier settlers and their Indian rivals. He could also be counted on to leap from a cliff's top while on horseback, or from a stagecoach onto its runaway horse team. For his elaborately choreographed fight scenes, Canutt developed a new, more realistic method of throwing punches, positioning the action so that the camera filmed over the shoulder of the actor receiving the blow, with the punch itself coming directly toward the lens. With the addition of sound effects, the illusion of fisticuffs was complete, and the practice remains an essential component of the stunt man's craft today. Under Canutt's supervision, a number of rules and guidelines designed to improve stunt safety were established, all of them becoming industry standards. Indeed, to his credit no one was ever seriously injured in any of his films. Many of Canutt's most important innovations involved his use of rigging: In one such attempt to minimize the possibility of broken bones, he carefully rigged his stirrups to break open to allow his feet to release at the proper moment. He also rigged cable mechanisms to trigger stunt action, maintaining more control over his scenes to eliminate the possibility of catastrophe. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers -- nearly every major Western star -- owed much of his success to Canutt's daring; eventually, his mastery of the craft was such that scripts were penned without detailed descriptions of their fight scenes or chases, and "Action by Yakima Canutt" was simply written instead.By the mid-'20s, Canutt was starring in Westerns as well as handling stunts. However, as the sound era dawned he suffered an illness which stripped the resonance from his voice, effectively ending his career as a leading man and reducing him to turns as sidekicks and heavies. In 1932's serial The Shadow of the Eagle, he was cast alongside John Wayne, beginning a partnership that was to endure for many years; their most notable collaboration was the 1939 classic Stagecoach, where Canutt not only came aboard as the stunt supervisor but also appeared onscreen to take falls as a cowboy, an Indian, and even as a woman. In addition to keeping peace between Wayne and director John Ford, Canutt also performed one of the most legendary stunts in film history, a pulse-pounding pass under a moving stagecoach: Doubling as an Indian, he rode his horse ahead of the coach before attempting to leap over to its lead team and dropping to the ground; after a brief moment, he then released his grip and allowed the horses and the coach to pass over his body. As Canutt grew older, injuries began to take their toll, and he cut back on his rigorous schedule, making the transition from stunt performer to coordinator to, ultimately, director. However, he still found time to appear onscreen in noteworthy films like 1939's Gone With the Wind, not only standing in for Clark Gable during his wagon drive through the burning streets of Atlanta but also playing the renegade soldier who attacks Scarlett O'Hara and tumbles backward down a flight of steps. In his later years Canutt also served as a second-unit director, most notably aiding William Wyler on 1959's Ben-Hur, where he helped supervise the choreography of the famed chariot race (a sequence two years in the making). Canutt also oversaw the many animal action scenes in Old Yeller, as well as the car chase in The Flim-Flam Man.In 1966, Canutt received a special Academy Award for his lifetime of excellence as a stunt performer, winning kudos "for creating the profession of stunt man as it exists today and for the development of many safety devices used by stunt men everywhere." In 1975, he was also inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Canutt remained active in films until 1976, ending his career as a consultant on Equus. His son later carried on in the family business. In 1979, Canutt published his memoirs, Stunt Man: The Autobiography of Yakima Canutt. Yakima Canutt died in Hollywood on May 24, 1986, at the age of 90.

Trivia: The son of B-Western and serial director Jack Nelson, little Bobby Nelson starred in one of the silent era's last western series, Universal's The Pioneer Kid. All 13 mini-Westerns were directed by Jack Nelson, who also helmed The White Gorilla (released 1947), a bizarre jungle melodrama filmed in the 1930s and incorporating footage from several silent serials. The ill-begotten result, featuring Bobby, was released in 1935. He also appeared in four very low-budget westerns, starring non-entity Rex Lease. Today, Bobby Nelson is probably best remembered as Tom Keene's juvenile sidekick in Partners (1932).

Trivia: Most of character actress Fern Emmett's early appearances were in westerns, where she played scores of maiden aunts, hillbilly wives, town spinsters, ranch owners and stagecoach passengers. When she moved into contemporary films, she was most often seen as a landlady or gossip. She enjoyed a rare breakaway from this established screen persona when she played a screaming murder victim in the 1943 Universal thriller Captive Wild Women. Seldom given more than a few lines in "A" features, Emmett was better-served in programmers and 2-reel comedies. Emmett so closely resembled "Wicked Witch of the West" Margaret Hamilton that some historians have lumped their credits together, even though Emmett began her film career in 1930, three years before Hamilton ever stepped before a camera. Fern Emmett was the wife of actor Henry Rocquemore.

Trivia: John Ince was the older brother of producer/directors Tom Ince and Ralph Ince. Like his siblings, John was a stage actor from childhood. Despite his huge, fleshy frame, Ince found work as a leading man when entered films in 1913; he also directed and scripted several of his own vehicles. Concentrating almost exclusively on directing from 1915 through 1928, Ince returned before the cameras as a character actor in the early years of the talkies. While many of assignments were bit roles, John Ince could always be counted on to make his scenes important; he was quite memorable as Major Bowes clone "Colonel Crowe" in the 1935 Buster Keaton two-reeler Grand Slam Opera, and as the real-life Monogram producer Sam Katzman (whom Ince resembled not in the slightest) in the Bela Lugosi chiller Voodoo Man (1944).

Trivia: In films from 1928, heavy-set character actor Henry Roquemore essayed small-to-medium roles as politicians, storekeepers, judges, and "sugar daddies." A typical Roquemore characterization was "the Match King," one of Mae West's many over-the-hill suitors in Goin' to Town (1935). His more memorable roles include the Justice of the Peace who marries Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year (1941). Henry Roquemore was the husband of actress Fern Emmett.

Trivia: The sound era's first true serial queen, blond, blue-eyed Lucille Browne was appearing on-stage with aging matinee idol Richard Bennett in Jarnigan when signed to a contract with Fox in 1930. She was immediately teamed with George O'Brien for Last of the Duanes (1930), a Zane Grey adventure, and although Fox singularly failed to realize her potential, the die was cast and she would forever be identified with action and outdoor films. Browne's first in a total of six serials was Universal's Danger Island (1931), with Battling With Buffalo Bill (1931) and The Airmail Mystery (1932) following in short order. Her leading man in the latter was general purpose actor James Flavin, whom she would marry soon after, a union that lasted her lifetime. Mascot, the premium independent serial producer, hired her for Last of the Mohicans (1932) and Mystery Squadron (1933). The latter, starring Bob Steele and scores of airplanes, was probably Browne's best-remembered serial. The Law of the Wild (1934), also from Mascot, followed, and Browne was Gene Autry's leading lady in his signature opus, Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935). There were additional Westerns with Johnny Mack Brown and Ken Maynard but by the 1940s, both Flavins were playing bit roles.