Trivia: Magical screen presence, fashion arbiter, shrine to good taste, and tireless crusader for children's rights, Audrey Hepburn has become one of the most enduring screen icons of the twentieth century. Best-known for her film roles in Breakfast at Tiffany's, My Fair Lady, Roman Holiday and Charade, Hepburn epitomized a waif-like glamour, combining charm, effervescence, and grace. When she died of colon cancer in 1993, the actress was the subject of endless tributes which mourned the passing of one who left an indelible imprint on the world, both on and off screen.Born into relative prosperity and influence on May 4, 1929, Hepburn was the daughter of a Dutch baroness and a wealthy British banker. Although she was born in Brussels, Belgium, her early years were spent traveling between England, Belgium, and the Netherlands because of her father's job. At the age of five, Hepburn was sent to England for boarding school; a year later, her father abandoned the family, something that would have a profound effect on the actress for the rest of her life. More upheaval followed in 1939, when her mother moved her and two sons from a previous marriage to the neutral Netherlands: the following year the country was invaded by the Nazis and Hepburn and her family were forced to endure the resulting hardships. During the German occupation, Hepburn suffered from malnutrition (which would permanently affect her weight), witnessed various acts of Nazi brutality, and at one point was forced into hiding with her family. One thing that helped her through the war years was her love of dance: trained in ballet since the age of five, Hepburn continued to study, often giving classes out of her mother's home.It was her love of dance that ultimately led Hepburn to her film career. After the war, her family relocated to Amsterdam, where the actress continued to train as a ballerina and modeled for extra money. Hepburn's work led to a 1948 screen test and a subsequent small role in the 1948 Dutch film Nederlands in Zeven Lessen (Dutch in Seven Lessons). The same year, she and her mother moved to London, where Hepburn had been given a dance school scholarship. Continuing to model on the side, she decided that because of her height and lack of training, her future was not in dance. She tried out for and won a part in the chorus line of the stage show High Button Shoes and was soon working regularly on the stage. An offer from the British Pictures Corporation led to a few small roles, including one in 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob. A major supporting role in the 1952 film The Secret People led to Monte Carlo, Baby (1953), and it was during the filming of that movie that fate struck for the young actress in the form of a chance encounter with Colette. The famed novelist and screenwriter decided that Hepburn would be perfect for the title role in Gigi, and Hepburn was soon off to New York to star in the Broadway show. It was at this time that the actress won her first major screen role in William Wyler's 1953 Roman Holiday. After much rehearsal and patience from Wyler (from whom, Hepburn remarked, she "learned everything"), Hepburn garnered acclaim for her portrayal of an incognito European princess, winning an Academy Award as Best Actress and spawning what became known as the Audrey Hepburn "look." More success came the following year with Billy Wilder's Sabrina. Hepburn won a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance in the title role, and continued to be a fashion inspiration, thanks to the first of many collaborations with the designer Givenchy, who designed the actress' gowns for the film.Hepburn also began another collaboration that year, this time with actor/writer/producer Mel Ferrer. After starring with him in the Broadway production of Ondine (and winning a Tony in the process), Hepburn married Ferrer, and their sometimes tumultuous partnership would last for the better part of the next fifteen years. She went on to star in a series of successful films during the remainder of the decade, including War and Peace (1956), 1957's Funny Face, and The Nun's Story (1959), for which she won another Oscar nomination.Following lukewarm reception for Green Mansions (1959) and The Unforgiven (1960), Hepburn won another Oscar nomination and a certain dose of icon status for her role as enigmatic party girl Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). The role, and its accompanying air of cosmopolitan chic, would be associated with Hepburn for the rest of her life, and indeed beyond. However, the actress next took on an entirely different role with William Wyler's The Children's Hour (1961), a melodrama in which she played a girls' school manager suspected of having an "unnatural relationship" with her best friend (Shirley MacLaine).In 1963, Hepburn returned to the realm of enthusiastic celluloid heterosexuality with Charade. The film was a huge success, thanks in part to a flawlessly photogenic pairing with Cary Grant (who had previously turned down the opportunity to work with Hepburn because of their age difference). The actress then went on to make My Fair Lady in 1964, starring opposite Rex Harrison as a cockney flower girl. The film provided another success for Hepburn, winning a score of Oscars and a place in motion picture history. After another Wyler collaboration, 1965's How to Steal a Million, as well as Two for the Road (1967) and the highly acclaimed Wait Until Dark (1967)--for which she won her fifth Oscar nomination playing a blind woman--Hepburn went into semi-retirement to raise her two young sons. Her marriage to Ferrer had ended, and she had married again, this time to Italian doctor Andrea Dotti. She came out of retirement briefly in 1975 to star opposite Sean Connery in Robin and Marian, but her subsequent roles were intermittent and in films of varying quality. Aside from appearances in 1979's Bloodline and Peter Bogdanovich's 1980 They All Laughed, Hepburn stayed away from film, choosing instead to concentrate on her work with starving children. After divorcing Dotti in the early 1980s, she took up with Robert Wolders; the two spent much of their time travelling the world as part of Hepburn's goodwill work. In 1987, the actress was officially appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador; the same year she made her final television appearance in Love Among Thieves, which netted poor reviews. Two years later, she had her final film appearance as an angel in Steven Spielberg's Always.Hepburn devoted the last years of her life to her UNICEF work, travelling to war-torn places like Somalia to visit starving children. In 1992, already suffering from colon cancer, she was awarded the Screen Actors' Guild Achievement Award. She died the next year, succumbing to her illness on January 20 at her home in Switzerland. The same year, she was posthumously awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Trivia: The legendary Irish-born thespian Peter O'Toole proves that when an actor is faced with a bitter personal crisis and struggles with addiction, spirit and determination can often lead to a forceful "third act" in that performer's career that rivals anything to have preceded it. Blessed with an immensity of dramatic power, the fair-haired, blue-eyed, flamboyant, and virile O'Toole chalked up one of the most formidable acting resumes of the 20th century during the 1950s and '60s, before experiencing an ugly bout of self-destruction in the mid-'70s that led to serious health problems, several disappointing and embarrassing roles, and the destruction of his marriage, and threatened (in the process) to bury his career. By 1980, however, O'Toole overcame his problems and resurfaced, triumphantly, as a box-office star.O'Toole began life in Connemara, Ireland, in either 1932 or 1933 (most sources list his birthdate as August 2, 1932, though the year is occasionally disputed). His family moved to Leeds, England in the early '30s, where O'Toole's father earned his keep as a racetrack bookie. Around 1946, 14-year-old O'Toole dropped out of secondary school and signed on with The Yorkshire Evening Post as copy boy, messenger, and eventually, a cub reporter. Within three years, he dropped the newspaper gig and joined the Leeds Civic Theatre as a novice player; this paved the way for ongoing parts at the much-revered Old Vic (after O'Toole's military service in the Royal Navy as a signalman and decoder), beginning around 1955. A half-decade of stage roles quickly yielded to screen parts in the early '60s. O'Toole actually debuted (with a bit role) in 1959, in The Savage Innocents, but international fame did not arrive for a few years, with several enviable back-to-back characterizations in the 1960s: that of the gallant, inscrutable T.E. Lawrence in Sir David Lean's 1962 feature Lawrence of Arabia (for which he received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination); Henry II in Peter Glenville's 1964 Becket (starring longtime friend Richard Burton), for which he received his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; the title character in Lord Jim (1965), and philandering fashion editor Michael James in the popular Clive Donner-Woody Allen sex farce What's New Pussycat? (1965). O'Toole's success continued, unabated, with yet another appearance as Henry II alongside Katharine Hepburn in Anthony Harvey's The Lion in Winter (1968), which netted him a third Best Actor Oscar nod. Unfortunately, O'Toole lost yet again, this time (in a completely unexpected turn of events) to Cliff Robertson in Charly, though a fourth nomination was only a year away, for the actor's work in 1969's Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The early 1970s were equally electric for O'Toole, with the highlight undoubtedly being his characterization of a delusional mental patient who thinks he's alternately Jesus Christ and Jack the Ripper in The Ruling Class (1972), Peter Medak's outrageous farce on the "deific" pretensions of British royalty. That gleaned O'Toole a fifth Oscar nomination; Jay Cocks, of Time Magazine called his performance one "of such intensity that it will haunt memory. He is funny, disturbing, and finally, devastating." Unfortunately, this represented the last high point of his career for many years, and the remainder of the '70s were marred by a series of disappointing and best-forgotten turns -- such as Don Quixote in Arthur Hiller's laughable musical Man of La Mancha (1972), covert CIA agent Larry Martin in Otto Preminger's spy thriller Rosebud (1975), and a Romanian émigré and refugee in Arturo Ripstein's soaper Foxtrot (1976). Meanwhile, O'Toole's off-camera life hit the nadir to end all nadirs. Though long known as a carouser (with friends and fellow Brits Burton, Richard Harris, Peter Finch, and others), O'Toole now plunged into no-holds-barred alcoholism, pushing himself to the very edge of sanity and death. The drinking necessitated major stomach surgery, and permanently ended his 20-year-marriage to Welsh actress Sian Phillips (best known as Livia in I, Claudius). Career-wise, O'Toole scraped the bottom of the gutter (and then some) when he made the foolish decision (around 1976 or 1977) to appear alongside Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren in the Bob Guccione/Tinto Brass Penthouse mega-production Caligula (released 1980) -- a period film wall-to-wall with hardcore sex and visceral, graphic violence that led celebrity critic Roger Ebert to echo another viewer's lament: "This movie is the worst piece of s*** I have ever seen." It did not help matters when O'Toole returned to The Old Vic not long after, and was roundly booed off the stage for his uncharacteristically wretched portrayal of Macbeth. The Macbeth calamity, however, masked a slow return to triumph, for O'Toole had since resolved to clean himself up; he moved in with Kate and Pat O'Toole, his two actress daughters from his marriage to Phillips, both of whom were teenagers in the late 1970s, and both of whom cared for him. And in 1979, he signed on to play one of the most esteemed roles of his career -- that of the sadistic, tyrannical director Eli Cross in Richard Rush's wicked black comedy The Stunt Man (1980) -- a role for which O'Toole received a sixth Oscar nomination. O'Toole again lost the bid, this time to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. Not one to be daunted, however, the actor continued down the path to full professional and personal recovery by beginning an ongoing relationship with California model Karen Brown, and fathering a child by her in 1983. O'Toole then signed on for many fine roles throughout the 1980s and '90s: that of Alan Swann, a hard-drinking, hard-loving, has-been movie star, in Richard Benjamin's delightfully wacky 1982 film My Favorite Year (which drew the thesp yet another nomination for Best Actor -- his seventh); and as Professor Harry Wolper, a scientist obsessively trying to re-clone his deceased wife, in Ivan Passer's quirky, underrated romantic fantasy Creator (1985). Despite occasional lapses in taste and quality, such as 1984's Supergirl and 1986's Club Paradise, O'Toole was clearly back on top of his game, and he proved it with an admirable turn as Reginald Johnston in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 Best Picture winner, The Last Emperor. That same year, O'Toole signed on to co-star in High Spirits (1988), fellow Irishman Neil Jordan's whimsical, spiritual ghost story with Shakespearean overtones. At the time, this looked like a solid decision, but neither Jordan nor O'Toole nor their co-stars, Steve Guttenberg, Liam Neeson, and Daryl Hannah, could have anticipated the massive studio interference that (in the words of Pauline Kael) "whacked away at the film, removing between 15 and 25 percent of the footage" and turned it into one of that year's biggest flops. Ditto with Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1990 comedy fantasy The Rainbow Thief, where studio interference again all but destroyed the work.O'Toole remained active throughout the 1990s, largely with fine supporting roles, such as Willingham in King Ralph (1991), Welsh nobleman Lord Sam in Rebecca's Daughters (1992), Bishop Cauchon in the made-for-television Joan of Arc (1999), and Von Hindenburg in the telemovie Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003). In late 2006, O'Toole hit another career peak with a fine turn as a wily old thesp who enjoys a last-act fling with a twentysomething admirer, in the Roger Michell-directed, Hanif Kureishi-scripted character-driven comedy Venus. The effort reeled in an eighth Best Actor Oscar nomination for the actor. In 2007 he voiced the part of the critic in Pixar's Ratatouille, and in 2008 he joined the cast of The Tudors playing Pope Paul III. He played a priest in 2012's For Greater Glory and filmed a role for Katherine of Alexandria (2014) before he died at age 81 in 2013.

Trivia: Long before earning his B.A. from the University of Texas and his M.A. in Education from C.C.N.Y., Eli Wallach made his first on-stage appearance in a 1930 amateur production. After World War II service and intensive training at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, the bumpy-nosed, gravel-voiced Wallach debuted on Broadway in Skydrift (1945). In 1951, he won a Tony award for his portrayal of Alvaro Mangiaco in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo. Though a staunch advocate of "The Method," Wallach could never be accused of being too introspective on-stage; in fact, his acting at times was downright ripe -- but deliciously so. He made his screen debut in Baby Doll (1956) playing another of Tennessee Williams' abrasive Latins, in this instance the duplicitous Silva Vaccaro; this performance earned Wallach the British equivalent of the Oscar. He spent the bulk of his screen time indulging in various brands of villainy, usually sporting an exotic accent (e.g., bandit leader Calvera in The Magnificent Seven [1960]). Perhaps his most antisocial onscreen act was the kidnapping of Hayley Mills in The Moon-Spinners (1965). Even when playing someone on "our" side, Wallach usually managed to make his character as prickly as possible: a prime example is Sgt. Craig in The Victors (1963), who manages to be vituperative and insulting even after his face is blown away. Busy on stage, screen, and TV into the 1990s, Wallach has played such unsavory types as a senile, half-blind hitman in Tough Guys (1986) and candy-munching Mafioso Don Altobello in The Godfather III (1990). He continued to work steadily into the 1990s with parts in the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes, the remake of Night and the City, Article 99, and narrating a number of documentaries. He didn't slow down much at all during the 21st century, appearing in the comedy Keepin the Faith, Clint Eastwood's Oscar Winning Mystic River, and The Hoax. In 2010 he acted for Roman Polanski in his thriller The Ghost Writer, and for Oliver Stone in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which was to be his last film role; Wallach died in 2014 at age 98.His television work has included an Emmy-winning performance in the 1967 all-star TV movie The Poppy Is Also a Flower and the continuing role of mob patriarch Vincent Danzig in Our Family Honor. Married since 1948 to actress Anne Jackson, Wallach has appeared on-stage with his wife in such plays as The Typists and the Tiger, Luv, and Next, and co-starred with her in the 1967 comedy film The Tiger Makes Out. Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson are the parents of special effects director Peter Wallach.

Trivia: With his passionate, deep-set eyes, classical features, and ultra-suave manner, it is small wonder that French actor Charles Boyer was known as one of the great cinematic lovers. During the 1920s, Boyer made a few nondescript silent films but was primarily a theatrical actor. From 1929-31 he made an unsuccessful attempt to make it in Hollywood, before returning to Europe until 1934 when his films began to win public favor. He became a true star with Garden of Allah (1936), and went on to play opposite the most alluring actresses of the '30s and '40s, including Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo. During World War II, he became active in encouraging French-American relations and established the French Research Foundation, for which he was awarded a special Academy Award in 1942 for "progressive cultural achievement" (he was nominated as an actor four times but never won). Later Boyer became an American citizen and went on to play more mature roles, including the occasional stage appearance (notably in Shaw's Don Juan in Hell). With actors Dick Powell and David Niven, Boyer co-founded Four Star Television in 1951, starring in many of the company's TV productions during the '50s and '60s. His career tapered off after the suicide of his 21-year-old son in 1965, after which he mostly made European films, though he returned to America to appear as the ancient High Lama in the musical remake of Lost Horizon (1973). He won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for his work in Stavisky, his final performance. Two days after his wife of forty-plus years, actress Patricia Peterson, died of cancer in 1978, he took his own life with an overdose of Seconal.

Trivia: A burly, exuberant British character star, Hugh Griffith worked as a bank clerk before debuting onstage in 1939; he appeared in one film in 1940, but his film career didn't begin in earnest until the late '40s. He played forceful character roles in dozens of plays and films in both the U.S. and Britain. For his portrayal of Sheik Ilderim in Ben-Hur (1959) Griffith won a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar; he was nominated for the same award for his portrayal of lusty Squire Western in Tom Jones (1963), perhaps his best known performance. Hugh Griffith was last onscreen in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978).

Trivia: Short of stature but giant in talent, French actor Marcel Dalio entered films in 1933. He gained world-wide renown for his brilliant work in the Jean Renoir classics La Grande Illusion (1937) and Rules of the Game (1938). When the Nazis marched into Paris, the Jewish Dalio fled to the United States with his actress wife Madeleine Le Beau (the wisdom of his sudden flight was confirmed when the Nazis distributed a photograph of Dalio, labelled "The Typical Jew"). Launching his Hollywood career in 1941, Dalio was never able to rescale the heights of prominence that he'd enjoyed in France. In fact, he was often unbilled, even for his memorable role as the cynical croupier in 1942's Casablanca. The best of Dalio's Hollywood character parts included Clemenceau in Wilson (1945), Danny Kaye's nervous business associate in On the Riviera (1951), and the "dirty" old Italian in Catch-22 (1970). A frequent visitor to American television, Dalio was cast as Inspector Renault (the role originated by Claude Rains) in the short-lived 1955 TV version of Casablanca. In his final years, Marcel Dalio returned to the French film industry; his last movie assignment was 1980's Vaudoux aux Caraibes.

Trivia: French character actor in international films, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: African-American actor/director Georg Stanford Brown was seven-years-old when his family moved from Havana to Harlem. Chronically absent during his high school years, Brown was invited to drop out by his frustrated teachers. At 15, he organized a singing group called the Parthenons, which broke up after a single network TV appearance. He moved to Los Angeles at 17, where, after passing the college entrance exam, he enrolled in the L.A. City College theater program. "I just wanted to take something easy," he explained later, "but after a while I really got to like it." He liked it well enough to study further at New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Making his professional stage debut in Joseph Papp's Central Park Shakespearean productions, Brown headed back to L.A., certain that his theatrical credits would assure him steady work in films and TV, which they did, though at a molasses-slow pace. After increasingly larger roles in such films as The Comedians (1967), Bullitt (1968), and Colossus: The Forbin Project (1971), Brown was cast as officer Terry Webster on the Aaron Spelling-produced TV series The Rookies, which ran from 1972 to 1976. After Rookies, Brown began curtailing his acting in favor of directing. He helmed several episodes of TV's Hill Street Blues, as well as such made-for-TV movies as Grambling's White Tiger (1981), Miracle of the Heart: A Boys' Town Story (1986), Stuck With Each Other (1989), Father and Son: Dangerous Relations (1992), and The Last POW: The Bobby Garwood Story (1993). In 1986, Georg Stanford Brown won an Emmy for his direction of the Cagney and Lacey episode "Parting Shots," which starred his then-wife Tyne Daly.

Trivia: The son of Belgian actors Georges Mertens and Fernande Depernay, Fernand Gravet was a stage performer at age 5, appearing under his father's direction. Thanks to his British education and his service in His Majesty's merchant marine, Gravet was able to thrive as a stage actor in several different countries, the usual language barriers posing no problem to him. Billed as Fernand Gravey, he made his first film, L'Amour Chante, in France in 1930. He was brought to Hollywood in 1937 amidst an elaborate publicity campaign which instructed filmgoers in the proper pronunciation of his name: "Rhymes with 'Gravy'." Curiously, Hollywood insisted upon billing him as "Gravet" rather than "Gravey," possibly in anticipation of film-critic wisecracks. He starred in standard urbane-continental roles in The King and the Chorus Girl (1937) and Fools for Scandal (1938) and was cast as Johann Strauss in MGM's expensive biopic The Great Waltz. He returned to France just before the Nazi occupation. Though he agreed to star in German-approved French films, he did his utmost to undermine the invaders as a member of the French Secret Army and the Foreign Legion. Gravet returned to films a war hero, continuing to star in such productions as La Ronde (1950) and Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954). Among Fernand Gravet's last English-language performances were How to Steal a Million (1966), Guns for San Sebastian (1968) and The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), in which he played the Police Inspector.