Trivia: Welsh actor Ray Milland spent the 1930s and early 1940s playing light romantic leads in such films as Next Time We Love (1936); Three Smart Girls (1936); Easy Living (1937), in which he is especially charming opposite Jean Arthur in an early Preston Sturges script; Everything Happens at Night (1939); The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940); and the major in Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor opposite Ginger Rogers. Others worth watching are Reap the Wild Wind (1942); Forever and a Day (1943), and Lady in the Dark (1944). He made The Uninvited in 1944 and won an Oscar for his intense and realistic portrait of an alcoholic in The Lost Weekend (1945). Unfortunately, it was one of his last good films or performances. With the exception of Dial M for Murder (1954), X, The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1953), Love Story (1970), and Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), his later career was made up of mediocre parts in mostly bad films. One of the worst and most laughable was the horror film The Thing with Two Heads (1972), which paired him with football player Rosie Grier as the two-headed monster. Milland was also an uninspired director in A Man Alone (1955), Lisbon (1956), The Safecracker (1958), and Panic in Year Zero (1962).

Trivia: The daughter of a Vienesse banker, Hedy Lamarr began her acting career at 16 under the tutelage of German impresario Max Reinhardt. She began appearing in German films in 1930, but garnered little attention until her star turn in Czech director Gustav Machaty's Extase (Ecstasy) in 1933. It wasn't just because Lamarr appeared briefly in the nude; Extase was filled to overflowing with orgasmic imagery, including tight close-ups of Lamarr in the throes of delighted passion. Though her first husband, Austrian businessman Fritz Mandl, tried to buy up and destroy all prints of Extase, the film enjoyed worldwide distribution, the result being that Lamarr was famous in America before ever setting foot in Hollywood. She was signed by producer Walter Wanger to co-star with Charles Boyer in the American remake of the French Pepe Le Moko, titled Algiers (1938). That Lamarr wasn't much of an actress was compensated with several scenes in which she was required to merely stand around silently and look beautiful (she would later downgrade these performances, equating sex appeal with "looking stupid"). The prudish Louis B. Mayer was willing to forgive Lamarr the "indiscretion" of Extase by signing her to a long MGM contract in 1939. Most of her subsequent roles were merely decorative (never more so than as Tondelayo in White Cargo [1940]), though she was first rate in the complex role of the career woman who "liberates" stuffy Bostonian Robert Young in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1942). In 1949, Lamarr, tastefully under-dressed, appeared opposite the equally attractive Victor Mature in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). Lamarr's limited acting skills became more pronounced in her 1950s films, especially when she gamely tried to play Joan of Arc in the all-star disaster The Story of Mankind (1957). She disappeared from films in 1958. An autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, enabled her to pay many of her debts, though she'd later sue her collaborators for distorting the facts. In another legal action, Lamarr took on director Mel Brooks for using the character name "Hedley Lamarr" in his 1974 Western spoof Blazing Saddles. In 1990, Lamarr made an unexpected return before the cameras in the obscure low-budget Hollywood satire Instant Karma, in which she was typecast in the role of Movie Goddess.

Trivia: Actor MacDonald Carey started out as a Chicago-based radio actor and singer; among his early airwaves credits was a brief tenure as "Mr. First Nighter" in the anthology series of the same name, and a longer engagement as Dick Grosvenor on the daytime soap opera Stella Dallas. In 1941, Carey starred opposite Gertrude Lawrence in the Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, which led to a Hollywood contract. He appeared prominently in several Paramount features from 1942 to 1949, but is best remembered for his portrayal of the detective in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which he played on loan-out to Universal. When his film career began to wane in the early 1950s, Carey returned to radio as star of the tongue-in-cheek adventure series Jason and the Golden Fleece. He was also top-billed in two syndicated TV weeklies, Dr. Christian (1954) and Lock-Up (1959-61). In 1965, Carey was cast as Dr. Tom Horton on the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives, a job he held until his death 19 years later; his voice is still heard at the opening of each episode, intoning the familiar intro "Like sands from the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." Not long before his death, MacDonald Carey published his autobiography, in which he was brutally candid about his lifelong battle with alcoholism.

Trivia: Born Monica Freeman, Mona Freeman was a tiny (5' 1"), spunky, blond actress with an ever-youthful face. While still in high school she became a professional model and soon was signed to a movie contract by Howard Hughes, who then sold her contract to Paramount. She began appearing in films in 1944, becoming one of movie's most popular teenage stars; as the years passed, she slowly matured on the screen from teens and ingenues to leading-lady roles. In adult roles she had less success, appearing mostly in "B"-movies. Her screen career came to an end in the late '50s, but she went on to act in over 80 TV shows. Her daughter, Monie Ellis, had a brief career as a TV actress in the mid '70s. She died in 2014 at age 97.

Trivia: The son of actors Harry Carey and Olive Golden, Harry Carey Jr. never answered to "Harry" or "Junior"; to his friends, family and film buffs, he was always "Dobe" Carey. Raised on his father's California ranch, the younger Carey spent his first six adult years in the Navy. While it is commonly assumed that he made his film debut under the direction of his dad's longtime friend John Ford, Carey in fact was first seen in a fleeting bit in 1946's Rolling Home, directed by William Berke. It wasn't until his third film, Three Godfathers (dedicated to the memory of his father) that Carey worked with Ford. Honoring his promise to Harry Sr. that he'd "look after" Dobe, Ford saw to it that the younger Carey was given a starring assignment (along with another of the director's proteges, Ben Johnson), in Wagonmaster (1950). Though he handled this assignment nicely, exuding an appealing earnest boyishness, Carey wasn't quite ready for stardom so far as the Hollywood "higher-ups" were concerned, so he settled for supporting roles, mostly in westerns. John Ford continued to use Carey whenever possible; in 1955's The Long Gray Line, the actor has a few brief scenes as West Point undergraduate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carey was also featured on the "Spin and Marty" segments of Walt Disney's daily TVer The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59). In later years, Carey's weather-beaten face was seen in choice character assignments in films ranging from The Whales of August (1987) to Back to the Future III (1990); he was also hired by such John Ford aficionados as Peter Bogdanovich, who cast Carey as an old wrangler named Dobie (what else?) in Nickelodeon (1976), and as an ageing bike-gang member named Red in Mask (1985). In 1994, Harry Carey Jr. published his autobiography, Company of Heroes. Carey died of natural causes at age 91 in late December 2012.

Trivia: American actor Frank Faylen was born into a vaudeville act; as an infant, he was carried on stage by his parents, the song-and-dance team Ruf and Clark. Traveling with his parents from one engagement to another, Faylen somehow managed to complete his education at St. Joseph's Prep School in Kirkwood, Missouri. Turning pro at age 18, Faylen worked on stage until getting a Hollywood screen test in 1936. For the next nine years, Faylen played a succession of bit and minor roles, mostly for Warner Bros.; of these minuscule parts he would later say, "If you sneezed, you missed me." Better parts came his way during a brief stay at Hal Roach Studios in 1942 and 1943, but Faylen's breakthrough came at Paramount in 1945, where he was cast as Bim, the chillingly cynical male nurse at Bellevue's alcoholic ward in the Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend. Though the part lasted all of four minutes' screen time, Faylen was so effective in this unpleasant role that he became entrenched as a sadistic bully or cool villain in his subsequent films. TV fans remember Faylen best for his more benign but still snarly role as grocery store proprietor Herbert T. Gillis on the 1959 sitcom Dobie Gillis. For the next four years, Faylen gained nationwide fame for such catch-phrases as "I was in World War II--the big one--with the good conduct medal!", and, in reference to his screen son Dobie Gillis, "I gotta kill that boy someday. I just gotta." Faylen worked sporadically in TV and films after Dobie Gillis was canceled in 1963, receiving critical plaudits for his small role as an Irish stage manager in the 1968 Barbra Streisand starrer Funny Girl. The actor also made an encore appearance as Herbert T. Gillis in a Dobie Gillis TV special of the 1970s, where his "good conduct medal" line received an ovation from the studio audience. Faylen was married to Carol Hughes, an actress best-recalled for her role as Dale Arden in the 1939 serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and was the father of another actress, also named Carol.

Trivia: When the call went out for an actress to play a circus strongwoman capable of lifting both a chair and Spencer Tracy in 1949's Adam's Rib, there was but one performer who could logically fit the bill: character actress Hope Emerson, who scraped the ceiling at 6' 2" and weighed in at 230 pounds. Emerson made her Broadway debut as the leader of the Amazons in Lysistrata. Her performance in the Fred Stone musical Smiling Faces led to her screen bow in the 1932 filmization of that property. During the 1940s, Emerson gained fame as the radio voice of Borden's Elsie the Cow. After years in vaudeville and the legitimate stage, Emerson returned to films as a homicidal masseuse in the New York-filmed Cry of the City (1948). She went on to play the feuding Mrs. Hatfield in Goldwyn's Roseanna McCoy (1948), and the implicitly lesbian prison matron in Caged (1950), an assignment which earned her an Oscar nomination. In 1958, Emerson was cast as Mother, owner of the nightclub where the beauteous Lola Albright was featured songstress, on the popular TV private eye series Peter Gunn. She left this series in 1959 to take a larger role as a housekeeper named "Sarge" on the weekly sitcom The Dennis O'Keefe Show. Shortly after filming the last O'Keefe episode, Hope Emerson died of a liver ailment at the reported age of 51.

Trivia: Actor Taylor Holmes first made a theatrical name for himself on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. In the course of his subsequent five-decade Broadway career, Holmes starred in over 100 plays, usually in light comedy roles. Making his film debut in 1917, he played the title role in the 1918 adaptation of Ruggles of Red Gap, then made scattered screen appearances before settling down in Hollywood permanently in 1947. Most often employed by 20th Century-Fox, he showed up in such flashy roles as gullible millionaire Ezra Grindle in the Tyrone Power melodrama Nightmare Alley (1947). He also played more than his share of shyster lawyers (most memorable in 1947's Kiss of Death) and absent-minded professors. Holmes was the father of actors Phillips and Ralph Holmes. Outliving his wife and both his sons, Taylor Holmes died at the age of 85; his last assignment was the voice of King Steffan in Disney's animated feature Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Trivia: A tough-looking, blond Warner Bros. starlet of the mid-'40s, Minnesota-born Peggy Knudsen made an auspicious screen debut as Mona Mars in the noir classic The Big Sleep (1946). Although a mere bit -- one scene, a couple of lines of dialogue -- the character was much discussed prior to actually appearing in the film and demanded an actress who could match the buildup. The pivotal scene, in which protagonist Humphrey Bogart finds himself at a disadvantage in gangster Eddie Mars' coastal hideaway, had originally been filmed in 1944 with Pat Clarke in the role of Mrs. Mars. But when negative previews necessitated scenes to be added or re-shot, director Howard Hawks replaced Miss Clarke with Knudsen, a much more vibrant presence who made her few moments count. It should have been a major breakthrough for the actress but Warner Bros. missed the opportunity and instead assigned her standard "other woman" roles opposite Erroll Flynn in the marital comedy Never Say Goodbye (1946) and Ronald Reagan in the horse breeding drama Stallion Road (1947). 20th Century Fox borrowed her for a couple of B-movies, in one of which, Trouble Preferred (1948), she was top-billed as a policewoman in training, but they were too inexpensive to have much impact. Missing out on stardom, she went on to appear in supporting roles through the 1950s, both in feature films and on television, retiring after a guest spot on Texas John Slaughter (1961). The victim of a crippling arthritic condition that eventually necessitated five operations, Knudsen was reportedly cared for by lifelong friend Jennifer Jones. Her death in 1980 was attributed to cancer.

Trivia: American actor James Burke not only had the Irish face and brogueish voice of a New York detective, but even his name conjured up images of a big-city flatfoot. In Columbia's Ellery Queen series of the late 1930s and early 1940s, Burke was cast exquisitely to type as the thick-eared Sergeant Velie, who referred to the erudite Queen as "Maestro." Burke also showed up as a rural law enforcement officer in such films as Nightmare Alley (1947), in which he has a fine scene as a flint-hearted sheriff moved to tears by the persuasive patter of carnival barker Tyrone Power. One of the best of James Burke's non-cop performances was as westerner Charlie Ruggles' rambunctious, handlebar-mustached "pardner" in Ruggles of Red Gap (135), wherein Burke and Ruggles engage in an impromptu game of piggyback on the streets of Paris.

Trivia: The son of actors, Percy Helton began his own career at age two in a Tony Pastor revue in which his parents were performing. The undersized Helton was a valuable juvenile player for producer David Belasco, making his film debut in a 1915 Belasco production, The Fairy and the Waif. Helton matured into adult roles under the stern guidance of George M. Cohan. After serving in the Army during World War I, Helton established himself on Broadway, appearing in such productions as Young America, One Sunday Afternoon and The Fabulous Invalid. He made his talkie debut in 1947's Miracle on 34th Street, playing the inebriated Macy's Santa Claus whom Edmund Gwenn replaces. Perhaps the quintessential "who is that?" actor, Helton popped up, often uncredited, in over one hundred succinct screen characterizations. Forever hunched over and eternally short of breath, he played many an obnoxious clerk, nosey mailman, irascible bartender, officious train conductor and tremulous stool pigeon. His credits include Fancy Pants (1950), The Robe (1953), White Christmas (1954), Rally Round the Flag Boys (1959), The Music Man (1962) and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1965), as well as two appearances as sweetshop proprietor Mike Clancy in the Bowery Boys series. Thanks to his trademarked squeaky voice, and because he showed up in so many "cult" films (Wicked Woman, Kiss Me Deadly, Sons of Katie Elder), Helton became something of a high-camp icon in his last years. In this vein, Percy Helton was cast as the "Heraldic Messenger" in the bizarre Monkees vehicle Head (he showed up at the Monkees' doorstep with a beautiful blonde manacled to his wrist!), the treacherous Sweetieface in the satirical western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the bedraggled bank clerk Cratchit on the TV series The Beverly Hillbillies.

Trivia: Beginning his stage career in his native Holland in 1927, Phil Van Zandt moved to America shortly afterward, continuing to make theatrical appearances into the late '30s. From his first film (Those High Gray Walls [1939]) onward, the versatile Van Zandt was typed as "everyday" characters whenever he chose not to wear his mustache; with the 'stache, however, his face took on a sinister shade, and he found himself playing such cinematic reprobates as evil caliphs, shady attorneys, and heartless Nazis. Because of deliberately shadowy photography, the audience barely saw Van Zandt's face at all in one of his best roles, as the Henry Luce-like magazine editor Rawlston in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Though many of his feature-film assignments were bits, Van Zandt was permitted generous screen time in his many appearances in two-reel comedies. Beginning with the Gus Schilling/Dick Lane vehicle Pardon My Terror (1946), Van Zandt was a fixture at the Columbia Pictures short subjects unit, usually playing crooks and mad scientists at odds with the Three Stooges. He established his own acting school in Hollywood in the 1950s, though this and other ventures ultimately failed. Philip Van Zandt died of a drug overdose at the age of 54.

Trivia: Slight, owlish American actor Francis Pierlot made his film debut in 1914, but it wasn't until 1931 that he abandoned the stage to settle permanently in Hollywood. Pierlot generally essayed minor roles, showing up briefly but memorably as scores of judges, professors, priests, and orchestra leaders. Film buffs have a special place in their hearts for the actor's sly portrayal of lovable pyromaniac Nero Smith in 1942's Henry Aldrich, Editor. Francis Pierlot made his final screen appearance in a surprisingly sizeable role as Jean Simmons' manservant in the 1953 biblical epic The Robe.

Trivia: Not to be confused with lachrymose child actor Bobs Watson (1931-1999), Robert "Bobby" Watson was a musical comedy actor who came to films in 1925. At the advent of talkies, the short, ebullient Watson played a few leads in such musicals as Syncopation (1929), then spent the 1930s essaying bit roles as glib reporters and fey "pansy" types. For a while, he emulated Broadway star Bobby Clark, adopting horn-rimmed glasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and a perpetual air of bug-eyed lechery. Watson found his true niche in the 1940s, when his startling resemblance to Adolf Hitler assured him plenty of screen work. He alternately portrayed Der Führer as a raving madman in such serious films as The Hitler Gang (1942) and as a slapsticky buffoon in such comedies as The Devil With Hitler (1942) and That Nazty Nuisance (1943). Legend has it that he faced so much hostility on the set while made up as Hitler that he had to remain locked in his dressing room between takes. After the war, Watson fell from prominence, playing a few sizeable character roles in films like The Paleface (1948) and Red, Hot and Blue (1949) before settling into such uncredited minor parts as the voice coach ("Moses supposes his toeses are roses") in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Until the end of his life, Bobby Watson remained "on call" for one-scene appearances as Hitler in films ranging from The Story of Mankind (1957) to Danny Kaye's On the Double (1961).

Trivia: Ian Wolfe was determined to become an actor even as a youth in his hometown of Canton, IL. His Broadway debut was in the warhorse Lionel Barrymore vehicle The Claw. While acting with Katherine Cornell in The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1934, Wolfe was spotted by MGM producer Irving Thalberg, who brought the actor to Hollywood to re-create his Barretts role. Though not yet 40, Wolfe had the receding hairline and lined features necessary for aged character roles. By his own count, Wolfe appeared in over 200 films, often uncredited assignments in the roles of judges, attorneys, butlers, and shopkeepers. Some of his best screen moments occurred in producer Val Lewton's Bedlam (1946), wherein Wolfe played an 18th century scientist confined to a mental asylum for proposing the invention of motion pictures. Because his actual age was difficult to pinpoint, Wolfe kept working into the 1990s (and his nineties); he was a particular favorite of TV's MTM productions, appearing on such sitcoms as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and Rhoda. Co-workers during this period noted affectionately that, despite his many years as a professional, Wolfe was always seized with "stage fright" just before walking on the set. Though often cast in timid roles, Ian Wolfe was quite outspoken and fiercely defensive of his craft; when asked what he thought of certain method actors who insist upon playing extensions of "themselves," Wolfe snapped that he became an actor to pretend to be other people.

Trivia: In films after 1915, hatchet-faced Robert Kortman claimed to have served in the U.S. Cavalry prior to going on-stage. With producer Thomas H. Ince in the mid-1910s, the menacing actor often supported the era's great Western icon William S. Hart (he was one of the rowdy townsmen in 1916's Hell's Hinges) and was equally busy in the '20s. Kortman, however, came into his own in sound serials, especially at Mascot and its successor Republic Pictures, where his menacing visage turned up everywhere, from playing Magua in Last of the Mohicans (1932) to portraying One-Eye Chapin in Adventures of Red Ryder (1940). His roles grew increasingly smaller, and Kortman continued to play mostly villains until at least 1951. He died of cancer.

Trivia: The screen's first black love goddess, she was spotted as a teenager in the chorus line of Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1928 and signed to star in King Vidor's all-black musical film Hallelujah (1929). She got rave reviews and MGM signed her to a five-year contract, but she appeared in only two films in that time; there were no good roles for blacks in Hollywood films of the early '30s. She sang in cafes, cabarets, and clubs in Paris, Athens, and Budapest, billed as "the black Garbo." In 1935 she costarred with Paul Robeson in the British film Sanders of the River, then appeared in many all-black independent productions. In the late '40s she had supporting roles in a number of Hollywood films. Her last significant performance was onstage in Brooklyn in the 1951 play Rain, in which she played Sadie Thompson.

Trivia: American silent screen cowboy Buddy Roosevelt came to Hollywood in 1914 with the C.B. Irwin Wild West Show. Working primarily as a stunt man in William S. Hart Westerns at Triangle, Roosevelt was earning 22 dollars a week plus board when World War I took him overseas. Working his way back to Hollywood after the Armistice, Roosevelt doubled Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1920), as well as William Desmond. Universal starred him as Kent Sanderson in the two-reeler Down in Texas (1923), but he somehow fell between the cracks at that studio, signing instead a personal contract with independent producer Lester F. Scott Jr. Scott didn't like the name Kent Sanderson and changed it to Buddy Roosevelt, in honor of former president Theodore Roosevelt. Making 25 fast-paced Westerns for Scott's Action Pictures, the former stunt man proved to be an acceptable actor who did not look the fool even with the heavy doses of comedy that Scott seemed to favor. Unfortunately, the Roosevelt budgets deteriorated as Scott brought Buffalo Bill Jr. and Wally Wales into the fold and Roosevelt bolted in January 1928, in favor of Rayart. With the veteran J.P. McGowan at the helm, Roosevelt continued to do strong work, but sound interrupted what could have been a career on the upswing. He was tested for the lead in the Fox Western In Old Arizona (1929), but a broken leg caused him to be replaced by Warner Baxter, who, of course, went on to earn an Academy Award for his role as the Cisco Kid. A chance to star in a new series reportedly went out the window when Mrs. Roosevelt, a cousin of Clark Gable, got into an argument with the producer, ex-stunt man Paul Malvern; John Wayne earned the berth instead and the rest, as they say, is history. There would be a few Western leads to come, but only for bottom-rung producers such as Jack Irwin and Victor Adamson. Roosevelt continued playing bits in Westerns through the early '60s, however; his final role -- a mere walk-on -- came in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Retiring to his hometown in Colorado, Buddy Roosevelt kept up a correspondence with Western fans from around the world.

Trivia: American silent-film actress Julia Faye made her film bow in The Lamb (1915), which also represented the first film appearance of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Though she photographed beautifully, Faye's acting skills were limited. It's possible she would have quickly faded from the scene without the sponsorship of producer/director Cecil B. DeMille. Faye appeared in sizeable roles in most of DeMille's extravaganzas of the '20s; her assignments ranged from the supporting part of an Aztec handmaiden in The Woman God Forgot (1918) to the wife of Pharoah in The Ten Commandments (1923). Offscreen, Faye became DeMille's mistress. The actress continued to work in DeMille's films into the sound era, at least until the personal relationship dissolved. By the '40s, Faye was washed up in films and hard up financially. DeMille responded generously by putting Faye on his permanent payroll, casting her in minor roles in his films of the '40s and '50s, and seeing to it that she was regularly hired for bit parts at the director's home studio of Paramount. Julia Faye's final appearance was in 1958's The Buccaneer, which also happened to be the last film ever produced by Cecil B. DeMille (it was directed by DeMille's son-in-law, Anthony Quinn).

Trivia: From his first film, Don Quickshot of the Rio Grande (1923), to his last, Fancy Pants (1950) American supporting player Hank Bell specialized in westerns. While still relatively young, Bell adopted the "grizzled old desert rat" characterization, that sustained him throughout his career, simply by removing his teeth and growing a thick, inverted handlebar mustache. Though occasionally given lines to speak, he was usually consigned to "atmosphere roles:" if you'll look closely at the jury in the Three Stooges 2-reeler Disorder in the Court, you'll see Bell in the top row on the left, making swimming motions when Curly douses the jurors with a fire hose. A fixture of "B"-pictures, Hank Bell occasionally surfaced in "A" films like Abraham Lincoln (1930), Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), The Plainsman (1936), Geronimo (1939) and My Little Chickadee (1940).

Trivia: An outdoorsman from an early age, gangling Montana-born actor Ethan Laidlaw began showing up in westerns during the silent era. Too menacing for lead roles, Laidlaw was best suited for villains, usually as the crooked ranch hand in the employ of the rival cattle baron, sent to spy on the hero or heroine. During the talkie era, Laidlaw began alternating his western work with roles as sailors and stevedores; he is quite visible chasing the Marx Brothers around in Monkey Business (1931). Though usually toiling in anonymity, Ethan Laidlaw was given prominent billing for his "heavy" role in the 1936 Wheeler and Woolsey sagebrush spoof Silly Billies.

Trivia: Mason Dinehart III -- who also worked under the names Alan Dinehart, Alan Dinehart III, and Mason Alan Dinehart -- was born into the entertainment business. His grandfather, Alan Dinehart (aka Alan Dinehart Sr.), was a veteran character actor and one of the movies' great heavies; his father, Alan Dinehart Jr., was a successful stage character actor and writer, whose play Separate Rooms was for many years among the longest-running non-musical plays in the history of Broadway; and his mother, Mozelle Britton, was in the casting department at Columbia Pictures, and later starred in Separate Rooms. When the young Dinehart was 12 years old, a tenant in the family's home, Harold Rossmore, who worked in the casting department at Republic Pictures, persuaded him to audition for a role in the Roy Rogers film Eyes of Texas. That constituted the younger Dinehart's professional introduction to acting, and was followed by a featured role in the Blondie movie Blondie's Big Deal (1949), and a small role in the Columbia serial Superman -- from there, he went on to appear in a string of mostly Western movies and television series, including The Lone Ranger, Death Valley Days, 26 Men, and The Texan, in roles of various sizes. His big television role, however, was as the young Bat Masterson in the series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, which he played in dozens of episodes.

Trivia: At first studying for the ministry, in college he was attracted to acting; at age 21 he went to Hollywood, working for several years as an extra. His first lead role came in A Woman Who Sinned (1924); three years later he was elevated to star status after his lead role opposite Sharon Lynne in Clancy's Kosher Wedding (1927). For the next several years he played romantic leads in numerous mysteries, drawing-room dramas, and comedies, and easily made the transition into the sound era. In the mid '30s he began specializing in Westerns and action serials, and last starred in 1936; after that he played supporting roles, both as the heroes' buddies and low-down villains, in dozens of B-Westerns and serials.

Trivia: Actor Stanley Andrews moved from the stage to the movies in the mid 1930s, where at first he was typed in steadfast, authoritative roles. The tall, mustachioed Adrews became familiar to regular moviegoers in a string of performances as ship's captains, doctors, executives, military officials and construction supervisors. By the early 1950s, Andrews had broadened his range to include grizzled old western prospectors and ageing sheriffs. This led to his most lasting contribution to the entertainment world: the role of the Old Ranger on the long-running syndicated TV series Death Valley Days. Beginning in 1952, Andrews introduced each DVD episode, doing double duty as commercial pitchman for 20 Mule Team Borax; he also became a goodwill ambassador for the program and its sponsor, showing up at county fairs, supermarket openings and charity telethons. Stanley Andrews continued to portray the Old Ranger until 1963, when the US Borax company decided to alter its corporate image with a younger spokesperson -- a 51-year-old "sprout" named Ronald Reagan.

Trivia: Danish-born actor Kit Guard came to prominence in the mid 1920s as a regular in a trio of 2-reel comedy series: "The Go-Getters," "The Pacemakers" and "Bill Grimm's Progress." Guard appeared in at least 200 feature films, usually cast as sailors, barflies and foreign legionnaires. Usually unbilled, he managed to attain screen credit in the 1931 Ronald Colman vehicle The Unholy Garden and as Dinky in the 1940 Columbia serial The Green Archer. Kit Guard made his last fleeting film appearance in Carrie (1952).

Trivia: It is probably correct to assume that American actor Stuart Holmes never turned down work. In films since 1914's Life's Shop Window, Holmes showed up in roles both large and microscopic until 1962. In his early days (he entered the movie business in 1911), Holmes cut quite a villainous swath with his oily moustache and cold, baleful glare. He played Black Michael in the 1922 version of The Prisoner of Zenda and Alec D'Uberville in Tess of the D'Ubervilles (1923), and also could be seen as wicked land barons in the many westerns of the period. While firmly established in feature films, Holmes had no qualms about accepting bad-guy parts in comedy shorts, notably Stan Laurel's Should Tall Men Marry? (1926) In talkies, Holmes' non-descript voice tended to work against his demonic bearing. Had Tom Mix's My Pal the King (1932) been a silent picture, Holmes would have been ideal as one of the corrupt noblemen plotting the death of boy king Mickey Rooney; instead, Holmes was cast as Rooney's bumbling but honest chamberlain. By the mid '30s, Holmes' hair had turned white, giving him the veneer of a shopkeeper or courtroom bailiff. He signed a contract for bits and extra roles at Warner Bros, spending the next two decades popping up at odd moments in such features as Confession (1937), Each Dawn I Die (1939) and The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and in such short subjects as At the Stroke of Twelve (1941). Stuart Holmes remained on call at Central Casting for major films like Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) until his retirement; he died of an abdominal aortic aneurism at the age of 83.

Trivia: Actor Earle Hodgins has been characterized by more than one western-film historian as a grizzled, bucolic Bob Hope type. Usually cast as snake-oil salesmen, Hodgins would brighten up his "B"-western scenes with a snappy stream of patter, leavened by magnificently unfunny wisecracks ("This remedy will give ya a complexion like a peach, fuzz 'n' all..."). When the low-budget western market died in the 1950s, Hodgins continued unabated on such TV series as The Roy Rogers Show and Annie Oakley. He also made appearances in such "A" films as East of Eden (55), typically cast as carnival hucksters and rural sharpsters. In 1961, Earle Hodgins was cast in the recurring role of wizened handyman Lonesome on the TV sitcom Guestward Ho!