Trivia: Affable "good guy" singer/actor Dick Foran was the son of a U.S. senator. After a tentative stab at a career as a geologist, Foran achieved prominence as a band and radio singer. Billed as Nick Foran, he made his screen debut as a "Paul Revere" type in a surrealistic production number in Fox's Stand Up and Cheer (1934). Signed by Warner Bros., Foran was utilized as that studio's "answer" to Gene Autry in a series of "B" musical westerns; ironically, he also played a devastatingly parodied cowboy star in 1938's Boy Meets Girl. After enjoying nominal stardom in Warners' second-feature product--and incidentally picking up an Oscar nomination for his supporting work in The Petrified Forest (1936)--Foran moved to Universal, where he worked in everything from serials to horror films to Abbott and Costello comedies. In one A&C romp, Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942), Foran introduced what would become his signature theme, the lovely "I'll Remember April." Those who worked with Foran during this period remember him being as likable and uncomplicated offscreen as on; one Universal starlet never tired of recalling the time that Foran invited her into his dressing room then asked quite sincerely if she wanted to play a game of jacks! Dick Foran remained in films and TV as a reliable, pleasantly portly character actor into the 1960s; one of his last films was Donovan's Reef, which starred his longtime friend John Wayne.

Trivia: Pretty Peggy Moran -- as the American actress was invariably described in press releases and reviews -- was the daughter of prominent portrait artist Earl Moran. She was brought to Hollywood by her mother, a former dancer, where the young girl received a screen tests and a handful of movie bit parts. After a few years' radio work, Peggy appeared in support of Deanna Durbin in Universal's First Love (1939) and Spring Parade (1940), both directed by Peggy's future husband Henry Koster. Under contract to Universal, Peggy was decorative in One Night in the Tropics (1940) (Abbott and Costello's screen debut), appropriately frightened in The Mummy's Hand (1941) and amusing in There's One Born Every Minute (1942) (another screen debut, this time Elizabeth Taylor's). After her marriage, Peggy retired, appearing only as a lark in Koster's pictures. Never a star, Peggy Moran was always a most welcome starlet; things might have been different had her agent not ignored a producer's request to have Peggy read for the Broadway play Life With Father, which would eventually run longer than any other "straight" play in History.

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

Trivia: Italian-born actor Eduardo Ciannelli was mostly known for his sinister gangster roles, but he first rose to fame as an opera singer and musical comedy star! The son of a doctor who operated a health spa, Ciannelli was expected to follow his father's footsteps into the medical profession, and to that end studied at the University of Naples. Launching his career in grand opera as a baritone, Ciannelli came to the U.S. after World War I, where he was headlined in such Broadway productions as Rose Marie and Lady Billy. He switched to straight acting with the Theatre Guild in the late 1920s, co-starring with luminaries like the Lunts and Katherine Cornell. Cianelli's resemblance to racketeer Lucky Luciano led to his being cast as the eloquent but deadly gangster Trock Estrella in Maxwell Anderson's Winterset, the role that brought him to Hollywood on a permanent basis (after a couple of false starts) in 1936. He followed up the film version of Winterset with a Luciano-like role in the Bette Davis vehicle Marked Women (1937), then did his best to avoid being typed as a gangster. After inducing goosebumps in Gunga Din (1939) as the evil Indian cult leader ("Kill for the love of Kali!"), Ciannelli did an about-face as the lovable, effusive Italian speakeasy owner in Kitty Foyle (1940)--and was nominated for an Oscar in the process. During the war, the actor billed himself briefly as Edward Ciannelli, and in this "guise" brought a measure of dignity to his title role in the Republic serial The Mysterious Dr. Satan (1945). He returned to Italy in the 1950s to appear in European films and stage productions, occasionally popping up in Hollywood films as ageing Mafia bosses and self-made millionaires. In 1959, he was seen regularly as a nightclub owner on the TV detective series Johnny Staccato. Had he lived, Eduardo Ciannelli would have been ideal for the starring role in 1972's The Godfather, as he proved in a similar assignment in the 1968 Mafia drama The Brotherhood.

Trivia: Born in England, George Zucco launched his theatrical career in Canada in 1908. During his first decade as a performer, Zucco toured in American vaudeville with his wife, Frances, in a sketch entitled "The Suffragette." He established himself as a leading actor in England in the 1920s, entering films with 1931's The Dreyfus Case. Zucco returned to the U.S. in 1935 to play Disraeli opposite Helen Hayes in Victoria Regina. He came to Hollywood to re-create his stage role in the film version of Autumn Crocus (1937), remaining to play mostly minor roles for the next two years. He finally found his villainous niche in the role of the erudite but deadly Professor Moriarity in 1939's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Throughout the 1940s, Zucco apparently took every role that was offered him, playing mad scientists, master criminals, and occasional red herrings in films ranging from Universal's The Mad Ghoul (1943) to PRC's Fog Island (1945). He played the fanatical Egyptian priest Anhodeb in 1940's The Mummy's Hand, and, though supposedly killed in that film, showed up none the worse for wear in the 1942 sequel The Mummy's Tomb. His quirkiest horror role was as a gas station attendant who doubled as a kidnapper and voodoo drum-thumper in Monogram's incredible Voodoo Man (1944). When not scaring the daylights out of his audience, Zucco could be found playing roles requiring quiet whimsy, notably the detective in Lured (1947) and the judge in Let's Dance (1950). After completing his final, unbilled film assignment in David and Bathsheba (1951), George Zucco completely disappeared from view; seriously ill for many years, he died in a Hollywood sanitarium at the age of 74.

Trivia: Jovial, twinkly-eyed character actor Cecil Kellaway resembled a full-grown leprechaun, so it's not surprising that he'd play such a role in the 1948 film Luck of the Irish -- and win an Oscar nomination in the bargain. Before coming to Hollywood to play Mr. Earnshaw in the 1939 filmization of Wuthering Heights, the South African-born Kellaway spent nearly two decades as an actor, writer and director of British and Australian films and stage plays. Even when he played a villainous part like the eternally drunken warlock in I Married a Witch (1942) or an unsympathetic role like the cold-blooded psychiatrist Mr. Chumley in Harvey (1950), it was impossible for Kellaway to be completely dislikable. In 1967, Kellaway won a second Oscar nomination for his performance as the tippling priest in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Cecil Kellaway was the cousin of veteran British actor Edmund Gwenn.

Trivia: Actor Charles Trowbridge was born in Mexico to American parents. An architect for the first decade of his adult life, Trowbridge turned to stage acting in the early teens, making his film bow in 1918's Thais. Silver-haired even as a young man, Trowbridge was generally cast in kindly but authoritative roles, usually as doctors, lawyers and military officers. He also had a bad habit of being killed off before the film was half over; in 1940, Trowbridge had the distinction of being murdered (by Lionel Atwill and George Zucco respectively) in two separate Universal horror films, Man Made Monster and The Mummy's Hand. While he was active until 1957, Charles Trowbridge was best known to millions of wartime servicemen as the cautionary military doctor in John Ford's venereal disease prevention film Sex Hygiene (1941).

Trivia: Athletically inclined, Tyler entered films at age 21 as a stuntman and extra. He went on to play supporting roles in several late silents, then signed a contract to star in Westerns. He soon became a popular screen cowboy, often accompanied by sidekick Frankie Darro; he survived the transition to sound, going on to star in a number of serials in the early '30s. He remained popular through the early '40s and occasionally played supporting roles in major films. In 1943 he was struck by a crippling rheumatic condition; although he appeared in a handful of additional films throughout the next decade, his career was effectively ended as he was relegated to minor roles. By the early '50s he was broke. He died of a heart attack at age 50.

Trivia: With the possible exceptions of fellow character players Fritz Feld and Gino Corrado, German-born actor Sig Arno played more waiters and maitre d's than any other film actor. A prominent stage comedian in his native Germany, Arno made his first film, Pandora's Box, in 1925. The rise of Hitler and the Nazis precipitated Arno's exit from Germany in 1933, but he had no trouble establishing himself professionally in the rest of Europe. In 1939, Arno settled in the United States, becoming one of Hollywood's favorite "funny Europeans." Sig Arno devoted what little time off he had from his motion picture activity to his second-favorite activity as a successful portrait painter.

Trivia: A rakish-looking, often mustachioed bit-part player, Eddie Foster (born Eddie Eleck) could play any nationality -- including Mexican (Men of the Night, 1934) and Egyptian (The Mummy's Hand, 1940) -- but was almost exclusively cast as thugs. Onscreen from 1932, Foster appeared in a total of ten serials, including Queen of the Jungle (1935), Mandrake the Magician (1939), and Captain Video (1951). He continued his skullduggery well into the television era and became a regular on Commando Cody: Skymaster of the Universe (1953).

Trivia: Russian-born Michael Mark spent his first two decades in America as a vaudeville and legit-theatre director/producer. In films from 1924, Mark played featured roles until his retirement 25 years later. A fixture of Universal's horror-film output, he is best remembered as the father of the little drowned girl in the original Frankenstein (1931). During the late 1940s, Michael Mark was a semi-regular in Monogram's "Joe Palooka" series, playing the title character's father.

Trivia: Born in Odessa, Ukraine Leon Belasco was prepared for a musical career at various seats of learning in Japan and Manchuria. For several years, Belasco was first violinist for the Tokyo Symphony, and later led his own orchestra. Though he made his first film in 1926, his Hollywood career proper didn't begin until 1939. Together with Leonid Kinsky and Mischa Auer, Belasco was one of filmdom's favorite comic Russians, usually cast as an excitable musician, choreographer or aesthete. He also registered well in sinister roles, especially in World War II and Cold War espionagers. On radio, Leon Belasco was heard as larcenous informant Pagan Zeldschmidt on The Man Called X; his best-known TV role was Appopoplous the landlord in My Sister Eileen (1960).