Trivia: Whether he was called "The Voice," "Ol' Blue Eyes," or "The Chairman of the Board," Frank Sinatra's nicknames all conveyed the adulation and respect reserved for a man who was commonly thought of as the best American popular singer of the 20th century. Sinatra's voice, whether manifested in song or spoken word, caressed the ears of many a listener for more than five decades. Sinatra's legacy -- countless songs and more than 70 films -- continue to ensure him the kind of popularity that has reached beyond the grave to elevate him past the status of mere icon to that of cultural institution.Born Francis Albert Sinatra on December 12, 1915, Sinatra grew up poor in Hoboken, NJ. After working for a newspaper, he organized the Hoboken Four, a singing group. He got his first break when he won first prize on radio's "Major Bowes Amateur Hour," and went on to perform in nightclubs and on radio. Sinatra then landed the job of vocalist with the Harry James band, and later switched to Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. It was during his tenure with Dorsey's group that Sinatra made his first two films in uncredited roles as a singer in the bands in Las Vegas Nights (1941) and Ship Ahoy (1942). In 1942, Sinatra's attempt to become a solo artist met with great success, especially in the hearts, minds, and ears of many American women and girls, who flocked to his performances with a fervor that would be replicated two decades later with the arrival of the Beatles. Soon, Sinatra was the "dream-date" idol of millions of American girls and, for several years, was enormously popular on-stage in addition to other venues, including radio, records, and nightclubs. To complement his popularity as a singer, Sinatra began acting, playing in a number of light musical films throughout the '40s. His first real acting role came in Higher and Higher (1943); other notable movies from this period in his career included Take Me out to the Ballgame (1949), co-starring Gene Kelly and Esther Williams, and On the Town, also made in 1949 and co-starring Kelly, who co-directed the picture with Stanley Donen. Sinatra suffered a career setback in 1952 when his vocal cords hemorrhaged and he was dropped by MCA, the monolithic talent agency. Having established a shaky screen career, he fought back and landed the role of Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953) after begging Columbia for the part and then agreeing to take it for a mere 8,000 dollars. His performance won him the 1954 Best Supporting Actor Oscar and a Golden Globe, and, in the process, resuscitated his faltering career. Sinatra appeared in several more movies in the '50s, receiving a 1956 Best Actor Oscar nomination and a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for his portrayal of a drug addict in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). In addition, he took home a Golden Globe for his performance in Pal Joey (1957). Soon Sinatra was back on top as a performer, earning the nickname "The Chairman of the Board." Sinatra continued to do frequent film work, making a screen appearance with his Rat Pack colleagues Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop in Ocean's Eleven (1960). Most notably, Sinatra gave a subtle, troubled portrayal of the haunted Captain Bennett Marco in John Frankenheimer's Cold War classic The Manchurian Candidate. His last role was as an aging detective in The First Deadly Sin (1980). Sinatra also appeared on various television shows during the '80s and went on to have hit records as late as the early '90s. His four wives included actresses Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow, and he fathered actor/singers Frank Sinatra Jr. and Nancy Sinatra, as well as another daughter, Tina. Sinatra died of a heart attack on May 14, 1998, in Los Angeles. He is buried in Palm Springs, CA.

Trivia: American actor Sterling Hayden was a Hollywood leading man of the '40s and '50s who went on to become a character actor in later years. At age 16 he dropped out of school to become a mate on a schooner, beginning a life-long love affair with the sea; by age 22 he was a ship's captain. Extremely good looking, he modeled professionally to earn enough money to buy his own vessel; this led to a movie contract with Paramount in 1940. Within a year he was famous, having starred in two technicolor movies, Virginia (1941) and Bahama Passage (1942); both featured the somewhat older actress Madeleine Carroll, to whom he was married from 1942-46. With these films, Paramount began trumpeting him as "The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies" and "The Beautiful Blond Viking God." Shortly after making these two films he joined the Marines to serve in World War II. After the war he landed inconsequential roles until a part as a hoodlum in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) demonstrated his skill as an actor. After this his career was spotty, marked for the most part by inferior films (with some notable exceptions, such as Dr. Strangelove [1964]) and frequent abandonment of the screen in favor of the sea. It was said that Hayden was never particularly interested in his work as an actor, vastly preferring the life of a sailor. His obsession with the sea and his various voyages are described in his 1963 autobiography, Wanderer, in which he also expresses regret for having cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Commission during the early '50s McCarthy-Era "witch trials." He published a novel in 1976, Voyage: A Novel of 1896; it was named as a selection of the Book of the Month Club.

Trivia: Character actor James Gleason usually played tough-talking, world-weary guys with a secret heart-of-gold. He is easily recognized for his tendency to talk out of the side of his mouth. Gleason's parents were actors, and after serving in the Spanish-American War, Gleason joined their stock company in Oakland, California. His career was interrupted by service in World War I, following which he began to appear on Broadway. He debuted onscreen in 1922, but didn't begin to appear regularly in films until 1928. Meanwhile, during the '20s he also wrote a number of plays and musicals, several of which were later made into films. In the early sound era, Gleason collaborated on numerous scripts as a screenwriter or dialogue specialist; he also directed one film, Hot Tip (1935). As an actor, he appeared in character roles in over 150 films, playing a wide range of hard-boiled (and often semi-comic) urban characters, including detectives, reporters, marine sergeants, gamblers, fight managers, and heroes' pals. In a series of films in the '30s, he had a recurring lead role as slow-witted police inspector Oscar Piper. James Gleason was married to actress Lucille Webster Gleason; their son was actor Russell Gleason.

Trivia: Teenaged actress Nancy Gates had already accrued a respectable string of stage and radio credits when she was signed by RKO Radio studios in 1942. She served a short apprenticeship in 2-reelers and "B"-pictures (and also showed up very briefly in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons) before being promoted to such RKO "A"s as This Land is Mine (1943) and The Spanish Main (1945). Though a pleasant and attractive screen personality, Gates never exuded true star quality, and by the 1950s she was free-lancing in low-budget films like The Atomic City and in television. Retiring from films in 1960 to spend more time with her family, Nancy Gates began making occasional TV appearances again in such series as The Twilight Zone and Mod Squad.

Trivia: Paul Wexler was born to play character roles -- well over six feet tall but seemingly thinner than the young Frank Sinatra, he was no one's idea of a leading man, but he could dominate a scene simply by standing in the shot with his long features and imposing height, and embellish the effect with his deep voice. Born in Oregon, Wexler's screen career began in 1952, when he was 23 years old, with a performance as a hillbilly in the Bowery Boys comedy Feudin' Fools. He had little to do in the movie except look and act like a slow-witted country bumpkin, in tandem with such gifted young players as Robert Easton and veterans like Russell Simpson; he obviously made an impression on the producers, because two years later he appeared in one of the most popular of all the movies in that series, The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, playing Grissom, the butler to a household of mad scientists seemingly lifted right out of Arsenic and Old Lace. He was funny in that film, but Wexler's first truly memorable role was much more serious, in Lewis Allen's presidential assassination thriller Suddenly (1954); portraying Slim the deputy, he managed to melt into the scenery despite his appearance, and into the part as well, portraying a tough, no-nonsense peace officer to the hilt, culminating with a violent shootout midway through the movie. In The Kentuckian, released the following year, it was back to playing backwoods roles as one of the murderous Frome brothers, alongside Douglas Spencer. Perhaps owing to his appearance, Wexler tended to get roles with a certain component of the macabre, or an element of threat, but he never had a role stranger or more memorable than his non-speaking part in Edward L. Cahn's The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959). His portrayal of Zutai, the mute Jivaro Indian zombie (his tissues permeated with curare), always ready with a curare-tipped blade to paralyze a victim and a basket for their head, was a brilliantly mimed portrayal and one of the grisliest elements of a very nasty horror film. Seemingly almost as a balance to his mute role in that movie, Wexler's next film involved only speaking, as he was one of the voice actors in Disney's original 101 Dalmatians (1961). He made appearances onscreen in roles of various sizes as late as 1967, in Andrew V. McLaglen's The Way West and the William Castle comedy The Busy Body. He cut back on his acting after that, possibly due to declining health, and gave one last film performance in the 1975 in Michael Anderson's feature Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. On television, Wexler tended to work in Westerns, including The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, and Death Valley Days, although he also turned up during the later '60s in episodes of Get Smart and made his final onscreen appearance on an episode of Charlie's Angels in 1976. Wexler died of leukemia in 1979.

Trivia: Stockbroker-turned-big screen hero, Kem Dibbs is best-remembered for playing Buck Rogers in the 1950s serial. He also appeared in a few major feature films, including High Society (1955), The Ten Commandments (1956), and How the West Was Won (1962). Occasionally, Dibbs appeared on television in such dramatic series as Playhouse 90 and Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Trivia: In films from 1939, character actor Dan White trafficked in small-town blowhards and rustic constables. Often unbilled in bit roles, White was occasionally afforded such larger roles as Deputy Elmer in Voodoo Man (1944), Millwheel in The Yearling (1946) and Abel Hatfield in Roseanna McCoy (1949). He remained active until the early 1960s. The "Dan White" who appeared in 1977's Alien Factor is a different person.

Trivia: Actor Richard Collier was more a fixture in the realm of television, having made well over 1000 appearances on the small screen, but was nonetheless employed frequently for films. A native of Boston, Collier started acting as most people do, on stage in the theater circuit throughout Massachusetts. When World War II broke out, his acting career was put on hold as he served in the U.S. Army. Only after the war did Collier begin making appearances in film and the new medium of television. Some of the many television shows the actor appeared on include The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, and Batman. Collier died, at the age of 80, in early 2000.

Trivia: Craggy character actor Roy Engel made his first film appearance in the 1949 noir classic D.O.A. He quickly established himself as a regular in such science fiction films as The Flying Saucer (1950), Man From Planet X (1951), and The Colossus of New York (1958). When not dealing with extraterrestrials, he could be seen playing sheriffs, bartenders, and the like in such Westerns as Three Violent People (1955) and Tribute to a Bad Man (1956). Among Roy Engel's last films was Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) which combined elements of both sci-fi and Westerns.

Trivia: Diminutive, frequently mustached character actor Charles Wagenheim made the transition from stage to screen in or around 1940. Wagenheim's most memorable role was that of "The Runt" in Meet Boston Blackie (1941), a part taken over by George E. Stone in the subsequent "Boston Blackie" B-films. Generally cast in unsavory bit parts, Wagenheim's on-screen perfidy extended from Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) to George Stevens' Diary of Anne Frank (1959), in which, uncredited, he played the sneak thief who nearly gave away the hiding place of the Frank family. Wagenheim kept his hand in the business into the 1970s in films like The Missouri Breaks (1976). In 1979, 83-year-old Charles Wagenheim was bludgeoned to death by an intruder in his Hollywood apartment, five days before another veteran actor, Victor Kilian, met the same grisly fate.

Trivia: Actor John Beradino is best known for playing wise, beneficent Dr. Steve Hardy on the soap opera General Hospital since the show's inception in 1963 until a few months prior to his death in May 1996. His acting career began in childhood when he made a few appearances in the Our Gang comedies. Between 1937 and 1953, Bearding was a professional baseball player. Over his career as a second baseman and shortstop, he hit .249 and 387 RBI with 36 homers in 912 games with the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Pittsburgh Pirates. A knee injury forced his retirement and he returned to acting. Before landing his General Hospital role, Beradino guest starred on numerous series and was a regular on the short-lived cop show, The New Breed (1960-1961). As Dr. Hardy on GH, Beradino earned three Emmy nominations. In 1993, he was honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Trivia: In his prime--which lasted a good 40 years--voice artist Paul Frees was not so much ubiquitous as inescapable. It was literally impossible during the 1960s and most of the 1970s to turn on the TV on any given night and not hear the ineluctable Mr. Frees. Blessed with a versatile voicebox from an early age, Frees first came to public attention as "Buddy Green," the name he was using when he won a radio impersonation contest. He toured in vaudeville, then returned to radio as star of The Player, a syndicated anthology series in which he played all the roles. He went to work as actor, announcer and narrator for such series as Suspense and Escape; he also made a number of appearances on comedy programs, usually playing a hammy Orson Wellesian actor (one such character was actually named "Lawson Bells"). In bandleader Spike Jones' memorable rendition of the old torch song "My Old Flame," Frees recites the lyrics in the style of a Peter Lorre-like pyromaniac. Frees began working in films in 1948, sometimes as an on-screen actor (His Kind of Woman, The Thing, War of the Worlds, Suddenly, The Shaggy Dog) but most often in a variety of voiceover capacities. When Chill Wills was unavailable to provide his talking-mule voice in Francis in the Haunted House (1955), Frees replaced him, accurately recreating Wills' folksy drawl; when producer George Pal was forced to rerecord most of the male actors in Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961), Frees supplied all the voices; and whenever Japanese film star Toshiro Mifune appeared in an English-language film like Grand Prix (1969), he would insist that his heavily-accented voice be redubbed by Frees, who "sounds more like me than I do." In addition to his TV-ad work as Poppin' Fresh, Mr. Goodwrench et. al, Frees was heard as the "late, fabulously wealthy" John Beresford Tipton on The Millionaire (1955-60). Frees' vocal activities in the realm of animated cartoons is so extensive that to list all his credits would require five single-spaced columns, a few examples are: Boris Badenov and Captain Peter Peachfuzz in Rocky and His Friends, Inspector Fenwick in Dudley Do-Right, Oliver Wendell Clutch in Calvin and the Colonel, Flat-Top in The Dick Tracy Show, the title character in Squiddly Diddly, Morocco Mole in Secret Squirrel, John Lennon in The Beatles, and Ludwig Von Drake in Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. In addition, Frees worked in virtually everything ever produced by satirist Stan Freberg, including the legendary 1963 LP History of the United States. By the mid-1970s, Frees was averaging $1 million per year--and was only working six months out of the year, spending the remaining six months vacationing on his own South Sea island. According to most sources, Frees was married six times. Since his death in 1986, Paul Frees' legacy has been carried on by a wealth of imitators, none of whom have quite come up to the standard set by The Master.

Trivia: Authoritative, sandy-haired character actor Willis Bouchey abandoned a busy Broadway career in 1951 to try his luck in films. Bouchey's striking resemblance to Dwight D. Eisenhower enabled him to play roles calling for quick decisiveness and unquestioned leadership; he even showed up as the President of the United States in 1952's Red Planet Mars, one year before the "real" Ike ascended to that office. The actor's many judge, executive, military, and town-marshal characterizations could also convey weakness and vacillation, but for the most part there was no question who was in charge when Bouchey was on the scene. A loyal and steadfast member of the John Ford stock company, Willis Bouchey was seen in such Ford productions as The Long Gray Line (1955), The Last Hurrah (1958), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1962).

Trivia: American actor Charles Smith is best remembered for playing the wiggly eared Basil "Dizzy" Stevens in the Henry Aldrich films during the 1940s.