Trivia: Paris-born actress Claudette Colbert was brought to New York at the age of seven by her banker father. She planned an art career after high school graduation, studying at the Art Student's League. Attending a party with actress Anne Morrison, the 18-year-old was offered a three-line bit in Morrison's new play The Wild Westcotts. That ended her art aspirations, and Colbert embarked on a stage career in 1925, scoring her first big critical success in the 1926 Broadway production of The Barker, in which she played a duplicitous snake charmer. One year later, the actress made her first film at Long Island's Astoria studio, For the Love of Mike (1927), but the film was unsuccessful and she enjoyed neither the experience nor her young director, Frank Capra. So back she went to Broadway, returning to films during the talkie revolution in The Hole in the Wall (1929), which was also the movie-speaking debut of Edward G. Robinson. Once again, Colbert disliked film acting; but audiences responded to her beauty and cultured voice, so she forsook the stage for Hollywood. Colbert's popularity (and salary) skyrocketed after she was cast as "the wickedest woman in history," Nero's unscrupulous wife Poppaea, in the Biblical epic The Sign of the Cross (1932). Colbert expanded her range as a street-smart smuggler's daughter in I Cover the Waterfront and in the pioneering screwball comedy Three-Cornered Moon (both 1933), but it was for a role she nearly refused that the actress secured her box-office stature. Virtually every other actress in Hollywood had turned down the role of spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews in Columbia's It Happened One Night (1934), and when director Frank Capra approached an unenthusiastic Colbert, she wearily agreed to appear in the film on the conditions that she be paid twice her normal salary and that the film be completed before she was scheduled to go on vacation in four weeks. Colbert considered the experience one of the worst in her life -- until the 1935 Academy Awards ceremony, in which It Happened One Night won in virtually all major categories, including a Best Actress Oscar for her. Colbert spent the next decade alternating between comedy and drama, frequently in the company of her most popular co-star, Fred MacMurray. She gained a reputation of giving 110 percent of her energies while acting, which compensated for her occasional imperviousness and her insistence that only one side of her face be photographed (which frequently necessitated redesigning movie sets just to accommodate her phobia about her "bad side"). Colbert remained a top money-making star until her last big hit, The Egg and I (1947), after which she lost some footing, partly because of producers' unwillingness to meet her demands that (under doctor's orders) she could only film a short time each day (her doctor was her husband). She hoped to jump-start her career in the role of Margo Channing in All About Eve, but those plans were squelched when she injured her back and had to relinquish the character to Bette Davis. Traveling the usual "fading star" route, Colbert made films in Europe and a budget Western in the U.S. before returning triumphantly to Broadway, first in 1956's Janus, then in the long-running 1958 comedy Marriage Go Round. The actress also appeared on television, although reportedly had trouble adjusting to live productions. In 1961, she returned to Hollywood as Troy Donahue's mother in Parrish. It would be her last film appearance until the 1987 TV movie, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles -- in which she far outclassed her material. Still a prominent figure in the Hollywood hierarchy, Colbert retired to her lavish home in California, where she frequently entertained her old friends Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Claudette Colbert died in 1996 in Bridgetown, Barbados, at the age of 92.

Trivia: American actress Paulette Goddard, born Pauline Marion Levy, spent her teen years as a Broadway chorus girl, gaining attention when she was featured reclining on a prop crescent moon in the 1928 Ziegfeld musical Rio Rita. In Hollywood as early as 1929, Goddard reportedly appeared as an extra in several Hal Roach two-reel comedies, making confirmed bit appearances in a handful of these short subjects wearing a blonde wig over her naturally raven-black hair. Continuing as a blonde, she appeared as a "Goldwyn Girl" in the 1932 Eddie Cantor film Kid From Spain, where she was awarded several close-ups. Goddard's career went into full gear when she met Charlie Chaplin, who was looking for an unknown actress to play "The Gamin" in his 1936 film Modern Times. Struck by the actress's breathtaking beauty and natural comic sense, Chaplin not only cast her in the film, but fell in love with her. It is still a matter of contention in some circles as to whether or not Chaplin and Goddard were ever legally married (Chaplin claimed they were; it was his third marriage and her second), but whatever the case, the two lived together throughout the 1930s. Goddard's expert performances in such films as The Young in Heart (1938) and The Cat and the Canary (1939) enabled her to ascend to stardom without Chaplin's sponsorship, but the role she truly craved was that of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 epic Gone With the Wind. Unfortunately, that did not work out, and Vivien Leigh landed the part.After working together in The Great Dictator (1940), Goddard and Chaplin's relationship crumbled; by the mid-1940s she was married to another extremely gifted performer, Burgess Meredith. The actress remained a box-office draw for her home studio Paramount until 1949, when (presumably as a result of a recent flop titled Bride of Vengeance) she received a phone call at home telling her bluntly that her contract was dissolved. Goddard's film appearances in the 1950s were in such demeaning "B" pictures as Vice Squad (1953) and Babes in Baghdad (1953). Still quite beautiful, and possessed of a keener intellect than most movie actors, she retreated to Europe with her fourth (or third?) husband, German novelist Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front). This union was successful, lasting until Remarque's death. Coaxed out of retirement for one made-for-TV movie in 1972 (The Snoop Sisters), Goddard preferred to remain in her lavish Switzerland home for the last two decades of her life.

Trivia: When Brooklyn-born Constance Ockleman was prodded into a performing career by her ambitious mother, she chose her stepfather's name, Keane, for her nom de stage. After a year of thankless bit parts, she was dropped by RKO Radio Pictures. When she re-emerged at MGM in a small role in the Eddie Cantor vehicle Forty Little Mothers (1940), she was known as Veronica Lake. While posing for publicity pictures, Lake inadvertently allowed her blonde hair to obscure one eye, thereby creating her movie persona as "the girl with the peek-a-boo bang." Signed by Paramount in 1941, Lake quickly ascended to leading roles. Directors such as Preston Sturges and René Clair had the patience to draw genuine performances from her, but, for the most part, she was cast on the basis of her beauty and popularity, with acting hardly an afterthought. In This Gun for Hire (1942), Lake was teamed with up-and-coming Alan Ladd, thereby launching one of Paramount's most successful screen duos. Eventually renegotiating her contact and finding brief domestic happiness with her second husband, director André De Toth, the actress flourished professionally and financially until 1948, when she was hit with the double whammy of being dropped by Paramount and being sued for support payments by her mother. De Toth wangled a good role for Lake in the 20th Century Fox film Slattery's Hurricane (1949), but it failed to rekindle her stardom. She left Hollywood in the early '50s, making a living with stage appearances. But increasing personal problems and a stage injury effectively ended her career, and, by 1959, she was working as a Manhattan barmaid. Lake staged a comeback as a Baltimore TV host in the early '60s, and, in 1966 and 1970, financed two cheap films for herself (Footsteps in the Snow and Flesh Feast). She wrote a tell-all autobiography in 1969 and sought stage work in England. Lake returned to the U.S. in 1971; but after more personal problems and failed comeback attempts, she died of hepatitis two years later while visiting friends in Burlington, VT.

Trivia: Born Bowen Tufts, Sonny Tufts wanted to be a singer from childhood, and eventually he got operatic training in New York and Paris. Auditioning at New York's Metropolitan Opera, he won a year's tuition for further voice training. In his mid 20s he got roles in two Broadway musicals and a small part in a film. He then spent several years singing in night spots before returning to films as a leading man in 1943; due to an injury he was kept out of service, while most of Hollywood's other leading men were overseas in World War Two. For several years he was a popular star, usually cast as likable, mellow, bland lead characters; he often appeared bare-chested, and for a while he was a popular pin-up. By the late '40s his popularity waned and he began appearing in secondary roles, or in leads in low-budget films. In the mid '50s he was sued by several showgirls for allegedly biting them in the thigh, and soon he became the butt of jokes; his name alone was a comic punchline on TV or in nightclubs. He appeared in only two movies in the '60s and his other attempts at a comeback failed. He died of pneumonia at 59.

Trivia: In his youth, George Reeves aspired to become a boxer, but gave up this pursuit because his mother was worried that he'd be seriously injured. Attracted to acting, Reeves attended the Pasadena Playhouse, where he starred in several productions. In 1939, Reeves was selected to play one of the Tarleton twins in the Selznick superproduction Gone With the Wind (1939). He made an excellent impression in the role, and spent the next few years playing roles of varying sizes at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. He was praised by fans and reviewers alike for his performances in Lydia (1941) and So Proudly We Hail (1943); upon returning from WWII service, however, Reeves found it more difficult to get good roles. He starred in a few "B"'s and in the title role of the Columbia serial The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949), but for the most part was shunted away in ordinary villain roles. In 1951, he starred in the Lippert programmer Superman vs. the Mole Men, playing both the Man of Steel and his bespectacled alter ego, Clark Kent. This led to the immensely popular Superman TV series, in which Reeves starred from 1953 through 1957. While Superman saved Reeves' career, it also permanently typecast him. He made an appearance as wagon train leader James Stephen in Disney's Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956), though the producer felt it expeditious to hide Reeves behind a heavy beard. While it is now commonly believed that Reeves was unable to get work after the cancellation of Superman in 1957, he was in fact poised to embark on several lucrative projects, including directing assignments on two medium-budget adventure pictures and a worldwide personal appearance tour. On June 16, 1959, Reeves died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. The official ruling was suicide -- and, since he left no note, it was assumed that Reeves was despondent over his flagging career. Since that time, however, there has been a mounting suspicion (engendered by the actor's friends and family) that George Reeves was murdered.

Trivia: Vivacious American actress Barbara Britton was active in student theatricals at Long Beach City College before signing with Paramount Pictures in 1941. Many of her film appearances were enjoyable but unmemorable, with a few exceptions like her comic turn as Ronald Colman's sister in Champagne for Caesar (1950). Barbara's chief claim to fame was her two-year tenure as inquisitive amateur sleuth Pam North on the Thin Man-like TV series Mr. and Mrs. North. Thereafter, Barbara was best known for her long tenure as commercial spokeswoman for Revlon Products. Perhaps the most intriguing assignment of Barbara Britton's post-North years was the 1959 TV sitcom pilot Head of the Family, in which she created the role of Laura Petrie--a role later essayed by Mary Tyler Moore when Head of the Family was retooled as The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Trivia: A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, American actor Walter Abel began his stage career in 1919, and made his first film in 1920. Tall and quietly dignified, Abel was well cast in several of the plays of Eugene O'Neill. His first talking picture role was as the industrious young bridegroom Wolf in Liliom (1930). Abel had a go at a romantic lead when he replaced Francis Lederer as D'Artagnan in the 1935 version of The Three Musketeers; but the film was dull and Abel's performance mannered, so, thereafter, he was more effectively cast in top supporting roles. With his performance as the prosecuting attorney in Fury, Abel established his standard screen image: the well-groomed, mustachioed professional man, within whom lurked a streak of barely controlled hysteria. In this guise, Abel was excellent as the dyspeptic newspaper editor in Arise My Love (1940) and as Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire's long-suffering agent in Holiday Inn (1942). Busier on stage and television than in films during the 1950s, Abel received extensive critical and public attention for his role as a doomed industrialist in the 1966 melodrama Mirage. Sent out by Universal to promote the film, Abel regaled talk-show hosts with the story of how his fatal plunge from a skyscraper was actually filmed. Also during this period, Abel was appointed president of the American National Theatre and Academy. His last screen performance was opposite Katharine Hepburn in The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley (1984).

Trivia: New York-born actor Ted Hecht (also sometimes billed as Theodore Hecht) got his start in theater, and eventually moved up to the Broadway stage, where he worked in such plays as Congai (1928), The Great Man (1931), and Maxwell Anderson's Winterset (1935). Hecht made the move into motion pictures at the start of the 1940s in small uncredited roles -- with his dark, intense features and rough voice, he was quickly typed into playing "foreign" roles, often with a sinister edge, in movies at every stratum of Hollywood. In So Proudly We Hail! (1943), he played Dr. Jose Bardia, while in the Katharine Hepburn/Walter Huston vehicle Dragon Seed (1944), he portrayed Major Yohagi; he was Prince Ozira in Tarzan and the Huntress (1947), and Lieutenant Sarac in Istanbul (1957). Hecht was also heavily employed on television, again in exotic and sometimes nefarious parts. In three episodes of The Adventures of Superman he portrayed (East) Indians and Arabs, while he played Chinese characters in episodes of Terry and the Pirates. Hecht normally did one-shot appearances that didn't allow him much in the opportunities to develop his characters or his portrayals. The big exception in his career came during his work on the series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, where he appeared in seven episodes, portraying the notorious interplanetary outlaw and pirate Pinto Vortando. His work was, by turns, broad, sinister, and charming, a mix of stereotyped Mexican bandito with a little bit of Long John Silver thrown in, but it did evolve across the series. He starts out as a one-dimensional bad guy but convincingly softens from his contact with the youngest of the heroes, the boy space traveler Bobby (Robert Lyden), and, by his seventh episode, becomes one of the series' most likable villains, a rogue with a twinkle of goodness in his eye that he can't stamp out but must live with. Even 40 years later, watching the series, one couldn't help but be impressed with what he did with the one- (okay, maybe one-and-a-half-) dimensional role. Hecht retired at the end of the 1950s, and passed away in 1969.

Trivia: Wisconsinite John Litel was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. When World War I broke out in Europe, Litel didn't feel like waiting until America became officially involved and thus joined the French army, serving valiantly for three years. Returning to America, Litel studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and entered into the peripatetic world of touring stock companies. His first film was the 1929 talkie The Sleeping Porch, which starred top-hatted comedian Raymond Griffith. He settled in Hollywood for keeps in 1937, spending the next three decades portraying a vast array of lawyers, judges, corporate criminals, military officers, and even a lead or two. Litel was a regular in two separate "B"-picture series, playing the respective fathers of Bonita Granville and James Lydon in the Nancy Drew and Henry Aldrich series. On television, John Litel was appropriately ulcerated as the boss of Bob Cummings on the 1953 sitcom My Hero.

Trivia: Trained as a dancer, Mary Treen spent the late '20s-early '30s as a leading lady in vaudeville, light opera, and musical comedy. After a handful of Vitaphone short subjects, Treen was signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1934. She spent the bulk of her film career playing wisecracking clerks and telephone operators, or essaying "heroine's best friend" roles. Her movie assignment was the Tillie the Toiler-type role especially written for her in Paramount's I Love a Soldier (1944), though her many fans would probably nominate her performance as Cousin Tilly in the ubiquitous It's a Wonderful Life (1946). On television, Treen was a regular on the 1954 sitcom Willy, and later played Hilda the maid on The Joey Bishop Show (1962-1965). Mary Treen's final appearance before the cameras was in the 1983 made-for-TV movie Wait Till Your Mother Gets Home!

Trivia: As a teenager, Virginia Mae "Ginger" Pound was hired as a vocalist with the Roger Pryor band. Signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1939, Ginger Pound was transformed into Lorna Gray. Under this cognomen, she played leads in B's like The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and bits in A's like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). She was especially noticeable in Columbia's two-reel product, playing opposite the likes of Buster Keaton (Pest From the West) and the Three Stooges (Three Sappy People, Rockin' Thru the Rockies, You Nazty Spy!). She moved on to Republic, alternating as a serial heroine (Captain America) and villainess (The Perils of Nyoka). In 1946, Lorna Gray underwent a second name change, reemerging as Adrian Booth. While she was well received by the public in films like Valley of the Zombies (1946), Oh! Susanna (1950), and The Sea Hornet (1951), she never truly reached the top ranks of stardom, and retired in 1954. Adrian Booth is the widow of actor David Brian.

Trivia: Whenever Ellen Corby or Mary Field weren't available to play a timid, spinsterish film role, chances are the part would go to Dorothy Adams. Though far from a shrinking violet in real life, Ms. Adams was an expert at portraying repressed, secretive women, usually faithful servants or maiden aunts. Her best-remembered role was the overly protective maid of Gene Tierney in Laura (1944). Dorothy Adams was the wife of veteran character actor Byron Foulger; both were guiding forces of the Pasadena Playhouse, as both actors and directors. Dorothy and Byron's daughter is actress Rachel Ames, who played Audrey March on TV's General Hospital.

Trivia: A sadly neglected supporting actress, Ann Doran played everything from Charley Chase's foil in Columbia two-reelers of the late '30s to James Dean's mother in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and also guest starred in such television shows as Superman, Petticoat Junction, Bewitched, and The A Team. A former child model and the daughter of silent screen actress Rose Allen (1885-1977), Doran made her screen bow in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922) but then spent the next 12 years or so getting herself an education. She returned to films in 1934 and joined the Columbia short subject department two years later. While with Columbia, Doran worked on all of Frank Capra's films save Lost Horizon (1937) and she later toiled for both Paramount and Warner Bros., often receiving fine reviews but always missing out on the one role that may have made her a star. Appearing in more than 500 films and television shows (her own count), Doran worked well into the 1980s, often unbilled but always a noticeable presence.

Trivia: Actress Jean Willes spent the first ten years of her life shuttling up and down the West Coast; born in Los Angeles, she was raised in Salt Lake City, then moved with her family to Seattle. In 1943, she made her film debut in So Proudly We Hail. Shortly afterward, she was signed by Columbia Pictures, billed under her given name, Jean Donahue. She was busiest in Columbia's B-pictures, Westerns, and two-reel comedies, playing a statuesque brunette foil for such comedians as the Three Stooges, Sterling Holloway, Hugh Herbert, and Bert Wheeler. In 1947, she changed her billing to her married name, Jean Willes. Some of her most memorable feature-film roles included the hostess at the New Congress Club who delivers a bored, by-rote recitation of the club's rules in From Here to Eternity (1953); Kevin McCarthy's "zombie-fied" nurse in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); one of Clark Gable's quartet of leading ladies in A King and Four Queens (1956); the lady lieutenant who chews out Andy Griffith in No Time for Sergeants (1958); and Ernest Borgnine's would-be-sweetheart in McHale's Navy (1964). Jean Willes also made some 400 TV appearances (often as a sharp-tongued, down-to-earth blonde) in such series as The Jack Benny Show, The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, and The Beverly Hillbillies.

Trivia: American actress Jan Wiley played small roles in films of the early '40s. A native of Marion, Indiana, she began her career as a model (billing herself as Harriet Brandon).

Trivia: American silent-film actress Julia Faye made her film bow in The Lamb (1915), which also represented the first film appearance of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Though she photographed beautifully, Faye's acting skills were limited. It's possible she would have quickly faded from the scene without the sponsorship of producer/director Cecil B. DeMille. Faye appeared in sizeable roles in most of DeMille's extravaganzas of the '20s; her assignments ranged from the supporting part of an Aztec handmaiden in The Woman God Forgot (1918) to the wife of Pharoah in The Ten Commandments (1923). Offscreen, Faye became DeMille's mistress. The actress continued to work in DeMille's films into the sound era, at least until the personal relationship dissolved. By the '40s, Faye was washed up in films and hard up financially. DeMille responded generously by putting Faye on his permanent payroll, casting her in minor roles in his films of the '40s and '50s, and seeing to it that she was regularly hired for bit parts at the director's home studio of Paramount. Julia Faye's final appearance was in 1958's The Buccaneer, which also happened to be the last film ever produced by Cecil B. DeMille (it was directed by DeMille's son-in-law, Anthony Quinn).

Trivia: A former Miss Hollywood and a 1924 WAMPAS Baby Star, American actress Hazel Keener is remembered as the vamp in Buster Keaton's The Freshman (1925) and as cowboy star Fred Thomson's leading lady in six above-average Westerns released by FBO. A former member of the Pasadena Community Players, Keener doubled for leading lady Katherine MacDonald and appeared in Harry Langdon two-reelers under the name Barbara Worth. In an effort to escape B-Westerns, she returned to that moniker in the late 1920s, but without much success. When offers even for cheap Westerns dried up in the early 1930s, Keener turned to playing bit parts, essaying a variety of secretaries, nurses, telephone operators, and mothers in hundreds of films until the 1950s. She later became a lay minister with the Church of Religious Science.

Trivia: American actress Frances Morris was seen in small utility roles from 1934 to 1961. At first, Morris was cast as gun molls, stewardesses, secretaries, receptionists, and maids. She was exceptionally busy in the 1940s, essaying a variety of WAVES and WACs. The following decade, she was seen in maternal roles (some of them actually given character names) in both films and TV. One of Frances Morris' better assignments was the sympathetic prison warden in the 1952 Loretta Young starrer Because of You.

Trivia: Character actor James Bell has appeared in many films during his 40-year film career. He was usually cast as a sympathetic character. The Virginia-born Bell first attended the Virginia Polytechnic Institute before making his theatrical debut in 1921. Eleven years later he made his film debut in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Most of the films he appeared in were made during the '40s and '50s.

Trivia: A former singer for the Glen Miller Orchestra, Dick Hogan changed gears and became a supporting actor in numerous second-string adventures and Westerns, including Submarine Patrol (1938), Rancho Grande (1940), and Shed No Tears (1948). His final film role was that of a corpse in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948). Upon his retirement from acting, Hogan moved to Little Rock, AR, and became an insurance agent.

Trivia: It is misleading to label film-actor Bill Goodwin as a "former radio announcer," since he never truly left announcing. Signed on the basis of his radio credentials to a Paramount movie contract in 1942, Goodwin seldom rose above "hero's best friend" roles, though he was allowed to play the nominal hero in the Universal scarefest House of Horrors (1946). The biggest movie success with which Goodwin was associated was The Jolson Story (1946), in which he played Al Jolson's (fictional) agent Tom Baron; he repeated the characterization in the 1949 sequel, Jolson Sings Again. Even while pursuing his film career, Goodwin remained a familiar radio presence. For many years, he was the announcer on The Burns and Allen Show, his fictional persona being that of a skirt-chasing bachelor. He remained with Burns and Allen during their first season on television, leaving the series in 1951 to host his own local New York TV program. Later, Goodwin emceed the 1955 summer-replacement quiz show Penny to a Million, and in 1956 he was the announcer for the first prime-time network cartoon series, Gerald McBoing Boing. Bill Goodwin died of a heart attack in 1958 at the age of 47.

Trivia: New Jersey-born Victor Kilian drove a laundry truck before joining a New England repertory company when he was 18. His first break on Broadway came with the original 1924 production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms. After making a few scattered appearance in East Coast-produced films, Kilian launched his Hollywood career in 1936. Often cast as a brutish villain (notably "Pap" in the 1939 version of Huckleberry Finn) Kilian duked it out with some of moviedom's most famous leading men; while participating in a fight scene with John Wayne in 1942's Reap the Wild Wind, Kilian suffered an injury that resulted in the loss of an eye. Victimized by the Blacklist in the 1950s, Kilian returned to TV and film work in the 1970s. Fans of the TV serial satire Mary Hartman Mary Hartman will have a hard time forgetting Kilian as Mary's grandpa, a.k.a. "The Fernwood Flasher." In March of 1979, Victor Kilian was murdered in his apartment by intruders, a scant few days after a similar incident which culminated in the death of another veteran character actor, Charles Wagenheim.

Trivia: American actor James Flavin was groomed as a leading man when he first arrived in Hollywood in 1932, but he balked at the glamour treatment and was demonstrably resistant to being buried under tons of makeup. Though Flavin would occasionally enjoy a leading role--notably in the 1932 serial The Airmail Mystery, co-starring Flavin's wife Lucille Browne--the actor would devote most of his film career to bit parts. If a film featured a cop, process server, Marine sergeant, circus roustabout, deckhand or political stooge, chances are Jimmy Flavin was playing the role. His distinctive sarcastic line delivery and chiselled Irish features made him instantly recognizable, even if he missed being listed in the cast credits. Larger roles came Flavin's way in King Kong (1933) as Second Mate Briggs; Nightmare Alley (1947), as the circus owner who hires Tyrone Power; and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), as a long-suffering homicide detective. Since he worked with practically everyone, James Flavin was invaluable in later years as a source of on-set anecdotes for film historians; and because he evidently never stopped working, Flavin and his wife Lucille were able to spend their retirement years in comfort in their lavish, sprawling Hollywood homestead.

Trivia: In the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance," Gig Young comments that he thinks he's seen drugstore counterman Byron Foulger before. "I've got that kind of face" was the counterman's reply. Indeed, Foulger's mustachioed, bespectacled, tremble-chinned, moon-shaped countenance was one of the most familiar faces ever to grace the screen. A graduate of the University of Utah, Foulger developed a taste for performing in community theatre, making his Broadway debut in the '20s. Foulger then toured with Moroni Olsen's stock company, which led him to the famed Pasadena Playhouse as both actor and director. In films from 1936, Foulger usually played whining milksops, weak-willed sycophants, sanctimonious sales clerks, shifty political appointees, and the occasional unsuspected murderer. In real life, the seemingly timorous actor was not very easily cowed; according to his friend Victor Jory, Foulger once threatened to punch out Errol Flynn at a party because he thought that Flynn was flirting with his wife (Mrs. Foulger was Dorothy Adams, a prolific movie and stage character actress). Usually unbilled in "A" productions, Foulger could count on meatier roles in such "B" pictures as The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and The Panther's Claw (1943). In the Bowery Boys' Up in Smoke (1957), Foulger is superb as a gleeful, twinkly-eyed Satan. In addition to his film work, Byron Foulger built up quite a gallery of portrayals on television; one of his final stints was the recurring role of engineer Wendell Gibbs on the popular sitcom Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: Richard Crane was recruited by Hollywood in his early twenties, making his screen debut in the 1940 Joan Crawford vehicle Susan and God (1940). Crane coasted on his good looks and pleasant personality throughout the war years, while most of Hollywood's top leading men were in uniform, appearing in 20th Century Fox's Happy Land (1943) and A Wing and a Prayer (1944). By 1951, he was accepting make-work jobs along the lines of the Columbia serial Mysterious Island. His film career in almost total eclipse, Crane briefly rallied as star of the popular syndicated sci-fi TV series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1953). He was later seen in the supporting role of Lt. Gene Plethon on TV's Surfside Six (1961-1962). Richard Crane's last big-screen appearance was in Surf Party (1964).

Trivia: Although he played bit roles in films in the late silent era, tall, gangly character actor Boyd Davis spent the 1930s almost exclusively on the stage. He was back in Hollywood with a vengeance in the '40s, appearing in hundreds of bit roles, mostly as men of power and distinction -- judges, military officers, college professors, and the like. Davis' last film was the 1953 Western Born to the Saddle, in which he once again played a judge.

Trivia: San Franciscan Will Wright was a newspaper reporter before he hit the vaudeville, legitimate stage, and radio circuit. With his crabapple face and sour-lemon voice, Wright was almost instantly typecast as a grouch, busybody, or small-town Scrooge. Most of his film roles were minor, but Wright rose to the occasion whenever given such meaty parts as the taciturn apartment house manager in The Blue Dahlia (1946). In one of his best assignments, Wright remained unseen: He was the voice of the remonstrative Owl in the Disney cartoon feature Bambi (1942). Will Wright didn't really need the money from his long movie and TV career: His main source of income was his successful Los Angeles ice cream emporium, which was as popular with the movie people as with civilians, and which frequently provided temporary employment for many a young aspiring actor.

Trivia: Signed up by MGM's dramatic school directly after graduating from the University of Southern California, American actor James Millican was groomed for that studio's stable of young leading men. Instead, he made his first film, Sign of the Cross (1932), at Paramount, then moved on to Columbia for his first important role in Mills of the Gods (1934). Possessor of an athletic physique and Irish good looks, Millican wasn't a distinctive enough personality for stardom, but came in handy for secondary roles as the hero's best friend, the boss' male secretary, and various assorted military adjutants. According to his own count, Millican also appeared in 400 westerns; while such a number is hard to document, it is true that he was a close associate of cowboy star "Wild Bill" Elliott, staging a number of personal-appearance rodeos on Elliott's behalf. Fans of baseball films will recall James Millican's persuasive performance as Bill Killefer in the Grover Cleveland Alexander biopic The Winning Team.

Trivia: American general purpose actor Damian O'Flynn made his first screen appearance in 1937's Marked Woman. O'Flynn went on to freelance at Warner Bros., RKO, Paramount, Monogram, and other studios, usually in secondary roles, but occasionally playing leads. While serving in WWII, he appeared along with several other actors-in-uniform in 20th Century Fox's Winged Victory, billed as Corporal Damian O'Flynn. A veteran of many a big-screen Western, he appeared regularly in the mid-'50s TV series Wyatt Earp as Doc Goodfellow. Damian O'Flynn remained active until 1964.

Trivia: American actor and drama coach Roy Gordon made his first film appearance in 1938. A bit player for most of his Hollywood career, Gordon was at his best as corporate-executive types. He also played many a college dean, banker and military officer. Late Late Show habitues will remember Roy Gordon for his poignant cameo as doomed passenger Isidore Straus in Titanic (1953).

Trivia: American leading man Jack Luden, a member of the Pennsylvania cough-drop dynasty, graduated from Paramount's talent school in 1927 along with Thelma Todd and Charles "Buddy" Rogers, among others. The studio saw in him the same appeal that was making Gary Cooper a star, but Luden's initial starring western, Shootin' Irons (1927), proved a failure. The handsome actor did rather better in Paramount's popular "flapper" melodramas -- Two Flaming Youths (1927), Clara Bow's The Wild Party (1929]), etc. -- but a pronounced stammer did not bode well for a future in talkies. Luden's career declined rather drastically during the '30s, but independent producers such as Larry Darmour occasionally cashed in on his still-recognizable name. Darmour's westerns were on the cheap side -- to be generous -- and Luden's four starring vehicles in 1938 did not exactly set the range ablaze. The former leading man was all but forgotten by the 1950s, and his death at 49, while incarcerated at San Quentin on a drug conviction, came as a shock to former colleagues.

Trivia: Working in virtual anonymity throughout his film career, the sharp-featured, gangly character actor Harry Strang was seldom seen in a feature film role of consequence. From 1930 through 1959, Strang concentrated on such sidelines characters as soldiers, sentries, beat cops and store clerks. He was given more to do and say in 2-reel comedies, notably in the output of RKO Radio Pictures, where he appeared frequently in the comedies of Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. Harry Strang will be remembered by Laurel and Hardy fans for his role as a desk clerk in Block-Heads (1938), in which he was not once but twice clobbered in the face by an errant football.

Trivia: A would-be B-Western star who never made the grade, Eddie Dew had been in musical comedy prior to drifting into films in 1937. After appearing in countless bit parts at (mostly) Republic Pictures, Dew was awarded a one-year contract in 1943 and a promotion to stardom with a proposed John Paul Revere series of Westerns that also featured the popular Smiley Burnette as the comedic sidekick, a job the tubby Burnette had done so admirably in the Gene Autry music Westerns. Alas, in spite of Burnette's popularity, the series in general and Dew in particular fell far short of expectations and after only two films had been produced, Republic bought back his contract for a reported 1,000 dollars. The studio tried to salvage the series by re-hiring Robert Livingston, formerly of The Three Mesqueteers, but there were few takers and the project was shelved after only two additional Westerns. Dew meanwhile, landed a berth at Universal as a second banana to Rod Cameron and even took over the lead in Trail to Gunfight (1944) when Cameron was upgraded to Grade A projects. In the end, however, singer Kirby Grant was brought in to take over the spot vacated by Cameron and Dew, who sidelined once again, went into television instead, appearing on the Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill programs and directing episodes of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. He would later add such low-budget feature films as Naked Gun (1956) and the Canada-lensed Wings of Chance (1961) to his directorial credits.

Trivia: Born Peggy Yvonne Middleton, Yvonne De Carlo began studying dance in childhood, and in her teens appeared in nightclubs and on-stage. She debuted onscreen in 1942, going on to a number of secondary roles. Finally she was cast in the title role of Salome -- Where She Danced (1945) and played leads in The Song of Scheherazade and Slave Girl (both 1947), after which she was typecast as an Arabian Nights-type temptress in harem attire; she also appeared frequently in Westerns, and occasionally showed talent in comedies. De Carlo was a co-star of the '60s TV sitcom The Munsters. In 1971 she appeared on Broadway in the musical Follies. She married and divorced stuntman and actor Robert Morgan. She continued appearing in occasional films through the '90s and authored Yvonne: An Autobiography (1987). De Carlo died of unspecified causes at age 84 on January 8, 2007.

Trivia: Baby boomers will recall silver-maned actor William Forrest as Major Swanson, the brusque but fair-minded commander of Fort Apache in the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. This character was but one of many military officers portrayed by the prolific Forrest since the late 1930s. Most of his film appearances were fleeting, and few were billed, but Forrest managed to pack more authority into 30 seconds' film time than many bigger stars were able to manage in an hour and a half. Outside of Rin Tin Tin, William Forrest is probably most familiar as the sinister fifth-columnist Martin Crane in the 1943 Republic serial The Masked Marvel.

Trivia: One of the first stars to emerge from the old Edison film company, Canadian-born actor Edward Earle had toured in vaudeville and stock before settling on movies in 1915. The blonde, muscular Earle quickly rose to the rank of romantic lead in films like Ranson's Folly (1915), The Gates of Eden (1916), and East Lynne (1921). In the '20s he could be seen supporting such luminaries as George Arliss (The Man Who Played God [1922]) and Lillian Gish (The Wind [1928]). In talkies, Earle became a character player. Though his voice was resonant and his handsome features still intact, he often as not played unbilled bits, in everything from prestige pictures (Magnificent Obsession [1935]) to B-items (Laurel and Hardy's The Dancing Masters [1943] and Nothing but Trouble [1944]). In Beware of Blondie, Earle assumed the role of Dagwood's boss, Mr. Dithers -- but his back was turned to the camera and his voice was dubbed by the Blondie series' former Dithers, Jonathan Hale. Earle's best sound opportunities came in Westerns and serials; in the latter category, he was one of the characters suspected of being the diabolical Rattler in Ken Maynard's Mystery Mountain (1934). Edward Earle retired to the Motion Picture Country Home in the early '60s, where he died at age 90 in 1972.

Trivia: Bald, lanky, laconic American actor Hank Worden made his screen debut in The Plainsman (1936), and began playing simpleminded rustics at least as early as the 1941 El Brendel two-reel comedy Love at First Fright. A member in good standing of director John Ford's unofficial stock company, Worden appeared in such Ford classics as Fort Apache (1948) and Wagonmaster (1950). The quintessential Worden-Ford collaboration was The Searchers (1955) wherein Worden portrayed the near-moronic Mose Harper, who spoke in primitive, epigrammatic half-sentences and who seemed gleefully obsessed with the notion of unexpected death. Never a "normal" actor by any means, Worden continued playing characters who spoke as if they'd been kicked by a horse in childhood into the '80s; his last appearance was a recurring role in the quirky David Lynch TV serial Twin Peaks. In real life, Hank Worden was far from addled and had a razor-sharp memory, as proven in his many appearances at Western fan conventions and in an interview program about living in the modern desert, filmed just before Worden's death for cable TV's Discovery Channel.

Trivia: Mustachioed and shifty-eyed, Hugh Prosser became a well-known B-Western supporting actor in the 1940s, almost always playing the Boss Heavy, the unscrupulous saloon owner, crooked banker, notorious bandit leader, or the like. In films from 1938, Prosser was especially busy menacing Johnny Mack Brown at Monogram, but also appeared in scores of wartime melodramas and serials. Equally busy on early television shows such as (The Lone Rider, Gene Autry, and The Cisco Kid), Prosser was killed in an automobile accident near Gallup, NM.