Trivia: A trained painter, Australian-born Rod Taylor switched to acting in his early twenties, toting up Australian stage credits before making his first Aussie film, The Stuart Exposition, in 1951. A villainous stint as Israel Hand in the 1954 Australian/U.S. production Long John Silver gave evidence that Taylor might be able to handle leading roles. However, he was still among the supporting ranks in his first American film, The Virgin Queen (1955). Signed to a nonexclusive contract by MGM in 1957, Taylor was cast in predominantly American roles, and accordingly managed to submerge his Australian accent in favor of a neutral "mid-Atlantic" cadence; even when playing an Englishman in 1960's The Time Machine, he spoke with barely a trace of a discernable accent. His film career peaked in the early to mid 1960s; during the same period he starred in the TV series Hong Kong (1961), the first of several weekly television stints (other series included Bearcats, The Oregon Trail, Masquerade and Outlaws). He was so long associated with Hollywood that, upon returning to Australia to appear in the 1977 film The Picture Show Man, Taylor was cast as an American. In his later career, Taylor thrived in character roles as ageing, but still virile, outdoorsmen, appearing in television shows like The Oregon Trail and Outlaws. He had recurring roles on Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger before mostly retiring from acting. In 2009, director Quentin Tarantino lured him out of retirement with the chance to play Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds. Taylor died in 2015, at age 84.

Trivia: Blonde actress/model Tippi Hedren lists the year of her birth as 1935, which means that she would have been 14 or 15 when she appeared fleetingly in her first film, The Petty Girl (1950). Hedren did not resurface on the movie scene again until 1963, when she was "discovered" by Alfred Hitchcock. The official story is that Hitchcock wanted to mold Hedren into a new Grace Kelly; rumors persist that his interest in the actress went way beyond professional, and that he made a few clumsy advances towards her on the set. Whatever the case, Hedren starred in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). She was criticized for being too impassive in the former film and too expressive in the latter, though it isn't fair to pick on her for the shortcomings of the script and direction. Hedren was under contract not to Hitchcock but to his home studio of Universal; thus, she was obliged to appear in a 1963 Kraft Suspense Theatre episode and in director Charlie Chaplin's A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), acquitting herself nicely in both instances. She curtailed her film appearances in the late 1960s when she married her second husband, Noel Marshall. The Marshalls then proceeded to pour 11 years' work (and $17 million!) into Roar (1981), a film based on their own real-life efforts on behalf of the African wildlife preservation movement. Even three decades after the fact, Hedren can't quite shake her earlier relationship with Alfred Hitchcock: she played a murder victim in the 1990 TV remake of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, and starred in the made-for-cable The Birds II: Land's End (1994). Hedren remained active in small film and television roles throughout the 2000s, and appeared in the well-received documentaries The Elephant in the Living Room and Carol Channing: Larger Than Life in 2011. Hedren co-starred with Jess Weixler and Jesse Eisenberg in Free Samples (2012), an independent comedy following a cynical law-student whose brief stint driving an ice cream truck marks a very important transition in her life. Tippi Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith.

Trivia: Glamorous, down-to-earth leading lady Suzanne Pleshette was the daughter of the managing director of Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. She attended Performing Arts High School, Finch College, and Syracuse University. After some TV experience, she made her film debut in Jerry Lewis' The Geisha Boy (1958), then went on to replace Anne Bancroft as star of Broadway's The Miracle Worker. During her years at Warner Bros., Pleshette successfully avoided simpering ingénue roles, holding out for parts requiring beyond-her-years emotional depth. Her flair for comedy was delightfully tapped during her subsequent tenure with Disney in such films as The Ugly Dachsund (1967) and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1968). Pleshette's film work, however, has never struck so responsive a chord with the fans as her television work, notably her portrayal of Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) -- a role that she briefly and hilariously reprised on the very last episode of Newhart's subsequent series, Newhart. She then starred in several short-lived TV series, including Maggie Briggs (1984), Bridges to Cross (1986), and The Boys Are Back (1994), and was also a ubiquitous presence in such made-for-TV movies as Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean. And yes: Incredible as it may seem, Suzanne Pleshette was once married to Troy Donahue. Pleshette died of respiratory failure in January 2008.

Trivia: Possessing a great dignity tempered by the humorous sparkle in her clear blue eyes, Jessica Tandy was among the grand dames of stage and screen. Like many of her peers, her distinguished acting career stretched back to the early 1930s, though rather than make her name on film, Tandy won much of her fame with her work on the stage.Born in London in 1909, Tandy studied drama at the Ben Greet Academy of Acting. She was sixteen when she made her professional stage debut in London, and just twenty-one when she took her first bow on Broadway. In 1932, Tandy made her first film appearance in Indiscretions of Eve (1932), but due to her extremely busy stage schedule did not appear in her second film, Murder in the Family, until 1938. In 1942, she married Canadian stage and screen actor Hume Cronyn (she had previously been married to actor Jack Hawkins from 1932 until 1940), and they remained professional and personal partners until Tandy's death in 1994.The couple moved to the States shortly after their marriage, and made their Hollywood debut together in Fred Zinnemann's The Seventh Cross (1944). For a long time, Tandy had her greatest success on the stage, beginning with her Tony-winning portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the first production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. Despite the acclaim she received, she was passed by in favor of Vivien Leigh for the play's screen version. Tandy continued to work on the stage and appeared in a few more films through 1951, after which her film career became sporadic. One of her rare appearances was in Hitchcock's The Birds in 1963.It was after she won her second Tony while appearing with Cronyn in The Gin Game (1978) that Tandy's film career was renewed with a supporting role in John Schlesinger's Honky Tonk Freeway in 1981. The following year she appeared in The World According to Garp, and then starred in Merchant Ivory's The Bostonians in 1984. In the meantime, she won her third Tony for her work in 1983's Foxfire (she would win an Emmy in 1987 for the same role in the play's televised version). Tandy's film career then experienced a complete resuscitation in 1985, when she and Cronyn co-starred in Ron Howard's Cocoon; four years later, the then-80-year-old Tandy won an Oscar for her feisty performance as a Southern lady who befriends her black chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. She went on to have notable roles in films like Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 and 1992's Used People. Before succumbing to ovarian cancer in September of 1994, Tandy completed the made-for-TV movie To Dance With the White Dog, in which she starred with Cronyn, and Nobody's Fool, the latter of which was dedicated to her memory.

Trivia: An actress with the kind of versatile beauty that has allowed her to effortlessly alternate between earthy and glamorous roles, Veronica Cartwright's steel-blue eyes have a strange way of piercing through the screen and transcending their two-dimensional restraints. Having successfully made the transition from child actor to seasoned screen veteran, Cartwright continued a career which allowed her to explore roles that ran the gamut from straight drama to chilling horror. A native of Bristol, England, Cartwright's family emigrated to the United States when she was still very young. Following a series of modeling jobs and print ads, the aspiring actress became a familiar face to television viewers as the "Kellogg's Girl" in a series of breakfast cereal commercials. She made her screen debut in the 1958 war drama In Love and War, and, in the years that followed, alternated between film and TV work with roles in such features as The Children's Hour (1961) and The Birds (1963), in addition to a turn as Lumpy's sister on the small-screen classic Leave It to Beaver. From 1964-1968, the actress endeared herself to television viewers as Jemima Boone on the popular Daniel Boone series. Although the transition from adorable child star to serious adult actor has been a serious stumbling block for generations of young stars, Cartwright skillfully avoided this pitfall with a series of memorable roles in the 1970s. Playing opposite such heavies as Richard Dreyfuss in Inserts (1975) and Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Cartwright was well on her way to crafting an enduring film career. A role as the ill-fated navigator in the 1979 sci-fi horror classic Alien found her taking part in what would become one of the most lucrative and prolific franchises in cinema history, and a memorable performance in the 1983 space program drama The Right Stuff (in which she worked again with Body Snatchers director Philip Kaufman) helped to sustain her career through the '80s. Subsequent roles in Flight of the Navigator (1986) and Wisdom (1987) offered little in the way of dramatic depth, though Cartwright's winning performance in George Miller's The Witches of Eastwick (1987) found her nearly stealing the show from stars Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Despite the fact that Cartwright kicked off the '90s with a memorable turn in the popular weekly drama L.A. Law, the roles which followed were mostly comprised of thankless appearances in made-for-TV features and forgettable horror sequels. Although she remained busy, her parts just weren't as rich as they had been. Despite the dry spell, however, Cartwright was nominated for an Emmy for three memorable appearances in the popular small-screen chiller The X Files. The following decade found her edging back toward memorable film work with appearances in In the Bedroom (2001), Scary Movie 2 (2001), and Just Married (2003). After facing off against a cat-munching alien in the 2002 short Mackenheim, Cartwright essayed a substantial role in Richard Day's 2004 comedy Straight Jacket. She played the wife of famous sexual researcher Alfred Kinsey in the 2004 biopic of the man, and appeared in the 2007 sci-fi film The Invasion. In 2009 she returned to familiar ground with a part in the small-screen adaptation Eastwick, and she landed a major part in the 2011 thriller InSight.

Trivia: The daughter of actor-manager Samuel Rupert Woods and actress Lillie Roberts, Ethel Griffies began her own stage career at the age of 3. Griffies was 21 when she finally made her London debut in 1899, and 46 when she made her first Broadway appearance in Havoc (1924). Discounting a tentative stab at filmmaking in 1917, she made her movie bow in 1930, repeating her stage role in Old English (1930). Habitually cast as a crotchety old lady with the proverbial golden heart, she alternated between bits and prominently featured roles for the next 35 years. Her larger parts included Grace Poole in both the 1935 and 1944 versions of Jane Eyre, and the vituperous matron who accuses Tippi Hedren of being a harbinger of doom in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). Every so often, she'd take a sabbatical from film work to concentrate on the stage; she made her last Broadway appearance in 1967, at which time she was England's oldest working actress. Presumably at the invitation of fellow Briton Arthur Treacher, Ethel Griffies was a frequent guest on TV's Merv Griffin Show in the late 1960s, never failing to bring down the house with her wickedly witty comments on her 80 years in show business.

Trivia: Ruth Shoecraft was born in Michigan and raised in Ohio, where her father served as a county sheriff. At 20, Shoecraft attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but put her theatrical aspirations on the back burner when she married a Florida widower named Patrick John McDevitt. When her husband died in 1934, Shoecraft returned to the stage asRuth McDevitt, first in community theatre, then on Broadway and in radio. She made her first film in 1951, but for the most part steered clear of Hollywood, preferring to appear in such Manhattan-based plays as The Solid Gold Cadillac, Picnic, The Best Man and Absence of a Cello. McDevitt's entree into weekly television was on the classic early-1950s Wally Cox sitcom Mr. Peepers, in which she played Wally's mom. Her next series stint was as rifle-wielding Grandma Hanks in the short-lived 1967 western comedy Pistols and Petticoats. During the 1960s, she returned to films, usually playing a dotty little old lady with more on the ball than people suspected. Still going strong in the early 1970s, Shoecraft played recurring roles on the TV series All in the Family and Kolchak. Ruth McDevitt made her last appearance at age 80 in the made-for-TV feature One of My Wives is Missing (1976).

Trivia: University of Oklahoma alumnus Lonny Chapman inaugurated his professional acting career in 1948. While co-starring in the Broadway production of Come Back Little Sheba, Chapman arranged for his college chum Dennis Weaver to understudy for him. Weaver went on to TV fame as Chester on the Western series Gunsmoke, while Chapman prospered as a film character actor, playing such roles as Roy in East of Eden (1955), Rock in Baby Doll (1957), and Deke Carter in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). On TV, Lonny Chapman starred as private eye Jeff Prior in the 1958 summer-replacement series The Investigator, and was featured as another detective, Frank Malloy, in the 1965 courtroom weekly For the People (1965).

Trivia: Gravel-voiced, granite-faced stage actor Charles McGraw made his first film The Moon is Down in 1943. At first it seemed as though McGraw would spend his movie career languishing in villainy, but while working at RKO in the late 1940s-early 1950s, the actor developed into an unorthodox but fascinating leading man. His shining hour (actually 72 minutes) was the role of the embittered detective assigned to protect mob witness Marie Windsor in the 1952 noir classic The Narrow Margin. McGraw continued being cast in the raffish-hero mold on television, essaying the lead in the 1954 syndicated series Adventures of Falcon and assuming the Bogartesque role of café owner Rick Blaine in the 1955 weekly TV adaptation of Casablanca (1955) (his last regular TV work was the supporting part of Captain Hughes on the 1971 Henry Fonda starrer The Smith Family). Active until the mid-1970s, Charles McGraw growled and scowled his way through such choice character roles as gladiator trainer Marcellus in Spartacus (1960), Sebastian Sholes in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), and The Preacher in the cult favorite A Boy and His Dog (1975).

Trivia: Trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse, Elizabeth Wilson made her first Broadway appearance as Christine Schoenwalder in the original 1953 production of William Inge's Picnic. Christine Schoenwalder served as Wilson's entrée into films when Picnic was transferred to the Big Screen in 1956. She continued racking up such impressive Broadway credits as Desk Set and The Tunnel of Love throughout the fifties. During the next two decades, Wilson found her particular niche in uptight maternal roles, notably such characters as Marjorie Newquist in the stage and screen versions of Jules Feiffer's Little Murders and Harriet in Joseph Papp's production of Stick and Bones, which earned her an Emmy. She was a favorite of director Mike Nichols, who cast her in The Graduate (1967, as Benjamin Braddock's mother), Catch 22 (1970) and Day of the Dolphin (1973). On television, Elizabeth Wilson had regular roles in such series as East Side/West Side (1963) Dark Shadows (1966-71, as Mrs. Hopewell) and Doc (1975). In 1980, she played office snitch Roz Keith in 9 to 5 and later played the main antagonist in The Addams Family (1991). Wilson continued to work in film and TV movies in her later years, playing the Van Doren matriarch in Quiz Show (1994) and Sara Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012). Wilson died in 2015, at age 94.

Trivia: American actor Malcolm Atterbury may have been allowed more versatility on stage, but so far as TV was concerned he was the quintessential grouchy grandfather and/or frontier snake-oil peddler. Atterbury was in fact cast in the latter capacity twice by that haven of middle-aged character players The Twilight Zone. He was the purveyor of an elixir which induced invulnerability in 1959's "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" and a 19th century huckster who nearly sets a town on fire in "No Time Like the Past" (1963). Atterbury enjoyed steadier work as the supposedly dying owner of a pickle factory in the 1973 sitcom Thicker Than Water, and as Ronny Cox's grandfather on the 1974 Waltons clone Apple's Way. Malcolm Atterbury's best-known film role was one for which he received no screen credit: he was the friendly stranger who pointed out the crop-duster to Cary Grant in North By Northwest (1959), observing ominously that the plane was "dustin' where they're aren't any crops."

Trivia: New York-based stage actor Joe Mantell made his 1949 film debut as a newsboy in Undercover Man. Four years later, Mantell rose to prominence by way of a catchphrase: as Angie in the original 1953 TV production of Paddy Chayefsky's Marty, the actor immortalized the Bronx-bachelor mantra "So waddya wanna do tonight, Marty?" That question was still on his lips when he repeated the role in the 1955 film version of Marty, earning an Academy Award nomination in the process. He went on to more conventional film and TV assignments, playing a surrogate Dean Martin to Jerry Lewis in The Sad Sack (1957) and a traditional next door neighbor on the weekly sitcom Pete and Gladys (1961). He showed up in several filmed TV anthologies of the 1950s and 1960s, most memorably as the literally two-faced protagonist in the 1960 Twilight Zone episode Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room. Hitchcock addicts will remember Mantell as the Travelling Salesman in the 1963 feature film The Birds. The best of Joe Mantell's latter-day film roles was Lawrence Walsh, partner and confidante to private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) in Chinatown; it was Walsh who uttered the film's cryptic closing line "C'mon, Jake. It's....Chinatown." Joe Mantell repeated his Lawrence Walsh characterization in the 1990 Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes.

Trivia: Wacky comic actor Doodles Weaver started appearing in films in the late '30s, usually playing country-bumpkin bits. He rose to fame as a musician/comedian with the Spike Jones Orchestra, regaling audiences with his double-talk renditions of such tunes as "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" and "The Whiffenpoof Song." His most popular routine was his mile-a-minute parody of an overly excited sports announcer ("And the winnerrrrrrrr....Bei-del-baum!!!!). So valuable was Weaver to Jones' aggregation that Doodles was the only member of the group who was allowed to drink while on tour. This indulgence, alas, proved to be Weaver's undoing; though he'd scaled the heights as a radio and TV star in the 1940s and 1950s, Doodles had lost most of his comic expertise by the 1960s thanks to his fondness for the bottle. A bitter, broken man in his last years, Weaver died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 71. Doodles Weaver was the brother of TV executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, and the uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver.

Trivia: Alfred Hitchcock was the most well-known director to the general public, by virtue of both his many thrillers and his appearances on television in his own series from the mid-'50s through the early '60s. Probably more than any other filmmaker, his name evokes instant expectations on the part of audiences: at least two or three great chills (and a few more good ones), some striking black comedy, and an eccentric characterization or two in every one of the director's movies.Originally trained at a technical school, Hitchcock gravitated to movies through art courses and advertising, and by the mid-'20s he was making his first films. He had his first major success in 1926 with The Lodger, a thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. While he worked in a multitude of genres over the next six years, he found his greatest acceptance working with thrillers. His early work with these, including Blackmail (1929) and Murder (1930), seem primitive by modern standards, but have many of the essential elements of Hitchcock's subsequent successes, even if they are presented in technically rudimentary terms. Hitchcock came to international attention in the mid- to late '30s with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). By the end of the 1930s, having gone as far as the British film industry could take him, he signed a contract with David O. Selznick and came to America.From the outset, with the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940) and the topical anti-Nazi thrillers Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Saboteur (1942), Hitchcock was one of Hollywood's "money" directors whose mere presence on a marquee attracted audiences. Although his relationship with Selznick was stormy, he created several fine and notable features while working for the producer, either directly for Selznick or on loan to RKO and Universal, including Spellbound (1945), probably the most romantic of Hitchcock's movies; Notorious (1946); and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), considered by many to be his most unsettling film.In 1948, after leaving Selznick, Hitchcock went through a fallow period, in which he experimented with new techniques and made his first independent production, Rope; but he found little success. In the early and mid-'50s, he returned to form with the thrillers Strangers on a Train (1951), which was remade in 1987 by Danny DeVito as Throw Momma From the Train; Dial M for Murder (1954), which was among the few successful 3-D movies; and Rear Window (1954). By the mid-'50s, Hitchcock's persona became the basis for the television anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which ran for eight seasons (although he only directed, or even participated as producer, in a mere handful of the shows). His films of the late '50s became more personal and daring, particularly The Trouble With Harry (1955) and Vertigo (1958), in which the dark side of romantic obsession was explored in startling detail. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and all were phenomenally popular -- The Birds, in particular, managed to set a new record for its first network television showing in the mid-'60s.By then, however, Hitchcock's films had slipped seriously at the box office. Both Marnie (1964) and Torn Curtain (1966) suffered from major casting problems, and the script of Torn Curtain was terribly unfocused. The director was also hurt by the sudden departure of composer Bernard Herrmann (who had scored every Hitchcock's movie since 1957) during the making of Torn Curtain, as Herrmann's music had become a key element of the success of Hitchcock's films. Of his final three movies, only Frenzy (1972), which marked his return to British thrillers after 30 years, was successful, although his last film, Family Plot (1976), has achieved some respect from cult audiences. In the early '80s, several years after his death in 1980, Hitchcock's box-office appeal was once again displayed with the re-release of Rope, The Trouble With Harry, his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo, all of which had been withheld from distribution for several years, but which earned millions of dollars in new theatrical revenues.

Trivia: Karl Swenson was one of the busiest performers in the so-called golden days of network radio. Swenson played the leading role in the seriocomic daily serial Lorenzo Jones, and was also heard on Our Gal Sunday as Lord Henry, the heroine's "wealthy and titled Englishman" husband. He carried over his daytime-drama activities into television, playing Walter Manning in the 1954 video version of radio's Portia Faces Life. From 1958 onward, Swenson was seen in many small roles in a number of big films: Judgment of Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), and The Birds (1963). One of his more sizeable movie assignments was the voice of Merlin in the 1963 Disney animated feature The Sword in the Stone. One of his last roles was the recurring part of Mr. Hansen on TV's Little House on the Prairie. Karl Swenson was married to actress Joan Tompkins.

Trivia: Very early in his stage career, Richard Deacon was advised by Helen Hayes to abandon all hopes of becoming a leading man: instead, she encouraged him to aggressively pursue a career as a character actor. Tall, bald, bespectacled and bass-voiced since high school, Deacon heeded Ms. Hayes' advice, and managed to survive in show business far longer than many of the "perfect" leading men who were his contemporaries. Usually cast as a glaring sourpuss or humorless bureaucrat, Deacon was a valuable and highly regarded supporting-cast commodity in such films as Desiree (1954), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Kiss Them For Me (1957), The Young Philadelphians (1959) and The King's Pirate (1967), among many others. Virtually every major star who worked with Deacon took time out to compliment him on his skills: among his biggest admirers were Lou Costello, Jack Benny and Cary Grant. Even busier on television than in films, Richard Deacon had the distinction of appearing regularly on two concurrently produced sitcoms of the early 1960s: he was pompous suburbanite Fred Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver, and the long-suffering Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Deacon also co-starred as Kaye Ballard's husband on the weekly TV comedy The Mothers-in-Law (1968), and enjoyed a rare leading role on the 1964 Twilight Zone installment "The Brain Center at Whipples." In his last decade, Richard Deacon hosted a TV program on microwave cookery, and published a companion book on the subject.

Trivia: Character actor Bill Quinn specialized in playing wise or fatherly roles on stage, screen, and television. A native of New York City, Quinn was five when he became a professional vaudevillian. After many years on stage, he joined Orson Welles' Mercury Playhouse radio troupe. Quinn made his film debut with a small supporting role in the circus drama The Flying Fontaines (1959). His film career continued steadily through the mid-'70s, then slowed down to about a film every two or three years. He made his final big-screen appearance playing the father of Dr. McCoy in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. He appeared numerous times on television. Between 1958 and 1963, he played bartender Sweeney on The Rifleman and in All in the Family and its spin-off, Archie Bunker's Place, Quinn played barfly Mr. Van Ranesleer. His other TV credits include guest star appearances in series, miniseries, and made-for-TV movies.

Trivia: At age 15, was discovered by Broadway producer Jed Harris. Made her film debut with a bit part in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). Was the first American soap star to have her wax figure in London's Madame Tussaud's Museum. Received two Daytime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1991 and 1992 for her portrayal of Sally Spectra on The Bold and the Beautiful. Appeared in concerts with Bold and the Beautiful castmates in Holland and released a pop single in Europe.