Trivia: A rather dashing silent screen villain in the grand old style, best remembered as Douglas Fairbanks' rival in The Mark of Zorro (1920), California-native Robert McKim had begun his long theatrical career with the legendary Alcazar stock company in San Francisco. After appearing for three seasons on the Orpheum circuit opposite the "Jersey Lil," Lillie Langtry, McKim entered films in 1915 for producer Thomas Ince, who occasionally starred him but would more often than not cast the tall, dark-haired actor as a heavy. McKim's screen career remained busy through the 1920s, where he appeared in such diverse fare as Monte Cristo (1922; as De Villefort), The Spoilers (1923; as Struve), and The Bat (1926; as Dr. Wells). He died from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 40, leaving a widow, screen actress Dorcas Matthews, and two young children.

Trivia: Barely out of school when she began her screen career with the old Keystone comedy factory in Edendale, Jewel Carmen changed her name from Evelyn Quick when a scandal involving sexual proclivity threatened to destroy her burgeoning career. With a new moniker, the spectacularly blonde Carmen was cast opposite brunette Alma Rubens in The Half-Breed (1916), both vying for the favors of Douglas Fairbanks, and she was a beautiful and regal Lucia Manette opposite William Farnum's Charles Darnay/Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. At the height of her screen career, 1917-1918, Carmen starred or co-starred in no less than nine feature films, but fame proved fleeting and her box-office potential had been exhausted by 1920. Her husband, director Roland West, cast her in a prominent role in his seminal haunted house thriller The Bat (1926), but it was truly a last hurrah and she retired soon after. Estranged from West but residing in the hills right above the Pacific Coast Highway restaurant he operated with comedienne Thelma Todd, Carmen received heaps of unwanted publicity in December 1935, when the vivacious Miss Todd was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in her garage. The death was ruled accidental but rumors of foul play -- most of them with no foundation whatsoever -- persist to this very day.

Trivia: American actor Jack Pickford, born Jack Smith, was the younger brother of screen legend Mary Pickford. He began his career as a child actor on-stage; he later -- thanks to his sister who helped him sign with Biograph in 1910 -- became a romantic lead in films. When Mary Pickford signed her notorious million-dollar deal with First National in 1917, she insisted that her brother also be given a generous contract. Soon, his own talent established him as a minor star. Occasionally Jack Pickford directed films.

Trivia: Born to a family of Italian aristocrats, Tullio Carminati hardly needed to work for a living. Even so, he was a professional actor by the age of 15 and a film performer at 18. He divided his time in the 1920s between romantic leads in films and meaty co-starring assignments on stage, often in the company of the great Eleanora Duse. His first American film was the 1925 silent mystery The Bat, in which his natural charm and charisma was harnessed to thoroughly mislead the audience. The best of his American talkies was One Night of Love (1934) wherein he appeared opposite opera diva Grace Moore. From 1935 onward, Carminatti starred in English and European films, briefly dropping from public view during the war years. Re-emerging as a suave character actor in the late 1940s, Tullio Carminatti kept working until 1963, when he was seen in his final film, Otto Preminger's The Cardinal.

Trivia: Already a veteran stage performer in her teens, Louise Fazenda entered films with Universal's Joker Comedy unit in 1913. Two years later she joined Mack Sennett's Keystone company, where she rose to stardom. In real life a most attractive young woman, Fazenda deliberately "dressed down" for her early film appearances, portraying a gawky, frizzy-haired, buck-toothed bumpkin, just ripe for being seduced and abandoned by any city slicker who happened along. Sennett admired Fazenda's comic gifts and her willingness to do anything for a laugh, and accordingly starred her in his 1920 feature film Down on the Farm. By the mid-1920s, Fazenda was an extremely popular character actress, contributing frolicsome comic characterizations to such films as The Bat (1925), The Babe Comes Home (1926), The Cradle Snatchers (1927) and Noah's Ark (1928). During this period, she often put her country-girl characterization on the back burner to portray elegant society dowagers, alternately browbeating their wealthy husbands or enjoying the high-priced attentions of oily gigolos. While under contract to Warner Bros/First National, Fazenda met and married producer Hal B. Wallis, several years her junior. Retiring from films in 1939, Louise Fazenda spent her final decades as one of Hollywood's most beloved social leaders, remaining active in charitable and humanitarian causes until her death at the reported age of 66.

Trivia: Possessed of an excellent comic sneer and a variety of goofy grimaces, Eddie Gribbon first arrived on the Mack Sennett lot in 1916 and remained a reliable Sennett player throughout the 1920s. At other studios, he was usually cast as a dumb detective, never more effectively than in the 1926 version of the war-horse stage melodrama The Gorilla. In the talkie era, Gribbon played major roles in 2-reelers and minor ones in features. He was given generous screen time as one of Adenoid Hynkel's storm troopers in Chaplin's The Great Dictator, and as Canvasback the trainer in Monogram's "Joe Palooka" series of the late 1940s. Eddie Gribbon was the brother of another Sennett veteran, character actor Harry Gribbon.

Trivia: British stage actress Emily Fitzroy had two decades' experience behind her when she first appeared on screen in the 1916 version of East Lynne. Specializing in fussy, spinsterish roles, Fitzroy was prominently featured in several American productions of the 1920s, notably as Maria Poole in Griffith's Way Down East and reclusive mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder in The Bat (1926). Her first talkie appearance was as Parthy Hawkes, the highly judgmental mother of heroine Magnolia Hawkes (Laura La Plante), in the 1929 version of Show Boat. She occasionally returned to England in the 1930s, playing such roles as Mrs. Sancho Panza in the multilingual production Don Quixote (1933). Emily Fitzroy made her last screen appearance in Forever and a Day (1943), a wartime morale-booster that called upon the talents of virtually every English-born actor in Hollywood.