Trivia: The legendary Irish-born thespian Peter O'Toole proves that when an actor is faced with a bitter personal crisis and struggles with addiction, spirit and determination can often lead to a forceful "third act" in that performer's career that rivals anything to have preceded it. Blessed with an immensity of dramatic power, the fair-haired, blue-eyed, flamboyant, and virile O'Toole chalked up one of the most formidable acting resumes of the 20th century during the 1950s and '60s, before experiencing an ugly bout of self-destruction in the mid-'70s that led to serious health problems, several disappointing and embarrassing roles, and the destruction of his marriage, and threatened (in the process) to bury his career. By 1980, however, O'Toole overcame his problems and resurfaced, triumphantly, as a box-office star.O'Toole began life in Connemara, Ireland, in either 1932 or 1933 (most sources list his birthdate as August 2, 1932, though the year is occasionally disputed). His family moved to Leeds, England in the early '30s, where O'Toole's father earned his keep as a racetrack bookie. Around 1946, 14-year-old O'Toole dropped out of secondary school and signed on with The Yorkshire Evening Post as copy boy, messenger, and eventually, a cub reporter. Within three years, he dropped the newspaper gig and joined the Leeds Civic Theatre as a novice player; this paved the way for ongoing parts at the much-revered Old Vic (after O'Toole's military service in the Royal Navy as a signalman and decoder), beginning around 1955. A half-decade of stage roles quickly yielded to screen parts in the early '60s. O'Toole actually debuted (with a bit role) in 1959, in The Savage Innocents, but international fame did not arrive for a few years, with several enviable back-to-back characterizations in the 1960s: that of the gallant, inscrutable T.E. Lawrence in Sir David Lean's 1962 feature Lawrence of Arabia (for which he received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination); Henry II in Peter Glenville's 1964 Becket (starring longtime friend Richard Burton), for which he received his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; the title character in Lord Jim (1965), and philandering fashion editor Michael James in the popular Clive Donner-Woody Allen sex farce What's New Pussycat? (1965). O'Toole's success continued, unabated, with yet another appearance as Henry II alongside Katharine Hepburn in Anthony Harvey's The Lion in Winter (1968), which netted him a third Best Actor Oscar nod. Unfortunately, O'Toole lost yet again, this time (in a completely unexpected turn of events) to Cliff Robertson in Charly, though a fourth nomination was only a year away, for the actor's work in 1969's Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The early 1970s were equally electric for O'Toole, with the highlight undoubtedly being his characterization of a delusional mental patient who thinks he's alternately Jesus Christ and Jack the Ripper in The Ruling Class (1972), Peter Medak's outrageous farce on the "deific" pretensions of British royalty. That gleaned O'Toole a fifth Oscar nomination; Jay Cocks, of Time Magazine called his performance one "of such intensity that it will haunt memory. He is funny, disturbing, and finally, devastating." Unfortunately, this represented the last high point of his career for many years, and the remainder of the '70s were marred by a series of disappointing and best-forgotten turns -- such as Don Quixote in Arthur Hiller's laughable musical Man of La Mancha (1972), covert CIA agent Larry Martin in Otto Preminger's spy thriller Rosebud (1975), and a Romanian émigré and refugee in Arturo Ripstein's soaper Foxtrot (1976). Meanwhile, O'Toole's off-camera life hit the nadir to end all nadirs. Though long known as a carouser (with friends and fellow Brits Burton, Richard Harris, Peter Finch, and others), O'Toole now plunged into no-holds-barred alcoholism, pushing himself to the very edge of sanity and death. The drinking necessitated major stomach surgery, and permanently ended his 20-year-marriage to Welsh actress Sian Phillips (best known as Livia in I, Claudius). Career-wise, O'Toole scraped the bottom of the gutter (and then some) when he made the foolish decision (around 1976 or 1977) to appear alongside Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren in the Bob Guccione/Tinto Brass Penthouse mega-production Caligula (released 1980) -- a period film wall-to-wall with hardcore sex and visceral, graphic violence that led celebrity critic Roger Ebert to echo another viewer's lament: "This movie is the worst piece of s*** I have ever seen." It did not help matters when O'Toole returned to The Old Vic not long after, and was roundly booed off the stage for his uncharacteristically wretched portrayal of Macbeth. The Macbeth calamity, however, masked a slow return to triumph, for O'Toole had since resolved to clean himself up; he moved in with Kate and Pat O'Toole, his two actress daughters from his marriage to Phillips, both of whom were teenagers in the late 1970s, and both of whom cared for him. And in 1979, he signed on to play one of the most esteemed roles of his career -- that of the sadistic, tyrannical director Eli Cross in Richard Rush's wicked black comedy The Stunt Man (1980) -- a role for which O'Toole received a sixth Oscar nomination. O'Toole again lost the bid, this time to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. Not one to be daunted, however, the actor continued down the path to full professional and personal recovery by beginning an ongoing relationship with California model Karen Brown, and fathering a child by her in 1983. O'Toole then signed on for many fine roles throughout the 1980s and '90s: that of Alan Swann, a hard-drinking, hard-loving, has-been movie star, in Richard Benjamin's delightfully wacky 1982 film My Favorite Year (which drew the thesp yet another nomination for Best Actor -- his seventh); and as Professor Harry Wolper, a scientist obsessively trying to re-clone his deceased wife, in Ivan Passer's quirky, underrated romantic fantasy Creator (1985). Despite occasional lapses in taste and quality, such as 1984's Supergirl and 1986's Club Paradise, O'Toole was clearly back on top of his game, and he proved it with an admirable turn as Reginald Johnston in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 Best Picture winner, The Last Emperor. That same year, O'Toole signed on to co-star in High Spirits (1988), fellow Irishman Neil Jordan's whimsical, spiritual ghost story with Shakespearean overtones. At the time, this looked like a solid decision, but neither Jordan nor O'Toole nor their co-stars, Steve Guttenberg, Liam Neeson, and Daryl Hannah, could have anticipated the massive studio interference that (in the words of Pauline Kael) "whacked away at the film, removing between 15 and 25 percent of the footage" and turned it into one of that year's biggest flops. Ditto with Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1990 comedy fantasy The Rainbow Thief, where studio interference again all but destroyed the work.O'Toole remained active throughout the 1990s, largely with fine supporting roles, such as Willingham in King Ralph (1991), Welsh nobleman Lord Sam in Rebecca's Daughters (1992), Bishop Cauchon in the made-for-television Joan of Arc (1999), and Von Hindenburg in the telemovie Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003). In late 2006, O'Toole hit another career peak with a fine turn as a wily old thesp who enjoys a last-act fling with a twentysomething admirer, in the Roger Michell-directed, Hanif Kureishi-scripted character-driven comedy Venus. The effort reeled in an eighth Best Actor Oscar nomination for the actor. In 2007 he voiced the part of the critic in Pixar's Ratatouille, and in 2008 he joined the cast of The Tudors playing Pope Paul III. He played a priest in 2012's For Greater Glory and filmed a role for Katherine of Alexandria (2014) before he died at age 81 in 2013.

Trivia: A member of a generation of British actors that included Sir Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, Sir Alec Guinness possessed an astonishing versatility that was amply displayed over the course of his 66-year career. Dubbed "the outstanding poet of anonymity" by fellow actor Peter Ustinov, Guinness was a consummate performer, effortlessly portraying characters that ranged from eight members of the same family to an aging Jedi master. Synonymous throughout most of his career with old-school British aplomb and dry wit, the actor was considered to be second only to Olivier in his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Theater critic J.C. Trewin once described Guinness as possessing "a player's countenance, designed for whatever might turn up." The latter half of this description was an apt summation of the actor's beginnings, which were positively Dickensian. Born into poverty in London on April 2, 1914, Guinness was an illegitimate child who did not know the name on his birth certificate was Guinness until he was 14 (until that time he had used his stepfather's surname, Stiven). Guinness never met his biological father, who provided his son's private school funds but refused to pay for his university education. It was while working as an advertising copywriter that Guinness began going to the theatre, spending his pound-a-week salary on tickets. Determined to become an actor himself, he somehow found the money to pay for beginning acting lessons and subsequently won a place at the Fay Compton School of Acting. While studying there, he was told by his acting teacher Martita Hunt that he had "absolutely no talent." However, Sir John Gielgud apparently disagreed: as the judge of the end-of-term performance, he awarded Guinness an acting prize and further rewarded him with two roles in his 1934 production of Hamlet. Three years later, Guinness became a permanent member of Gielgud's London company and in 1938, playing none other than Hamlet himself. In 1939, Guinness' stage version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, which featured the actor as Herbert Pocket, caught the attention of fledgling director David Lean. Seven years later, Lean would cast Guinness in the novel's screen adaptation; the 1946 film was the actor's second screen engagement, the first being the 1934 Evensong, in which he was an extra. It was in Lean's Oliver Twist (1948) that he had his first memorable onscreen role as Fagin, although his portrayal -- complete with stereotypically Semitic gestures and heavy makeup -- aroused charges of anti-Semitism in the United States that delayed the film's stateside release for three years. Guinness won bona fide international recognition for his work in Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), an Ealing black comedy that featured him as eight members of the d'Ascoyne family. He would subsequently be associated with a number of the classic Ealing comedies, including The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Detective (1954), and The Ladykillers (1955). In 1955, Guinness' contributions to the arts were recognized by Queen Elizabeth, who dubbed him Commander of the British Empire. Two years later, he received recognition on the other side of the Atlantic when he won a Best Actor Oscar for his role as Colonel Nicholson, a phenomenally principled and at times foolhardy British POW in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Ironically, Guinness turned down the role twice before being persuaded to take it by producer Sam Spiegel; his performance remained one of the most acclaimed of his career. In 1960, Guinness once again earned acclaim for his portrayal of another officer, in Tunes of Glory. Cast as hard-drinking, ill-mannered Scottish Lieutenant-Colonel Jock Sinclair, a role he would later name as his favorite, the actor gave a powerful performance opposite John Mills as the upper-crust British officer assigned to take over his duties. He subsequently became associated with David Lean's great epics of the 1960s, starring as Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and as Zhivago's brother in Dr. Zhivago (1965); much later in his career, Guinness would also appear in Lean's A Passage to India (1984) as Professor Godbole, an Indian intellectual. Although Guinness continued to work at a fairly prolific pace throughout the 1960s and 1970s, his popularity was on the wane until director George Lucas practically begged him to appear as Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977). The role earned the actor his third Academy Award nomination (his second came courtesy of his screenplay for Ronald Neame's 1958 satire The Horse's Mouth) and introduced him to a new generation of fans. Guinness reprised the role for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); although the role Obi Wan was perhaps the most famous of his career and earned him millions, he reportedly hated the character and encouraged Lucas to kill him off in the trilogy's first installment so as to limit his involvement in the subsequent films.After receiving an honorary Academy Award in 1979, Guinness did a bit of television (most notably a 1979 adaptation of John LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and acted onscreen in supporting roles. In 1988 he earned a slew of award nominations -- including his fourth Oscar nomination -- for his work in a six-hour adaptation of Dickens' Little Dorrit. In addition to acting, Guinness focused his attention on writing, producing two celebrated memoirs. He died on August 5, 2000, at the age of 86, leaving behind his wife of 62 years, a son, and one of the acting world's most distinguished legacies.

Trivia: Over the course of a career that spanned seven decades, Omar Sharif played every ethnic type imaginable: Spanish, Mongolian, Yugoslavian, Turkish, Russian, Jewish, Argentinian, Mexican, and -- most improbably -- a German serving as a Nazi officer (in 1967's Night of the Generals). That was the nature of his smoldering, swarthy good looks: Every race wanted to claim him as their own. The first Arab actor to achieve worldwide fame, Sharif nonetheless could never match the splash he made with two of his earliest English-language features, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.Omar Sharif was born Michel Demetri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932, to a well-to-do Lebanese Christian family in Alexandria, Egypt. His father was a lumber merchant, while his mother was a socialite whose guests included King Farouk (and who sent her pudgy son to a British-style boarding school so he would lose weight eating the blander food.) He had a natural intelligence for numbers and language, and by the time he graduated from Cairo University with a degree in mathematics and physics, he could speak five languages (including Arabic, English, and French). After graduation, he worked alongside his father in the family lumber business, but his unused talents made him restless for bigger success.Egypt was known as "the Hollywood of the Middle East" in the 1950s, producing more than 100 Arabic-language films a year. Hoping to break into the movies, Shalhoub chose the new moniker "Omar Sharif"; he reasoned Westerners would be familiar with Gen. Omar Bradley, and "Sharif" was similar to "sheriff." In 1954, director Youssef Chahine offered his friend a part in Shaytan Al-Sahra ("Devil of the Desert"), followed by a leading role in Siraa Fil-Wadi ("Struggle to the Valley") opposite Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, a pretty girl-next-door type who had been beloved by Cairo audiences ever since her debut as a child star. A romance soon blossomed between the co-stars; Sharif eventually converted to Islam in order to marry her, and Hamama allowed him to kiss her onscreen, which she had not agreed to do with any other co-star. The duo made seven more movies together, and had a son named Tarek in 1957.Sharif's smoldering yet dignified box-office appeal spread from Egypt to European art-house cinemas, and eventually caught the attention of British director David Lean, who was casting Arabic actors for his biopic of T.E. Lawrence. Sharif's fluency in English put him ahead of the rest of the contenders, and he won the role of Sherif Ali Ibn El Karish in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Even though the 100-day shoot in the desert -- "without women," the actor later lamented -- tried the entire cast's patience, Sharif enjoyed working under Lean and earned the respect of the notoriously actor-hating director through his dedication. Similarly, Sharif became great friends with Peter O'Toole, declaring that he and his co-star were "like brothers" who, after shooting wrapped, vowed to work together again should any occasion arise.Sharif's role in Lawrence of Arabia made him an international star and won him Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor and Most Promising Newcomer, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Doctor Zhivago (1965), his next film for Lean (which included a cameo by his son Tarek as the younger version of his character), cemented his position as a superstar. Doctor Zhivago was an unprecedented smash, making more than 100 million dollars at the box office (over 750 million today, when adjusted for inflation), and earning ten Academy Award nominations and five wins.These two blockbusters made Sharif a star, but he considered it a devil's bargain. Without an agent to act on his behalf, he signed a seven-year contract with Columbia that put his fee at what some sources say was as low as 15,000 dollars per film -- even for hits like Funny Girl (1968). Long sojourns in Europe and the U.S. took him away from Hamama and their son, and a combination of political difficulties reentering Egypt and temptations while away from home weakened their marriage. Acknowledging that Hamama was the love of his life, but paradoxically rationalizing that it would be better to leave her while she was relatively young and could remarry, the pair divorced in 1974.As Sharif's career began a slow downward slide in the mid-'70s, with roles in stinkers like Oh, Heavenly Dog! (1980) and Inchon (1981), his personal life also became cluttered with flings, including one with Italian journalist Paola De Luca that led to a son named Ruben. Rather than concentrate on acting, Sharif instead devoted more and more time to his passion for the card game bridge, writing several books and a syndicated newspaper column about the strategy of the game, as well as lending his name to video-game simulations. He eventually became one of the highest-ranked bridge players in the world, and his love for the game was so great that sometimes he would refuse film roles because the shooting schedule conflicted with bridge tournaments.While Sharif's last decades were mostly devoted to a laissez-faire lifestyle as an intercontinental playboy, living in hotels and frequenting casinos, he did make some onscreen appearances. He played a supporting role in 2004's Hidalgo (in which he demanded -- and received -- rewrites for dialogue he found insulting toward Muslims) and narrated the epic-fantasy film 10,000 B.C. (2008). But his final cinematic triumph was in Monsieur Ibrahim (2003), a heartfelt coming-of-age drama set in 1950s Paris about the unlikely friendship between a kindly Muslim shopkeeper and a Jewish teen. The movie earned praise from critics and won Sharif a Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and a Best Actor César (the French equivalent of the Oscars).His last years were, regrettably, marred by colorful public incidents, including headbutting a policeman in a casino in suburban Paris and punching a parking-lot attendant in Beverly Hills. But this churlish behavior might have been a harbinger of Alzheimer's disease, which blackened his final days. After completing a swan-song cameo in The Secret Scripture with his grandson Omar Sharif Jr., and only six months following the death of Faten Hamama, the woman he still regarded as "the love of my life," Sharif succumbed to a fatal heart attack in Cairo on July 10, 2015.

Trivia: Earthy and at times exuberant, Anthony Quinn was one of Hollywood's more colorful personalities. Though he played many important roles over the course of his 60-year career, Quinn's signature character was Zorba, a zesty Greek peasant who teaches a stuffy British writer to find joy in the subtle intricacies of everyday life in Zorba the Greek (1964), which Quinn also produced. The role won him an Oscar nomination and he reprised variations of Zorba in several subsequent roles. Although he made a convincing Greek, Quinn was actually of Irish-Mexican extraction. He was born Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn in Chihuahua, Mexico, on April 21, 1915, but raised in the U.S. Before becoming an actor, Quinn had been a prizefighter and a painter. He launched his film career playing character roles in several 1936 films, including Parole (his debut) and The Milky Way, after a brief stint in the theater. In 1937, he married director Cecil B. DeMille's daughter Katherine De Mille, but this did nothing to further his career and Quinn remained relegated to playing "ethnic" villains in Paramount films through the 1940s. By 1947, he was a veteran of over 50 films and had played everything from Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Chinese guerrillas, and comical Arab sheiks, but he was still not a major star. So he returned to the theater, where for three years he found success on Broadway in such roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Upon his return to the screen in the early '50s, Quinn was cast in a series of B-adventures like Mask of the Avenger (1951). He got one of his big breaks playing opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952). His supporting role as Zapata's brother won Quinn his first Oscar and after that, Quinn was given larger roles in a variety of features. He went to Italy in 1953 and appeared in several films, turning in one of his best performances as a dim-witted, thuggish, and volatile strongman in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954). Quinn won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar portraying the painter Gaugin in Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life (1956). The following year, he received another Oscar nomination for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind. During the '50s, Quinn specialized in tough, macho roles, but as the decade ended, he allowed his age to show. His formerly trim physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered into an appealing series of crags and crinkles. His careworn demeanor made him an ideal ex-boxer in Requiem for a Heavyweight and a natural for the villainous Bedouin he played in Lawrence of Arabia (both 1962). The success of Zorba the Greek in 1964 was the highwater mark of Quinn's career during the '60s -- it offered him another Oscar nomination -- and as the decade progressed, the quality of his film work noticeably diminished. The 1970s offered little change and Quinn became known as a ham, albeit a well-respected one. In 1971, he starred in the short-lived television drama Man in the City. His subsequent television appearances were sporadic, though in 1994, he became a semi-regular guest (playing Zeus) on the syndicated Hercules series. Though his film career slowed considerably during the 1990s, Quinn continued to work steadily, appearing in films as diverse as Jungle Fever (1991), Last Action Hero (1993), and A Walk in the Clouds (1995). In his personal life, Quinn proved as volatile and passionate as his screen persona. He divorced his wife Katherine, with whom he had three children, in 1956. The following year he embarked on a tempestuous 31-year marriage to costume designer Iolanda Quinn. The union crumbled in 1993 when Quinn had an affair with his secretary that resulted in a baby; the two shared a second child in 1996. In total, Quinn has fathered 13 children and has had three known mistresses. He and Iolanda engaged in a public and very bitter divorce in 1997 in which she and one of Quinn's sons, Danny Quinn, alleged that the actor had severely beaten and abused Iolanda for many years. Quinn denied the allegations, claiming that his ex-wife was lying in order to win a larger settlement and part of Quinn's priceless art collection. When not acting or engaging in well-publicized court battles, Quinn continued to paint and became a well-known artist. He also wrote and co-wrote two memoirs, The Original Sin (1972) and One Man Tango (1997). In the latter, Quinn is candid and apologetic about some of his past's darker moments. Shortly after completing his final film role in Avenging Angelo (2001), Anthony Quinn died of respiratory failure in Boston, MA. He was 86.

Trivia: Crusty, craggy British leading man Jack Hawkins began as a child actor, studying at the Italia Court School of Acting. After his first film, 1930's Birds of Prey, Hawkins languished for several years in secondary roles before achieving minor stardom by the end of the '30s. During the war, Hawkins was a colonel in ENSA, the British equivalent of the USO. He became a major movie "name" in the postwar era, often as coolly efficient military officers in such films as The Cruel Sea (1953), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The League of Gentlemen (1961), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962, as General Allenby). He was considered an Academy Award shoe-in for his portrayal of Quintus Arrius in 1959's Ben-Hur, but the "Best Supporting Actor Oscar" went to another actor in that blockbuster, Hugh Griffith. Around this same time, Hawkins was one of four rotating stars in the J. Arthur Rank-produced TV series The Four Just Men; the other three were Vittorio de Sica, Dan Dailey and Richard Conte. In 1966, Hawkins underwent an operation for cancer of the larynx. Though the operation cost him his voice, publicity releases indicated that Hawkins was training himself to talk again with an artificial device -- and also that he defiantly continued chain-smoking. Hawkins remained in films until his death, but his dialogue had to be dubbed by others. In his next-to-last film Theatre of Blood (1973), he was effectively cast in a substantial role that required no dialogue whatsoever -- something that the viewer realizes only in retrospect. Ironically, Hawkins' biography was titled Anything for a Quiet Life. Jack Hawkins was married twice, to actresses Jessica Tandy and Doreen Lawrence.

Trivia: When Anthony Quayle appeared in films about war and espionage, he performed brilliantly, earning critical acclaim. And no wonder. Quayle had served as a spy in Albania during World War II, snooping around corners into Nazi business and rising to the rank of major for his contributions to the allied effort. His war experience primed him well for roles in such productions as The Battle of the River Plate (1956), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Operation Crossbow (1965), and 21 Hours at Munich (1976). In time, he gained a reputation as one of the 20th century's best-trained character actors, performing in productions in virtually every genre and in every medium -- stage, film, television, and audiocassette. But being well prepared for acting roles was nothing new for Quayle. As a young man, he had trained long and hard to hone his thespian skills, attending the best schools and apprenticing with the best acting companies. Quayle was born on September 7, 1913, in Ainsdale, Sefton, England, where his father was a lawyer. After attending the Rugby secondary school, he received further training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, then performed in minor roles in stage and film productions before his military service. After the war, he appeared on-stage in Dostoyevksy's Crime and Punishment with John Gielgud and Edith Evans, then joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1948, he played Marcellus in Laurence Olivier's Academy award-winning film production of Hamlet. Between 1948 and 1956, Quayle served as director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, laying the groundwork for the founding of the famed Royal Shakespeare Company. Quayle went on to perform in some of the best-known films of all time, many of them historical epics, including Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), in which he earned an Academy award nomination for his portrayal of Cardinal Wolsey, lord chancellor of England under Henry VIII. He also played major roles in important TV miniseries such as Great Expectations (1974), Moses the Lawgiver (1975), The Story of David (1976), and Masada (1981). In addition, Quayle narrated films, wrote two books (Eight Hours From England and On Such a Night), made audiocassettes, and continued to perform in stage productions in London and New York. What made Quayle special was his discipline and intensity. Watch him in any of his films and you will see a man consumed by his role, a man who abandons his own identity to assume another's. In performance, he is always busy, preoccupied, his brow furrowed by the concerns of his character. Fittingly, he was pronounced a knight of the realm in 1985 for his acting achievements. Four years later, on October 20, 1989, he died of cancer in London. He had been married to Dorothy Hysen (1947-1989) and Hermione Hannen (1934-1941).

Trivia: The son of British stage actor Frederick Rains, Claude Rains gave his first theatrical performance at age 11 in Nell of Old Drury. He learned the technical end of the business by working his way up from being a two-dollars-a-week page boy to stage manager. After making his first U.S. appearance in 1913, Rains returned to England, served in the Scottish regiment during WWI, then established himself as a leading actor in the postwar years. He was also featured in one obscure British silent film, Build Thy House. During the 1920s, Rains was a member of the teaching staff at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; among his pupils were a young sprout named Laurence Olivier and a lovely lass named Isabel Jeans, who became the first of Rains' six wives. While performing with the Theatre Guild in New York in 1932, Rains filmed a screen test for Universal Pictures. On the basis of his voice alone, the actor was engaged by Universal director James Whale to make his talking-picture debut in the title role of The Invisible Man (1933). During his subsequent years at Warner Bros., the mellifluous-voiced Rains became one of the studio's busiest and most versatile character players, at his best when playing cultured villains. Though surprisingly never a recipient of an Academy award, Rains was Oscar-nominated for his performances as the "bought" Senator Paine in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the title character in Mr. Skeffington (1944), the Nazi husband of Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946), and, best of all, the cheerfully corrupt Inspector Renault in Casablanca (1942). In 1946, Rains became one of the first film actors to demand and receive one million dollars for a single picture; the role was Julius Caesar, and the picture Caesar and Cleopatra. He made a triumphant return to Broadway in 1951's Darkness at Noon. In his last two decades, Claude Rains made occasional forays into television (notably on Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and continued to play choice character roles in big-budget films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

Trivia: American actor Arthur Kennedy was usually cast in western or contemporary roles in his films; on stage, it was another matter. A graduate of the Carnegie-Mellon drama department, Kennedy's first professional work was with the Globe Theatre Company touring the midwest in abbreviated versions of Shakespearian plays. From here he moved into the American company of British stage star Maurice Evans, who cast Kennedy in his Broadway production of Richard III. Kennedy continued doing Shakespeare for Evans and agit-prop social dramas for the Federal Theatre, but when time came for his first film, City for Conquest (1940), he found himself in the very ordinary role of James Cagney's musician brother. Throughout his first Warner Bros. contract, Kennedy showed promise as a young character lead, but films like Bad Men of Missouri (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1942) and Air Force (1943) did little to tap the actor's classical training. After World War II service, Kennedy returned to Broadway, creating the role of Chris Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1947). This led to an even more prestigious Miller play, the Pulitzer Prize winning Death of a Salesman (1948), in which Kennedy played Biff. Sadly, Kennedy was not permitted to repeat these plum roles in the film versions of these plays, but the close association with Miller continued on stage; Kennedy would play John Proctor in The Crucible (1957) and the doctor brother in The Price (1965). While his film work during this era resulted in several Academy Award nominations, Kennedy never won; he was honored, however, with the New York Film Critics award for his on-target portrayal of a newly blinded war veteran battling not only his handicap but also his inbred racism in Bright Victory (1951). The biggest box office success with which Kennedy was associated was Lawrence of Arabia (1962), wherein he replaced the ailing Edmund O'Brien in the role of the Lowell Thomas character. Working continually in film and TV projects of wildly varying quality, Kennedy quit the business cold in the mid-1980s, retiring to live with family members in a small eastern town. Kennedy was so far out of the Hollywood mainstream in the years before his death that, when plans were made to restore the fading Lawrence of Arabia prints and Kennedy was needed to re-record his dialogue, the restorers were unable to locate the actor through Screen Actor's Guild channels -- and finally had to trace him through his hometown telephone directory.

Trivia: One of the last of England's great actor/managers, Donald Wolfit began his stage career in 1920. Wolfit made his well-received London debut in The Wandering Jew, and by 1929 was a member in good standing of the Old Vic. In 1937, he formed his own company, specializing in abridged versions of Shakespeare. During the darkest days of the Battle of Britain, Wolfit and his players gave over 100 morale-boosting lunchtime performances. It was for this patriotic effort, coupled with his theatrical accomplishments, that Wolfit was knighted in 1957. Though he made his first film in 1934, he didn't turn to moviemaking on a full-time basis until the 1950s. He starred in 1954's Svengali, and also essayed such colorful character roles as Sgt. Buzfuz in Pickwick Papers (1953), Mercier in I Accuse (1958), and General Murray in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He also showed up in a couple of horror films, never giving less than his best even when the material wasn't there. Toward the end of his career, Wolfit starred in the 1962 TV series The Ghost Squad. Wolfit's career and personality served as the inspiration for Ronald Harwood's play The Dresser. Married three times, Sir Donald Wolfit's third wife was actress Rosalind Iden, with whom he frequently co-starred.

Trivia: Was educated in Switzerland.Quit acting to attend Harvard.Competed in three Winter Olympics as a skier and luger.In 1998, became the first non-Japanese member of Nikko Securities' main board.In 2014, became vice-chairman of investment banking at Citigroup.In 2015, became the Executive Director at Heineken Holding N.V.

Trivia: One of a handful of Pakistani actors working in English-speaking films, Zia Mohyeddin has built up an imposing list of credits -- usually not playing a denizen of Pakistan. He has appeared prominently in such International productions as Sailor From Gilbraltar (1967) (fourth billed behind Jeanne Moreau, Ian Bannen and Vanessa Redgrave) and Deadlier Than the Male (1967). In Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Mohyeddin had several scenes in the role of Tafas. And in A Boy Ten Feet Tall (1966), Zia Mohyeddin again enjoyed featured billing in the role of "The Syrian."

Trivia: British character actor Jack Gwillim first appeared onscreen in the '50s.

Trivia: A small British character actor, onscreen from the '50s, he often played comedic working class types.

Trivia: Director, writer, and producer David Lean grew up in a strict religious background in which movies were forbidden to become one of the world's most celebrated filmmakers. Beginning as a tea boy in the mid-'20s, he was lucky enough to move into editing just as sound films -- with their special requirements -- were coming on the scene. By the mid-'30s, he was regarded as one of the top in his field. Lean turned down several chances to make low-budget films, and got his first directing opportunity (unofficially) on Major Barbara (1941), one of the most celebrated movies of the early '40s. Noel Coward hired Lean as his directorial collaborator on his war classic In Which We Serve (1943), and, after that, Lean's career was made. For the next 15 years, he became known throughout the world for his close, intimate, serious film dramas. Some (This Happy Breed [1944], Blithe Spirit [1945], and Brief Encounter [1945]) were based upon Coward's plays, which the author had given Lean virtual carte blanche to film. Others ranged from Charles Dickens adaptations (Great Expectations, [1946], Oliver Twist [1948]) to stories about aviation (The Sound Barrier [1952]). In 1957, in association with producer Sam Spiegel, Lean moved out of England and into international production with his epic adaptation of Pierre Boulle's Japanese prisoner-of-war story The Bridge on the River Kwai, a superb drama starring Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and William Holden that expanded the dimensions of serious filmmaking. Lean's next film, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), based on the life and military career of World War I British hero T.E. Lawrence, became the definitive dramatic film epic of its generation. Doctor Zhivago (1965), a complex romance about life in Russia before and during the revolution, opened to mixed reviews but went on to become one of the top-grossing movies of the '60s, despite a three-hour running time. With an armload of Oscars behind him from his three most recent pictures -- with combined box-office earnings of as much as 300 million dollars -- Lean was established as one of the top "money" directors of the decade. But his next movie, the multimillion-dollar, 200-minute Ryan's Daughter (1970), fared far less well, especially before the critics, who almost universally condemned the slowness and seeming self-indulgence of its drama and scale. Disheartened by its reception, Lean took more than ten years to release his next film, the critical and box-office success A Passage to India (1984). He was working on Nostromo, based upon Joseph Conrad's book, at the time of his death in 1991.

Trivia: A hugely prolific composer best known for his multiple collaborations with director David Lean, Maurice Jarre is one of the most well-respected personalities in the film industry. A student of the Paris Conservatoire, Jarre, who was born in Lyons on September 13, 1924, was the musical director at Paris' Theatre National Populaire in the early 1950s, when he became intrigued with film work. His first movie assignment was the Georges Franju-directed short subject, Hotel des Invalides (1952). Here, as in future projects, Jarre preferred to avoid the obvious in his scores, opting for muted and romantic effects where other film musicians might rely upon bombast. He gained worldwide prominence and three Oscars, for his collaborations with director Lean on Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984). The composer's Zhivago leitmotif "Lara's Theme" became a best-selling single, though it caused a brief rift with Lean, who disapproved of hit songs that detracted from the films themselves. Jarre has also scored the films of directors as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz, 1969), John Huston (The Man Who Would Be King, 1975), Peter Weir (The Year of Living Dangerously, 1982, Witness, 1985) and even satirist Jerry Zucker (Top Secret!, 1984). When Zucker decided to forego parody for romantic fantasy in 1990's Ghost, he engaged Jarre for the score -- and the composer had yet another hit (with the help of Alex North's "Unchained Melody"). Jarre is the father of Jean-Michel Jarre, a popular composer in his own right.

Trivia: Over his lengthy, distinguished career, British screenwriter and playwright Robert Bolt was nominated for three Academy Awards and won twice, for Doctor Zhivago (1965) and A Man for All Seasons (1966). Born and raised in Manchester, Bolt served in the British Air Force during WWII and afterward attended Manchester University. Following graduation, Bolt became a teacher of English at the prestigious Millfield private school in Somerset. He remained there between 1950-58. In his spare time, Bolt wrote radio and stage plays, but gained little recognition until he penned the script for his play Flowering Cherry (1957). His third play, A Man for All Seasons opened in 1960; the original production made actor Paul Scofield a star and was a hit on the London and Broadway stage. The publicity surrounding the production attracted the attention of movie producer Sam Spiegel who hired Bolt to completely revise recently exiled writer Michael Wilson's script for David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. (1962). The result was an Academy Award nomination for Bolt's script. Throughout the decade, Bolt would specialize in adapting literature to the screen. He would not have an original script produced until Lean directed Bolt's Ryan's Daughter (1970). Unfortunately, the film bombed at the box-office. After that, Bolt spent a while working on his playwrighting career and found success with Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1970). His next script was for the costume drama Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) starring Bolt's wife Sarah Miles, who had also starred in Ryan's Daughter. In 1976, Lean approached Bolt with a new idea for an epic reworking of the story of the Bounty mutiny. With funding by Dino De Laurentiis and Paramount studio, Bolt set to work on the script. Over the next two years, Bolt concentrated most of his energy on the script, creating two versions. Their working titles were "The Law Breakers" and "The Long Arm." He had completed the former script but suffered a massive heart attack on April 12, 1979 followed by a stroke, and he was unable to finish the second script. In 1984, however, the first script was made into The Bounty directed Roger Donaldson. Bolt saw his final script The Mission, produced in 1986.

Trivia: Sam Spiegel was one of the most consistently successful, distinguished independent producers and was behind some of the most prestigious films in American and British cinema. Born in what was once Jaroslau, Austria (now Jaroslaw, Poland), and educated at the University of Vienna, Spiegel came briefly to Hollywood in 1927 as a story translator following a stint serving with a youth group in Palestine. He then went to Berlin to produce German and French adaptations of Universal films until 1933 when he fled Germany. As an independent producer, Spiegel was behind a number of European films. In 1935, he emigrated to the U.S. Between then and 1954, Spiegel billed himself as S.P. Eagle. After that he used his real name. In 1963, he was awarded the prestigious Irving Thalberg Memorial Award at that year's Oscars for his many contributions to cinema.

Trivia: The brother of British leading man Mark Dignam, Basil Dignam spent most of his time before the cameras in small but pivotal roles. From 1952's Murder in the Cathedral onward, Dignam, a former lumberjack, popped up frequently as barristers, politicians and military officers. His aura of brusque professionalism made Dignam a valuable foil in British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s, notably several of the Carry On series. Habitues of the Shock Theatre TV programs of the early 1960s may recall Dignam as "The Admiral" in 1960's Gorgo, while Shakespeare scholars will remember the actor for his portrayal of Polonius in the 1969 Nicol Williamson version of Hamlet. Basil Dignam was the husband of actress Mona Washbourne.

Trivia: British lead and supporting actor, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: José Ferrer (born José Vincente Ferrer de Otero y Cintron in Puerto Rico) decided to become an actor while in college. Early in his career he appeared with James Stewart and Joshua Logan at the Triangle Theater. In 1935 he debuted on Broadway with a walk-on part; he soon began to land bigger roles and quickly established his reputation as a highly versatile actor, performing in roles ranging from the comic title role in Charlie's Aunt to the evil Iago in Othello, and he began directing Broadway productions in 1942. Ferrer debuted onscreen as the Dauphin opposite Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc (1948), for which he received a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination. He later became internationally famous, and won a "Best Actor" Oscar for reprising his theatrical lead in the film version of Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). Ferrer earned another Oscar nomination for his portrayal of painter Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge (1952). While both roles definitely enhanced his career, he later complained that they lead him to become typecast, and sometimes went years between film offers. In the mid-'50s he began directing films (usually ones in which he appeared), starting with The Shrike (1955). Also in the mid-'50s he made several successful recordings with his third wife, singer Rosemary Clooney. After 1962 he gave up directing and concentrated on stage and screen character acting, usually being typecast in his films as a swarthy foreigner. He continued to appear frequently in films into the '90s, meanwhile doing much TV work. His first wife was actress Uta Hagen.

Trivia: Bennett, a British character actor, has been onscreen from 1960.

Trivia: East Indian actor who had supporting roles in numerous international films.

Trivia: Former juvenile, onscreen from age eight in 1955.