Trivia: American actor Arnold Stang was a professional almost all his life -- but unlike other "professional kids," he actively sought a career and wasn't strong-armed into it by ambitious parents. Winning an audition at age nine on radio's Horn and Hardart's Children's Hour, Stang launched a two-decade stint as one of radio's most stalwart supporting players. He appeared as a regular on Let's Pretend, and later was generously featured on Gertrude Berg's serialized family drama The Goldbergs. As his skills increased, Stang discovered he could get laughs, and worked steadily with such comedians as Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, and especially Milton Berle, with whom Stang continued his association on television. On the satirical Henry Morgan Show, Stang was a regular member of the comedy stock company, most often as a nerdy teenager named Gerard. Stang started doing cartoon voiceovers in the '40s, beginning with Popeye the Sailor's pal Shorty, then moving into a lengthy hitch as "Hoiman" the mouse in Paramount's Herman and Katnip series; he also performed in 24 episodes of Hanna-Barbera's 1961 cartoon series Top Cat, playing the title role in a "Phil Silvers" manner until the sponsors demanded less of Silvers and more of Stang. In films since 1942's My Sister Eileen, Stang had his best movie role in Man with the Golden Arm (1955) where he played Frank Sinatra's skuzzy but loyal pal Sparrow - a characterization eerily reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in the much-later film Midnight Cowboy (1969). During the '50s, Stang was the TV spokesman for Chunky candy, fondly remembered by today's baby boomers for his enthusiastic "Chunky...what a chunk o' chocolate!" Still active in the '90s, the owlish, bespectacled Arnold Stang delighted his long-time fans with an amusing character role in the John Hughes film Dennis the Menace (1993). Stang died at age 91 in December 2009.

Trivia: The screen's premier "comic gangster," Allen Jenkins studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked several years in regional stock companies and on Broadway before talking pictures created a demand for his talents in Hollywood. One of his first films was Blessed Event (1932), in which Jenkins played the role he'd originated in the stage version. This and most subsequent Allen Jenkins films were made at Warner Bros., where the actor made so many pictures that he was sometimes referred to as "the fifth Warner Brother." As outspoken and pugnacious off screen as on, Jenkins was a member in good standing of Hollywood's "Irish Mafia," a rotating band of Hibernian actors (including James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Matt McHugh and Jimmy Gleason) who palled around incessantly. Popular but undisciplined and profligate with his money, Jenkins was reduced to "B" films by the 1940s and 1950s, including occasional appearances in RKO's Falcon films and the Bowery Boys epics at Monogram; still, he was as game as ever, and capable of taking any sort of physical punishment meted out to his characters. TV offered several opportunities for Jenkins in the 1950s and 1960s, notably his supporting role on 1956's Hey Jeannie, a sitcom starring Scottish songstress Jeannie Carson, and 30 weeks' worth of voice-over work as Officer Dibble on the 1961 animated series Top Cat. Going the dinner theater and summer stock route in the 1960s, Jenkins was as wiry as ever onstage, but his eyesight had deteriorated to the point that he had to memorize where the furniture was set. Making ends meet between acting jobs, Jenkins took on work as varied as tool-and-die making for Douglas Aircraft and selling cars for a Santa Monica dealer. Asked in 1965 how he felt about "moonlighting", Jenkins (who in his heyday had commanded $4000 per week) growled, "I go where the work is and do what the work is! Moonlighting's a fact. The rest is for the birds." Towards the end of his life, Jenkins was hired for cameo roles by directors who fondly remembered the frail but still feisty actor from his glory days; one of Jenkins' last appearances was as a telegrapher in the final scene of Billy Wilder's The Front Page (1974).

Trivia: The daughter of French refugees, Gigi Perreau was born within a stone's throw of Hollywood. Registered with Central Casting as an infant, 18-month-old Gigi played Eve Curie as a baby in 1942's Madame Curie, and at two played young Fanny (who grew up to be Bette Davis) in Mrs. Skeffington. As soon as she was able to talk, Gigi was being groomed by her managers as a potential Margaret O'Brien replacement. A little less mannered and more versatile than O'Brien, Gigi was at her best in such roles as Ann Blyth's irksome kid sister in My Foolish Heart (1950) an emotionally disturbed murder witness in Shadow on the Wall (1950), and a yet-to-be-born child shopping around for suitable parents in the 1950 comedy/fantasy For Heaven's Sake (1950). As her film career faded, Perreau flourished briefly as a TV leading lady, with supporting roles on the 1959 sitcom The Betty Hutton Show and the 1961 adventure weekly Follow the Sun. Adult stardom eluded her however, and by 1967 she was retired. Gigi Perreau was the sister of two other juvenile performers, Janine Perreau and Richard Miles; in the early 1960s, Perreau and brother Richard managed a popular Los Angeles art gallery.