Trivia: Large and muscular at an early age, American actor Dick Miller entered the Navy during World War II while still a teenager, distinguishing himself as a boxer. He attended CCNY, Columbia University and New York University, supporting himself with semi-pro football jobs, radio DJ gigs and as a psychological assistant at Bellevue. At age 22, he was host of a Manhattan-based TV chat show, Midnight Snack. Stage and movie work followed, and Miller joined the stock company/entourage of low-budget auteur Roger Corman. His first great Corman role was as the hyperthyroid salesman in Not of this Earth (1956); a handful of rock-and-roll quickies followed before Miller received his first sci-fi lead in War of the Satellites (1958). In Corman's Bucket of Blood (1959), Miller originated the role of Walter Paisley, the nebbishy sociopath who "creates" avant-garde sculpture by murdering his subjects and dipping them in plaster. He was then cast in the immortal Little Shop of Horrors (1960); Miller not only makes a terrific entrance by buying a bouquet of flowers and then eating them, but also narrates the picture. Miller stayed with Corman into the 1970s, at which time the director was in charge of New World Pictures. Seldom making a liveable income in films, Miller remained an unknown entity so far as the "big" studios were concerned -- but his teenaged fans were legion, and he was besieged on the streets and in public places for autographs. When the adolescent science-fiction fans of the 1950s became the directors of the 1980s, Miller began receiving some of the best roles of his career. In Joe Dante's Gremlins (1984), Miller was paired with his Little Shop costar Jackie Joseph, as a rural couple whose house is bulldozed by a group of hostile gremlins. Miller and Joseph returned in the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1989), in which the actor heroically helped squash the gremlins' invasion of New York. Miller's most Pirandellian role was as the "decency league" activist in Matinee (1993) who is actually an actor in the employ of William Castle-like showman John Goodman. Directed again by longtime Miller fan Dante, Matinee contains a wonderful "in" joke wherein Miller is identified as a fraud via his photograph in a Famous Monsters of Filmland-type fanzine -- the very sort of publication which canonized Miller throughout the 1970s.

Trivia: As the above question marks in the birthplace slot indicate, American actress Barboura Morris was the Mystery Woman of low-budget pictures. Little is known of her life before she graduated from UCLA and began her acting career as Barboura O'Neill, putting in her first professional time at Northern California's Stumptown stock company. After honing her skills under the tutelage of coach Jeff Corey, Barboura did some TV work in the '50s, mostly in dramatic anthologies. Roger Corman, who'd been in Barboura's class under Jeff Corey, convinced the actress to take the leading role in Corman's Sorority Girl (1957), in which she was still billed as Barboura O'Neill in a cast including such stalwart Corman players as Susan Cabot and Dick Miller. In American-International's Machine Gun Kelly (1958), Barboura acted opposite Charles Bronson, while in yet another A-I epic she was one of the beleaguered Nordic damsels in Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1959). The Wasp Woman (1959) contained perhaps Barbara's best performance during her long tenure at American-International, as the faithful secretary to the sting-happy title character. The actress continued taking TV roles inbetween her B-picture stints, and was seen in a flashy part as a glamorous amnesiac on a 1959 episode of The Thin Man. Evidently, Barboura Morris' final role was a bit in 1969's The Dunwich Horror; she died in 1975 at the age of 43.

Trivia: Muscular leading man Ed Nelson started out as a member of quickie-filmmaker Roger Corman's stock company, appearing in such drive-in fodder as Hot Rod Girl (1956), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and Cry Baby Killer. In these and other low-budgeters of the late 1950s, Nelson not only starred, but doubled on the technical crew: he was one of several production assistants portraying the title crustacean in The Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956), and designed and operated the parasite props in 1958's The Brain Eaters, which he also produced. Eventually outgrowing such things, Nelson rose to TV stardom as Dr. Michael Rossi on the prime time soap opera Peyton Place, which ran from 1964 through 1969. He later starred as Ward Fuller on The Silent Force (1970) and as Dr. Michael Wise in Doctor's Private Lives (1979). In 1969, Nelson hosted a daily, syndicated talk show, which he was ultimately forced to give up when he decided to enter politics ("conflict of interests" and "equal time" were still considerations back then). He played President Truman several times, including the 1980 TV movie Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb, in the 1992 Brooke Shields flick Brenda Starr and onstage in Give 'Em Hell, Harry. Nelson died in 2014 at age 85.

Trivia: Judy Bamber was one of a bevy of buxom, blonde-haired actresses to make the trip to Hollywood in the wake of Marilyn Monroe's rise to fame in the early '50s. Born in Ann Arbor, MI, she became interested in modeling as a teenager in high school, as a motivation to lose weight and improve her posture. By the time she entered Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn she was already making money as a fur model for a local manufacturer and later worked for department stores modeling hats and gloves. After moving to Detroit, she began making appearances on local television, even making it onto The Soupy Sales Show, and she met Frank Robinson, a television announcer whom she later married. He went to Hollywood to produce a movie, but the couple didn't find much success in either of their chosen careers for a long time. Robinson ended up hawking Vega-Matics and other gimmicky products on latenight television, while Bamber did low-level modeling jobs. Luckily, she had chosen to work a trade show where her photo was taken and reprinted in the Los Angeles Times; one thing led to another and she ended up with an agent. She began studying acting with James Stacy, the young aspiring leading man, who also helped her get a contract at Warner Bros. Alas, unbeknownst to Bamber, her agent had been busy getting her a contract with American International Pictures. Both studios ended up dropping her over the mistake, but she did get a movie out of it, the low-budget thriller Dragstrip Girl, directed by Edward L. Cahn. After this misstep, she went off on a USO tour of Korea and returned to a modeling career. By this time, she was rated a choice pin-up with her impressive physique and started doing a lot of appearances on the covers of the suggestive and overheated men's magazines of the pre-Playboy variety, which were still very common in the late '50s. She occasionally did one-off film roles, appearing in low-budget movies such as Up in Smoke, the Bowery Boys take-off on Damn Yankees, playing a gangster's moll. Her most memorable film role came about when director/producer Roger Corman hired Bamber to work in A Bucket of Blood, one of his trio of horror-comedy satires (the others were Creature From the Haunted Sea and Little Shop of Horrors). She also got an increasing amount of acting work on television throughout the late '50s, including several episodes of Bachelor Father, the comedy series starring her romantic idol John Forsythe, as well as installments of GE Theater, Suspicion, Dobie Gillis, Hawaiian Eye, The Untouchables, Grand Jury, and M-Squad. She appeared in comedy sketches, as well as reading commercial copy, with actor/game show host George Fenneman on the quiz show Anybody Can Play. By this time, she was in considerable demand for commercials and was one of the original Hertz girls. Bamber is probably best remembered on film by horror movie buffs, not just for A Bucket of Blood but also for her final film appearance, as the female lead in Joseph Mascelli's 1964 chiller Monstrosity (aka The Atomic Brain). She kept doing modeling work throughout her busiest years on television; like Mary Tyler Moore and other young actress/models of the period, she appeared on numerous LP covers, her physique adorning the packaging of music that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with her image. She ended her career following the birth of her son.

Trivia: American actor Bert Convy excelled in baseball while attending North Hollywood High School and was signed upon graduation by the Philadelphia Phillies. After two years' stagnation in the Phillies' farm system, Convy gave up baseball and attended UCLA, where he became a member of a briefly popular singing group called the Cheers. A 1959 stint with the songs-and-laughs Billy Barnes Revue led to small TV and movie parts, notably a brief bit as a murder victim in the Roger Corman "C minus" horror classic Bucket of Blood (1959). Convy's star ascended on Broadway in the 1960s, when he originated two memorable musical comedy roles: Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof, and Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret. He was a popular variety-show guest star in that decade, but despite starring appearances in several TV pilots he was unable to get his own prime time series. However, thanks to his ingratiating personality and smooth speaking voice, Convy developed into the perfect daytime game show host, headlining such quizzers of the 1970s and 1980s as Tattletales (which won him an Emmy), Super Password, The Third Degree and Win, Lose or Draw. This last program was co-produced by Convy's close friend Burt Reynolds, who had previously arranged for Convy to obtain good secondary roles in several of Reynolds' films. Convy finally cracked prime time TV with a continuing role on the 1972 mystery series The Snoop Sisters; four years later, The Late Summer-Early Fall Bert Convy Show was briefly telecast by CBS, with Convy presiding over a motley crew of sketch comics. From 1977 to 1986, Convy was a frequent guest star on the long-running TV anthology series The Love Boat, seemingly popping up in every other episode when the series is rerun today. Convy co-starred in the very short-lived TV sitcom It's Not Easy in 1983, and hosted the 1984 Candid Camera clone People Do the Craziest Things. In 1989, the actor learned that he had a brain tumor, and in 1990 suffered a series of severe strokes. One year later, Bert Convy was dead at the age of 58.

Trivia: Producer and screenwriter Alex Gottlieb penned many scripts for major Hollywood studios between 1938 and the late 1960s. He got his start writing for such radio stars as Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson and George Jessel. Gottlieb started producing in the 1940s. In addition to film work, he also wrote a few plays including Susan Slept Here, which became a film in 1954. He later became a distinguished television producer behind such classic shows as The Bob Hope Chrysler Theater, The Donna Reed Show and The Smothers Brothers Show.

Trivia: Corpulent actor/director, best known as a featured player in numerous Roger Corman-produced and directed features of the late '50s. VeSota's earliest appearances are in key supporting roles in such films as Hugo Haas' B-thriller Bait (1954), but he began appearing in Corman's movies very early, with Apache Woman (1955), where his large girth and scowling visage made him a natural villain in pictures like Daddy-O (1958). Apart from Corman's movies, VeSota also played in such odd low-budget films as John Parker's Dementia (1955, also known as Daughter of Horror) and directed the B-crime thriller classic The Female Jungle (1955), which plays like a Jim Thompson nightmare and marked the big-screen debut of Jayne Mansfield. He moved back into the director's chair for The Brain Eaters (1958), a suprisingly effective (though wholly unauthorized) adaptation of Robert Heinleins The Puppet Masters. During the '60s, VeSota was most visible as an actor in television, especially in westerns, and he continued to play small parts in exploitation pictures such as the surf-and-sand songfest The Girls on the Beach.