Trivia: While still a high schooler in her Texas home town, Josephine Cottle won a "Gateway to Hollywood" contest sponsored by film producer Jesse Lasky. Cottle was rechristened "Gale Storm" at the suggestion of a movie-magazine fan, and was promptly cast in 1940's Tom Brown's School Days. A brief RKO contract led nowhere, and soon Gale Storm was the sweetheart of Monogram Pictures, starring in several of that low-budget studio's musical "specials." Towards the end of the 1940s, Gale appeared in a number of Republic westerns opposite Roy Rogers. When actress Wanda Hendrix turned down the opportunity to star in the upcoming TV sitcom My Little Margie in 1951, Gale Storm jumped at the chance; like Hendrix, Gale didn't think much of the project at first, but was convinced that it could only get better. Whether or not My Little Margie ever truly evinced signs of improvement is a moot point: Storm became a bonafide star in the role of spunky 21-year-old Margie Belmont. The series' popularity increased tenfold when it left prime time in 1954 and entered the syndicated-rerun market. Capitalizing on her new-found celebrity, she pursued a successful nightclub career, and in 1955 cut a pair of Top Ten record singles, "Teenage Prayer" and "I Hear You Knocking." One year later, she launched a second successful TV series, Oh, Susanna (aka The Gale Storm Show) in which, for four seasons, she filled the role of Susanna Pomeroy, scatterbrained social director on the luxury liner S.S. Ocean Queen. Following her series' cancellation in 1960, Storm returned to nightclubs and played the straw-hat circuit in such musicals as Annie Get Your Gun and then went into semi-retirement, devoting her time to her husband Lee Bonnell (a fellow "Gateway to Hollywood" winner who had long since abandoned acting for the insurance business) and her children. In the late 1970s, Storm re-emerged in the public's consciousness when she announced that she'd been an alcoholic for several years; this was followed by a return to TV as spokesperson for a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in the Northwest. In 1981, Gale Storm published her biography, I Ain't Down Yet.

Trivia: Having studied for a business career at Boston University, Charles Farrell switched professional gears by breaking into films as an extra. After a brief apprenticeship in Mack Sennett 2-reelers, Farrell rose to stardom at Fox Studios, where he was teamed with Janet Gaynor in such romantic dramas as Seventh Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928). The popularity of the Gaynor/Farrell team survived the switch-over to talkies, especially when both Gaynor and Farrell proved to have pleasant singing voices in 1929's Sunny Side Up. Farrell's odd New England accent led many to believe he was British, an assumption that he did little to discourage. As the 1930s progressed, Farrell's stardom diminished, and by 1938 he was playing second fiddle to Fox's newest attraction, Shirley Temple, in Just Around the Corner. Harking back to his collegiate business acumen, Farrell opened up the prosperous Hollywood Racquet Club in Palm Springs, in partnership with Ralph Bellamy. A major factor in the prosperity of Palm Springs in the 1950s, Farrell was elected mayor of the community, a position he held for seven years. Also during this decade, Farrell co-starred with Gale Storm on the popular TV sitcom My Little Margie; he also headlined the 1956 Charlie Farrell Show, the latter sitcom virtually a 39-week commercial for the Racquet Club. Not to be confused with the Irish character actor of same name, Charles Farrell was long-married to former film actress Virginia Valli.

Trivia: Her cultured Mayfair accent notwithstanding, frosty blonde actress Hillary Brooke was born on Long Island. After attending Columbia University, Hillary launched a modelling career, which led to film work in 1937. Though a handful of her screen portrayals were sympathetic, Hillary's talents were best utilized in roles calling for sophisticated truculence: "other women," murderesses, wealthy divorcees and the like. She is also known for her extensive work with the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. First appearing with the team in 1949's Africa Screams, she was briefly nonplused by their ad-libs and prankishness, but soon learned to relax and enjoy their unorthodox working habits. Retiring in 1960 upon her marriage to MGM general manager Ray Klune, Hillary Brooke has devoted much of her time since to religious and charitable work.

Trivia: American actor Clarence Kolb came to prominence in the very early 1900s, as one half of the stage comedy team of Kolb and Dill. Kolb and his partner Max Dill were Dutch-dialect comics, their act patterned after the more famous Weber and Fields. The team supplemented their stage appearances with a brief series of short film comedies, released between 1916 and 1917. It wasn't until Kolb struck out on his own that he developed his familiar screen persona of the bullying, excitable business tycoon with the requisite heart of gold. Playing virtually the same part in virtually the same clothes in film after film, Kolb continued his patented characterization in the role of Mr. Honeywell on the popular '50s TV sitcom My Little Margie. Clarence Kolb's final screen appearance was in Man of 1000 Faces (1957), the screen biography of Lon Chaney Sr. For this guest appearance, Kolb decked himself out in his old Dutch vaudeville costume and false beard and played "himself," while character actor Danny Beck portrayed Kolb's stage cohort Max Dill(who'd died in 1949).

Trivia: African American actor Willie Best made his screen debut in Harold Lloyd's Feet First (1930). When Best, a veteran of a travelling show, came to Hollywood, he immediately fell prey to the stereotyping of the era. Promoted as a "new Stepin Fetchit," Best was transformed into a shuffling, "Yassuh boss" character billed as "Sleep 'N' Eat." Studio press releases of the 1930s made outrageous claims that not only did Best enjoy humiliating himself in "darkie" roles, but that the only compensation he wanted for his screen work was three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep. Despite the demeaning nature of his roles, Best performed them with consummate skill and razor sharp comic timing. Bob Hope, who worked with Best in The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Nothing But the Truth (1941), once referred to Willie as "the finest actor I knew." In the 1950s, Willie Best was a fixture at the Hal Roach Studios, playing supporting roles in such Roach-produced TV series as My Little Margie, The Stu Erwin Show and Mark Saber.