Trivia: After several years in secondary film roles, the skeletal, menacing Christopher Lee achieved horror-flick stardom as the Monster in 1958's The Curse of Frankenstein, the second of his 21 Hammer Studios films. Contrary to popular belief, Lee and Peter Cushing did not first appear together in The Curse of Frankenstein. In Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which Cushing plays the minor role of Osric, Lee appears as the cadaverous candle-bearer in the "frighted with false fires" scene, one of his first film roles. In 1958, Lee made his inaugural appearance as "the Count" in The Horror of Dracula, with Cushing as Van Helsing. It would remain the favorite of Lee's Dracula films; the actor later noted that he was grateful to be allowed to convey "the sadness of the character. The terrible sentence, the doom of immortality...."Three years after Curse, Lee added another legendary figure to his gallery of characters: Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes. With the release eight years later of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Lee became the first actor ever to portray both Holmes and Holmes' brother, Mycroft, onscreen. Other Lee roles of note include the title characters in 1959's The Mummy and the Fu Manchu series of the '60s, and the villainous Scaramanga in the 1974 James Bond effort The Man With the Golden Gun. In one brilliant casting coup, the actor was co-starred with fellow movie bogeymen Cushing, Vincent Price, and John Carradine in the otherwise unmemorable House of Long Shadows (1982). Established as a legend in his own right, Lee continued working steadily throughout the '80s and '90s, appearing in films ranging from Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) to Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999).In 2001, after appearing in nearly 300 film and television productions and being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the international star with the most screen credits to his name, the 79-year-old actor undertook the role of Saruman, chief of all wizards, in director Peter Jackson's eagerly anticipated screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Thought by many to be the millennial predecessor to George Lucas' Star Wars franchise, audiences thrilled to the wondrous battle between Saruman and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) atop the wizard's ominous tower, though Lee didn't play favorites between the franchises when Lucas shot back with the continuing saga of Anakin Skywalker's journey to the dark side in mid-2002. Wielding a lightsaber against one of the most powerful adversaries in the Star Wars canon, Lee proved that even at 80 he still had what it takes to be a compelling and demanding screen presence. He lent his vocal talents to Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in 2005, and appeared as the father of Willy Wonka in the same director's adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic. He appeared as Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith, and voiced the part for the animated Clone Wars. He appeared in the quirky British film Burke & Hare in 2010, and the next year he could be seen Martin Scorsese's Hugo. In 2012 he teamed with Tim Burton yet again when he appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows.Now nearly into 90s, Lee returned to Middle Earth in 2012 with Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, appearing in the first (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) and third (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) films. He also reprised the role in a number of video games based on the two series. Lee was still actively working when he died in 2015, at age 93.

Trivia: Imperious, intellectual-looking British actor Peter Cushing studied for a theatrical career under the guidance of Cairns James at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Cushing supported himself as a clerk in a surveyor's office before making his first professional stage appearance in 1935. Four years later, he came to America, where he was featured in a handful of Broadway plays and Hollywood feature films. He had a small part in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) and also doubled for Louis Hayward in the "twin" scenes; he was among the rather overaged students in Laurel and Hardy's A Chump at Oxford (1940); and he was second male lead in the Carole Lombard vehicle Vigil in the Night (1940). After closing out his Hollywood tenure with They Dare Not Love (1941), he returned to stage work in England. His next film appearance was as Osric in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), which also featured his future co-star Christopher Lee in a nonspeaking bit (Cushing and Lee's paths would cross again cinematically in Moulin Rouge [1952], though, as in Hamlet, they shared no scenes).In the early '50s, Cushing became a TV star by virtue of his performance in the BBC production of George Orwell's 1984. Still, film stardom would elude him until 1957, when he was cast as Baron Frankenstein in Hammer Films' The Curse of Frankenstein. It was the first of 19 appearances under the Hammer banner; Cushing went on to play Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula (1958) and Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), roles which, like Baron Frankenstein, he would repeat time and again. Though his horror film appearances brought him fame and fortune, Cushing ruefully commented that he'd prefer not to be so tightly typecast: It is significant that his entry in the British publication Who's Who in the Theatre lists all of his theatrical credits, but only one title -- Hamlet -- in his film manifest. In 1975, after a decade's absence, Cushing made a return to the theater in Washington Square, ironically playing the role originated on Broadway by fellow Sherlock Holmes interpreter Basil Rathbone. Many of Cushing's later film assignments were in the tongue-in-cheek category, notably his sneeringly evil Governor Tarkin in Star Wars (1977) and his backwards-talking librarian in Top Secret! (1984). Retiring from the screen in 1986, Peter Cushing penned two volumes of memoirs: An Autobiography (1986) and Past Forgetting (1988).

Trivia: American actor Telly Savalas was born into a transplanted Greek family in Garden City, New York. After dropping out of Columbia University, Savalas served in World War II, from which he was discharged with a Purple Heart disability. Though not a performer himself, Savalas remained active in show business via the Information Services of the State Department, which led to a news director post at the ABC network. Savalas was often called upon to help producers locate foreign-speaking actors for the various live TV dramatic series of the era. In 1959, Savalas attended an audition for the CBS anthology series Armstrong Circle Theatre, intending to prompt an actor friend who was up for a role. Instead, the casting director took Savalas's sinister demeanor (and bald head) into account and cast him in a character part, which led to other TV assignments. The 1960-61 CBS television anthology Witness, though not a ratings success, brought the novice actor a great deal of acclaim for his portrayal of racketeer Lucky Luciano, gaining attention from audiences, producers, and even a few of Luciano's old associates (who liked the show). More TV and movie roles of a slimy-villain nature followed, and then Savalas was cast as Burt Lancaster's fellow Alcatraz inmate in The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) -- a performance that earned an Oscar nomination. Many in the industry felt that Savalas had what it took to be a leading man; Imogene Coca, with whom Savalas worked on an episode of Coca's TV series "Grindl," announced publicly that the actor was one of the funniest men she'd ever met (this from an actress who once costarred with Sid Caesar). Still, producers continued to use Savalas as a supporting bad guy. Even in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Savalas incurred audience hisses as Pontius Pilate. In 1973 Savalas starred as police lieutenant Theo Kojak in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, a TV movie based on a real-life homicide. The actor's fully rounded interpretation of the sarcastic, incorruptible, lollipop-sucking New York detective earned him a full time TV job as the star of the series Kojak (which ran from 1973-78 on CBS, and, in a brief revival, 1989-90 on ABC). Now a genuine, 14-carat celebrity, Savalas assumed a great deal of creative control on Kojak, which included full script approval, choice of directors, and the insistence upon casting Savalas's brother George (professionally named "Demosthenes") in the role of Detective Stavros. Kojak lasted until 1978, during which time Savalas became a fixture of TV variety shows, where he frequently demonstrated his questionable singing talents. After the series, the actor embarked on a globe-trotting existence involving numerous forgettable European films and a sumptuous bon vivant lifestyle (which included the squiring of several attractive and much-younger ladies). Savalas periodically revived the character of Kojak in a few 1980s TV movies and profited from the (brief) revival of the Kojak series itself, but for the most part he was seen on the tube as spokesman for a high-priced credit card company. In the early 1990s, Savalas developed prostate cancer, ultimately succumbing to the disease at the age of 72.