Trivia: Clifton Webb was the most improbable of movie stars that one could imagine -- in an era in which leading men were supposed to be virile and bold, he was prissy and, well, downright fussy. Where the actors in starring roles were supposed to lead with their fists, or at least the suggestion of potential mayhem befalling those who got in the way of their characters, Webb used a sharp tongue and a waspish manner the way John Wayne wielded a six-gun and Clark Gable a smart mouth, a cocky grin, and great physique. And where male movie stars (except in the singing cowboy movies) were supposed to maintain a screen image that had women melting in their arms if not their presence, Webb hardly ever went near women in most of his screen roles, except in a fatherly or avuncular way. Nevertheles, the public devoured it all, even politely looking past Webb's well-publicized status as a "bachelor" who lived with his mother, and in the process turned him into one of Hollywood's most popular post-World War II movie stars, with a string of successful movies rivaling those of Wayne, Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, or any other leading man one cares to name. Indeed, Webb was for more than 15 years a mainstay of 20th Century Fox, his movies earning profits as reliably as the sun rising -- not bad for a man who was nearly rejected from his first film on the lot because the head of production couldn't abide his fey mannerisms. Clifton Webb was born Webb Parmalee Hollenbeck, in Indianapolis, IN, in 1891 (his date of birth was falsified during his lifetime and pushed up by several years, and some sources list the real year as 1889). His father -- about whom almost nothing is known, except that he was a businessman -- had no interest in preparing his offspring for the stage or the life of a performer, a fact that so appalled his mother (a frustrated actress) that she packed herself and the boy off to New York, and he started dancing lessons at age three. By the time he was seven years old, he was good enough to attract the attention of Malcolm Douglas, the director of the Children's Theatre, and he made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1900 (when he would have been either seven, nine, or 11), playing Cholly in The Brownies. Webb was taking lessons in all of the arts by then, and in 1911, made his operatic debut in La Bohème. It was as a dancer, though, that he first found his real fortune -- seen at a top New York nightspot, he so impressed one lady professional that she immediately proposed a partnership that resulted in an international career for Webb. Webb's acting wasn't neglected, either, and in the 1920s and '30s, he was regarded as one of the top stage talents in the country, a multiple-threat performer equally adept in musicals, comedies, or drama. Early in his career, he'd worked under a variety of names, finally transposing his first name to his last and reportedly taking the Clifton from the New Jersey town, because his mother liked the sound of it. Webb was a well-known figure on-stage, but his value as a film performer was considered marginal until he was well past 50 -- he'd done some film work during the silent era, but in the mid-'30s, he was brought out to Hollywood by MGM for a film project that ran into script problems. He spent a year out there collecting his contracted salary of 3,500 dollars a week and doing absolutely nothing, and hated every minute of it. Webb returned to New York determined never to experience such downtime again, and over the ensuing decade bounced back with hits in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner and Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, doing the latter for three years. Ironically, the role of Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner was inspired by the real-life author/columnist Alexander Woollcott, who would also be the inspiration for the role that finally brought Webb to Hollywood successfully. In 1943, 20th Century Fox set out to adapt a novel by Vera Caspary entitled Laura to the screen. The book, a murder mystery set in New York, had in it a character named Waldo Lydecker, who was modeled on Alexander Woollcott; a waspish, stylish, and witty author and raconteur, Woollcott was a well-known and popular media figure, who'd even done a little acting onscreen and on-stage. When it came time to cast the role, producer Otto Preminger and director Rouben Mamoulian decided to give Webb a screen test. Preminger was totally convinced of Webb's rightness for the role, and the screen test bore him out, but studio production chief Darryl F. Zanuck couldn't abide Webb's fey, effete mannerisms and obviously gay persona, and did his best to keep him from the role. Luckily, Preminger prevailed, and Webb -- in what is usually regarded as his real film debut -- proved to be one of the most popular elements of what turned out to be a massively popular movie. It was the beginning of a very profitable two-decade relationship between the actor and the studio. Webb gave an Academy Award-caliber performance in Edmund Goulding's The Razor's Edge (1946), and in 1948 he became an out-and-out star, portraying Mr. Belvedere, the housekeeper and "nanny" hired by the harried parents (portrayed by Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara) in the hit comedy Sitting Pretty (1948). Beginning with Laura in 1944, each of the next 15 movies that Webb made was a success, and they included everything from comedies to some of the most intense film noir -- most notably The Dark Corner (1946), in which he played a murderer -- but the role of Mr. Belvedere proved to be so popular that it threatened to swallow him up. Webb flatly refused to do any sequel that did not meet with his approval, and only two ever did -- this even as he received thousands of letters from mothers seeking advice on raising their children. The great unspoken irony in all of this was that Webb was not only unmarried and childless, but was as close to being openly gay as any leading actor in Hollywood could be -- he lived with his mother, and the two attended parties together, and was on record as being a "bachelor," which was code in those days (where certain kinds of actors were concerned) for being gay. And in an era in which this wasn't acceptable as a choice or a condition, audiences didn't care -- in a testimony to the sheer power of his acting, they devoured Webb's work in whatever role he took on. He never did a Western, but he did play a father of two children who unexpectedly rises to heroism in Titanic (1953), and he played the father of 12 children in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950); as he said when asked about the propriety of a childless, unmarried man playing a father of 12, "I didn't need to be a murderer to play Waldo Lydecker -- I'm not a father, but I am an actor." Webb was always stylishly dressed in public, and owned dozens of expensive suits -- he was, in many ways, the America's first pop-culture "metrosexual," and he made it work for two decades. The death of Webb's mother in 1960, reportedly at age 90, was an event from which the actor never fully recovered. Though he did a few more screen appearances, his health was obviously in decline, and he passed away in 1966.

Trivia: In step with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers was one half of the most legendary dancing team in film history; she was also a successful dramatic actress, even winning a Best Actress Oscar. Born Virginia McMath on July 16, 1911, in Independence, MO, as a toddler, she relocated to Hollywood with her newly divorced mother, herself a screenwriter. At the age of six, Rogers was offered a movie contract, but her mother turned it down. The family later moved to Fort Worth, where she first began appearing in area plays and musical revues. Upon winning a Charleston contest in 1926, Rogers' mother declared her ready for a professional career, and she began working the vaudeville circuit, fronting an act dubbed "Ginger and the Redheads." After marrying husband Jack Pepper in 1928, the act became "Ginger and Pepper." She soon traveled to New York as a singer with Paul Ash & His Orchestra, and upon filming the Rudy Vallee short Campus Sweethearts, she won a role in the 1929 Broadway production Top Speed.On Broadway, Rogers earned strong critical notice as well as the attention of Paramount, who cast her in 1930's Young Man of Manhattan, becoming typecast as a quick-witted flapper. Back on Broadway, she and Ethel Merman starred in Girl Crazy. Upon signing a contract with Paramount, she worked at their Astoria studio by day and returned to the stage in the evenings; under these hectic conditions she appeared in a number of films, including The Sap From Syracuse, Queen High, and Honor Among Lovers. Rogers subsequently asked to be freed of her contract, but soon signed with RKO. When her Broadway run ended, she went back to Hollywood, starring in 1931's The Tip-Off and The Suicide Fleet. When 1932's Carnival Boat failed to attract any interest, RKO dropped her and she freelanced around town, co-starring with Joe E. Brown in the comedy The Tenderfoot, followed by a thriller, The Thirteenth Guest, for Monogram. Finally, the classic 1933 musical 42nd Street poised her on the brink of stardom, and she next appeared in Warner Bros.' Gold Diggers of 1933.Rogers then returned to RKO, where she starred in Professional Sweetheart; the picture performed well enough to land her a long-term contract, and features like A Shriek in the Night and Sitting Pretty followed. RKO then cast her in the musical Flying Down to Rio, starring Delores Del Rio; however, the film was stolen by movie newcomer Astaire, fresh from Broadway. He and Rogers did not reunite until 1934's The Gay Divorcee, a major hit. Rogers resisted typecasting as strictly a musical star, and she followed with the drama Romance in Manhattan. Still, the returns from 1935's Roberta, another musical venture with Astaire, made it perfectly clear what kinds of films audiences expected Rogers to make, and although she continued tackling dramatic roles when the opportunity existed, she rose to major stardom alongside Astaire in classics like Top Hat, 1936's Follow the Fleet, Swing Time, and Shall We Dance? Even without Astaire, Rogers found success in musical vehicles, and in 1937 she and Katharine Hepburn teamed brilliantly in Stage Door.After 1938's Carefree, Rogers and Astaire combined for one final film, the following year's The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, before splitting. She still harbored the desire to pursue a dramatic career, but first starred in an excellent comedy, Bachelor Mother. In 1940, Rogers starred as the titular Kitty Foyle, winning an Academy Award for her performance. She next appeared in the 1941 Garson Kanin comedy Tom, Dick and Harry. After starring opposite Henry Fonda in an episode of Tales of Manhattan, she signed a three-picture deal with Paramount expressly to star in the 1944 musical hit Lady in the Dark. There she also appeared in Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor and Leo McCarey's Once Upon a Honeymoon. Rogers then made a series of films of little distinction, including 1945's Weekend at the Waldorf (for which she earned close to 300,000 dollars, making her one of the highest-paid women in America), the following year's Magnificent Doll, and the 1947 screwball comedy It Had to Be You. Rogers then signed with the short-lived production company Enterprise, but did not find a project which suited her. Instead, for MGM she and Astaire reunited for 1949's The Barkleys of Broadway, their first color collaboration. The film proved highly successful, and rekindled her sagging career. She then starred in a pair of Warner Bros. pictures, the 1950 romance Perfect Strangers and the social drama Storm Warning. After 1951's The Groom Wore Spurs, Rogers starred in a trio of 1952 Fox comedies -- We're Not Married, Monkey Business, and Dreamboat -- which effectively halted whatever momentum her reunion with Astaire had generated, a situation remedied by neither the 1953 comedy Forever Female nor by the next year's murder mystery Black Widow. In Britain, she filmed Beautiful Stranger, followed by 1955's lively Tight Spot. With 1957's farcical Oh, Men! Oh, Women!, Rogers' Hollywood career was essentially finished, and she subsequently appeared in stock productions of Bell, Book and Candle, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Annie Get Your Gun.In 1959, Rogers traveled to Britain to star in a television musical, Carissima. A few years later, she starred in a triumphant TV special, and also garnered good notices, taking over for Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly! She also starred in Mame in London's West End, earning over 250,000 pounds for her work -- the highest sum ever paid a performer by the London theatrical community. In 1965, Rogers entered an agreement with the Jamaican government to produce films in the Caribbean; however, shooting there was a disaster, and the only completed film to emerge from the debacle was released as Quick, Let's Get Married. That same year, she also starred as Harlow, her final screen performance. By the 1970s, Rogers was regularly touring with a nightclub act, and in 1980 headlined Radio City Music Hall. A tour of Anything Goes was among her last major performances. In 1991, she published an autobiography, Ginger: My Story. Rogers died April 25, 1995.

Trivia: A professional magazine model at age four, American actress Anne Francis made some 3000 appearances on network radio before she was ten. She was under film contracts to both MGM and 20th Century-Fox as a teenager; in the days of publicity-agent pigeonholing, the actress was dubbed variously as "The Fragile Blonde with the Mona Lisa Smile" and "The Palomino Blonde," labels that she intensely despised. Usually cast in sullen bad-girl or troublemaker roles, Francis suffered from a volcanic private life; throughout these years her one source of comfort was her pet dog Smidgeon, whom she'd named after Walter Pidgeon, her co-star in the science-fiction film classic Forbidden Planet (1956). In 1965, Francis found herself with a more contentious pet, an ocelot named Bruce Biteabit, when she starred in the TV adventure series Honey West, in which she played a glamorous private detective. The series was meant to cash in on the gimmicky James Bond movies of the time (Honey West was a judo expert, had exploding earrings, and a microphone hidden in a martini olive), and like many such imitations, the program was on and off in a single year. Francis' film and TV career continued unabated after that, though a potentially good role in the 1968 movie musical Funny Girl was mostly consigned to the cutting-room floor in order to intensify the spotlight on the film's star, Barbra Streisand. Active in guest star spots into the early '90s, Anne Francis--billing herself in recent years as Anne-Lloyd Francis--enjoyed a brief co-starring turn as Mama Jo on the 1984 action series Riptide.

Trivia: The son of a sales engineer and born in New Orleans, Jeffrey Hunter was raised in Milwaukee, WI. While still in high school, Hunter acted on Milwaukee radio station WTMJ; this led to summer stock work. After serving in the Navy, Hunter attended Northwestern University, where he continued his stage appearances and was featured in the 1950 film version of Julius Caesar, which starred Charlton Heston. Attending U.C.L.A. on a scholarship, Hunter was spotted by a Hollywood agent while starring in a school production of All My Sons. He made his first "mainstream" film appearance in 20th Century Fox's Fourteen Hours, a film which also served as the debut for Grace Kelly. His movie career gained momentum after he co-starred with John Wayne in the Western classic The Searchers (1956). In 1961, Jeffrey Hunter was cast as Jesus Christ in The King of Kings; the actor's youthful appearance prompted industry wags to dub the picture "I Was a Teenaged Jesus," though in fact Hunter was 33 at the time. Few of his post-King of King roles amounted to much, and by 1967 he was one of several former Hollywood luminaries knocking about in European films. From 1950 through 1955, Hunter was married to actress Barbara Rush, who years after the divorce would remember Hunter fondly as the handsomest man she ever met. Jeffrey Hunter died of a concussion at 42, after an accidental fall in his home.

Trivia: Eccentric, high-voiced British comedienne/actress Elsa Lanchester started her career as a modern dancer, appearing with Isadora Duncan. Lanchester can be seen bringing unique and usually humorous interpretations to roles in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), opposite husband Charles Laughton; The Bride of Frankenstein (1934), where she appears both as a subdued Mary Shelley and a hissing bride; David Copperfield and Naughty Marietta (both 1935); Tales of Manhattan (1942) and Forever and a Day (1943), both with Laughton; Lassie Come Home (1943), in which she is unusually subdued as the mother; The Bishop's Wife (1947); The Inspector General and The Secret Garden (1949); and Come to the Stable (1949), for which she was nominated for an Oscar. She and Laughton are riotous together in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), for which she was also Oscar-nominated, and she also appeared in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and the Disney films Mary Poppins (1964), as the departing nanny Katie Nanna, and in That Darn Cat (1965). One of her best late performances was in Murder by Death (1976). Lanchester was also an actress at London's Old Vic, an outlandish singer, and a nightclub performer; she co-starred on The John Forsythe Show (1965-66), and was a regular on Nanny and the Professor in 1971.

Trivia: American actor Fred Clark embarked upon his lifelong career immediately upon graduation from Stanford University. With his lantern jaw, bald pate and ulcerated disposition, Clark knew he'd never be a leading man and wisely opted for character work. After several years on stage, during which time he was briefly married to musical comedy actress Benay Venuta, Clark made his movie debut in Ride the Pink Horse (1947), playing one of his few out-and-out villains. The actor's knowing portrayal of a callous movie producer in Sunset Boulevard (1949) led to his being typecast as blunt, sometimes shady executives. Clark's widest public recognition occurred in 1951 when he was cast as next-door neighbor Harry Morton on TV's Burns and Allen Show; when Clark insisted upon a larger salary, producer-star George Burns literally replaced him on the air with actor Larry Keating. Dividing his time between films and television for the rest of his career, Clark earned latter-day fame in the 1960s as star of a series of regionally distributed potato chip commercials. Though most of his fans prefer to remember the disappointing Otto Preminger farce Skiddoo (1968) as Fred Clark's screen farewell, the truth is that Clark's last performance was in I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew (1969).

Trivia: Not to be confused with the popular radio commentator of the same name, American stage actor Paul Harvey made his first film in 1917. Harvey appeared in a variety of character roles, ranging from Sheiks (Kid Millions [34]) to Gangsters (Alibi Ike [35]) before settling into his particular niche as one of Hollywood's favorite blowhard executives. Looking for all the world like one of those old comic-strip bosses who literally blew their tops (toupee and all), Harvey was a pompous target ripe for puncturing by such irreverent comics as Groucho Marx (in A Night in Casablanca [46]) and such down-to-earth types as Doris Day (April in Paris [54]). Paul Harvey's final film role was a typically imperious one in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (55); Harvey died of thrombosis shortly after finishing this assignment.

Trivia: A descendant of one of California's pioneer families, American actor Ray Collins' interest in the theatre came naturally. His father was drama critic of the Sacramento Bee. Taking to the stage at age 14, Collins moved to British Columbia, where he briefly headed his own stock company, then went on to Broadway. An established theatre and radio performer by the mid-1930s, Collins began a rewarding association with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. He played the "world's last living radio announcer" in Welles' legendary War of the Worlds broadcast of 1938, then moved to Hollywood with the Mercury troupe in 1939. Collins made his film debut as Boss Jim Gettys in Welles' film classic Citizen Kane (1940). After the Mercury disbanded in the early 1940s, Collins kept busy as a film and stage character actor, usually playing gruff business executives. Collins is most fondly remembered by TV fans of the mid-1950s for his continuing role as the intrepid Lt. Tragg on the weekly series Perry Mason.

Trivia: Actress, dancer, and model Helene Stanley got her start in films singing in 1942's Girl's Town. She then danced for a time with the Jivin' Jacks and Jills in a few films. Around 1950, she became a live-action model for the Walt Disney-animated feature Cinderella. The movements and body type of Cinderella belong to Stanely. She went on to provide the models for Sleeping Beauty and the wife in 101 Dalmations. She also continued appearing in a few live-action features. Stanley retired from film in the early '60s.

Trivia: Burly and athletic actor George Barrows seldom worried about being recognized on the street because he spent much of his long, busy career dressed up in a gorilla suit. Barrows created his first one shortly after doubling for Johnny Weismuller in Tarzan and His Mate (1934). When not performing in the gorilla suit himself, he rented it out to others. In one film, Robot Monster (1953), he put a diving helmet over his gorilla head to play a space alien. Other films in which Barrows played great apes include Gorilla at Large (1954), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), and Hillbillies in the Haunted House (1967). He began performing professionally as a child, but his film career quickly petered out as his size increased. He grew to be a such a large man that after he returned to film in Cleopatra (1934) he was often relegated to playing heavies and, of course, gorillas. In addition to film work, Barrows frequently guest starred on television. He also appeared in made-for-TV films, such as The President's Plane Is Missing (1971) and Donner Pass: The Road to Survival (1978).

Trivia: Jay Adler was the oldest of seven children of celebrated Yiddish stage star Jacob Adler. The best-known of Jay's siblings were Broadway and movie character-actor Luther Adler and actress/acting teacher Stella Adler. Jay made his first screen appearance in 1937, settling into a four-decade movie career. Usually seen in minor roles as fathers and businessmen, Jay Adler numbered among his film credits Cry Danger (1950), The Brothers Karamazov (1958) (as the pawnbroker) and Grave of the Vampire (1974).

Trivia: Actress Marietta Canty appeared on stage and screen during the '40s and '50s. In film she usually played maids or cooks. She left acting in 1955 to care for her father.

Trivia: Trained at Iowa's Morningside College for a career as a musician, American actor Emory Parnell spent his earliest performing years as a concert violinist. He worked the Chautauqua and Lyceum tent circuits for a decade before leaving the road in 1930. For the next few seasons, Parnell acted and narrated in commercial and industrial films produced in Detroit. Determining that the oppurtunities and renumeration were better in Hollywood, Emory and his actress wife Effie boarded the Super Chief and headed for California. Endowed with a ruddy Irish countenance and perpetual air of frustration, Parnell immediately landed a string of character roles as cops, small town business owners, fathers-in-law and landlords (though his very first film part in Bing Crosby's Dr. Rhythm [1938] was cut out before release). In roles both large and small, Parnell became an inescapable presence in B-films of the '40s; one of his better showings was in the A-picture Louisiana Purchase, in which, as a Paramount movie executive, he sings an opening song about avoiding libel suits! Parnell was a regular in Universal's Ma and Pa Kettle film series (1949-55), playing small town entrepreneur Billy Reed; on TV, the actor appeared as William Bendix' factory foreman The Life of Riley (1952-58). Emory Parnell's last public appearance was in 1974, when he, his wife Effie, and several other hale-and-hearty residents of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital were interviewed by Tom Snyder.

Trivia: American character actor Harry Cheshire was usually billed as "Pappy," and, like S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall, he certainly lived up to his nickname, both visually and temperamentally. After a long career on stage and in radio, Cheshire came to films in 1940, appearing in many of Republic's "hillbilly" musicals and westerns. In larger-budgeted films, he was usually seen in minor roles as businessmen, ministers, justice of the peaces and the like. He played Dr. Campbell in the Yuletide classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946), the stage manager of the ill-fated Iroquois theater in The Seven Little Foys (1955) and the Elvis-hating mayor in Loving You (1957). He also showed up in a few of the Ma and Pa Kettle entries, and was afforded a rare opportunity at all-out villainy in Dangerous Mission (1954). TV western fans will remember Harry Cheshire as Judge Ben Wiley on the Gene Autry-produced weekly Buffalo Bill Jr. (1954).

Trivia: Corpulent, booming-voiced actor Paul Maxey, in films from 1941, was given sizeable roles (in every sense of the word) in such "B" pictures as Sky Dragon (1949) and The Narrow Margin (1952), often cast as an obstreperous villain. After appearing as composer Victor Herbert in MGM's Jerome Kern biopic Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), he was kept "on call" at MGM for uncredited character parts in such major productions as An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and It's Always Fair Weather (1955). Active until 1962, Paul Maxey is best-remembered by 1950s TV addicts as the irascible Mayor Peoples on the Jackie Cooper sit-com The People's Choice (1955-58).

Trivia: Gwen Verdon became a professional performer at 22 -- rather late for a dancer, though she managed to make up for lost time by becoming one of the top Broadway personalities of the 1950s and 1960s. Before this happened, however, Verdon was a "gypsy," bouncing around from one chorus job to another. She essayed brief dancing roles in such 20th Century Fox films as On the Riviera (1951), David and Bathsheba (1951), and Dreamboat (1952). Reportedly, she and Carol Haney worked as choreography assistants to Gene Kelly in 1952's Singin' in the Rain. (Verdon later claimed that she and Haney post-dubbed some of Kelly's taps in the title number, standing ankle-deep in a drum full of water to match the soggy onscreen action.) In 1953, Verdon went to Broadway to star in Cole Porter's Can Can, winning a Tony and Donaldson award as a result; likewise honored with Tonys were her subsequent performances as Lola in Damn Yankees (a role she repeated for the 1958 film version) and the title roles of New Girl in Town (a 1957 musical version of Anna Christie) and Redhead (1958). In 1968, she starred in Sweet Charity, which like many of her earlier Broadway triumphs was choreographed by her longtime husband Bob Fosse. Her last Broadway show was 1975's Roxie Hart, directed by her now ex-husband Fosse; after this, she gave her lovely legs a long rest and concentrated on straight acting. Returning to films in 1984, Gwen Verdon was seen in character parts in such films as Cotton Club (1984), Cocoon (1985), and Alice (1990). She died in October 2000 at the age of 75.

Trivia: Brunette Donna Lee Hickey danced at New York's Copacabana nightclub at the age of 17 and played bit parts at 20th Century Fox (1952-1953). She tested for the role of Alma in From Here to Eternity (1953) but lost out to the more established Donna Reed. Instead she played May Wynn, Robert Francis' love interest in The Caine Mutiny (1954), and adopted the character's name as her own. Subsequent film roles were uninteresting, however, and a stint as the secretary on Jack Webb's veterinarian series Noah's Ark (1956) proved short-lived when the television show was canceled after one season on NBC. May Wynn was at one point married to Jack Kelly, her co-star in They Rode West (1954) and four other films.

Trivia: A handsome, mustachioed bit player from England, long in Hollywood, Clive Morgan played Tarzan's evil cousin in the 1929 Universal serial Tarzan the Tiger (1929). Roles thereafter were miniscule, often military officers, doormen, sales clerks, and others. Morgan's screen career lasted well into the 1960s.

Trivia: A man often referred to as "the Henry Higgins of Hollywood," Robert Easton was one of the most sought-after dialect coaches in the movie industry for decades. In that capacity, he worked with A-list clients including Sir Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, Anne Hathaway, Ben Kingsley and Robert Duvall. Easton devoted the rest of his time to supporting character roles, that took advantage of his uncanny ability to slip from one regional or ethnic accent into another.In the beginning, Milwaukee native Easton earned much of his cinematic bread and butter playing Southerners. He first gained national attention as one of the "Quiz Kids" on the radio series of the same name. In films from 1949, the gangling Easton was often seen as a blank-faced, slow-talking hayseed. He appeared in guest spots on series including The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, The Mod Squad and The Bionic Woman, voiced a regular character on the animated program Stingray from 1964 through 1965, and turned up in features such as Pete's Dragon, Working Girl, Pet Sematary II, Needful Things and Primary Colors. Easton died at age 81 in December 2011.

Trivia: Actress of stage, screen, and television Barbara Woodell was also professionally known as Barbara Allen. She was born Barbara Cornett and was the first wife of comedian/pianist Oscar Levant (they were married less than a year). Though she'd played a bit part in a 1941 film, Woodell did not have her first real film role until 1944 in Leave It to the Irish. Her film career lasted through 1959 and included appearances in The Star (1952) and Silver Lode (1974). Woodell died of natural causes on January 16, 1997, in Ojai, CA.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1937.

Trivia: American character actor Robert Nichols appeared in numerous Hollywood and British films during the 1950s. He was particularly prolific during the 1950s. Nichols has also worked on stage and in television.

Trivia: In films from 1926, former vaudevillian and stage actor/playwright Alphonse Martell was one of Hollywood's favorite Frenchmen. While he sometimes enjoyed a large role, Martell could usually be found playing bits as maitre d's, concierges, gendarmes, duelists, and, during WW II, French resistance fighters. In 1933, he directed the poverty-row quickie Gigolettes of Paris. Alphonse Martell remained active into the 1960s, guest-starring on such TV programs as Mission: Impossible.

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: Trained as a dancer, Mary Treen spent the late '20s-early '30s as a leading lady in vaudeville, light opera, and musical comedy. After a handful of Vitaphone short subjects, Treen was signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1934. She spent the bulk of her film career playing wisecracking clerks and telephone operators, or essaying "heroine's best friend" roles. Her movie assignment was the Tillie the Toiler-type role especially written for her in Paramount's I Love a Soldier (1944), though her many fans would probably nominate her performance as Cousin Tilly in the ubiquitous It's a Wonderful Life (1946). On television, Treen was a regular on the 1954 sitcom Willy, and later played Hilda the maid on The Joey Bishop Show (1962-1965). Mary Treen's final appearance before the cameras was in the 1983 made-for-TV movie Wait Till Your Mother Gets Home!