Trivia: Rugged, athletic, and handsome, Burt Lancaster enjoyed phenomenal success from his first film, The Killers, to his last, Field of Dreams -- over a career spanning more than four decades. Boasting an impressively wide range, he delivered thoughtful, sensitive performances across a spectrum of genres: from film noir to Westerns to melodrama, he commanded the screen with a presence and power matched by only a handful of stars.Lancaster was born November 2, 1913, in New York City. As a child, he exhibited considerable athletic and acrobatic prowess, and at the age of 17 joined a circus troupe, forming a duo with the diminutive performer Nick Cravat (later to frequently serve as his onscreen sidekick). He eventually joined the army, and, after acting and dancing in a number of armed forces revues, he decided to pursue a dramatic career. Upon hiring an agent, Harold Hecht, Lancaster made his Broadway debut in A Sound of Hunting, a role which led to a contract with Paramount. Because the release of his first picture, Desert Fury, was delayed, he initially came to the attention of audiences in 1946's The Killers, a certified classic of film noir. It remained the genre of choice in several of his subsequent projects, including 1947's Brute Force and I Walk Alone the following year.After starring as Barbara Stanwyck's cheating husband in Sorry, Wrong Number, Lancaster and his manager formed their own production company, Hecht-Lancaster, the first notable star-owned venture of its kind; more were to follow, and they contributed significantly to the ultimate downfall of the old studio system. Its formation was a result of Lancaster's conscious effort to avoid "beefcake" roles, instead seeking projects which spotlighted his versatility as a performer. While the company's first effort, the war melodrama Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, was not a success, they were nonetheless able to secure enough financial backing to break off completely from the mainstream Hollywood system. Still, Lancaster also continued to appear in studio productions. In 1949, he reunited with The Killers director Robert Siodmak at Universal for another excellent noir, Criss Cross, followed by Rope of Sand. He also signed a non-exclusive contract with Warner Bros., where he and Hecht produced 1950's The Flame and the Arrow, a swashbuckler which was his first major box-office success. After producing Ten Tall Men with Hecht, Lancaster starred in the MGM Western Vengeance Valley, followed by the biopic Jim Thorpe -- All American. With Siodmak again directing, he next headlined the 1952 adventure spoof The Crimson Pirate, followed by Daniel Mann's Come Back, Little Sheba opposite Oscar-winner Shirley Booth. A minor effort, South Sea Woman, followed in 1953 before Lancaster starred in the Fred Zinnemann classic From Here to Eternity, earning him a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance and, in his beachside rendezvous with co-star Deborah Kerr, creating one of the most indelible images in film history. Another swashbuckler, His Majesty O'Keefe, followed, and under director Robert Aldrich the actor headlined a pair of Westerns, Apache and Vera Cruz. Finally, in 1955, Lancaster realized a long-held dream and helmed his own film, The Kentuckian; reviews were negative, however, and he did not return to the director's chair for another two decades.Again working with Mann, Lancaster co-starred with another Oscar winner, Anna Magnani, in 1955's The Rose Tattoo. Opposite Tony Curtis, he appeared in the 1956 hit Trapeze, and, with Katherine Hepburn, headlined The Rainmaker later that same year. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a blockbuster featuring Lancaster as Wyatt Earp, followed, as did the acclaimed The Sweet Smell of Success. With Clark Gable, Lancaster starred in 1958's Run Silent, Run Deep, followed by Separate Tables. For 1960's Elmer Gantry, he won an Academy Award for his superb portrayal of the title character, a disreputable evangelist, and a year later co-starred in Judgment at Nuremberg. Under John Frankenheimer, Lancaster next portrayed The Birdman of Alcatraz, earning Best Actor honors at the Venice Film Festival for his sympathetic turn as prisoner Robert Stroud, an expert in bird disease. For John Cassavetes, he starred in 1963's A Child Is Waiting, but the picture was the victim of studio interference and poor distribution. Around the same time, Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti was trying to secure financing for his planned historical epic Il Gattopardo (aka The Leopard), and needed to cast an international superstar in the lead role; Lancaster actively campaigned for the part, and delivered one of the strongest performances of his career. Released in 1963, it was a massive success everywhere but in the U.S., where it was brutally edited prior to release. After two hit movies with Frankenheimer, the 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May and the 1965 war drama The Train, Lancaster starred in another Western, The Hallelujah Trail, followed by the 1966 smash The Professionals. A rare series of flops -- The Swimmer, Castle Keep, and The Gypsy Moths -- rounded out the decade, but by 1970 he was back at the top of the box office with Airport. Still, Lancaster's star was clearly dimming, and he next appeared in a pair of low-budget Westerns, Lawman and Valdez Is Coming. After an underwhelming reunion with Aldrich, 1972's Ulzana's Raid, he attempted to take matters into his own hands, writing and directing 1974's The Midnight Man in collaboration with Roland Kibbee, but it failed to attract much attention, either. For Visconti, Lancaster next starred in 1975's Gruppo di Famiglia in un Interno. Remaining in Europe, he also appeared in Bernardo Bertollucci's epic 1900. Neither resuscitated his career, nor did Robert Altman's much-panned Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson. Lancaster languished in a number of television projects before appearing in 1978's Go Tell the Spartans, which, despite critical acclaim, failed to catch on. In 1980, however, he delivered a stunning turn as an aging gangster in Louis Malle's excellent Atlantic City, a performance which earned him Best Actor honors from the New York critics as well as another Oscar nomination. Also highly acclaimed was his supporting role in the 1983 Bill Forsyth gem Local Hero. Heart trouble sidelined him for all of 1984, but soon Lancaster was back at full steam, teaming one last time with Kirk Douglas for 1986's Tough Guys. Several more TV projects followed before he returned to feature films with 1988's little-seen Rocket Gibraltar and the 1989 blockbuster Field of Dreams. In 1991, Lancaster made his final appearance in the telefilm Separate But Equal. He died October 20, 1994.

Trivia: Canadian actress Susan Clark was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She made her TV debut in an episode of the Toronto-filmed adventure series Seaway, then launched her Hollywood career in Banning (1967). Resisting attempts by the studio to turn her into a traditional leading lady, Clark has actively sought out roles requiring heavy dramatics and extreme physical exertion: she won an Emmy award for the 1975 TV movie Babe, in which she played Olympic athlete Babe Didrickson Zaharias. Active as a film actress and producer into the 1980s, Susan Clark has also starred on the weekly TV sitcom Webster, playing opposite her husband and production partner, actor/athlete Alex Karras.

Trivia: American character actor Jon Cypher is best known to daytime-drama devotees as Dr. Alex Keith on CBS' As the World Turns. Those who prefer NBC's soap-opera lineup will recognize Cypher as Dr. Arthur Donnelly on Santa Barbara. In the nighttime TV hours, the actor has been seen as such self-important characters as Chief Fletcher P. Daniels on Hill Street Blues (1981-1987), Jeff Munson on Knot's Landing (1982-1983 season), and Maj. Gen. Marcus Craig on Major Dad (1990-1993). Jon Cypher has also played similarly authoritative roles in his film work, beginning with his portrayal of land baron Frank Tanner in 1971's Valdez Is Coming.

Trivia: Barton Heyman played character roles on stage and screen. While others aspire to stardom, Heyman described himself as a "working actor," one who prefers to work as a team with other cast members. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Heyman earned a degree in theater arts from U.C.L.A. before launching his career. He made his film debut in the Canadian-made The Naked Flame (1968) and had his first major role in the thriller Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971). Subsequent film roles were quite diverse for the slender, balding actor. In 1995, he played the prison guard who escorts Sean Penn down Death Row for his final appointment in Dead Man Walking. Heyman's Broadway work included appearances in Indians and The Enclave. Heyman also occasionally appeared on television movies such as For Love and Glory (1993). Heyman died of a heart attack in his Manhattan home on May 15, 1996.

Trivia: Immediately upon his graduation from Harvard, actor Richard Jordan made the first of his over 100 New York stage appearances. Jordan's theatrical credits include a number of directorial assignments and eight years with Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival (at one time, Jordan was married to fellow Papp regular Kathleen Widdoes; he also fathered a child by actress Blair Brown). Though some previous reference works list a "Richard Jordan" as appearing in films from 1964, this Richard Jordan didn't make his first picture until 1971. As busy in TV movies as he was in theatrical features, Jordan played such leading roles as Joseph Armagh in the 1976 miniseries Captain and the Kings (a performance that won him a Golden Globe award), and Frederick in Woody Allen's Interiors (1978). Ever fascinated with the dark side of human nature, Jordan played many an unsympathetic role, notably Albert Speer in the 1981 TV movie The Bunker and rabble-rousing Georgia prosecutor Hugh Dorsey in the 1987 video biopic The Murder of Mary Phagan.

Trivia: Jamaican-born Frank Silvera attended Northeastern Law School before inaugurating his acting career. One of the few black actors of the 1950s who was able to avoid being typecast by the color of his skin, Silvera played a wide variety of ethnic types, from Latin to Middle Eastern to Oriental. He made his film bow in 1952's Viva Zapata, and shortly thereafter was prominently cast in two of Stanley Kubrick's seminal films, Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer's Kiss (1955). Silvera was founder of The Theatre of Being, which was devoted to helping young African-American actors get started in show business; he also directed several stage plays in New York and Los Angeles. Frank Silvera was electrocuted in his home at the age of 56, while trying to repair an electrical appliance. At the time of his death, he was a regular on the TV series The High Chapparal.

Trivia: An actor of seemingly boundless range, New York-born Hector Elizondo began his career as a dancer. His initial training was at the Ballet Arts school of Carnegie Hall, from which he moved on to the Actors Studio. After several years' stage work, Elizondo made an inauspicious movie debut as "The Inspector" in the low-budget sex film The Vixens (1969). He was shown to better advantage in his next film, Hal Ashby's The Landlord (1970), which he followed up with strong character parts in such Manhattan-based productions as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Thieves (1977). With Young Doctors in Love (1982), Elizondo began his long association with director Garry Marshall, who has since cast the actor in all of his films, in roles both sizable (Matt Dillon's dad in The Flamingo Kid [1984], the cafe owner in Frankie and Johnny [1991]), and microscopic (Overboard [1987]). Elizondo's screen roles have run the gamut from scrungy garbage scow captains to elegant concierges (Pretty Woman). In addition, he has been a regular on several mediocre television series: Popi, Freebie and the Bean, Casablanca (in the old Claude Rains role of Inspector Renault), a.k.a. Pablo, Foley Square, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, In 1994, Elizondo took on a co-starring role as a demanding chief of surgery on the popular TV medical drama Chicago Hope. Other non-Marshall highlights in his filmography include Tortilla Soup, Overboard, Necessary Roughness, and Music Within.

Trivia: In films from the early 1940s, American actor Phil Brown held down supporting roles in most of his Hollywood films. Brown was eighth-billed as Jimmy Brown in his earliest screen credit, the Paramount aviation epic I Wanted Wings (1941). He was disturbingly convincing as a homicidal maniac in Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942), snapping from normality to viciousness within seconds in several scenes. In The Killers (1946), Brown played Nick Adams, who in the Hemingway story on which the film was based was the narrator but who wound up with little more than a bystander part in the film's opening scene. Moving to Europe in 1950, Brown was put to good use as the victim of a jealous husband in the British-filmed Obsession (1949), released in America as The Hidden Room. Phil Brown remained in England and the Continent for the balance of his career.

Trivia: A statuesque lead actress, onscreen from 1952, she later worked behind the scenes in TV productions.

Trivia: Stunt man and actor Tony Epper first appeared onscreen in the '70s.

Trivia: Diminutive New York native Nick Cravat spent his first two decades in show business as a circus and carnival acrobat. From the mid-'30s to the early '40s, he was the smaller half of the Lang and Cravat trapeze act; "Lang" was his childhood pal Burt Lancaster. While it is commonly assumed that Cravat made his first screen appearances in tandem with Lancaster, his film debut was in fact My Friend Irma (1949), which starred Diana Lynn, Marie Wilson, and Martin and Lewis. He did, of course, show up quite often in Lancaster's starring features, beginning with The Flame and the Arrow (1950) and ending with The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). In the delightful The Crimson Pirate (1952), Cravat was afforded co-star billing with Lancaster, above leading lady Eva Bartok. Because he so often played a mute, many filmgoers believed that Cravat was genuinely non-verbal; actually, he possessed so thick and pronounced an East Coast accent that he was averse to mouthing dialogue. Outside of his work with Lancaster, Cravat is best remembered for one of his uncredited appearances: as the "thing on the wing" in the 1963 Twilight Zone installment "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

Trivia: Just another attractive contract ingenue at Universal studios in the early '40s, Maria Montez seemed destined for obscurity until she reinvented herself. Carefully recultivating the Spanish accent she'd lost after moving to America (she was the daughter of a Dominican Republic diplomat) and decking herself out in jewels, exotic costumes and a loyal retinue, Montez became the exotic, tempestuous Latino leading lady of many a Technicolor escapist epic. Though her acting was not precisely Oscar calibre, Maria convincing portrayed haughty Arabian princesses, jungle goddesses and highborn gypsies in such delightful nonsense as Arabian Nights (1942), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1942), Cobra Woman (1944) and Gypsy Wildcat (1945). Her most frequent costar was Jon Hall, who some critics claimed was prettier and better built than she was. A 24-hour-a-day star, Ms. Montez was famous for her spectacular entrances at nightclubs and social functions; once, when her arrival at the Universal commissary failed to attract notice, she turned her heel and left the room, returning moments later with a huge entourage and accompanying loud noises. Her career faded out when the sort of lavishly silly movies in which she specialized were reduced to B-pictures in the late '40s, though she continued to work in European films. The victim of an erratic heart, Maria Montez suffered a coronary and drowned in the bathtub of her Paris mansion in 1951.