Trivia: American actress Paulette Goddard, born Pauline Marion Levy, spent her teen years as a Broadway chorus girl, gaining attention when she was featured reclining on a prop crescent moon in the 1928 Ziegfeld musical Rio Rita. In Hollywood as early as 1929, Goddard reportedly appeared as an extra in several Hal Roach two-reel comedies, making confirmed bit appearances in a handful of these short subjects wearing a blonde wig over her naturally raven-black hair. Continuing as a blonde, she appeared as a "Goldwyn Girl" in the 1932 Eddie Cantor film Kid From Spain, where she was awarded several close-ups. Goddard's career went into full gear when she met Charlie Chaplin, who was looking for an unknown actress to play "The Gamin" in his 1936 film Modern Times. Struck by the actress's breathtaking beauty and natural comic sense, Chaplin not only cast her in the film, but fell in love with her. It is still a matter of contention in some circles as to whether or not Chaplin and Goddard were ever legally married (Chaplin claimed they were; it was his third marriage and her second), but whatever the case, the two lived together throughout the 1930s. Goddard's expert performances in such films as The Young in Heart (1938) and The Cat and the Canary (1939) enabled her to ascend to stardom without Chaplin's sponsorship, but the role she truly craved was that of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 epic Gone With the Wind. Unfortunately, that did not work out, and Vivien Leigh landed the part.After working together in The Great Dictator (1940), Goddard and Chaplin's relationship crumbled; by the mid-1940s she was married to another extremely gifted performer, Burgess Meredith. The actress remained a box-office draw for her home studio Paramount until 1949, when (presumably as a result of a recent flop titled Bride of Vengeance) she received a phone call at home telling her bluntly that her contract was dissolved. Goddard's film appearances in the 1950s were in such demeaning "B" pictures as Vice Squad (1953) and Babes in Baghdad (1953). Still quite beautiful, and possessed of a keener intellect than most movie actors, she retreated to Europe with her fourth (or third?) husband, German novelist Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front). This union was successful, lasting until Remarque's death. Coaxed out of retirement for one made-for-TV movie in 1972 (The Snoop Sisters), Goddard preferred to remain in her lavish Switzerland home for the last two decades of her life.

Trivia: Throaty-voiced, kittenish leading lady Glynis Johns was the daughter of British stage actor Mervyn Johns; she was born while her father and concert-pianist mother were on a tour of South Africa. Enrolled in the London ballet school at age 6, Johns had by age 10 progressed to the point that she was certified to teach ballet. At 12, she made her stage debut in the role of Napoleon's daughter in Saint Helena; at 13, she was cast in the pivotal role of the spiteful schoolgirl in the London production of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. This led to her first film, 1937's South Riding, in which she played another petulant, foot-stamping adolescent. Johns graduated to coquettish leading roles in the 1940s, most famously as the alluring mermaid in Miranda (1946). Her best-known Hollywood assignments include the roles of Maid Jean in Danny Kaye's The Court Jester (1956) and the suffragette Mrs. Banks in Disney's Mary Poppins (1964) (Johns was the only cast member to have the foresight to demand a portion of the royalties for the Poppins soundtrack record). In 1963, she starred in Glynis, a lukewarm TV comedy/mystery series. Eight years later, she won a Tony award for her performance in Broadway's A Little Night Music. Still active into the 1990s, Glynis Johns was recently seen as a belligerent in-law in The Ref (1994) and as a deliciously dotty aunt in While You Were Sleeping (1995).

Trivia: Born Brian Williams, he trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, beginning his professional stage career at age 17; after appearing in many plays over several years he developed into a popular leading man with the Liverpool Repertory and on the West End. In 1929 he came to the U.S. to appear on Broadway, shortly thereafter debuting onscreen in the American production of Charlie's Aunt (1930). He played leads and supporting roles in many British and some Hollywood films, remaining consistently busy onscreen until 1942 and then again from 1946-52. He wrote several plays, sometimes in collaboration with his wife, Margaret Vyner.

Trivia: Elegant and aristocratic British actress Diana Wynyard was on-stage from 1927, but made no films until she was brought "over the pond" to Hollywood in 1932. As Natasha in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), Wynyard managed to make an excellent impression despite the overshadowing presence of three Barrymores -- John, Lionel, and Ethel -- in the cast. It was the (offscreen) rape of Wynyard's character by Rasputin (Lionel) that led an expatriate Russian princess to sue MGM, claiming that Natasha was based on the princess -- which is why all subsequent American films carried the "any resemblance to any persons living or dead" disclaimer. In no danger of assault in her next film, the Oscar-winning Cavalcade, Wynyard played the gentle but strong-willed lady of a proper British household; required to age 30 years in the film, Wynyard was far more convincing in this endeavor than her much-older co-star, Clive Brook, and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. Cavalcade locked Diana Wynyard into Greer Garson-type roles for the rest of her Hollywood career, though she carried such subsequent films as Reunion in Vienna (1933) and One More River (1934) with class and dignity. Returning to England for good in the mid-'30s, Wynyard devoted most of her energies to stage work, with only intermittent film activity. One of her best performances was almost lost to the ages by legal decree: As the beleaguered wife in Gaslight (1940), Ms. Wynyard was superb, but the film was targeted for destruction by MGM when it remade Gaslight (with Ingrid Bergman in Wynyard's role) in 1944; fortunately, a few prints were illegally smuggled out of England and the film is still in existence. Wynyard continued her stage work into the late '50s, playing Gertrude to Paul Scofield's Hamlet and starring in the London productions of such Broadway hits as The Bad Seed and Toys in the Attic. She also made films on a sporadic basis until her final appearance in Island in the Sun (1957). Strangely enough, Diana Wynyard appeared in only one of the films directed by her husband, Carol Reed: Kipps (1941).

Trivia: Actor C. Aubrey Smith was, so far as many American moviegoers were concerned, the very personification of the British Empire. Even so, when young English journalist Alistair Cooke first travelled to Hollywood in the early 1930s to interview Smith, it was not to discuss the actor's four decades in show business, but to wax nostalgic on his athletic career. The son of a London surgeon, Smith played soccer for the Corinthians and cricket for Cambridge. For four years, "Round the Corner Smith" (so named because of his unique playing style) was captain of the Sussex County Cricket Club, playing championship matches throughout the Empire. When time came to choose a "real" vocation, Smith dallied with the notion of following in his dad's footsteps, then worked as a teacher and stockbroker. In 1892, at the age of 29, he finally decided to become an actor (not without family disapproval!), launching his stage career with the A. B. Tappings Stock Company. He made his London debut in 1895, and the following year scored his first significant success as Black Michael in The Prisoner of Zenda; also in 1896, he married Isobel May Wood, a union that endured for over fifty years. His subsequent stage triumphs included Shaw's Pygmalion, in which he succeeded Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree as Professor Henry Higgins. Despite the theatrical community's disdainful attitude towards the "flickers", Smith enthusiastically launched his film career in 1914. He was one of the co-founders of the short-lived but energetic Minerva Film Company, and by 1915 had begun making movies in America. It was his 1928 stage hit Bachelor Father that led to Smith's phenomenally successful career in talking pictures. For 18 years, he was perhaps Hollywood's favorite "professional Englishmen." He was at his best in martinet military roles, most memorably in a brace of 1939 productions: The Sun Never Sets, in which he used a wall-sized map to dutifully mark off the far-flung locations where his progeny were serving the Empire, and The Four Feathers, wherein he encapsulated his generation by crustily declaring "War was war in my day, sir!" Other notable roles in the Smith canon included Jane's father in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), a close-minded aristocrat who turns out to be an out-of-work actor in Bombshell (1933), the intensely loyal Colonel Zapt in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and an outraged murder-victim-to-be in Ten Little Indians (1945). Smith briefly returned to the stage in 1941, and throughout the war years could be seen in roles ranging from single-scene cameos (The Adventures of Mark Twain, Unconquered) to full leads (1945's Scotland Yard Inspector). A recipient of the Order of the British Empire in 1938, he was knighted by King George VI in 1944, largely because of the positive image of Mother England that the actor invariably projected. The undisputed leader of Tinseltown's "British Colony," Smith also organized the Hollywood Cricket Club, taking great pride in the fact that he hadn't missed a weekend match for nearly sixty years. Sir C. Aubrey Smith was still in harness when he died of pneumonia at the age of 85; his last film appearance as Mr. Lawrence in Little Women was released posthumously in 1949.

Trivia: Distinguished British actress Constance Collier began her career as a chorus dancer at the turn of the century. She established herself not only as a leading actress, but as a playwright, producer, director and acting coach. Her film career began with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916); for the next four decades, she would occasionally visit Hollywood's shooting stages, though the theater remained her first choice. Of her talkie appearances, Ms. Collier is perhaps best remembered as the "den mother" of the all-female theatrical boarding house in 1937's Stage Door. All told, Constance Collier devoted over sixty years of her life to the theater and film arts.

Trivia: For a brief period between the late '40s and early '50s, actress Christine Norden was Great Britain's reigning sex goddess. Allegedly discovered in 1947 by filmmaker Sir Alexander Korda while she stood in a theater ticket queue and was signed to a seven-year contract, the ex-dancer and singer was typically cast as a brazen seductress. She won a British National Film Award in 1949 for her performance in Saints and Sinners. In 1952, Norden went to New York to begin working on Broadway. She remained until the 1970s when she returned to London to work on stage, screen, and television. Norden may be the world's only former screen sex goddess to have a mathematical formula named in her honor -- her fifth husband devised the formula.

Trivia: Character actor Michael Ward popped up as a cameo performer in numerous British films of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. He made his first film appearance in Sleeping Car to Trieste (1945).

Trivia: Educated at Switzerland's Fischer Institute, British character actor Michael Medwin was first seen on screen in 1946's Piccadilly Incident. He essayed breezy cockney bits and supporting roles in a number of war films as well as several lighthearted comedies of the Genevieve (1953) variety. With the 1967 "mod" seriocomedy Charlie Bubbles, Medwin switched hats to become a producer; his subsequent productions have included such off-the-track fare as If... (1968) and O Lucky Man (1973) etc. Even while producing, Medwin occasionally kept his hand in the acting game. British TV fans were offered a surfeit of Michael Medwin on the popular sitcoms The Army Game (1957-72) and Shoestring (1979-80).

Trivia: Urbane British leading man Michael Wilding was making a living as a commercial artist when, in 1933, he joined the art department of a London film studio. His good looks and dashing personality did not go unnoticed and soon Wilding embarked upon an acting career. He made his film bow in the Australian Pastorale (1933), then toted up an impressive list of British stage and screen credits. His most memorable screen appearances can be found in Sailors Three (1940), In Which We Serve (1942), Piccadilly Incident (1946), Spring in Park Lane (1947), and Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950). From 1952 through 1957, Wilding was the husband of Elizabeth Taylor. Illness forced Michael Wilding to cut down his film appearances in the late '60s; his last assignment was an uncredited, non-speaking cameo in Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), which co-starred his fourth wife, Margaret Leighton.