Again Pioneers

Colleen Townsend (Actor) .. Sallie Keeler

Born: December 21, 1928

Tom Powers (Actor) .. Ken Keeler

Born: July 07, 1890
Died: November 09, 1955

Trivia: Long before embarking on his talking picture career, Tom Powers was a firmly established Broadway star. He began as a musical comedy lead, then moved on to dynamic dramatic roles in such Theatre Guild productions as Strange Interlude, in which he created the role of Charles Marsden. Except for a brief flurry of activity at the Vitagraph studios in 1910, Powers barely gave movies a second thought until he was invited to play the murder victim in 1944's Double Indemnity. Powers spent the rest of his professional life before the cameras, usually playing coarse, blunt detectives and businessmen. In the early '50s, Powers remained on call at 20th Century Fox for unbilled minor roles in such films as Deadline U.S.A. (1952), We're Not Married (1952), and Phone Call From a Stranger (1952). He also appeared in a dozen of TV programs, among them The Lone Ranger, Fireside Theatre, Four Star Playhouse, and Climax. A prolific writer, Tom Powers published the best-selling memoir He Knew Them All, and in 1935 starred in a syndicated radio series in which he read his own poetry.

Sarah Padden (Actor) .. Ma Ashby

Born: January 01, 1880
Died: December 04, 1967

Trivia: American character actress Sarah Padden was active in films from 1926 to 1955. Usually cast in peppery maternal or spinsterish roles, Padden was seen to good advantage in the films of such B-entrepreneurs as Republic, Monogram, and PRC. Her larger roles include Sam Houston's mother in Man of Conquest (1939) and the philanthropic millionairess in Reg'lar Fellers (1940). During the late '40s, Sarah Padden was cast as Mom Palooka in Monogram's Joe Palooka series.

Regis Toomey (Actor) .. Dave Harley

Born: August 13, 1898
Died: October 12, 1991

Trivia: Taking up dramatics while attending the University of Pittsburgh, Regis Toomey extended this interest into a profitable career as a stock and Broadway actor. He specialized in singing roles until falling victim to acute laryngitis while touring England in George M. Cohan's Little Nellie Kelly. In 1929, Toomey made his talking-picture bow in Alibi, where his long, drawn-out climactic death scene attracted both praise and damnation; he'd later claim that, thanks to the maudlin nature of this scene, producers were careful to kill him off in the first or second reel in his subsequent films. Only moderately successful as a leading man, Toomey was far busier once he removed his toupee and became a character actor. A lifelong pal of actor Dick Powell, Regis Toomey was cast in prominent recurring roles in such Powell-created TV series of the 1950s and 1960s as Richard Diamond, Dante's Inferno, and Burke's Law.

Jimmy Hunt (Actor) .. Nathaniel Ashby

Born: December 04, 1939

Trivia: LA native Jimmy Hunt was seven years old when he was selected by an MGM talent scout to play Van Johnson as a child in High Barbaree (1947). From that point onward, the freckle-faced Hunt remained in great demand as a general-purpose juvenile. He went on to play Evelyn Keyes' foster child (and plot motivator) in The Mating of Millie (1947), "mean widdle kid" Junior in Red Skelton's Fuller Brush Man (1948), and Ronald Reagan's son in Louisa (1950). At 20th Century-Fox, he appeared as William Gilbreth, one of the twelve offspring of efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth(Clifton Webb) in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950); two years later, he played another member of the Gilberth clan in the Dozen sequel Belles on the Toes (1952). It wasn't until his 38th film that he essayed his most famous role: wide-eyed David Maclean in the "child's eye view" sci-fier Invaders from Mars (1953). At fourteen, Hunt decided that he didn't want to pursue an acting career any more. After college, he worked in military intelligence in Germany; more recently, he was an industrial tool and dye salesman in the San Fernando Valley. At the request of director Tobe Hooper, Jimmy Hunt made one last, nostalgic fling at acting, essaying the role of the police chief in the 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars.

Evelyn Brent (Actor)

Born: October 20, 1899
Died: July 04, 1975

Trivia: Born in Florida, Evelyn Brent was raised in New York by her widowed father. A teenaged model, Evelyn began appearing in films at the Popular Plays and Players studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After World War I, she travelled to England, where she worked in films and on stage. Back in the U.S. in 1922, Evelyn established herself in exotic, "dangerous" roles, notably in the late-silent efforts of director Josef Von Sternberg. Luckily, Evelyn's voice matched her screen image perfectly, and she had no trouble adjusting to talkies; unluckily, her earliest talkie starring efforts were box-office failures, and by the mid-1930s Evelyn was consigned to secondary roles. She took occasional sabbaticals from Hollywood to tour in vaudeville, rounding out her acting career in such Monogram cheapies as Bowery Champs (1944) and The Golden Eye (1948). Evelyn Brent worked as an actor's agent in the 1950s, then retired, periodically emerging from her Westwood Village home to appear as guest of honor at theatrical revivals of her best silent films.

Gene Roth (Actor)

Born: January 08, 1903
Died: July 19, 1976

Trivia: Burly American utility actor Gene Roth appeared in nearly 200 films, beginning around 1946. He was initially billed under his given name of Gene Stutenroth, shortening his surname in 1949. Most often cast as a hulking villain, Roth growled and glowered through many a Western and serial (he was the principal heavy in the 1951 chapter play Captain Video). He also showed up in several Columbia two-reel comedies, starting with the Shemp Howard/Tom Kennedy film Society Mugs (1946). A frequent foil of the Three Stooges, Columbia's top short-subject stars, Roth extended his association with the comedy trio into the 1962 feature The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. A ubiquitous TV actor, Roth was frequently cast as a judge or bailiff on the Perry Mason series and essayed two roles in the 1961 Twilight Zone classic "Shadow Play." An active participant on the nostalgia-convention circuit of the 1970s, Gene Roth died in 1976 when he was struck down by a speeding automobile.

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