Trivia: Gene Autry, the archetype of the guitar strumming, singing Hollywood cowboy, is one of American cinema's most beloved figures. Born Orvon Autry, his entry to showbiz has a story book quality. During the 1920s he was working as a telegraph operator when American folk hero Will Rogers overheard him singing and convinced him to give show business a try. By 1928 he was singing regularly on a small radio station. Three years later, he was starring in his own national radio show (The National Barn Dance) and making records for Columbia. He first made his mark in films starring roles in the 13-part Republic serial Phantom Empire (1935) and the movie Tumblin' Tumbleweeds (1935). Then he went on to make dozens of Westerns, usually with his famed horse Champion and his comic sidekick Smiley Burnette. He was the top Western star at the box office from 1937-42, and is the only Western actor ever to make the list of Hollywood's top ten attractions, an achievement attained in 1940, '41, and '42. His career was interrupted by service in World War II (he served as a flight officer), during which his place was supplanted at Republic by singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Between 1947 and 1954, now working for Columbia Pictures, Autry trailed behind Rogers as the second most popular western star. His films focus exclusively on action, with little romantic interest. Autry's special twist, though, was to pause from time to time for an easy-going song, creating a new genre of action films that is considered by film historians to constitute a revolution in B-movies (one that went on to have many imitators). As a recording artist, he had nine million-sellers; and as a songwriter, he penned 200 popular songs including the holiday classic "Here Comes Santa Claus." After 20 years as a singing cowboy, Autry retired from movies in 1954 to further his career as a highly successful businessman (among many other investments, he eventually bought the California Angels, a major league baseball team). However, he continued performing on television until the '60s. In 1978 he published his autobiography Back in the Saddle Again, titled after his signature song.

Trivia: The son of a circuit-riding Methodist minister, American actor Pat Buttram led a hand-to-mouth existence as a child. He managed to get a scholarship to study theology at Birmingham Southern College, where amateur theatricals captured his enthusiasm. Buttram's first professional job was as a morning announcer at a Birmingham station, bringing home a lofty six dollars per week. Heading for Chicago to see the 1933 World's Fair, Buttram began picking up comedy relief work on radio station WLS's National Barn Dance, where he worked with such stars-to-be as Homer & Jethro and teenaged George Gobel (who would later cite Buttram as his principal comic influence). One of the Barn Dance headliners was singing cowboy Gene Autry, and when Autry inaugurated his starring radio series Melody Ranch in the 1940s, Buttram came aboard as comedy relief. Together, Autry and Buttram would make several pictures at both Republic and Columbia studios (Buttram's first was The Strawberry Roan [1948]); the two also co-starred on Autry's TV show, which ran for 91 episodes in the early '50s. Fast friends but not bosom buddies, Autry and Buttram became a little closer in 1950 when Pat was severely injured in an on-set accident and Gene gave him the encouragement to hang in there even when the doctors had given up hope. Autry retired from acting a multimillionaire in 1956; Buttram, while well off, still had to keep working, so after vetoing the notion of hitting the nightclub trail, he became an immensely popular after-dinner speaker at show-business functions. His subsequent TV roles were in a comical vein, but Buttram made an excellent impression in a feverishly dramatic part in "The Jar," one of the eeriest episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. In 1965, Buttram was cast as duplicitous peddler Mr. Haney on Green Acres, and for the next five seasons kept audiences in stitches as he sold "Mis-ter Douglas" (Eddie Albert) one useless item after another, delivering his laconic sales pitch in his inimitable singsong voice. Off-camera, Buttram was a successful rancher and stock market speculator, as well as a Civil War buff; he was happily married for many years to one-time Western leading lady Sheila Ryan, who left Pat a widower in 1975. Semi-retired by the 1980s, Pat Buttram made a few welcome appearances on TV (guesting on a Green Acres retrospective special on cable television, and providing a voice for the cartoon series Garfield and Friends) and movies (Back to the Future III [1989]).

Trivia: Mainly remembered for offering younger brother John Ford his first opportunities in the movie business, Francis Ford (born Feeney) was a touring company actor before entering films with Thomas Edison in 1907. In the early 1910s, he served a tumultuous apprenticeship as a director/star for producer Thomas Ince -- who in typical Ince fashion presented many of Ford's accomplishments as his own -- before moving over to Carl Laemmle's Universal in 1913. A true auteur, Ford would direct, write, and star in his own Westerns and serials, often opposite Grace Cunard, the studio's top action heroine. Contrary to popular belief they never married, but their onscreen partnership resulted in such popular action serials as Lucille Love -- Girl of Mystery (1914), The Broken Coin (1915), and The Adventures of Peg o' the Ring (1916). Both Ford's and Cunard's careers declined in the 1920s, with Ford directing mostly poverty row productions. He kept working in films as a supporting actor through the early '50s, mainly due to the influence of John, who often made Francis Ford and Victor McLaglen supply the corny Irish humor for which he exhibited a lifelong fondness. Francis Ford's son, Philip Ford, also became a director of Westerns, and also like his father, mainly of the poverty row variety.

Trivia: Whenever actor Ed Platt blew one of his lines in his role of "The Chief" in the TV comedy series Get Smart, star Don Adams would cry out "Is John Doucette available?" Adams was kidding, of course, but he was not alone in his high regard for the skill and versatility of the deep-voiced, granite-featured Doucette. In films on a regular basis since 1947 (he'd made his official movie debut in 1943's Two Tickets to London), Doucette was usually cast in roles calling for bad-tempered menace, but was also adept at dispensing dignity and authority. He was equally at home with the archaic dialogue of Julius Caesar (1953) and Cleopatra (1963) as he was with the 20th-century military patois of 1970's Patton, in which he played General Truscott. John Doucette's many TV credits include a season on the syndicated MacDonald Carey vehicle Lock-Up (1959), and the role of Captain Andrews on The Partners (1971), starring Doucette's old friend and admirer Don Adams.

Trivia: Mean-looking John Lacy Cason was one of those unsung Hollywood heroes: a stuntman. A former professional prizefighter (hence his battered-looking nose), Cason was, according to his fellow stunt people, Pierce Lyden, "one of the toughest men in the business." He had arrived in Hollywood in the late '30s and began receiving billing in 1941, always playing henchmen. Nicknamed "Lefty" due to a fierce left-handed hook, Cason appeared in scores of B-Westerns in the '40s and guest starred on nearly all the television oaters of the following decade. He died in a road accident near Santa Barbara, CA, shortly after finishing an episode of Wagon Train.

Trivia: Robert J. Wilke's first taste of popularity came while he was performing with a high-dive act at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. Encouraged to give Hollywood a try, Wilke entered films as a stunt man and bit player in 1936. He spent most of his movie career in Westerns like High Noon (1952), Arrowhead (1953), The Lone Ranger (1955), and The Magnificent Seven (1960), generally playing bad-guy roles which required both menace and physical dexterity. In 1965, Robert J. Wilke was seen on a weekly basis as Sheriff Sam Corbett on the TV sagebrusher The Legend of Jesse James.

Trivia: One of the most popular, and recognizable, character actors in B-Western history, pudgy, mustachioed Bud Osborne (real name Leonard Miles Osborne) was one of the many Wild West show performers who parlayed their experiences into lengthy screen careers. Especially noted for his handling of runaway stagecoaches and buckboards, Osborne began as a stunt performer with Thomas Ince's King-Bee company around 1912, and by the 1920s he had become one of the busiest supporting players in the business. Rather rakish-looking in his earlier years, the still slender Osborne even attempted to become a Western star in his own right. Produced by the Bud Osborne Feature Film Company and released by low-budget Truart Pictures, The Prairie Mystery (1922) presented Osborne as a romantic leading man opposite B-movie regular Pauline Curley. Few saw this little clunker, however, and Osborne quickly returned to the ranks of supporting cowboys, often portraying despicable villains with names like Satan Saunders, Piute Sam, or Bull McKee. Playing an escaped convict masquerading as a circuit rider in both the 1923 Leo Maloney short Double Cinched and Shootin' Square, a 1924 Jack Perrin feature Western, Osborne even demonstrated an affinity for comedy. The now veteran Bud Osborne continued his screen career into the sound era and became even busier in the 1930s and 1940s. As he grew older and his waistline expanded, Osborne's roles became somewhat smaller and instead of calling the shots himself, as he often had in the silent era, he now answered to the likes of Roy Barcroft and Charles King. But he seems to pop up in every other B-Western and serial released in those years, appearing in more than 65 productions for Republic Pictures alone. By the 1950s, the now elderly Osborne became one of the many veteran performers courted by maverick filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr., for whom he did Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tucson Kid (1954), an unsold television pilot, Jailbait (1954), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Night of the Ghouls (1958). When all is said and done, it was a rather dismal finish to a colorful career.

Trivia: From In Old Santa Fe (1934) and all through the television years, songwriter/steel guitarist Frankie Marvin (born Frank James Marvin) was a highly visible member of Gene Autry's onscreen coterie. Marvin, who had earlier performed with Autry on radio, would occasionally play a minor role as well, often as Gene's foreman, a ranch hand, or a cowboy. He would even join the bad guys in non-Autry vehicles such as the 1941 serial Adventures of Red Ryder, in which he attempted to poison the Circle R's water supply. In all, Marvin appeared in more than 80 feature Westerns and at least six serials.

Trivia: Former real-life cowboy and rodeo performer Bob Woodward entered films in 1938. For the next 25 years, Bob Woodward showed up in bit roles in westerns like Cheyenne Takes Over (1947) and actioners like Radar Secret Service (1949). The main source of his income, however, was in the realm of stunt work. Though it understandably wasn't publicized at the time, Bob Woodward doubled for many of the major Western stars of the 1930s and 1940s, including Dick Foran and Buck Jones.