Trivia: Though he only vaguely resembled Chester Gould's jut-jawed comic strip detective Dick Tracy, Ralph Byrd played the character with such assurance and authority that it is well-nigh impossible to envision anyone else in the role. In films from 1936 after several years on stage, Byrd first appeared as Tracy in the 1937 Republic serial Dick Tracy, then reprised the role in the follow-up serials Dick Tracy Returns (1938) and Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939). When the film rights to the character shifted from Republic to RKO Radio in 1945, RKO attempted to create its own Tracy in the person of Morgan Conway. Fans protested, and Byrd was back in Tracy's fedora and trenchcoat in Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947) and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947). Ralph Byrd died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 43, shortly after filming 39 episodes of the Dick Tracy TV series.

Trivia: When diehard American movie fans speak of Jack Lambert, they are generally not referring to the British character actor of that name, but of the New York-born supporting player who was most often seen in gangster roles. Following Broadway experience, Lambert came to Hollywood in 1943, to menace Kay Kyser in the MGM musical comedy Swing Fever. Usually a secondary bad guy, Lambert was the main menace -- a scarfaced thug with a hook for a hand -- in Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947). A less malevolent Jack Lambert was seen on a weekly basis as Joshua on the 1959-60 TV adventure series Riverboat.

Trivia: Open-faced, prominently chinned character actor Lyle Latell began surfacing in films in the late 1930s. Only occasionally did Latell rise above the status of bit player; he was most often seen as a wisecracking reporter, griping military man or cheerful cabbie. From 1945 through 1947, Latell was a regular in RKO's Dick Tracy "B"-picture series, playing Tracy's assistant Pat Patton. Lyle Latell was married to Mary Foy, one of the "Seven Little Foys" of vaudeville fame.

Trivia: Tall, handsome, golden-throated leading man Ian Keith became a Broadway favorite in the 1920s. He also pursued a sporadic silent film career, appearing opposite the illustrious likes of Gloria Swanson and Lon Chaney Sr. A natural for talkies, Keith appeared in such early sound efforts as Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail (1930) and D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) (in which he played John Wilkes Booth). A favorite of Cecil B. DeMille, Keith stole the show as the cultured, soft-spoken Saladin in DeMille's The Crusades (1935). A rambunctious night life and an inclination towards elbow-bending reduced Keith's stature in Hollywood, and by the mid-1940s he was occasionally obliged to appear in such cheapies as the 1946 "Bowery Boys" epic Mr. Hex. His final screen appearance was a cameo as Rameses I in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). Among Ian Keith's wives was stage luminary Blanche Yurka and silent-film leading lady Ethel Clayton.

Trivia: Singer/actress Bernadene Hayes was known in Chicago as the "Queen of Radio" before moving to Hollywood where she appeared in many films, frequently opposite Gene Kelly and Clark Gable.

Trivia: The pint-sized American actor Jimmy Conlin preceded his film career as a vaudeville headliner on the Keith and Orpheum circuits, where he appeared with his wife Muriel Glass in a song-and-dance turn called "Conlin and Glass." After starring in the 1928 Vitaphone short Sharps and Flats, Conlin began regularly appearing in movie bit roles in 1933. Writer/director Preston Sturges liked Conlin's work and saw to it that the actor received sizeable roles--with good billing--in such Sturges projects as Sullivan's Travels (1941), Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) and Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). Conlin's all-time best role was as Wormy, the birdlike barfly who persuades Harold Lloyd to have his first-ever drink in Sturges' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946). When Sturges' fortunes fell in the 1950s, Conlin and his wife remained loyal friends, communicating on a regular basis with the former top director and helping out in any way they could. In 1954, Conlin had a regular role as Eddie in the syndicated TV series Duffy's Tavern. Jimmy Conlin remained a Hollywood fixture until 1959, when he appeared in his last role as an elderly habitual criminal in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder.

Trivia: Blunt, burly American actor William B. Davidson was equally at home playing gangster bosses, business executives, butlers and military officials. In films since 1914, Davidson seemed to be in every other Warner Bros. picture made between 1930 and 1935, often as a Goliath authority figure against such pint-sized Davids as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. In the early '40s, Davidson was a fixture of Universal's Abbott and Costello comedies, appearing in In the Navy (1941), Keep 'Em Flying (1941) and In Society (1944). In Abbott & Costello's Hold That Ghost (1941), Davidson shows up as Moose Matson, the dying gangster who sets the whole plot in motion. An avid golfer, William B. Davidson frequently appeared in the all-star instructional shorts of the '30s starring legendary golf pro Bobby Jones.

Trivia: Working in virtual anonymity throughout his film career, the sharp-featured, gangly character actor Harry Strang was seldom seen in a feature film role of consequence. From 1930 through 1959, Strang concentrated on such sidelines characters as soldiers, sentries, beat cops and store clerks. He was given more to do and say in 2-reel comedies, notably in the output of RKO Radio Pictures, where he appeared frequently in the comedies of Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. Harry Strang will be remembered by Laurel and Hardy fans for his role as a desk clerk in Block-Heads (1938), in which he was not once but twice clobbered in the face by an errant football.

Trivia: He studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After establishing himself prominently on the American stage, he began appearing in silents beginning with The Gilded Lily (1921). He appeared in more than 100 films, the last of which was the Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country (1961). He starred in a number of silents, often as a clean-living rural hero; in the sound era he began playing character roles, almost always as an arch villain. Due to a serious eye infection, he was absent from the big screen in the '50s. He was the father of actor Jason Robards, with whom he appeared on Broadway in 1958 in The Disenchanted.

Trivia: Actor Harry Harvey Sr. started out in minstrel shows and burlesque. His prolific work in Midwestern stock companies led to film assignments, beginning at RKO in 1934. Harvey's avuncular appearance (he looked like every stage doorman named Pop who ever existed) won him featured roles in mainstream films and comic-relief and sheriff parts in B-westerns. His best known "prestige" film assignment was the role of New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy in the 1942 Lou Gehrig biopic Pride of the Yankees. Remaining active into the TV era, Harry Harvey Sr. had continuing roles on two series, The Roy Rogers Show and It's a Man's World, and showed up with regularity on such video sagebrushers as Cheyenne and Bonanza.

Trivia: A veteran of Dublin's Abbey Theatre, Irish leading man Sean T. McClory resettled in America in 1949. McClory was signed by 20th Century-Fox, where he spent a couple of years in unstressed featured roles. He has been seen in several films directed by fellow Irishman John Ford, including The Quiet Man (1952), The Long Gray Line (1955) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). McClory's talents have been displayed to best advantage on TV, where he usually projects a robust, roistering Behanesque image. In addition to his many TV guest spots, Sean McClory has played the regular roles of vigilante Jack McGivern on The Californians (1957-58), private investigator Pat McShane in Kate McShane (1975), and hotelier Miles Delaney in Bring 'Em Back Alive (1982).

Trivia: American actor William Gould's credits are often confused with those of silent-movie actor Billy Gould. Thus, it's difficult to determine whether William made his film debut in 1922 (as has often been claimed) or sometime in the early 1930s. What is known is that Gould most-often appeared in peripheral roles as police officers and frontier types. Two of William Gould's better-known screen roles were Marshall Kragg in the 1939 Universal serial Buck Rogers and the night watchman who is killed during the nocturnal robbery in Warner Bros.' High Sierra (1940).

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Trivia: Born in an upstate New York rural community, George Duryea was raised by relatives when both his parents died young. Educated at Columbia University and Carnegie Tech, Duryea embarked upon an acting career, first with a Maine stock company, then on Broadway. He played Abie in the hit comedy Abie's Irish Rose in New York, then toured with the production for several seasons. In 1928, he was brought to films as a young leading man, appearing in such "A"-list productions as Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl (1929). By 1930, however, he was having trouble securing work that is, until he changed his name to Tom Keene and signed on as RKO-Pathe's resident cowboy star. Throughout the early 1930s, Keene's western vehicles played profitably if not spectacularly in neighborhood houses throughout the country. He made a brief return to dramatic roles as the leading character in King Vidor's populist classic Our Daily Bread (1934), but returned to westerns when his performance was drubbed by the critics. When George O'Brien succeed Keene at RKO, the latter moved on to smaller studios, retaining his popularity into the early 1940s. In 1944, he adopted a new nom de film, Richard Powers, and flourished as a character actor into the 1950s. He briefly returned to his "Tom Keene" persona in the all-star western "special" Trail of Robin Hood (1950) and the 1958 Rowan & Martin cowboy spoof Once Upon a Horse (1958). One of George Duryea/Tom Keene/Richard Powers' final appearances was in the deathless Ed Wood Jr. opus Plan 9 From Outer Space.