Three on a Ticket

Hugh Beaumont (Actor) .. Michael Shayne

Born: February 16, 1909
Died: May 14, 1982
Birthplace: Lawrence, Kansas, United States

Trivia: American actor Hugh Beaumont originally studied for the clergy, remaining busy as a lay minister throughout his acting career. After stage experience, Beaumont arrived in Hollywood in 1940. While most of the draftable leading men were away during World War II, Beaumont enjoyed a brief spell of stardom; his faint resemblance to actor Lloyd Nolan enabled Beaumont to inherit Nolan's screen role of detective Michael Shayne in a series of inexpensive programmers. After the war, Beaumont returned to character parts, contributing memorable moments to such films as The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947). He also played quite a few villains during this period; fans of Beaumont's later television work are in for a jolt as they watch the affable Hugh connive and murder his way through 1948's Money Madness. During the early 1950s, Beaumont frequently popped up in uncredited featured roles at 20th Century-Fox, most prominently in Phone Call From a Stranger (1952) as the doctor killed by drunken driver Michael Rennie, and in The Revolt of Mamie Stover as the Honolulu cop who advises goodtime girl Jane Russell to get out of town. In 1957, Beaumont was cast as philosophy-dispensing suburban dad Ward Cleaver on the popular sitcom Leave It to Beaver (he replaced Casey Adams, who played Ward in the 1955 pilot). While he despaired that the series might ruin his chances for good film roles, Beaumont remained with Beaver until its cancellation in 1963. Hugh Beaumont retired from show business in the late 1960s, launching a second career as a successful Christmas tree farmer.

Cheryl Walker (Actor) .. Phyllis Hamilton

Born: August 01, 1922
Died: October 24, 1971

Trivia: The 1938 Tournament of Roses Queen, model Cheryl Walker began her film career at Paramount that same year. After several nondescript roles, Walker briefly changed her name to Sharon Lee and starred in the low-budget exploitationer Secrets of a Model (1939), a fact that tended to be ignored in her later studio publicity. Her best film role was as Eileen, the "GI's ideal" in the all-star Stage Door Canteen (1943). Cheryl Walker retired from moviemaking at the end of the 1940s.

Paul Bryar (Actor) .. Tim Rourke

Born: January 01, 1910

Trivia: In films from 1938's Tenth Avenue Kid, American actor Paul Bryar remained a durable character player for over thirty years, usually in police uniform. Among his screen credits were Follow Me Quietly (1949), Dangerous When Wet (1952), Inside Detroit (1955) and The Killer is Loose (1956). He also showed up in one serial, Republic's Spy Smasher (1942), and was a regular in Hollywood's B factories of the 1940s (he made thirteen pictures at PRC Studios alone, three of them "Michael Shayne" mysteries). Television took advantage of Bryar's talents in a number of guest spots, including the unsold pilot The Family Kovack (1974). He had somewhat better job security as a regular on the 1965 dramatic series The Long Hot Summer, playing Sheriff Harve Anders, though he and everyone else in the cast (from Edmond O'Brien to Wayne Rogers) were back haunting the casting offices when the series was cancelled after 26 episodes. One of Paul Bryar's last screen appearances was as one of the card players (with future star Sam Elliott) in the opening scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

Ralph Dunn (Actor) .. Inspector Pete Rafferty

Born: January 01, 1902
Died: February 19, 1968

Trivia: Ralph Dunn used his burly body and rich, theatrical voice to good effect in hundreds of minor feature-film roles and supporting appearances in two-reel comedies. He came to Hollywood during the early talkie era, beginning his film career with 1932's The Crowd Roars. A huge man with a withering glare, Dunn was an ideal "opposite" for short, bumbling comedians like Lou Costello in the 1944 Abbott and Costello comedy In Society, Dunn plays the weeping pedestrian who explains that he doesn't want to go to Beagle Street because that's where a two-ton safe fell on his head and killed him. A frequent visitor to the Columbia short subjects unit, Dunn shows up in the Three Stooges comedy Mummie's Dummies as the ancient Egyptian swindled at the Stooges' used chariot lot. Ralph Dunn kept busy into the '60s, appearing in such TV series as Kitty Foyle and such films as Black Like Me (1964).

Louise Currie (Actor) .. Helen Brinstead

Born: January 01, 1921

Trivia: Actress Louise Currie was signed to an RKO contract in 1940 and spent her year at RKO in such minor roles as the coed chum of Helen Parrish in You'll Find Out (1940) and a bespectacled reporter in the closing scenes of 1941's Citizen Kane. After parting company with RKO, she appeared in a brace of Republic serials, The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1940) and The Masked Marvel (1943); played opposite El Brendel and Harry Langdon at Columbia's two-reel comedy unit; and co-starred in such Monogram extravaganzas as Voodoo Man (1944), in which she was reunited with her You'll Find Out colleague Bela Lugosi. Retiring from films in 1949, Louise Currie became a successful clothing designer, touring the world for business and pleasure in the company of her husband, noted importer and antique dealer John Good.

Gavin Gordon (Actor) .. Pearson

Born: January 01, 1901
Died: April 07, 1983

Trivia: Tall, hawk-nosed leading man Gavin Gordon was one of many stage actors drafted for the movies in the first years of sound. Stardom seemed within his grasp when he was cast opposite Greta Garbo in her second talkie, Romance (1930). Unfortunately, though his voice was clear and resonant, Gordon came off as stiff and soulless as a romantic lead. He would fare better in such secondary parts as the sanctimonious missionary fiancé of Barbara Stanwyck in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), and the imperious Lord Byron in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). During the 1950s, Gavin Gordon was most active at Paramount Pictures, playing small character roles in such films as White Christmas (1954), Knock on Wood (1954) and The Ten Commandments (1955).

Charles Quigley (Actor) .. Kurt Leroy

Born: February 12, 1906
Died: March 05, 1964

Trivia: In films from 1933, handsome, curly haired leading man Charles Quigley was signed by Columbia Pictures in 1937. Here he was groomed as a leading man in the studio's B-picture product, appearing in such features as Girls Can Play and The Shadow, opposite another young hopeful named Rita Hayworth. In the end, however, it was Hayworth who clicked with the public and Quigley's option was dropped in 1938. He recovered somewhat with a starring role in the 1939 Republic serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939), then gradually drifted into character roles. Out of films for nearly 15 years, Charles Quigley died of cirrhosis at the age of 55.

Douglas Fowley (Actor) .. Mace Morgan

Born: May 30, 1911
Died: May 21, 1998

Trivia: Born and raised in the Greenwich Village section of New York, Douglas Fowley did his first acting while attending St. Francis Xavier Military Academy. A stage actor and night club singer/dancer during the regular theatrical seasons, Fowley took such jobs as athletic coach and shipping clerk during summer layoff. He made his first film, The Mad Game, in 1933. Thanks to his somewhat foreboding facial features, Fowley was usually cast as a gangster, especially in the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Laurel and Hardy "B" films churned out by 20th Century-Fox in the late 1930s and early 1940s. One of his few romantic leading roles could be found in the 1942 Hal Roach "streamliner" The Devil with Hitler. While at MGM in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Fowley essayed many roles both large and small, the best of which was the terminally neurotic movie director in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Fowley actually did sit in the director's chair for one best-forgotten programmer, 1960's Macumba Love, which he also produced. On television, Fowley made sporadic appearances as Doc Holliday in the weekly series Wyatt Earp (1955-61). In the mid-1960s, Fowley grew his whiskers long and switched to portraying Gabby Hayes-style old codgers in TV shows like Pistols and Petticoats and Detective School: One Flight Up, and movies like Homebodies (1974) and North Avenue Irregulars (1979); during this period, the actor changed his on-screen billing to Douglas V. Fowley.

Noel Cravat (Actor) .. Trigger

Born: January 01, 1910
Died: January 01, 1960

Charles King (Actor) .. Drunk

Born: February 21, 1895
Died: May 07, 1957

Trivia: Though never officially billed as Charles "Blackie" King, American actor Charlie King played so many "Blackies" in B-westerns that one is astounded to discover that it wasn't his middle name. Drifting into films in the '20s, the squat, stubble-chinned, mustachioed King picked up minor roles as chauffeurs, interns and bridegrooms in the two-reel comedies of such performers as Our Gang, the Three Stooges and Leon Errol. It was during the B-western boom of the early talkie era that King really came into his own, showing up in virtually every other poverty-row oater as a gang boss, lynch-mob leader or sinister henchman. Evidently King felt the day was wasted if he wasn't dynamiting a dam, setting fire to homesteaders' shacks, or engaging the hero in a fistic battle. Outtakes of these westerns have revealed that this "human monster" was actually shy and soft-spoken, never reverting to profanity when blowing his lines (more than can be said for some of the "clean-living" western heroes of the era). In fact, King's private life was governed by his formidable wife, who had spies posted at the studio to make certain that King came home right away with his paycheck without any side trips to bars or gaming tables. Gaining a beard and excess weight in the late '40s, King began appearing less frequently as villains and more often as roly-poly comedy relief. King literally died with his boots on, suffering a heart attack after shooting a 1957 episode of Gunsmoke -- in which he played a corpse! William K. Everson's 1964 coffee-table book The Bad Guys was affectionately dedicated to the scurrilously prolific Charles "Blackie" King.

Brooks Benedict (Actor) .. Jim Lacy

Born: February 06, 1896
Died: January 01, 1968

Trivia: Slick-haired utility actor Brooks Benedict held down several odd jobs in Hollywood before turning to acting in the early 1920s. Benedict's first role of note was "The Campus Cad" in Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925), one of several supporting assignments for producer/star Lloyd. In 1926, he shared a memorable scene on a bus with another legendary comedian, Harry Langdon, in The Strong Man. Except for such sizeable early-talkie roles as George Mason in 1932's Girl Crazy, Brooks Benedict was largely confined to bits and extra work until his retirement in the mid-1950s.

Trudy Marshall (Actor)

Born: February 14, 1922
Died: May 23, 2004

Trivia: A former New York model, Trudy Marshall came to Hollywood in 1942 when signed to a 20th Century-Fox contract. Few of her roles at Fox were of much consequence; among the actress' more pleasant memories from this period was her ingenue stint in the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Dancing Masters (1943). After her Fox years, Marshall was best represented as shadowy "other women," notably in the 1947 Red Skelton vehicle The Fuller Brush Man. Trudy Marshall is the mother of actress Deborah Raffin.

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