Trivia: Born Emmanuel Goldenberg, Edward G. Robinson was a stocky, forceful, zesty star of Hollywood films who was best known for his gangsters roles in the '30s. A "little giant" of the screen with a pug-dog face, drawling nasal voice, and a snarling expression, he was considered the quintessential tough-guy actor. Having emigrated with his family to the U.S. when he was ten, Robinson planned to be a rabbi or a lawyer, but decided on an acting career while a student at City College, where he was elected to the Elizabethan Society. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a scholarship, and, in 1913, began appearing in summer stock after changing his name to "Edward G." (for Goldenberg). Robinson debuted on Broadway in 1915, and, over the next 15 years, became a noted stage character actor, even co-writing one of his plays, The Kibitzer (1929). He appeared in one silent film, The Bright Shawl (1923), but not until the sound era did he begin working regularly in films, making his talkie debut in The Hole in the Wall (1929) with Claudette Colbert. It was a later sound film, 1930's Little Caesar, that brought him to the attention of American audiences; portraying gangster boss Rico Bandello, he established a prototype for a number of gangster roles he played in the ensuing years. After being typecast as a gangster he gradually expanded the scope of his roles, and, in the '40s, gave memorable "good guy" performances as in a number of psychological dramas; he played federal agents, scientists, Biblical characters, business men, bank clerks, among other characters. The actor experienced a number of personal problems during the '50s. He was falsely linked to communist organizations and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (eventually being cleared of all suspicion). Having owned one of the world's largest private art collections, he was forced to sell it in 1956 as part of a divorce settlement with his wife of 29 years, actress Gladys Lloyd. Robinson continued his career, however, which now included television work, and he remained a busy actor until shortly before his death from cancer in 1973. His final film was Soylent Green (1973), a science fiction shocker with Charlton Heston. Two months after his death, Robinson was awarded an honorary Oscar "for his outstanding contribution to motion pictures," having been notified of the honor before he died. He was also the author of a posthumously published autobiography, All My Yesterdays (1973).

Trivia: The title of actress Joan Bennett's 1970 autobiography is The Bennett Playbill, in reference to the fact that she came from an old and well-established theatrical family: her father was stage star Richard Bennett and her sisters were screen actresses Constance and Barbara Bennett. Though she made an appearance as a child in one of her father's films, Joan Bennett did not originally intend to pursue acting as a profession. Honoring her wishes, her father bundled her off to finishing school in Versailles. Alas, her impulsive first marriage at 16 ended in divorce, leaving her a single mother in dire need of an immediate source of income. Thus it was that she became a professional actress, making her first Broadway appearance in her father's vehicle, Jarnegan (1928). In 1929, she began her film career in the low-budget effort Power, then co-starred with Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond. She was inexperienced and awkward and she knew it, but Bennett applied herself to her craft and improved rapidly; by the early '30s she was a busy and popular ingénue, appearing in such enjoyable programmers as Me and My Gal (1932) and important A-pictures like Little Women (1933) (as Amy). During this period she briefly married again to writer/producer Gene Markey. It was her third husband, producer Walter Wanger, who made the decision that changed the direction of her career: in Wanger's Trade Winds (1938), Bennett was obliged to dye her blonde hair black for plot purposes. Audiences approved of this change, and Bennett thrived throughout the next decade in a wide variety of "dark" roles befitting her brunette status. She was especially effective in a series of melodramas directed by Fritz Lang: Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1945), and The Secret Beyond the Door (1948). In 1950, she switched professional gears again, abandoning femme-fatale roles for the part of Spencer Tracy's ever-patient spouse in Father of the Bride (1950). Though her personal life was turbulent in the early '50s -- her husband Walter Wanger allegedly shot and wounded agent Jennings Lang, claiming that Lang was trying to steal his wife -- Bennett's professional life continued unabated on both stage and screen. Her television work included the 1959 sitcom Too Young to Go Steady and the "gothic" soap opera Dark Shadows (1965-1971). In failing health, Joan Bennett spent her last years in retirement with her fourth husband, media critic David Wilde.

Trivia: As one of several sons of the owner of Toronto's Massey/Harris Agricultural Implement Company, Raymond Massey was expected to distinguish himself in business or politics or both (indeed, one of Raymond's brothers, Vincent Massey, later became Governor General of Canada). But after graduating form Oxford University, Massey defied his family's wishes and became an actor. He made his first stage appearance in a British production of Eugene O'Neill's In the Zone in 1922. By 1930, Massey was firmly established as one of the finest classical actors on the British stage; that same year he came to Broadway to play the title role in Hamlet. In 1931, Massey starred in his first talking picture, The Speckled Band, portraying Sherlock Holmes. One year later, he was co-starred with Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas, Gloria Stuart and Ernst Thesiger in his first Hollywood film, the classic The Old Dark House (1932). Returning to England, Massey continued dividing his time between stage and screen, offering excellent performances in such major motion-picture efforts as The Scarlet Pimpernal (1935) and Things to Come (1936). In 1938, he was cast in his most famous role: Abraham Lincoln, in Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway production Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Massey repeated his Lincoln characterization in the 1940 film version of the Sherwood play, and 22 years later played a cameo as Honest Abe in How the West Was Won (1962). Refusing to allow himself to be pigeonholed as Lincoln, Massey played the controversial abolitionist John Brown in both Santa Fe Trail (1940) and Seven Angry Men (1955), and gave an effectively straight-faced comic performance as mass murderer Jonathan Brewster (a role originally written for Boris Karloff) in Frank Capra's riotous 1941 filmization of Arsenic And Old Lace. Though he would portray a wisecracking AWOL Canadian soldier in 1941's 49th Parallel and a steely-eyed Nazi officer in 1943's Desperate Journey, Massey served valiantly in the Canadian Army in both World Wars. On television, Massey played "Anton the Spymaster", the host of the 1955 syndicated anthology I Spy; and, more memorably, portrayed Dr. Gillespie in the 1960s weekly Dr. Kildare. An inveterate raconteur, Massey wrote two witty autobiographies, When I Was Young and A Thousand Lives (neither of which hinted at his legendary on-set contentiousness). Married three times, Raymond Massey was the father of actors Daniel and Anne Massey.

Trivia: Reversing the usual procedure, Scottish actor Edmund Breon began his film career in Hollywood in 1928, then returned to the British Isles in 1932. Breon was most often seen in self-effacing roles, usually military in nature. He was cast as Lt. Bathurst in The Dawn Patrol (1930), Colonel Morgan in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), and General Huddleston in Gaslight (1944). Among Edmund Breon's late-'40s assignments was the role of Julian Emery in the Sherlock Holmes opus Dressed to Kill (1946), an indication perhaps that the part had been slated for the real Gilbert Emery, a British actor who, like Breon, specialized in humble, passive characterizations.

Trivia: Hissable movie heavy Dan Duryea was handsome enough as a young man to secure leading roles in the student productions at White Plains High School. He majored in English at Cornell University, but kept active in theatre, succeeding Franchot Tone as president of Cornell's Dramatic Society. Bowing to his parents' wishes, Duryea sought out a more "practical" profession upon graduation, working for the N. W. Ayer advertising agency. After suffering a mild heart attack, Duryea was advised by his doctor to leave advertising and seek out employment in something he enjoyed doing. Thus, Duryea returned to acting in summer stock, then was cast in the 1935 Broadway hit Dead End. The first of his many bad-guy roles was Bob Ford, the "dirty little coward" who shot Jesse James, in the short-lived 1938 stage play Missouri Legend. Impressed by Duryea's slimy but somehow likeable perfidy in this play, Herman Shumlin cast the young actor as the snivelling Leo Hubbard in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. This 1939 Broadway production was converted into a film by Sam Goldwyn in 1941, with many members of the original cast -- including Duryea -- making their Hollywood debuts. Duryea continued playing supporting roles in films until 1945's The Woman in the Window, in which he scored as Joan Bennett's sneering "bodyguard" (that's Hollywoodese for "pimp"). Thereafter, Duryea was given star billing, occasionally in sympathetic roles (White Tie and Tails [1946], Black Angel [1946]), but most often as a heavy. From 1952 through 1955, he starred as a roguish soldier of fortune in the syndicated TV series China Smith, and also topped the cast of a theatrical-movie spin-off of sorts, World for Ransom (1954), directed by Duryea's friend Robert Aldrich. One of the actor's last worthwhile roles in a big-budget picture was as a stuffy accountant who discovers within himself inner reserves of courage in Aldrich's Flight of the Phoenix (1965). In 1968, shortly before his death from a recurring heart ailment, Duryea was cast as Eddie Jacks in 67 episodes of TV's Peyton Place. Dan Duryea was the father of actor Peter Duryea, likewise a specialist in slimy villainy.

Trivia: Character actor Arthur Loft was active in films from 1933 until his death in 1947. A fussy-looking man who appeared as though he been weaned on a lemon, Loft was usually cast as pushy types. He was seen in prominent officious roles in two Edward G. Robinson/Fritz Lang collaborations of the mid-1940s, The Woman in the Window (44) and Scarlet Street (45). Other typical fleeting Arthur Loft assignments included a carpetbagger in Prisoner of Shark Island (36) and an abrasive reporter in Blood on the Sun (45).

Trivia: Stage actress Dorothy Peterson made her screen debut in 1930's Mothers Cry, a lachrymose domestic drama that required the 29-year-old actress to age nearly three decades in the course of the film. Mothers Cry instantly typecast Peterson in careworn maternal roles, which she continued to essay for the rest of her career. Most of her subsequent film assignments were supporting roles like Mrs. Hawkins in Treasure Island (1934); often as not she received no screen credit, not even for her touching cameo in 1943's Air Force. In 1942, she briefly replaced Olive Blakeney as Mrs. Aldrich in the comedy series entry Henry Aldrich for President. Her last screen appearance was as Shirley Temple's mother in That Hagen Girl (1947). Dorothy Peterson remained active on the New York TV and theatrical scene until the early '60s.

Trivia: A handsome, white-haired supporting actor from England, in Hollywood from 1932, Frank Dawson usually played ministers and what was often termed the "gentleman's gentleman." At his most proper and deferential, Dawson was Barbara Stanwyck's butler in Secret Bride (1935) and later cared for the needs of Genevieve Tobin in Broadway Hostess (1935), as well as those of Cary Grant in Suzy (1936), George Sanders in Four Men and a Prayer (1938), Halliwell Hobbes in Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Dame May Whitty in Crash Dive (1943).

Trivia: Wide-eyed little Bobby Blake began his acting career as an Our Gang kid and eventually matured into one of Hollywood's finest actors. Born Michael Gubitosi, the boy was two years old when he joined his family vaudeville act, "The Three Little Hillbillies." The act was doomed to failure, as were most of the pipe dreams of the Gubitosi family. Relocating from New Jersey to California, Michael's mom found work for her kids as extras at the MGM studios. The young Gubitosi impressed the producers of the Our Gang series, and as a result the six-year-old was elevated to star status in the short subjects series. Little Mickey Gubitosi whined and whimpered his way through 40 Our Gang shorts, reaching an artistic low point with the execrable All About Hash (1940). During his five-year tenure with the series, the boy anglicized his professional name to Bobby Blake. Freelancing after 1944, Blake's performing skills improved immeasurably, especially when he was cast as Indian sidekick Little Beaver in Republic's Red Ryder series. He also registered well in his appearances in Warner Bros. films, playing such roles as the younger John Garfield in Humoresque (1946) and the Mexican kid who sells Bogart the crucial lottery ticket in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Though sporadically happy in his work (one of his most pleasurable assignments was the otherwise forgettable Laurel and Hardy feature The Big Noise, 1944), Bobby Blake was an unhappy child, weighed down by a miserable home life. At 16, Blake dropped out of sight for a few years, a reportedly difficult period in his life. Upon claiming a 16,000-dollar nest egg at age 21, however, Blake began turning his life around, both personally and professionally. He matriculated into a genuine actor rather than a mere "cute" personality, essaying choice dramatic roles in both films and TV. He starred in the Allied Artists gangster flick The Purple Gang (1960), played featured roles in such films as PT 109 (1963), Ensign Pulver (1964), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and guest starred on dozens of TV shows. In 1963, he was one of 12 character actors amalgamated into the "repertory company" on the weekly anthology series The Richard Boone Show; he spent the next 26 weeks playing everything from agreeable office boys to fevered dope addicts. His true breakthrough role came in 1967, when he was cast as real-life multiple murderer Perry Smith in Richard Brooks' filmization of In Cold Blood. Even after this career boost, Blake often found the going rough in Hollywood, due as much to his own pugnacious behavior as to typecasting. He did, however, star in such worthwhile efforts as Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) and Electra Glide in Blue (1973). Blake achieved full-fledged stardom at last with his three-year (1975-1978) starring stint on the TV cop series Baretta, adding to his already sizeable fan following via several lively, tell-all guest appearances on The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and several other video chat fests. Despite his never-ending battles with the ABC executives during the Baretta run, Blake stuck out the series long enough to win an Emmy, and even got to direct an episode or two.Forming his own production company, Blake made several subsequent tries at TV-series success: Hell Town (1985), in which he starred as a barrio priest, lasted 13 weeks, while the private-eye endeavor Jake Dancer never got past its three pilot films. He has been more successful with such one-shots as the TV miniseries Hoffa (1983), in which he played the title character with chilling accuracy, and the 1993 TV biopic Judgment Day: The John List Story, which earned him another Emmy. His later film appearances were in hard-nosed character parts, such as 1995's The Money Train, and he landed a plum (albeit terminally odd) lead role in David Lynch's postmodern thriller Lost Highway (1997), as a clown-faced psychopath who plays bizarre mind games with a suburban couple. Though he's managed to purge some of his personal demons over the years, Robert Blake remains as feisty, outspoken, and unpredictable as ever, especially when given an open forum by talk show hosts. In 2001, Blake generated headlines once again, though this time off-camera and in an extremely negative vein. The mysterious murder of wife Bonnie Lee Bakely sent the tabloids into a furious frenzy of speculation and accusation. Arrested for the murder of Bakely in April 2002, Blake's future looked increasingly grim as evidence continued to mount against him. Nevertheless, in March 2005 the actor was completely exonerated of all accusations surrounding Bakely's death and narrowly escaped a life sentence in prison. His on-camera activity remained extremely infrequent, however. Late in 2005, the press reported the outcome of a civil trial involving Bakely's homicide, in which Blake was required to pay an estimated $30 million to her children.

Trivia: Character actor Frank Melton was under contract at Fox Studios from 1933 until the early 1940s. Apparently a favorite of humorist Will Rogers, Melton was prominently cast in six of Rogers' movie vehicles. In other films, he could usually be found in bit roles, often playing displaced Southerners in the Big City. Before his retirement in 1944, Frank Melton free-lanced at Columbia and Warner Bros.

Trivia: This callow, mustachioed American actor showed up in utility roles in films beginning in the early 1930s. Usually playing bits in features, Brodie was given a wider range in short subjects, notably as gentleman thief "Baffles" in the 1941 El Brendel 2-reeler Yumpin' Yiminy. Some of his more notable credits include his voiceover work in the Disney cartoon feature Dumbo and his subtly sleazy portrayal of the used car salesman in the noir classic Detour (1946). He also worked off and on as a dialogue director.

Trivia: In films from 1935, Scottish character actor Alec Craig perpetuated the stereotype of the penny-pinching Highlander for nearly 15 years. Craig's wizened countenance and bald head popped up in quite a few mysteries and melodramas, beginning with his appearance as the inept defense attorney in the embryonic "film noir" Stranger on the Third Floor. He essayed small but memorable roles in a handful of Val Lewton productions, notably the zookeeper in Cat People (1942). Later, he was a general hanger-on in Universal's horror films and Sherlock Holmes entries. Craig's showiest assignment was his dual role in RKO's A Date with the Falcon. The legions of fans of Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be know Alec Craig best as the Scottish farmer who, upon being confronted by Hitler look-alike Tom Dugan, mutters to his fellow farmer James Finlayson "First it was Hess...now it's him."

Trivia: Ralph Dunn used his burly body and rich, theatrical voice to good effect in hundreds of minor feature-film roles and supporting appearances in two-reel comedies. He came to Hollywood during the early talkie era, beginning his film career with 1932's The Crowd Roars. A huge man with a withering glare, Dunn was an ideal "opposite" for short, bumbling comedians like Lou Costello in the 1944 Abbott and Costello comedy In Society, Dunn plays the weeping pedestrian who explains that he doesn't want to go to Beagle Street because that's where a two-ton safe fell on his head and killed him. A frequent visitor to the Columbia short subjects unit, Dunn shows up in the Three Stooges comedy Mummie's Dummies as the ancient Egyptian swindled at the Stooges' used chariot lot. Ralph Dunn kept busy into the '60s, appearing in such TV series as Kitty Foyle and such films as Black Like Me (1964).

Trivia: No relation to stage actor Frank Mills (1870-1921), character actor Frank Mills made his film debut in 1928. Though usually unbilled, Mills was instantly recognizable in such films as Golddiggers of 1933, King Kong (1933) and Way Out West (1937), to mention but a few. He played reporters, photographers, barkers, bartenders, bums, cabbies, kibitzers, soldiers, sailors...in short, he played just about everything. In addition to his feature-film appearances, he showed up with frequency in short subjects, especially those produced by the Columbia comedy unit between 1935 and 1943. As late as 1959, Frank Mills was popping up in bits and extra roles in such TV series as Burns and Allen and Lassie.

Trivia: Bald-domed, prominently chinned American character actor Joe Devlin was seen in bits in major films, and as a less-costly Jack Oakie type in minor pictures. Devlin usually played two-bit crooks and sarcastic tradesmen in his 1940s appearances. The actor's uncanny resemblance to Benito Mussolini resulted in numerous "shock of recognition" cameos during the war years, as well as full-fledged Mussolini imitations in two Hal Roach "streamliners," The Devil With Hitler (1942) and That Nazty Nuisance (1943). In 1950, Joe Devlin was cast as Sam Catchem in a TV series based on Chester Gould's comic-strip cop Dick Tracy.

Trivia: In films from the early 1930s, Fred Graham was one of Hollywood's busiest stunt men and stunt coordinators. A fixture of the Republic serial unit in the 1940s and 1950s, Graham was occasionally afforded a speaking part, usually as a bearded villain. His baseball expertise landed him roles in films like Death on the Diamond (1934), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Pride of St. Louis (1952). He was also prominently featured in several John Wayne vehicles, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), The Horse Soldiers (1959) and The Alamo (1960). After retiring from films, Fred Graham served as director of the Arizona Motion Pictures Development Office.

Trivia: American actor Spanky McFarland (born George Emmett McFarland in Forth Worth, TX) was the most popular member of the Our Gang children's comedy troupe. He got his start while still a baby as an advertising model for a bakery in Dallas because he looked so fat and happy. It was his pudginess as a toddler that led him to the Our Gang series of shorts when he was hired to replace Joe Cobb as the tubby child. In addition to appearing in that series, McFarland also appeared in a few feature films and in other shorts. By the mid-'40s, his acting career was over and he found gainful employment elsewhere.

Trivia: Slight, grey-templed, bespectacled actor Harry Hayden was cast to best advantage as small-town store proprietors, city attorneys and minor bureaucrats. Dividing his time between stage and screen work from 1936, Hayden became one of the busiest members of Central Casting, appearing in everything from A-pictures like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) to the RKO 2-reelers of Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. Among his better-known unbilled assignments are horn factory owner Mr. Sharp (his partner is Mr. Pierce) in Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea (1940) and Farley Granger's harrumphing boss who announces brusquely that there'll be no Christmas bonus in O. Henry's Full House (1951). Hayden's final flurry of activity was in the role of next-door-neighbor Harry on the 1954-55 season of TV's The Stu Erwin Show (aka The Trouble with Father), in which he was afforded the most screen time he'd had in years -- though he remains uncredited in the syndicated prints of this popular series. From the mid '30s until his death in 1955, Harry Hayden and his actress wife Lela Bliss ran Beverly Hills' Bliss-Hayden Miniature Theatre, where several Hollywood aspirants were given an opportunity to learn their craft before live audiences; among the alumni of the Bliss-Hayden were Jon Hall, Veronica Lake, Doris Day, Craig Stevens, Debbie Reynolds, and Marilyn Monroe.

Trivia: One of the busiest supporting players in the 1930s and early '40s, wiry general purpose actor Jack Gardner popped up in such disparate films as The Devil's Squadron (1936), Sinners in Paradise (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He played a reporter in all three and that profession would become his on-screen stock-in-trade. Whenever a gaggle of inquisitive newspapermen gathered in a film to attack someone with a barrage of questions, chances were good that Jack Gardner and Lynton Brent were among them. Gardner also played his fair share of messenger boys, receptionists, mechanics, and henchmen. He was a wily Japanese spy in the 1943 Universal serial Adventures of Smilin' Jack (1943). Not to be confused with a silent screen actor (1873-1950) and a vaudevillian (1876-1929) of the same name, this Jack Gardner seems to have left films in the mid-'40s.

Trivia: American general purpose actor Arthur Space was active in films from 1940. Tall, tweedy, and usually sporting a mustache, Space played just about every kind of supporting role, from Western banker to big-city detective to jewel thief. One of his largest film roles was as the delightfully eccentric inventor Alva P. Hartley in the 1944 Laurel and Hardy vehicle The Big Noise. As busy on television as in films, Arthur Space was seen on a weekly basis as Herbert Brown, the father of horse-loving teenager Velvet Brown, in the TV series National Velvet (1960-1961).

Trivia: Character actor Donald Kerr showed up whenever a gumchewing Runyonesque type (often a reporter or process server) was called for. A bit actor even in two-reelers and "B" pictures, Kerr was one of those vaguely familiar faces whom audiences would immediately recognize, ask each other "Who is that?", then return to the film, by which time Kerr had scooted the scene. The actor's first recorded film appearance was in 1933's Carnival Lady. Twenty-two years later, Donald Kerr concluded his career in the same anonymity with which he began it in 1956's Yaqui Drums.

Trivia: Stage actress Anne O'Neal first showed up onscreen as a street singer in John Ford's The Informer. Well suited for such roles as spinsterish gossips and baleful landladies, O'Neal kept busy in the mid-'30s with the Columbia Pictures short-subject unit, serving as the foil for such comics as Andy Clyde and the Three Stooges. During the 1940s, she was a semi-regular in the one- and two-reel productions of MGM, showing up in the Passing Parade, Our Gang, and Crime Does Not Pay series. Her feature-film credits include such small but memorable roles as psychiatrist Porter Hall's neurotic secretary in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and Miss Sifert in the cult classic Gun Crazy (1949). Anne O'Neal spent her last active years in television, most poignantly as one of the "rejuvenated" senior citizens in the 1962 Twilight Zone episode "Kick the Can."

Trivia: Stocky character actor Eddy Chandler's movie career stretched from 1915 to 1947. In 1930, Chandler was afforded a large (if uncredited) role as Blondell, partner in crime of villain Ralf Harolde, in the RKO musical extravaganza Dixiana. Thereafter, he made do with bit parts, usually playing cops or military officers. His brief appearance in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night as the bus driver who begins singing "The Man on a Flying Trapeze"--and plows his bus into a ditch as a result--assured him choice cameos in all future Capra productions. Chandler can also be seen as the Hospital Sergeant in 1939's Gone with the Wind. One of Eddy Chandler's few billed roles was Lewis in Monogram's Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944).

Trivia: Trained as a dancer by Marge Champion's father Ernest Belcher, Iris Adrian began her performing career at age 13 by winning a "beautiful back" contest. Working as a New York chorus girl (she briefly billed herself as "Jimmie Joy"), Iris's big break came with the 1931 edition of The Ziegfeld Follies, which led to featured nightclub and comedy revue work in the U.S. and Europe. In the Kaufman/Hart Broadway play The Fabulous Invalid, Adrian raised the temperatures of the tired businessmen in the audiences by performing a strip-tease--this at a time (the late 1930s) when the standard burlesque houses had been banned from New York by Mayor LaGuardia. Brought to films by George Raft, Adrian made her first screen appearance in Raft's 1934 vehicle Rhumba. This led to dozens of supporting roles in subsequent feature films; Iris' standard characterization at this time was the brassy, gold-digging dame who never spoke below a shout. Often appearing in one-scene bits, Adrian received more sizeable roles in Laurel and Hardy's Our Relations (1936), Bob Hope's The Paleface (1948), Milton Berle's Always Leave Them Laughing (1949) and Jerry Lewis' The Errand Boy (1961). Through the auspices of director William Wellman, who had a fondness for elevating character actors to larger roles, Adrian gave a rollicking performance as Bonnie Parker wannabe Two Gun Gertie in 1942's Roxie Hart. She launched her TV career in 1949 on Buster Keaton's LA-based weekly comedy series. Some of her most memorable work for the small screen was on the various TV programs of Jack Benny, Adrian's favorite comedian and co-worker. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Iris Adrian kept very active in the comedy films of the Walt Disney studio, including That Darn Cat (1965) and The Love Bug (1968); and in 1978, she was superbly cast in the regular role of the sarcastic secretary for a New York escort service on The Ted Knight Show.

Trivia: A tall, dark-haired actor from Ireland, J.W. Johnston appeared in such play as The Squaw Man and The Waif, both under the auspices of Broadway impresario Charles Frohman, prior to entering films with the Eclair company in 1912. Johnston later became a member of the Lasky stock company, starring opposite Bessie Barriscale in Cecil B. DeMille's production of the old David Belasco warhorse Rose of the Rancho (1914). He was the hero of God's Little Acre (1916), falling in love with Mabel Taliaferro while still married to Helen Dahl, and the mountain guide saving Marguerite Clark from ne'er-do-well William Courtleigh Jr. in Out of the Drifts (1916). Johnston would make a total of four films with the popular Clark, but lost her to higher billed actors in all four. By the 1920s, he was playing minor character parts and left films shortly before sound. After nearly a decade on legitimate stages, Johnston returned to films near the end of his life, but in unbilled bit parts.

Trivia: A stalwart-looking, mustachioed supporting actor/bit-part player from Colorado, Harold Minjir was extremely busy in the early sound era, as one of the three bachelors raising little Betty Van Allen in Bachelor Father (1931) (a version of the old stage play The Prince Chap); as Ruth Chatterton's erstwhile lover in Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1931); and a man dallying with Bess Flowers onboard Irene Dunne's love boat in Love Affair. Like the redoubtable Miss Flowers, Minjir would become one of Hollywood's busiest dress extras, appearing in literally hundreds of films until the mid-'40s.

Trivia: A handsome, mustachioed supporting player, Wedgewood Nowell entered films in 1915, according to his official studio bio, "after 15 years of stage work." A classically trained musician as well, the actor moonlighted as a composer of original music, his scores accompanying the screenings of such popular melodramas as The Disciple (1915) and The Deserter (1916). Very busy throughout the silent era -- mostly playing slightly degenerate noblemen and various bluenoses -- Nowell became a dress extra and bit player after the changeover to sound.

Trivia: The second husband of stage diva Mrs. Leslie Carter, Louis Payne had himself been on the stage since the age of 16. An infrequent visitor to films in the 1910s (he played the papal nuncio in Mrs. Carter's DuBarry in 1915), Payne was very visible in the 1920s, usually portraying rather pompous characters. Returning to the legitimate stage at the advent of sound, the now veteran actor later functioned as technical advisor on Lady With Red Hair (1940), a screen biography of his late wife starring Miriam Hopkins in the title role and featuring Richard Ainley as Payne. The real Louis Payne remained in Hollywood to play numerous bit roles through at least 1951.

Trivia: In films from 1915 to 1948, British stage veteran Wyndham Standing's heyday was in the silent era. During this time, Standing appeared in stiff-collar, stuffed-shirt roles in films like The Dark Angel and The Unchastened Woman (both 1925). His early-talkie credits include the squadron leader in Hell's Angels (1931) and Captain Pyke in A Study in Scarlet (1933). Thereafter, Standing showed up in such one-scene bits as King Oscar in Madame Curie (1943); he was also one of several silent-screen veterans appearing as U.S. senators in Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Wyndham Standing was the brother of actors Sir Guy Standing and Herbert Standing.

Trivia: A tall, dark-haired, often elegant silent screen actor, Larry Steers had appeared with the famous Bush Temple Stock Company and opposite matinee idol Robert Edeson prior to making his film debut with Paramount in 1917. Extremely busy in the 1920s, Steers usually played professional men, doctors, lawyers, and politicians, typecasting that continued well into the sound era, albeit in much diminished circumstances. By the mid-'30s, the veteran actor had become a Hollywood dress extra.

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: American actress Anna Loos got her start working in local stock theater in Carmel, CA, beginning her movie career in 1942 with the film Hitler's Children.

Trivia: American actress Frances Morris was seen in small utility roles from 1934 to 1961. At first, Morris was cast as gun molls, stewardesses, secretaries, receptionists, and maids. She was exceptionally busy in the 1940s, essaying a variety of WAVES and WACs. The following decade, she was seen in maternal roles (some of them actually given character names) in both films and TV. One of Frances Morris' better assignments was the sympathetic prison warden in the 1952 Loretta Young starrer Because of You.

Trivia: Thomas Jackson's first stage success was in the role of the non-speaking Property Man in the original 1912 production of Yellow Jacket. He was starring as police detective Dan McCorn in the lavish Broadway production Broadway when he was tapped to repeat his role in the even more spectacular 1929 film version. For the rest of his career, which lasted into the 1960s, Jackson more or less played variations on Dan McCorn, notably as the soft-spoken "copper" Flaherty in 1931's Little Caesar. When he wasn't playing detectives, Thomas Jackson could be seen in dozens of minor roles as newspaper editors, bartenders, doctors and Broadway theatrical agents.

Trivia: Brassy, bleached-blonde Claire Carleton was a reliable supporting actress on Broadway, in films and on TV for nearly thirty years. Carleton's New York stage credits include The Body Beautiful, 20th Century and The Women. In films, she was usually cast as"B"-girls, strippers, gum-chewing manicurists and divorce correspondents: her character names were generally along the lines of Mamie, Tessie, Nellie or simply "The Blonde." She was afforded leading roles in the two-reelers of such comedians as The Three Stooges and Leon Errol, entering into the slapstick proceedings with relish and abandon: in the 1946 Columbia short Headin' for a Weddin', Carleton has a light bulb broken in her mouth, and in the final scene engages in a knock-down, drag-out fight with star Vera Vague. A frequent TV performer, Claire Carleton co-starred as Mickey Rooney's mother (she was eight years older than he!) in the 1955 sitcom Hey, Mulligan!, and played Alice Purdy on the 1958 western Cimarron City.