Trivia: Cornell University alumnus Mary Woronov fell under the influence of Andy Warhol's "Factory" when she was barely out of her teens. Billed as Mary Might, she showed up in such Warhol film projects as Chelsea Girls. She made her "mainstream" off-Broadway debut in 1968's Kitchenette, and seven years later won the Theater World Award for her performance in the Broadway comedy The Boom Boom Room. Though eminently employable for conformist Hollywood film and TV productions (she appeared in four consecutive episodes of the weekly series Flying Blind), Woronov was at her best in inexpensive, quasi-underground productions, often playing oversexed lesbians and/or physical culturalists. She frequently collaborated with actor/director Paul Bartel, appearing to excellent advantage in such Bartel efforts as Death Race 2000 (1975) and Rock 'n' Roll High School (1978). Best of all was Bartel's Eating Raoul, in which Woronov stars as one Mary Bland, who, in order to raise money for her husband's restaurant, poses as a dominatrix to lure lusty male customers into her home, then murders her clients in a variety of inventive ways. A gifted writer and artist, Mary Woronov has published two books, Wake for the Angels: Paintings and Stories (1994) and Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory (1995).

Trivia: Patrick O'Neal made his first stage appearance in 1944 in his home state of Florida. While still a teenager, O'Neal was assigned to direct Signal Corps training shorts. Following his training at the Actors Studio and Neighborhood Playhouse, O'Neal entered the virgin territory of live TV, making appearances on such early anthologies as Gruen Playhouse. He played the romantic lead in his first film, 1954's The Mad Magician, thereafter settling into stuffed-shirt or villainous roles. It was fun to watch the usually reserved O'Neal make a meal of a mad-killer part obviously intended for Vincent Price in Chamber of Horrors (1966). It was also amusing to watch him bring a reluctant, droopy-eyed approach to the silly secret agentry of the 1967 spy spoof Matchless (1967). After appearing with Doris Day in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out (1966), O'Neal essayed the occasional role of dashing foreign correspondent on TV's The Doris Day Show (1968-73). Additional television assignments for O'Neal included his co-starring stint with Hazel Court in the 1957 comedy-melodrama series Dick and the Duchess (1957), the top-billed role of pathologist Daniel Coffee in the impressively produced videotaped medical series Diagnosis Unknown (1960), the straight-laced supporting role of lawyer Samuel Bennett in Kaz (1978) and the JR-type part of evil businessman Harlan Adams during the first (1983-84) season of Emerald Point NAS (Robert Vaughn took over the role in 1980). Making his Broadway debut in 1961, O'Neal appeared opposite Bette Davis the following year in his favorite part, the discredited, debauched Reverend Shannon in Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana. Going public by admitting his alcoholism in the 1970s, O'Neal appeared in a number of public-service announcements on behalf of AA; he also provided voiceovers for innumerable commercial products. When not performing, Patrick O'Neal pursued a successful second career as a restaurateur.

Trivia: Though best known to modern filmgoers as a horror star, cadaverous John Carradine was, in his prime, one of the most versatile character actors on the silver screen. The son of a journalist father and physician mother, Carradine was given an expensive education in Philadelphia and New York. Upon graduating from the Graphic Arts School, he intended to make his living as a painter and sculptor, but in 1923 he was sidetracked into acting. Working for a series of low-paying stock companies throughout the 1920s, he made ends meet as a quick-sketch portrait painter and scenic designer. He came to Hollywood in 1930, where his extensive talents and eccentric behavior almost immediately brought him to the attention of casting directors. He played a dizzying variety of distinctive bit parts -- a huntsman in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a crowd agitator in Les Miserables (1935) -- before he was signed to a 20th Century Fox contract in 1936. His first major role was the sadistic prison guard in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), which launched a long and fruitful association with Ford, culminating in such memorable screen characterizations as the gentleman gambler in Stagecoach (1939) and Preacher Casy ("I lost the callin'!") in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Usually typecast as a villain, Carradine occasionally surprised his followers with non-villainous roles like the philosophical cab driver in Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) and Abraham Lincoln in Of Human Hearts (1938). Throughout his Hollywood years, Carradine's first love remained the theater; to fund his various stage projects (which included his own Shakespearean troupe), he had no qualms about accepting film work in the lowest of low-budget productions. Ironically, it was in one of these Poverty Row cheapies, PRC's Bluebeard (1944), that the actor delivered what many consider his finest performance. Though he occasionally appeared in an A-picture in the 1950s and 1960s (The Ten Commandments, Cheyenne Autumn), Carradine was pretty much consigned to cheapies during those decades, including such horror epics as The Black Sleep (1956), The Unearthly (1957), and the notorious Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1966). He also appeared in innumerable television programs, among them Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Thriller, and The Red Skelton Show, and from 1962 to 1964 enjoyed a long Broadway run as courtesan-procurer Lycus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Though painfully crippled by arthritis in his last years, Carradine never stopped working, showing up in films ranging from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) to Peggy Sue Got Married (1984). Married four times, John Carradine was the father of actors David, Keith, Robert, and Bruce Carradine.

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: As a film actress, Tally Brown is best known for her work in early Andy Warhol films as well as those of other avant-garde filmmakers. In the early 1950s, Brown founded Miami's Fine Arts Conservatory. During the '60s and '70s, she became a popular singer in New York's "underground" hotspots such as Reno Sweeney's and the Continental Baths. In addition to appearing in films, Brown also performed off Broadway. West German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim made Brown the subject of her documentary Tal Brown, New York in 1980.

Trivia: Supporting actor Bruns appeared onscreen from 1970.

Trivia: Playwright, underground filmmaker, and performance artist Jack Smith frequently appeared in avant-garde films by such New York artists as Andy Warhol and Scott and Beth B. He made short films in the early '60s, most notably his notorious Flaming Creatures, which featured an all-transvestite cast. An offbeat, informal, and campy homage to B-movie actress Maria Montez, Smith made the film on a 300-dollar budget using old black-and-white film stock. Considered obscene at the time of its release, the film was confiscated by the New York police and was not publicly released until the '70s by the film's most ardent admirer, Jonas Mekas.