Trivia: The daughter of a boat manufacturer and a concert pianist, American actress Irene Dunne began voice training lessons before the age of thirteen. Dunne's diligence won her a scholarship to the Chicago Musical College, but her dreams of a career with New York City's Metropolitan opera faded when she failed the audition. Still, there was an outlet for her talents in musical comedy, which she began in a touring company of the popular stage production Irene. After her Broadway debut in 1923, Dunne was able to secure leading roles in several musicals, and marry Francis J. Griffin, a New York dentist, with whom she remained married until his death in 1965. In 1929, Dunne was cast as Magnolia in the Chicago company production of Show Boat; her superlative performance led to a movie contract with RKO, where after a few inconsequential programmers like Leathernecking (1930), she became one of the top dramatic stars at that studio. In Ann Vickers (1933), she plays a lady doctor who undergoes an illegal abortion, and in The Age of Innocence (1934), Dunne played the same role reprised by Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1994 remake of that film. Dunne was finally permitted to show off her singing talents in Sweet Adeline (1935), and in 1936 Universal Pictures cast her in her stage role as Magnolia in the studio's definitive film version of Show Boat (1936). After Show Boat, Dunne entered the second phase of her movie career as a comedienne, contributing hilarious performances to such screwball farces as Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), and My Favorite Wife (1940). It was back to dramatic roles in the early 1940s, and as age crept up on Dunne, she made a seamless transition to starring character roles in such films as Anna and the King of Siam (1946) and Life with Father (1947). Approaching fifty, Dunne retained her classically beautiful features and; in fact, Hollywood makeup artists were compelled to draw lines on her face and fit her with heavy body suits for her "aged" roles in I Remember Mama (1948) and The Mudlark (1950). Upon completion of It Grows on Trees (1952), Dunne retired from films, though she remained active on television, notably in such Catholic-oriented programs as The Christophers. In recognition of her charitable work and interest in conservative political causes, Dunne was appointed by President Eisenhower as one of five alternative delegates to the United Nations in 1957.

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: One of the most dynamic, and tiniest, of character actresses, Russian-born Maria Ouspenskaya had originally dreamed of an operatic career. She studied in both Warsaw and Moscow until money ran out, then switched gears and decided to concentrate on acting. Though she was past 30 when she entered Adasheff's School of Drama, Mme. Ouspenskaya was the school's most energetic and ambitious pupil; after graduation, she toured Russia in stock company, no mean feat in those pre-airplane days, then starred with the Moscow Art Theatre of Konstantin Stanislavsky. The Revolution and the famine that followed only strengthened her reserve to make something of herself. Remaining as a performing and instructor with the Moscow Art Theatre after the Communist takeover, the actress toured Europe and America, settling in the latter country for good in 1924. A fellow Stansilavsky pupil, Richard Boleslawsky, found work for Ouspenskaya on the faculty of the American Laboratory Theatre; She branched out to form her own acting school in 1929. Maria's role as the wise old mother of a titled fortune hunter in the stage play Dodsworth led to her recreation of the role in Sam Goldwyn's 1936 film version. Thereafter, if a wizened matriarch of any nationality was required for a movie - French, Polish, East Indian - Mme. Oupenskaya was among the first to be called upon. Despite her steady work in A-pictures, it was for a medium-budget horror film that she is best remembered today. In The Wolf Man (1941), it is Ouspenskaya as mournful gypsy woman Maleva who breaks the news that poor Lon Chaney Jr. has been bitten by a werewolf; the actress' chilling recital of the famed Wolf Man curse ("Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night") is enough to give adult viewers nightmares. She repeated the role in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), to which she brought the same degree of artistry that she invested in such prestigious assignments as King's Row (1942). While her earlier deprivations in Russia had made her nearly impervious to illness and infirmity, Maria Ouspenskaya was unable to survive one of mankind's oldest scourges. In 1949, she fell asleep while smoking a cigarette in bed; the resultant fire led to her death from burns and a stroke at age 73.

Trivia: There was always something calculating about Astrid Allwyn. "Scratch a chilly 'other woman' and if she were not Helen Vinson, she usually turned out to be Astrid Allwyn," as one commentator put it. Allwyn was certainly "chilly" toward little defenseless Shirley Temple when their paths crossed in both Dimples (1936) and Stowaway (1936) and you could hardly blame freshman senator James Stewart for running the other way when he encountered a slightly predatory Astrid in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Allwyn had made her stage bow in Elmer Rice's Street Scene back in 1929 and her screen debut three years later. She was busiest in the 1930s and retired in 1944 to raise her family with second husband Charles O. Fee, a brood that included future actresses Melinda O. Fee and Vicki Fee Steele. An earlier marriage, to screen actor Robert Kent, had ended in divorce in 1941.

Trivia: Bowman attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and began a career as a stage actor and radio singer in the '30s. Beginning with his debut in Internes Can't Take Money (1937), he spent seven years playing second leads, often as a playboy thanks to his suave, elegant style and dapper, handsome looks. Bowman hit his stride in the mid '40s, notably in Smash-Up (1947) opposite Susan Hayward. Never a major star, he began concentrating more on his stage work in the late '40s. He briefly starred in the TV series The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1950-51). After the mid '50s Bowman retired from the screen (except for a role in Youngblood Hawke in 1964), after which he went on to become the radio and TV consultant for the Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committee in Washington and later for Bethlehem Steel, coaching politicians and businessmen in speaking and on-camera techniques.

Trivia: When Scotty Beckett was three years old, his father was hospitalized in Los Angeles. During a visit, Beckett entertained his convalescing dad by singing several songs. A Hollywood casting director overheard the boy and suggested to his parents that Beckett had movie potential. The wide-eyed, tousle-haired youngster made his screen debut opposite Ann Harding and Clive Brook in 1933's Gallant Lady. In 1934, he was signed by Hal Roach for the Our Gang series; in the 13 two-reelers produced between 1934 and 1935, Beckett appeared as the best pal and severest critic of rotund Gang star Spanky McFarland. This stint led to such choice feature-film assignments as Anthony Adverse (1936) (in which Beckett played the out-of-wedlock son of Fredric March and Olivia De Havilland), Marie Antoinette (1938) (as the Dauphin) and My Favorite Wife (1940) (as one of the two kids of Cary Grant and his long-lost wife Irene Dunne). In 1939, Beckett briefly returned to the Our Gang fold, playing "Alfalfa" Switzer's brainy Cousin Wilbur in a brace of one-reelers. Beckett was frequently called upon for "the leading man as a child" roles, playing youthful versions of Louis Hayward in My Son, My Son (1940), Don Ameche in Heaven Can Wait (1943), and Jon Hall in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1940). As he matured, Beckett was often cast as obnoxious younger brothers, notably in the 1943 Broadway play Slightly Married and the 1948 Jane Powell vehicle A Date with Judy (playing the sibling of none other than Elizabeth Taylor). On radio, Beckett played Junior Riley in the popular William Bendix sitcom The Life of Riley, and on television he was seen as Cadet Winky in the early sci-fi series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Scotty Beckett's last film was 1956's Three For Jamie Dawn.

Trivia: A stage actress from the age of 3, Joan Leslie toured vaudeville in a singing act with her two sisters. At ten, Leslie was an established advertising model. She came to Hollywood in 1936, making her screen debut in Camille under her given name of Brodel. In 1940 she was signed by Warner Bros., who changed her professional name to Leslie. Though not yet 18, Leslie was cast in such meaty and demanding roles as the selfish clubfooted ingenue in High Sierra (1941) and Mrs. George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Loaned out to RKO in 1942, Leslie was given an opportunity to display her considerable terpsichorean skills in the Fred Astaire vehicle The Sky's the Limit. In Warners' Hollywood Canteen (1944) Leslie played herself, as did her real-life sister Betty Brodel. When her Warners contract ended in 1947, Leslie free-lanced for several years, turning in admirable performances in such second-echelon productions as Repeat Performance (1947) and The Woman They Almost Lynched (1956). She more or less retired from film acting in the late 1950s, devoting herself to humanitarian work and to her new career as a dress designer, though she occasionally took on a TV role. Fans of Joan Leslie all felt just a little older when Leslie was teamed with fellow 1940s ingenue Teresa Wright as a pair of doddering Arsenic and Old Lace-type sisters on a late-1980s episode of TV's Murder She Wrote. Leslie died in 2015, at age 90.

Trivia: Tall, commanding actor Frank McGlynn Sr. made his 1896 stage debut in The Gold Bug. Eleven years later, McGlynn entered films as a member of the Edison Company. His professional future was secured when, in 1919, he starred on Broadway in John Drinkwater's play Abraham Lincoln. Thereafter, McGlynn was best known as Hollywood's foremost Lincoln impersonator. He was cast as Honest Abe in Are We Civilized? (1934), Hearts in Bondage (1935), The Littlest Rebel (1935), Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), The Plainsman (1936), Wells Fargo (1937), The Lone Ranger (1939) and the Warner Bros. historical short Lincoln at the White House (1939). The actor's non-Lincoln screen roles included David Gamut in Last of the Mohicans (1920) and Patrick Henry in D.W. Griffith's America. In the 1930 musical Good News, McGlynn was afforded a rare opportunity to play comedy as a sarcastic college dean. Frank Glynn Sr.'s son Frank McGlynn Jr. was also a busy film actor, usually seen in hillbilly roles.

Trivia: Tall, stocky comic actor Dell Henderson left his stage career behind when he and his actress wife Florence joined D. W. Griffith's Biograph players in 1909. He was frequently co-starred with fellow Biograph contractee Mack Sennett, and when Sennett set up his own Keystone studio, Henderson went along as an actor and director. He continued directing into the 1920s, also functioning as producer on such features as Gambling Wives (1924), Quick Change (1925) and Rough Stuff (1925). In 1927, Henderson resumed his acting career; one of his best late-silent performances was as Marion Davies' father in 1928's Show People. During the talkie era, Henderson appeared in dozens of two-reel comedies produced by Sennett, Hal Roach and Columbia. Most of his feature-film roles at this time were bits, with such notable exceptions as the kindly used-car dealer in Leo McCarey's Make Way For Tomorrow (1937) and the night court judge in Laurel and Hardy's Our Relations (1936). Del Henderson's last public appearance was on a 1954 This is Your Life TV installment honoring his former colleague Mack Sennett.

Trivia: Actress Carol Hughes was 13 years old when she married comic actor Frank Faylen. Hughes' own film career began in 1936: while sometimes enjoying full supporting roles, e.g. Frank McHugh's nagging wife in Three Men on a Horse (1936), she generally made do with bits, such as the Modiste Salon salesgirl in 1939's The Women. In 1940, Hughes replaced Jean Rogers in the role of Dale Arden in the third and last of Universal's "Flash Gordon" serials, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. She retired from films in the early 1950s, after playing Gil Lamb's leading lady in a series of RKO Radio 2-reelers. Carol Hughes is the mother of actress Carol Faylen, who appeared in the 1964 TV sitcom The Bing Crosby Show as Crosby's daughter Joyce.

Trivia: American stage-actor Oscar O'Shea made his first screen appearance in the 1937 MGM musical Rosalie. O'Shea spent most of the rest of his movie career as an MGM utility player. One of his best-remembered roles, however, was for producer Hal Roach: O'Shea appeared as the ranch boss in 1939's Of Mice and Men. Otherwise, Oscar O'Shea was generally consigned to one- or two-scene roles, usually as salty sea captains.

Trivia: An important screen director in the 1910s, Illinois-born Lloyd Ingraham had been a stock manager for California entrepreneur Oliver Morosco prior to entering films directing Broncho Billy Westerns for Essanay in the early 1910s. He went on to direct some of the silent era's biggest stars, including Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and would specialize in robust outdoor adventures and Westerns. An equally busy supporting player who appeared in scores of silent films ranging from Intolerance (1916) to Scaramouche (1923), the white-haired, ascetic-looking veteran became an actor for hire after the advent of sound, appearing mostly in low-budget Westerns and almost always playing the heroine's father or a lawman. Spending his final years as a resident of the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, Ingraham's death was attributed to pneumonia.

Trivia: British actor Leyland Hodgson launched his theatrical career at the advanced age of six. From 1915 to 1919, Hodgson toured the British provinces of the Orient with the Bandmann Opera Company, then retraced most of this tour as head of his own stock company. A star of the Australian stage from 1920 to 1929, Hodgson moved to Hollywood, where he made his film bow in RKO's The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930). Largely confined to minor roles in films, Hodgson enjoyed some prominence as a regular of Universal's Sherlock Holmes films of the 1940s. Otherwise, he contented himself with bits as butlers, military officers, hotel clerks, reporters and chauffeurs until his retirement in 1948. Either by accident or design, Leyland Hodgson was frequently teamed on screen with another busy British utilitarian player, Charles Irvin.

Trivia: The faces of most movie extras are unmemorable blurs in the public's memory. Not so the elegant, statuesque Bess Flowers, who was crowned by appreciative film buffs as "Queen of the Hollywood Dress Extras." After studying drama (against her father's wishes) at the Carnegie Inst of Technology, Flowers intended to head to New York, but at the last moment opted for Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922, subsequently appearing prominently in such productions as Hollywood (1922) and Chaplin's Woman of Paris (1923). Too tall for most leading men, Flowers found her true niche as a supporting actress. By the time talkies came around, Flowers was mostly playing bits in features, though her roles were more sizeable in two-reel comedies; she was a special favorite of popular short-subject star Charley Chase. Major directors like Frank Lloyd always found work for Flowers because of her elegant bearing and her luminescent gift for making the people around her look good. While generally an extra, Flowers enjoyed substantial roles in such films as Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), Gregory La Cava's Private Worlds and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937). In 1947's Song of the Thin Man, the usually unheralded Flowers was afforded screen billing. Her fans particularly cherish Flowers' bit as a well-wisher in All About Eve (1950), in which she breaks her customary screen silence to utter "I'm so happy for you, Eve." Flowers was married twice, first to Cecil B. DeMille's legendary "right hand man" Cullen Tate, then to Columbia studio manager William S. Holman. After her retirement, Bess Flowers made one last on-camera appearance in 1974 when she was interviewed by NBC's Tom Snyder.

Trivia: While attending the medical school of Columbia University, Gerald Mohr was offered an opportunity to audition as a radio announcer. The upshot of this was a job at CBS as the network's youngest reporter. He moved to the Broadway stage upon landing a role in The Petrified Forest. Shortly afterward, he became a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. He was chosen on the basis of his voice alone for his first film role as a heavily disguised phony mystic in Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939). Following wartime service, the dark, roguish Mohr was selected to play thief-turned-sleuth the Lone Wolf in Columbia's B-picture series of the same name. His detective activities spilled over into radio, where Mohr starred as Philip Marlowe, and TV, where in 1954 he was cast as Bogart-like café owner Chris Storm on the final season of the syndicated Foreign Intrigue. Gerald Mohr died at the age of 54, shortly after playing a crooked gambler in Funny Girl (1968).

Trivia: A pleasant, young leading man of the early '20s, Harold Miller was something unusual in the film business, a native Californian. In films from 1920, the dark-haired, brown-eyed Miller played opposite such relatively minor stars as Edith Roberts and Marie Prevost, but was rather more famous for partnering Alene Ray in a couple of well-received Pathé serials, Way of a Man (1921) and, in the title role, Leatherstocking (1924). Perhaps Miller was a bit too immature for lasting serial stardom and when Pathé opted for the more seasoned Walter Miller to star opposite the indefatigable Ray, Harold Miller's career took a nosedive from which it never recovered. He hung in there, however, and played hundreds of bit parts through the 1950s.