Trivia: American comic actor Edgar Kennedy left home in his teens, smitten with the urge to see the world. He worked a number of manual labor jobs and sang in touring musical shows before returning to his native California in 1912 to break into the infant movie industry. Hired by Mack Sennett in 1914, Kennedy played innumerable roles in the Keystone comedies. He would later claim to be one of the original Keystone Kops, but his specialty during this period was portraying mustache-twirling villains. By the early 1920s, Kennedys screen image had mellowed; now he most often played detectives or middle-aged husbands. He joined Hal Roach Studios in 1928, where he did some of his best early work: co-starring with Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chase and Our Gang; directing two-reelers under the stage name E. Livingston Kennedy; and receiving top billing in one of Roach's most enduring comedies, A Pair of Tights (1928). Kennedy was dropped from the Roach payroll in a 1930 economy drive, but he'd already made a satisfactory talkie debut -- even though he'd had to lower his voice to his more familiar gravelly growl after it was discovered that his natural voice sounded high-pitched and effeminate. During his Roach stay, Kennedy developed his stock-in-trade "slow burn," wherein he'd confront a bad situation or personal humiliation by glowering at the camera, pausing, then slowly rubbing his hand over his face. In 1931, Kennedy was hired by RKO studios to star in a series of two-reelers, unofficially titled "Mr. Average Man." These films, precursors to the many TV sitcoms of the 1950s, cast Kennedy as head of a maddening household consisting of his dizzy wife (usually Florence Lake, sister of Arthur "Dagwood" Lake), nagging mother-in-law and lazy brother-in-law. Kennedy made six of these shorts per year for the next 17 years, taking time out to contribute memorable supporting roles in such film classics as Duck Soup (1933), San Francisco (1936), A Star Is Born (1937) and Anchors Aweigh (1944). Some of Kennedy's most rewarding movie assignments came late in his career: the "hidden killer" in one of the Falcon B mysteries, the poetic bartender in Harold Lloyd's Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), and the classical music-loving private detective in Unfaithfully Yours (1948), which like Diddlebock was directed by Preston Sturges. On November 9, 1948, shortly after completing his 103rd "Average Man" two-reeler and 36 hours before a Hollywood testimonial dinner was to be held in his honor, Kennedy died of throat cancer; his last film appearance as Doris Day's Uncle Charlie in My Dream is Yours (1949) was released posthumously.

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.

Trivia: J. Farrell MacDonald was one of the most beloved and prolific character actors in Hollywood history. A former minstrel singer, MacDonald toured the U.S. in stage productions for nearly two decades before he ever set foot in Tinseltown. He made his earliest film appearances in 1911 with Carl Laemmle's IMP company (the forerunner of Universal); within two years he was a firmly established lead actor and director. While functioning in the latter capacity with L. Frank Baum's Oz Film Company, MacDonald gave much-needed work to up-and-coming extras Hal Roach and Harold Lloyd. When Roach set up his own production company in 1915 with Lloyd as his star, he signed MacDonald as director (both Roach and Lloyd would hire their one-time employer as character actor well into the sound era). In the 1920's, MacDonald had returned to acting full time, appearing extensively in westerns and Irish-flavored comedies. A particular favorite of director John Ford, he was prominently featured in such Ford silents as The Iron Horse (1924), The Bad Man (1926) and Riley the Cop (1927, as Riley). He also showed up as Kelly in some of Universal's culture-clash "Cohens and Kellys" comedies. With a voice that matched his personality perfectly, MacDonald was busier than ever in the early-talkie era, usually playing such workaday roles as cops and railroad engineers; in 1932 alone, he showed up in 18 films! Even when his footage was limited, he was always given a moment or two to shine, as witness his emotional curtain speech in Shirley Temple's Our Little Girl. He kept up his workload into the 1940s, often popping up in the films of John Ford and Preston Sturges. His later roles often went unbilled, but he gave his all no matter how fleeting the assignment. One of his choicest roles of the 1940s was as the Dodge City barkeep in Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946). J. Farrell MacDonald continued working right up to his death in 1952; one of his last assignments was a continuing character on the Gene Autry-produced TV series Range Rider.

Trivia: His hangdog expression gracing scores of Hollywood films from 1925 to 1950, Frank Austin (born George Francis Austin) portrayed Abraham Lincoln in the 1928 Jack Holt film Court-Martial. Adept at comedy as well as drama, Austin is memorable as the sinister butler in The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case (1930), the prisoner with the sore tooth in the team's Pardon Us (1931), and the diner with high blood pressure in W.C. Fields' Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941). Making his mark on B-Westerns as well, Austin delivered standout performances as the coroner in Reb Russell's Outlaw Rule (1935), the ill-fated Chuckwalla in the serial Riders of Death Valley (1941), and the assayer in Whip Wilson's Arizona Territory (1950), his final screen performance.

Trivia: Although he is perhaps best remembered as the emcee of Walt Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club television show, for which he also wrote the opening theme, curly-haired actor/composer Jimmy Dodd (sometimes given as Jimmie Dodd) played sidekick Lullaby Joslin in the last six entries in Republic Pictures' long-running "Three Mesqueteers" series, replacing Rufe Davis and joining veterans Tom Tyler and Bob Steele. Dodd, however, was probably more city than prairie and spent the remainder of his career playing G.I.'s, elevator boys, and messengers. The people at Disney paid rather more attention to his composing of such tunes as "Rosemary,", "Ginny," and "Meet Me in Monterey" when they signed him to the Mickey Mouse Club, which ran from 1955-1959. Retired and living in Honolulu, Dodd was scheduled to star in yet another Disney venture, The Jimmie Dodd Aloha Show, when he succumbed to a fatal heart attack.