Trivia: A Pennsylvania-born actor/director, Don Taylor appeared in such movies as Father of the Bride and Stalag 17 before switching to directing in 1961 with the juvenile comedy Everything's Ducky. His second film, Ride the Wild Surf (1964), was an above average teen exploitation movie that was very successful. But Taylor hit his stride as a serious filmmaker in 1968 with a jewel of a television feature called Something for a Lonely Man, a drama starring Dan Blocker and Susan Clark that became a favorite among critics. His next movie, Five Man Army (1970), was a popular spaghetti western, and his Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) secured good reviews and assured the series' survival beyond its third installment. Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) was a solid, handsomely produced version of the H.G. Wells story, and a hit, as was Taylor's Damien: Omen II (1979). Final Countdown (1980) proved a success as well, perhaps the last non-slasher/non-fantasy related science-fiction adventure to reach audiences with low-tech special effects. Taylor's subsequent work was confined to TV movies, where he was busy throughout the '80s.

Trivia: British character actor, former lead, onscreen from 1938. He married Sandra Dorne.

Trivia: British actor/writer Reginald Beckwith was a playwright and film critic in the years before the war. From 1941 through 1945, Beckwith was a BBC war correspondent; coincidentally, his first film as an actor was the 1940 flag-waver Freedom Radio. His best known play was the serio-comedy Boys in Brown, concerning a British borstal (boys' reformatory) and its kindhearted headmaster; apparently Beckwith had written the latter role with himself in mind, though it would be played by Jack Warner in the film version. From the late 1940s onward, Reginald Beckwith was a full-time character actor, playing variations on the fussy, nervous upper-class and executive types so popular in British films of the period.

Trivia: John Van Eyssen wore several hats during his long professional career -- including that of Shakespearean thespian, movie actor, literary agent, producer and studio executive. Born and raised in South Africa, Van Eyssen did not come to Great Britain until after WW II. Once in London, he studied drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama, winning a special prize before he graduated and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. From there, Van Eyssen branched out into radio, television and, beginning with The Angel with the Trumpet (1950), films. In 1958, he appeared as the world's most famous bloodsucker in Hammer Films' The Horror of Dracula. Van Eyssen abandoned acting in 1961 to become a literary agent for London Management. He proved to have a knack for the job and was quickly promoted to helm the literary department. He became so important that when the company merged with London Artists, he was in charge of handling Franco Zeffirelli, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller. Van Eyssen left the management business in 1965 to work at Columbia Pictures' UK division. Two years after his hiring, Van Eyssen was the managing director and was behind some of the studio's most popular British films, including To Sir With Love (1967), Born Free (1966) and Georgy Girl (1966). He left the studio in 1973 to work as an independent producer in New York, and in 1981, he produced Sidney Lumet's Daniel. Van Eyssen returned to England in 1991 and became an instrumental part of establishing Britain's premiere showcase for talented young filmmakers, the Chelsea Film Festival.

Trivia: After studying at RADA, London-born Douglas Wilmer made his 1945 stage debut in repertory at Rugby. One year later, Wilmer made his first London theatrical appearance. Though most closely associated with classical roles, he scored one of his biggest stage successes in a contemporary work, One Way Pendulum (1959). Wilmer's film work includes the role of Nayland Smith in two of Christopher Lee's Fu Manchu films. He also repeated his British-TV characterization of Sherlock Holmes in Gene Wilder's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1977). In addition, Douglas Wilmer was seen in the Ray Harryhausen epics Jason and the Argonauts (1963, as Pelius) and Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1979, as the Vizier); his last film to date was the 1983 Bond flick Octopussy.

Trivia: Sensitive stage and film leading man John Kerr was able to pass as a teenager well into his 20s. Kerr made his Broadway debut in the high-school comedy Bernardine (1953). Two years later, he scored a huge success in the role of emotionally overwrought, sexually ambivalent college freshman Tom Robinson Lee in Robert Anderson's play Tea and Sympathy; he brilliantly repeated this role in the watered-down 1956 film version. Kerr's only other film roles of note were the doomed Lieutenant Cable in South Pacific (1958) and the imperiled victim of torture-prone Vincent Price in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961). After portraying district attorneys in two separate TV series, Arrest and Trial (1963) and Peyton Place (1966), Kerr evidently decided he enjoyed the world of jurisprudence and became a full-time lawyer. John Kerr remained available for the occasional cameo role into the 1980s. He died in 2013 at age 81.

Trivia: Seemingly born in a tuxedo, British actor John Stuart began his stage and screen career directly after World War I service in The Black Watch. Stuart was a very popular leading man in British silent films, though it's hard to gauge that popularity since many of his best films of the '20s -- A Sporting Double (1923), Constant Hot Water (1924), Tower of London (1926) -- are either inaccessible or nonexistent. Remaining popular after his talkie debut in Kitty (1929), Stuart matured into character parts, spending much of World War II playing government officials and police inspectors. After showing up in the company of virtually the entire British film industry in 1951's The Magic Box, Stuart settled into bits and cameo roles in such films of the '50s and '60s as Your Past is Showing (1958), Blood of the Vampire (1958) and Sink the Bismarck (1960). One of his last appearances was a tiny role in Superman: The Movie (1978). An accomplished writer, John Stuart penned his autobiography, Caught in the Act, in 1971.

Trivia: Pop-eyed British comic actor Bernard Bresslaw appropriately played Popeye, a dimbulbed private on the popular BBC-TV comedy series The Army Game (1957-62). This led to the revitalization of a film career that had begun somewhat ignominiously in 1954's Men of Sherwood Forest. Bresslaw was starred in the tacky but undeniably funny film farce I Only Arsked! (1958) and provided comic support in such films as Too Many Crooks (1959) and The Ugly Duckling (1965). Coming to grips with encroaching baldness, Bresslaw could be seen in older character parts in films like Morgan (1966) and Moon Zero Two (1969). His bag of comic tricks running on empty in the mid 1960s, Bernard Bresslaw sustained his film career by becoming a member of the lunatic "Carry On" ensemble in 14 movies with titles like Carry on Cowboy (1965), Carry on Doctor (1968) and Carry on Dick (1975); he also showed up briefly plying his laugh-grabbing trade in Disney's One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975) and the Monty Pythonesque Jabberwocky (1979).

Trivia: Ballard Berkeley went from a successful if somewhat undistinguished career as a theatrical leading man to a long and lucrative career in movies and television playing memorable character roles and closed it out with a part on television that made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in Margate, Kent, England, in 1904, he was the son of a theatrical manager with the family name Blascheck. He aspired to an acting career and made his London theatrical debut in 1928. Berkeley was the understudy to the lead in Counsel's Opinion (the play that became the movie The Divorce of Lady X). He also appeared with Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire in Stop Flirting and, over the next decade did a string of appearances opposite some of the top leading ladies of the day, including Dame Edith Evans and Fay Compton. His work as a theatrical leading man, however, was rather forgettable in the eyes of most critics, next to the actresses with whom he worked. But the movies beckoned after the advent of sound, and from 1930 -- with London Melody and The Chinese Bungalow -- Berkeley regularly appeared in features, often in leading or major supporting roles. His performances may have been fine, but the movies he did failed to have a major impact; the most widely seen of the early features was The Saint in London (1939), part of a series of films about the fictional Leslie Charteris-created sleuth. His career was interrupted at that point by the outbreak of the Second World War, rather ironically, considering the path of his subsequent career. Berkeley didn't serve in combat or even in the armed forces, but worked as a special constable, often in tandem with his fellow thespian Jack Hulbert. His presence was a big boost to the morale of their fellow officers, as he would organize entertainment in his off-duty hours.Berkeley sole wartime film appearance was a small but memorable part, as the HMS Torin's engineer-commander, in Noel Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve (1942). And in 1947, after the war's end, he made his New York stage debut in the musical comedy Under the Counter. But theater receded in significance as part of his career during the postwar era, as Berkeley moved into character roles in film playing army officers (and, later -- and more notably -- retired army officers), police inspectors, and the occasional villain. During the 1950s, he also increasingly began to be seen on television as that medium took root in England, especially in crime programs like Dixon of Dock Green and action-adventure series such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, and The Invisible Man. He remained busy on both the big and small screens and became a popular and familiar presence in British entertainment. Finally, in the mid-'70s, as he reached his own seventies, he was cast in the perfect role, a part that took advantage of his comically officious, Colonel Blimp-ish persona, which he cultivated in his portrayal of many a military officer, and also of his advancing age: Major Gowen on Fawlty Towers. As one of the long-standing residents at the broken-down hotel owned by Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), the Major -- who sometimes seemed comically disoriented -- was the most memorable of the guests whose presence vexed Fawlty, and Berkeley brought a great deal of humanity to the role without ever losing the opportunity for a laugh. And the series' success in America made him a familiar name to television viewers across the Atlantic for the first time. He continued working for another nine years, right up to his death in 1988, even making it into National Lampoon's European Vacation. Most of his appearances were in productions aimed at British viewers, such as The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980), alongside such long-serving acting talents as Michael Hordern and Thorley Walters, in what was the last of the "St. Trinian's" films.

Trivia: South African actor Wensley Pithey played character roles on stage, radio, television, and in many feature films in his native country and in Great Britain. He is especially noted for his convincing impersonations of Winston Churchill.

Trivia: Tom Bowman was a British character actor who appeared on stage, screen, radio and television. In addition to acting, he also dubbed films, recorded books and made radio commentaries. He came to the U.S. in 1975.

Trivia: British actor Edward Hardwicke primarily plays character and supporting roles on television, feature films, and on stage, where he was classically trained gained experience. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He is the son of distinguished actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke and actress Helena Pickard. Most notably he assumed the role of Dr. Watson in the Grenada television series The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett. Hardwicke has also appeared in a number of big-budget releases such as a starring role in Shadowlands (1993) alongside Anthony Hopkins, Elizabeth (1998), and the all-star romantic comedy Love Actually (2003).

Trivia: Of Anglo-American descent, Malaya-born actor Peter Arne was generally cast as a hissable, thoroughly unregenerate villain. In wartime films, Arne was usually "the enemy," both German and Italian (he reportedly spoke both languages quite well). His roles ranged from Menas in Antony and Cleopatra (1973) to supporting menaces in Blake Edwards' Pink Panther films. Peter Arne was 63 when he was bludgeoned to death in his London apartment, a murder that has remained unsolved; his last appearance in the TV miniseries The Far Pavillions was released posthumously.