Trivia: Patricia Laffan is an English actress of stage, film, and television. Her big-screen career, which lasted from 1945 through 1965, generally took the form of small (sometimes uncredited) parts in bigger movies (The Rake's Progress, I See a Dark Stranger) and bigger roles in low-budget movies (Old Mother Riley at Home). Her two most widely seen parts came early on, as Poppaea, the decadent wife of Peter Ustinov's Nero -- with designs on Robert Taylor's Marcus Venicius -- in Quo Vadis? (1951); and as the fierce, leather-clad alien invader Nyah in the low-budget science fiction feature Devil Girl from Mars (1954), where her imperious manner, coupled with her costume, turned her into a memorably campy figure among bad-movie enthusiasts and leather fetishists for generations to come. Oddly enough, some critics who have seen Devil Girl from Mars have had relatively kind things to say about Laffan's work in the role of Nyah. As written, the part is utterly incomprehensible, much as the movie is ineptly directed; but she, like the other cast of professionals (including Joseph Tomelty and Adrienne Corri), does give it her best shot. Her height and gaunt, intense features made her difficult to cast in much other than bit or character roles on-screen, and Laffan's movie work gave way to television as the decade wore on. By the 1960s, she was mostly visible on the small screen.

Trivia: Scottish character actor, onscreen from the '30s. He often played jovial characters.

Trivia: Briton Hazel Court gained her early acting experience in the various stock companies in and around her home town of Birmingham. She continued her apprenticeship at the London Academy of Dramatic Art, where, according to her own account, she was a glorified "spear-carrier." Hazel's red hair and bewitching looks led to a one-line bit in Ealing Studios Champagne Charlie (1944), thence to a lengthy movie contract with Gainsborough. Favorites among her earlier films include the multistoried Holiday Camp (1947) and Ghost Ship (1952), the latter co-starring her then husband Dermot Walsh. With the role of Elizabeth in Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Hazel became a fixture of horror films, spending most of her time in the Hammer and Corman talent pools. She spoofed her predilection for "scream queen" roles in the satirical The Raven (1963), wherein, for a change, she was allowed to live to the end of the picture. Extremely busy on television, Hazel co-starred with Patrick O'Neal in the 1957 comedy/mystery series Dick and the Duchess; she was also starred on four Alfred Hitchcock Presents installments, including the famous episode in which Hazel's disgruntled husband Laurence Harvey grinds her up for chicken feed. After 1964's Masque of the Red Death, Hazel Court married actor/director Don Taylor, retiring from films to devote time to her family, her civic and charitable activities, and her new hobbies of painting and sculpture.

Trivia: Despite the Mediterranean flavor of her name, actress Adrienne Corri was born in Scotland and made her 1948 stage debut in London. A strikingly attractive redhead, Adrienne was often cast in seductive roles. Few of her big-budget films gave her much opportunity; she seemed more at home in such science fiction and horror items as Devil Girl from Mars (1954), Corridors of Blood (1958), The Tell-Tale Heart (1960) and Vampire Circus (1971). In films until 1979, Adrienne Corri was most spectacularly featured in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), in which futuristic punk Malcolm McDowell ritualistically rapes her while dancing to the tune of "Singin' In the Rain"

Trivia: A British character actor, onscreen from the '40s, he usually played untrustworthy types.

Trivia: Though primarily associated with British theater, Irish playwright and character actor Joseph Tomelty had an extensive film career that spanned three decades. In 1956, injuries from a serious auto accident during the filming of Bhowani Junction temporarily derailed Tomelty's career. Following his recovery, he appeared less frequently in films and, in 1965, retired from acting. His film credits include Odd Man Out (1947), Meet Mr. Lucifer (1953), Front Page Story (1954), Upstairs and Downstairs (1961), and The Black Torment (1965).

Trivia: Bantam-weight Scotsman John Laurie abandoned a career in architecture when he first stepped on stage in 1921. Laurie spent most of the next five decades playing surly, snappish types: the taciturn farmer who betrays fugitive Robert Donat in Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), the repugnant Blind Pew in Disney's Treasure Island (1950) et. al. A friend and favorite of Laurence Olivier, Laurie showed up in all three of Olivier's major Shakespearean films. He played Captain Jamie in Henry V (1944), Francisco ("For this relief, much thanks") in Hamlet (1948) and Lord Lovel in Richard III (1955). Intriguingly, Olivier and Laurie portrayed the same historical character in two entirely different films. Both portrayed the Mahdi, scourge of General "Chinese" Gordon: Laurie essayed the part in The Four Feathers (1939), while Olivier played the role in Khartoum (1965). Millions of TV fans worldwide have enjoyed Laurie in the role of Fraser on the BBC sitcom Dad's Army. One of John Laurie's few starring assignments was in the 1935 film Edge of the World, set on the remote Shetland isle of Foula; 40 years later, a frail-looking Laurie was one of the participants in director Michael Powell's "reunion" documentary Return to the Edge of the World (1978).