Evelyn Prentice

Myrna Loy (Actor) .. Evelyn Prentice

Born: August 02, 1905
Died: December 14, 1993
Birthplace: Radersburg, Montana, United States

Trivia: During the late 1930s, when Clark Gable was named the King of Hollywood, Myrna Loy was elected the Queen. The legendary actress, who started her career as a dancer, moved into silent films and was typecast for a few years as exotic women. Her film titles from those early years include Arrowsmith (1931), Love Me Tonight (1932), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and Manhattan Melodrama (1934), the film that gangster John Dillinger just had to see the night he was killed. Starting in 1934, with The Thin Man, opposite William Powell, she became Hollywood's ideal wife: bright, witty, humorous. She and Powell were often teamed throughout the '30s and '40s, and many of the characters she played were strong, independent, adventurous women. In addition to The Thin Man series, Loy's best appearances included The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Libeled Lady (1936), Wife vs. Secretary (1936), Test Pilot (1938), and Too Hot to Handle (1938). She took a break from filmmaking during WWII to work with the Red Cross, and in her later years she devoted as much time to politics as to acting (among her accomplishments, Loy became the first film star to work with the United Nations). She stands out in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and its sequel Belles on Their Toes (1952). She received an honorary Oscar in 1991, two years before her death.

William Powell (Actor) .. John Prentice

Born: July 29, 1892
Died: March 05, 1984
Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Trivia: Originally planning to become a lawyer, William Powell chose instead to pursue a career as an actor, dropping out of the University of Kansas to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Edward G. Robinson and Joseph Schildkraut. He made his Broadway debut in 1912, and within a few years had attained stardom in urbane, sophisticated roles. The sleek, moustachioed young actor entered films in 1922, playing the first of many villainous roles in John Barrymore's Sherlock Holmes. He finally broke out of the bad guy mode when talkies came in; his clipped, precise speech patterns and authoritative demeanor were ideally suited to such "gentleman detective" roles as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case, the Kennel Murder Case, and others in the Vance series. In 1933 he moved from Warner Bros. to MGM, where he co-starred with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). So well-received was the Powell-Loy screen teaming that the actors were paired together in several subsequent MGM productions, most memorably the delightful Thin Man series and the 1936 blockbuster The Great Ziegfeld, in which Powell played the title character and Loy was cast as Ziegfeld's second wife, Billie Burke. Away from the screen for nearly a year due to a serious illness, Powell returned in 1944, curtailing his film activities thereafter. As he eased into his late fifties he reinvented himself as a character actor, offering superbly etched performances as a lamebrained crooked politician in The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) and the lovably autocratic Clarence Day Sr. in Life With Father (1947), which earned him his third Academy Award nomination (the others were for The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey). After playing Doc in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts, he retired to his lavish, air-conditioned home in Palm Springs, insisting that he'd return to films if the right role came along but he turned down all offers. Married three times, Powell's second wife was actress Carole Lombard, with whom he remained good friends after the divorce, and co-starred with in My Man Godfrey (1936); his third marriage to MGM starlet Diana Lewis was a happy union that lasted from 1940 until Powell's death in 1984. It has been said, however, that the great love of William Powell's life was actress Jean Harlow, to whom he was engaged at the time of her premature death in 1936.

Rosalind Russell (Actor) .. Mrs. Nancy Harrison

Born: June 04, 1908
Died: November 28, 1976
Birthplace: Waterbury, Connecticut, United States

Trivia: A witty and stylish lead actress of stage and screen, Russell tended to play successful career women who were skilled in repartee. She trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then began her stage career in her early '20s. She debuted onscreen in 1934 and immediately had a very busy film career. At first appearing in routine films, in the '40s she began to specialize in light, sophisticated comedies, for which she had a unique talent. In the '50s her career briefly declined and she went to Broadway, where she starred in three successful productions. One of these was Auntie Mame, later made into a film in which she reprised her stage role (1958). She went on to appear in a handful of films before she was struck by crippling arthritis. Known for her charity work, in 1972 she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a special Oscar. Russell received four Academy Award nominations during her career. She was married to producer Frederick Brisson. She authored an autobiography, Life is a Banquet.

Una Merkel (Actor) .. Amy Drexel

Born: December 10, 1903
Died: January 02, 1986

Trivia: Although she is best known for her later work, Una Merkel actually started in film in 1920 as Lillian Gish's stand-in for Way Down East. After a stage career in the 1920s, she returned to films as Ann Rutledge in D. W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930). The vivacious character actress brightened up dozens of films, playing mostly comic roles interspersed with an occasional dramatic part. Films to watch include Dangerous Female (1931); Private Lives (1931); Red-Headed Woman (1932); 42nd Street (1933), the film in which she memorably says of Ginger Rogers' character Anytime Annie: "The only time she ever said no she didn't hear the question;" The Merry Widow (both 1934 and 1952); Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935); Born to Dance (1936); Destry Rides Again (1939), where she and Marlene Dietrich have a frenzied hair-pulling battle over the hapless Mischa Auer; On Borrowed Time (1939); The Bank Dick (1940); Road to Zanzibar (1941); This Is the Army (1943); With a Song in My Heart (1952); and The Parent Trap (1961), among many others. In 1956, she won a Tony Award for The Ponder Heart and in 1961 was nominated for an Academy Award for Summer and Smoke in the role she had originated on the stage.

Harvey Stephens (Actor) .. Lawrence Kennard

Born: August 21, 1901

Isabel Jewell (Actor) .. Judith Wilson

Born: July 19, 1907
Died: April 05, 1972

Trivia: Born and raised on a Wyoming ranch, American actress Isabel Jewell would only rarely be called upon to play a "Western" type during her career. For the most part, Isabel -- who made her screen debut in Blessed Event (1932) -- was typecast as a gum-chewing, brassy urban blonde, or as an empty-headed gun moll. Jewell's three best remembered film performances were in Tale of Two Cities (1935), where she was atypically cast as the pathetic seamstress who is sentenced to the guillotine; Lost Horizon (1937), as the consumptive prostitute who finds a new lease on life when she is whisked away to the land of Shangri-La; and Gone with the Wind (1939), where she appears briefly as "poor white trash" Emmy Slattery. In 1946, Isabel finally got to show off the riding skills she'd accumulated in her youth in Wyoming when she was cast as female gunslinger Belle Starr in Badman's Territory. Denied starring roles because of her height (she was well under five feet), Isabel Jewell worked as a supporting player in films until the '50s and in television until the '60s.

Henry Wadsworth (Actor) .. Chester Wylie

Born: January 01, 1901
Died: January 01, 1974

Trivia: American actor Henry Wadsworth played juvenile roles in films of the late '20s through the 1930s. He received his education at the University of Kentucky and at Carnegie Tech Drama School. He got his start in vaudeville and the legitimate theater. He retired from films in the early '40s and became a union administrator. He was also the president of the AFL's Film Council and helped administer the Motion Picture Health and Welfare Plan.

Edward Brophy (Actor) .. Eddie Delaney

Born: February 27, 1895

Cora Sue Collins (Actor) .. Dorothy Prentice

Born: April 19, 1927

Trivia: Dewey-eyed, pudgy-cheeked child actress Cora Sue Collins made her screen debut at the age of 6. Collins' more intense film roles included young Christina in Greta Garbo's Queen Christina (1933), the out-of-wedlock Pearl in The Scarlet Letter (1934), potential voodoo-sacrifice victim Nancy in Black Moon (1934), and Linda Darnell's character as a child in Blood and Sand (1940). On rare occasions, she was permitted to exhibit her considerable skills as a tap dancer. Collins retired from films at 17, when she married a wealthy Nevada rancher. Though usually comfortably sequestered in her lavish Mexican estate, Cora Sue Collins has occasionally touched base with her film fans at various nostalgia conventions throughout America.

Jessie Ralph (Actor) .. Mrs. Blake

Born: November 05, 1864
Died: May 30, 1944

Trivia: Born in the waning months of the Civil War, Jessie Ralph made her stage debut with a Providence, RI, stock company in 1880. Her extensive Broadway experience ranged from Shakespearean classics to George M. Cohan musicals. She had appeared in films as early as 1915, but did not become a permanent Hollywood resident until 1933. For the most part, Ralph was cast as kindly grandmas, sagacious maids, and stern but loving governesses; her finest screen performances included Peggoty in 1934's David Copperfield and a benign sorceress in 1940's The Blue Bird. Her gift for exuding imperious abrasiveness was amply demonstrated in such films as After the Thin Man (1936), and W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick (1940), appearing in the latter as Fields' gorgon mother-in-law, Mrs. Hermisillio Brunch. Jessie Ralph retired in 1941 after enduring a leg amputation.

Perry Ivins (Actor) .. Dr. Gillette

Born: November 19, 1894
Died: August 22, 1963

Trivia: A slightly built, often mustachioed, supporting actor who usually played professional men (dentists, fingerprint experts, druggists, bookkeepers, etc.), Perry Ivins had been in the original 1924 production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms. He entered films as a dialogue director in 1929 (The Love Parade [1929], The Benson Murder Case [1930]) before embarking on a long career as a bit part player. Among Ivins' more notable roles were the copy editor in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), the assistant home secretary in Charlie Chan in London, and the mysterious but ultimately benign Crenshaw in the serial Devil Dogs of the Air (1937). Ivins' acting career lasted well into the television era and included guest roles on such programs as Gunsmoke and Perry Mason.

Sam Flint (Actor) .. Dr. Lyons

Born: October 19, 1882
Died: October 24, 1980

Trivia: Chances are when a doctor made a house call in a '40s movie, that doctor was portrayed by Sam Flint. Silver-haired, authoritative, and distinguished by an executive-style moustache, Flint entered films in the early '30s after a long stage career. Though his movie roles were usually confined to one or two scenes per picture, Flint was always instantly recognizable in his characterizations of businessmen, bankers, chairmen of the board, politicians, publishers, fathers of the bride--and, as mentioned before, doctors. In addition to his prolific feature-film work, Sam Flint was always welcome in short subjects, appearing in support of everyone from Our Gang to the Three Stooges.

Pat O'Malley (Actor) .. Det. Pat Thompson

Born: September 03, 1891
Died: March 21, 1966

Trivia: Vaudeville and stage performer Pat O'Malley was a mere lad of seventeen (or thereabouts) when he inaugurated his film career at the Edison company in 1907. A dependable "collar-ad" leading man possessed of an athlete's physique, O'Malley rose to stardom at the Kalem Studios during the teens. From 1918 to 1927, O'Malley hopscotched around Hollywood, appearing at Universal, First National, Vitagraph and Paramount; he starred in war films (Heart of Humanity [1918]), westerns (The Virginian [1922]) and adaptations of bestsellers (Brothers Under the Skin [1922]). His talkie debut in 1929's Alibi would seem to have heralded a thriving sound career, but O'Malley had aged rather suddenly, and could no longer pass as a romantic lead. He worked in some 400 films in bits and supporting roles, frequently showing up in "reunion" films in the company of his fellow silent screen veterans (Hollywood Boulevard [1936], and A Little Bit of Heaven [1941]). O'Malley remained "on call" into the early '60s for such TV shows as The Twilight Zone and such films as The Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Pat O'Malley's film credits are often confused with those of Irish comedian/dialectian J. Pat O'Malley (1901-1985) and Australian performer John P. O'Malley (1916-1959).

J. P. McGowan (Actor) .. Det. Mack Clark

Born: February 24, 1880
Died: March 26, 1952

Trivia: A titan in the field of low-budget movie-making, Australian-born stage actor J.P. McGowan enjoyed his first major success directing his wife Helen Holmes in the immensely popular and lucrative Hazards of Helen series, in which he also often played the villain. The McGowans left the producer, Kalem, after 30-odd installments to produce their own railroad series and serials under the Signal banner. The venture was reasonably successful until the distributor, Mutual, went out of business in 1919, after which the couple went into an immediate decline professionally and personally. On his own, McGowan spent the 1920s producing, directing, and acting in some of the cheapest professional films ever released, usually budgeting his little action melodramas for less money than MGM would spend on a newspaper add and economizing by incorporating plenty of stock footage that at least offered the illusion of grandeur. A character actor and bit part player in the 1930s, McGowan made his final screen appearance in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939).

Jack Mulhall (Actor) .. Gregory

Born: October 07, 1887
Died: June 01, 1979

Trivia: Born John Mulhall, he sang with a traveling show as a boy and later toured in stock and vaudeville. He moved to New York to study art, and while there appeared in several silent films. In 1914 he moved to Los Angeles and soon became a leading man in films, starring in numerous productions opposite major actresses; for a time he earned $3000 a week, but lost his considerable fortune in the first year of the Great Depression. In the early sound era he continued to play leads for a time, mostly in routine films and serials; in the mid '30s he moved into supporting roles, and continued a fairly steady screen career through the mid '40s, after which he appeared in only a few more films.

Wilbur Mack (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: January 01, 1873
Died: March 13, 1964

Trivia: Gaunt, hollow-eyed character actor Wilbur Mack spent his first thirty years in show business as a vaudeville headliner. With his first wife Constance Purdy he formed the team of Mack and Purdy, and with second wife Nella Walker he trod the boards as Mack and Walker. In films from 1925 to 1964, he essayed innumerable bits and extra roles, usually playing doormen or cops. Mack also appeared in a number of "Bowery Boys" comedies.

Garry Owen (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: February 18, 1902
Died: June 01, 1951

Trivia: The son of an actress, Garry Owen first appeared on-stage with his mother in vaudeville. Owen went on to perform in such Broadway productions as Square Crooks and Miss Manhattan. In films from 1933, Owen was occasionally seen in such sizeable roles as private-eye Paul Drake in the 1936 Perry Mason movie Case of the Black Cat. For the most part, however, he played character bits, most memorably in the films of Frank Capra; in Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), for example, he plays the monumentally impatient taxi driver who closes the picture with the exclamation, "I'm not a cab driver, I'm a coffee pot!" In addition to his feature-film work, Garry Owen showed up in scores of short subjects for Hal Roach and MGM.

Phil Tead (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: June 09, 1974

Trivia: Alternately billed as Phil Tead and Philips Tead, this slight, jug-eared character actor could easily have been taken for a young Walter Brennan (indeed, he has been in some film histories). After playing newspaperman Wilson in the 1931 version of The Front Page, he was thereafter typecast as a nosy reporter. He also portrayed several fast-talking radio commentators, most memorably in the Marx Brothers' Horse Feathers (1932) and Harold Lloyd's The Milky Way (1936). Adopting a doddering comic quaintness in the 1950s, Phil Tead was occasionally seen as the absent-minded Professor Pepperwinkle on TV's Superman series.

Herman Bing (Actor) .. Klein, the Antique Dealer

Born: March 30, 1889
Died: January 09, 1947

Trivia: Along with such immortals as Percy Helton, Franklin Pangborn and Grady Sutton, Herman Bing is a member of that Valhalla of film character actors. Educated in his native Germany for a musical career, Bing went into vaudeville at 16, and soon after found work as a circus clown. Entering films in the mid-1920s, Bing apprenticed under the great director F. W. Murnau. He accompanied Murnau to Hollywood in 1927, where he worked as a scripter and assistant director on the classic silent drama Sunrise. After several more years assisting the likes of John Ford and Frank Borzage, Bing established himself as a character actor. Nearly always cast as a comic waiter, excitable musician, apoplectic stage manager or self-important official, Bing became famous for his wild-eyed facial expressions and his thick, "R"-rolling Teutonic accent. When the sort of broad comedy for which Herman Bing was renowned became passe in the postwar era, work opportunities dried up; despondent over his fading career, Bing shot himself at the age of 57.

Samuel S. Hinds (Actor) .. Newton

Born: April 04, 1875
Died: October 13, 1948

Trivia: Raspy-voiced, distinguished-looking actor Samuel S. Hinds was born into a wealthy Brooklyn family. Well-educated at such institutions as Philips Academy and Harvard, Hinds became a New York lawyer. He moved to California in the 1920s, where he developed an interest in theatre and became one of the founders of the Pasadena Playhouse. A full-time actor by the early 1930s, Hinds entered films in 1932. Of his nearly 150 screen appearances, several stand out, notably his portrayal of Bela Lugosi's torture victim in The Raven (1935), the dying John Vincey in She (1935), the crooked political boss in Destry Rides Again (1939) and the doctor father of Lew Ayres in MGM's Dr. Kildare series. He frequently co-starred in the films of James Stewart, playing Stewart's eccentric future father-in-law in You Can't Take It With You (1938) and the actor's banker dad in the holiday perennial It's a Wonderful Life (1946). One of Samuel S. Hinds' final film roles was an uncredited supporting part in the 1948 James Stewart vehicle Call Northside 777.

Georgia Caine (Actor) .. Mrs. Newton

Born: October 30, 1876
Died: April 04, 1964

Trivia: Georgia Caine is best remembered today by film buffs for her work in most of Preston Sturges's classic films for Paramount Pictures, as well as the movies he subsequently made independently and at 20th Century Fox. She was practically born on stage, the daughter of George Caine and the former Jennie Darragh, both of whom were Shakespearean actors. As an infant and toddler, she was kept in the company of her parents as they toured the United States. Bitten by the theatrical bug, she left school before the age of 17 to become an actress and she started out in Shakespearean repertory. Caine quickly shifted over to musical comedy, however, and became a favorite of George M. Cohan, appearing in his plays Mary, The O'Brien Girls, and The Silver Swan, among others. In 1914, she also starred in a stage production of The Merry Widow in London. Caine was a favorite subject of theater columnists during the teens and '20s. By the end of that decade, however, after 30 years on stage, her star had begun to fade, and that was when Hollywood beckoned. The advent of talking pictures suddenly created a demand for actors and actresses who could handle spoken dialogue. She moved to the film Mecca at the outset of the 1930s, and Caine worked in more than 60 films over the next 20 years, usually playing mothers, aunts, and older neighbors. She also occasionally broke out of that mold to do something strikingly different, most notably in Camille (1937), in which she portrayed a streetwalker. Starting with Christmas in July in 1940, she was a regular member of Preston Sturges' stock company of players (even portraying a bearded lady in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock), appearing in most of his movies right up to his directorial swan song, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

John Hyams (Actor) .. Mr. Humphreys

Born: June 06, 1869
Died: December 10, 1940

Trivia: The husband of actress Leila McIntyre and father of 1930s' ingenue Leila Hyams, mustachioed John Hyams played scores of bit roles from 1927 to 1940, often opposite his wife at MGM, where, incidentally, his daughter was under contract. Hyams was the pawnbroker in Babbitt (1934), the director in A Night at the Ritz (1935), a lawyer in The Longest Night (1936), and a judge in A Day at the Races (1937).

Howard Hickman (Actor) .. Mr. Whitlock

Born: February 09, 1880
Died: December 31, 1949

Trivia: Stately stage leading man Howard C. Hickman entered films through the auspices of producer Thomas H. Ince. Hickman starred as Count Ferdinand, the Messianic protagonist of Ince's Civilization (1916). He co-starred with his actress wife Bessie Barriscale in several productions before returning to the theatre. In the talkie era, he accepted innumerable featured and bit roles as doctors, judges, ministers, senators, and executives. Generations of filmgoers will remember Howard Hickman for his brief appearance as John Wilkes, father of Ashley Wilkes and father-in-law of Melanie Hamilton, in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Sam McDaniel (Actor) .. Porter

Born: January 28, 1886
Died: September 24, 1962

Trivia: The older brother of actresses Etta and Hattie McDaniel, Sam McDaniel began his stage career as a clog dancer with a Denver minstrel show. Later on, he co-starred with his brother Otis in another minstrel troupe, this one managed by his father Henry. Sam and his sister Etta moved to Hollywood during the talkie revolution, securing the sort of bit roles usually reserved for black actors at that time. He earned his professional nickname "Deacon" when he appeared as the "Doleful Deacon" on The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour, a Los Angeles radio program. During this period, Sam encouraged his sister Hattie to come westward and give Hollywood a try; he even arranged Hattie's first radio and nightclub singing jobs. McDaniel continued playing minor movie roles doormen, porters, butlers, janitors while Hattie ascended to stardom, and an Academy Award, as "Mammy" in Gone with the Wind (1939). During the 1950s, McDaniel played a recurring role on TV's Amos 'N' Andy Show.

Billy Gilbert (Actor) .. Barney, the Cafe Owner

Born: September 12, 1894
Died: September 23, 1971

Trivia: Tall, rotund, popular comedic supporting actor Billy Gilbert is best remembered for his ability to sneeze on cue. The son of opera singers, he was 12 when he started performing. Later, in vaudeville and burlesque, he perfected a suspenseful sneezing routine; this became his trademark as a screen actor (he provided the voice of "Sneezy," one of the Seven Dwarfs, in Disney's feature cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, [1938]). Gilbert appeared in some silent films, then began a busier screen career during the sound era, eventually appearing in some 200 feature films and shorts where he was usually cast in light character roles as comic relief to straight performers and as support for major comedians, notably Laurel and Hardy. He also frequently had accented roles, including Field Marshall Herring in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). In the late '40s, Gilbert directed two Broadway shows; he also wrote a play, Buttrio Square, which was produced in New York in 1952. Billy Gilbert rarely appeared in films after the early '50s.

Crauford Kent (Actor) .. Guest

Born: January 01, 1881
Died: May 14, 1953

Trivia: Elegant British leading man Crauford Kent launched his American film career in 1915. Kent's more notable movie roles included Lolius in Mary Garden's 1917 filmization of Faust, and plot-motivating producer Hal Bentley in both the 1925 and 1929 screen versions of the George M. Cohan/Earl Derr Biggers stage hit Seven Keys to Baldpate. As the district attorney in the all-talking version of The Unholy Three (1930), it was Kent who exposed the true gender of "sweet little old lady" Lon Chaney Sr. Thereafter, Kent played featured roles as doctor, military officers, "other men" and the like in both features and 2-reel comedies. Busy right up to his death at the age of 72, Crauford Kent continued to essay such supporting parts as the Astrologer in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949).

Clarence Wilson (Actor) .. Public Defender

Born: November 17, 1876

Mariska Aldrich (Actor) .. Matron

Born: January 01, 1880
Died: January 01, 1965

Francis Mcdonald (Actor) .. Charles, the Chauffeur

Born: August 22, 1891
Died: September 18, 1968

Trivia: Blessed with matinee idol looks, an athletic physique, and a generous supply of talent, Francis J. McDonald entered films in 1912 after brief stage experience. A popular leading man of the teen years, McDonald segued into villainous characterizations in the 1920s, notably as the title character in Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926). He remained busy during the talkie era, primarily as a mustachioed heavy in "B" westerns and a featured player in the films of Cecil B. DeMille. Francis J. McDonald was at one time the husband of the "ever popular" Mae Busch.

Jack Mack (Actor) .. Albert, the Butler

Milton Owen (Actor) .. Waiter

Richard Tucker (Actor) .. Mr. Dillingham

Born: June 04, 1884
Died: December 05, 1942

Trivia: Prosperous-looking American actor Richard Tucker went from the stage to the Edison Company in 1913, where he played romantic leads before the cameras. Even in his youth, the tall, regal Tucker exuded the air of corporate success, and was best suited to roles as bankers and stockbrokers. After World War I service, Tucker resumed his film career as a character man. In talkies, the newly mustachioed, grey-haired Tucker was seen in innumerable small authoritative roles. His two best-known assignments from this period were in the 1936 serial Flash Gordon, in which he played Flash's scientist father; and in the 1932 Laurel and Hardy feature Pack Up Your Troubles, wherein Tucker was the bank president who turned out to be Mr. Smith, the grandfather of the orphan girl Stan and Ollie were protecting. Actor Richard Tucker's hundreds of film credits are often erronously attributed to latter-day Metropolitan Opera star Richard Tucker, who was born several years after the earlier Tucker had already established himself.

Frank Conroy (Actor) .. District Attorney Farley

Born: October 14, 1890
Died: February 24, 1964

Trivia: The embodiment of corporate dignity, British actor Frank Conroy nonetheless gave the impression of being a long-trusted executive who was about to abscond with the company funds. During his Broadway career, Conroy frequently achieved above-the-title billing; he never quite managed this in Hollywood, but neither was he ever without work. Conroy made his first film, Royal Family of Broadway, in 1930; uncharacteristically, he plays the ardent suitor of the leading lady (Ina Claire), and very nearly wins the lady before she decides that her stage career comes first. Conroy's respectable veneer allowed him to play many a "hidden killer" in movie mysteries like Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935). He left films periodically for more varied assignments on stage; in 1939, he originated the role of dying millionaire Horace Giddens in Lillian Hellmans The Little Foxes. Returning to Hollywood in the 1940s, it was back to authoritative villainy, notably his role in The Ox-Bow Incident as a martinet ex-military officer who rigidly supervises a lynching, then kills himself when he realizes he's executed three innocent men. More benign roles came Conroy's way in All My Sons (1948), in which he plays an industrialist serving a prison sentence while the guilty man (Edward G. Robinson) walks free; and in Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), wherein Conroy has a lengthy unbilled role as the American diplomat who listens to the demands of outer-space visitor Michael Rennie. Frank Conroy remained a top character player until his retirement in 1960, usually honored with "guest star" billing on the many TV anthologies of the era.

Sherry Hall (Actor) .. Court Clerk

Born: August 08, 1892

Trivia: American actor Sherry Hall popped up in innumerable bit roles between 1932 and 1951. Hall was typically cast as reporters, bartenders, court clerks, and occasional pianists. He was particularly busy at 20th Century-Fox in the 1940s, nearly always in microscopic parts. Sherry Hall's larger screen assignments included the "TV Scientist" in Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Robert Buelle in The Shadow Returns (1946), John Gilvray in The Prowler (1951), and Mr. Manners in The Well, a 1951 film populated almost exclusively by small-part players.

Stanley Andrews (Actor) .. Judge

Born: August 28, 1891
Died: June 23, 1969

Trivia: Actor Stanley Andrews moved from the stage to the movies in the mid 1930s, where at first he was typed in steadfast, authoritative roles. The tall, mustachioed Adrews became familiar to regular moviegoers in a string of performances as ship's captains, doctors, executives, military officials and construction supervisors. By the early 1950s, Andrews had broadened his range to include grizzled old western prospectors and ageing sheriffs. This led to his most lasting contribution to the entertainment world: the role of the Old Ranger on the long-running syndicated TV series Death Valley Days. Beginning in 1952, Andrews introduced each DVD episode, doing double duty as commercial pitchman for 20 Mule Team Borax; he also became a goodwill ambassador for the program and its sponsor, showing up at county fairs, supermarket openings and charity telethons. Stanley Andrews continued to portray the Old Ranger until 1963, when the US Borax company decided to alter its corporate image with a younger spokesperson -- a 51-year-old "sprout" named Ronald Reagan.

Matty Roubert (Actor) .. Newsboy

Born: January 22, 1906
Died: May 17, 1973

Trivia: A child star of the early silent era, Matty Roubert was advertised as the "Universal Boy." Often appearing in melodramas produced and/or directed by his real-life father, William L. Roubert, Matty's popularity remained high through the 1910s but waned as he grew into young adulthood. Continuing in films well into the sound era, Matty Roubert made something of a specialty playing newsboys or messengers, usually unbilled. He left the screen in the late '40s.

Ruth Warren (Actor) .. Miss Meade, John Prentice's Secretary

Trivia: From 1930 to 1934, American actress Ruth Warren was a contractee at Fox Studios. A slight woman with wide eyes and pursed lips, Warren essayed sizeable character roles in such Fox films as Lightnin' (1930), Six Cylinder Love (1931), and Zoo in Budapest (1933). She played bit roles from 1935 until her retirement in 1958. Laurel and Hardy buffs will remember Ruth Warren as the gossip-dispensing Mrs. Addlequist in Our Relations (1936).

Bob Perry (Actor) .. Juryman

Born: January 01, 1879
Died: January 08, 1962

Trivia: Character actor Bob Perry made his film debut as Tuxedo George in 1928's Me Gangster. For the rest of his Hollywood career, Perry popped up in brief roles as bartenders, croupiers, referees, guards, and the like. Many of his characters were on the wrong side of the law, and few of them spoke when shooting or slugging would do. Bob Perry kept busy in films until 1949, when he retired at the reported age of 70.

Larry Steers (Actor) .. Diner/Extra

Born: February 14, 1888
Died: February 15, 1951

Trivia: A tall, dark-haired, often elegant silent screen actor, Larry Steers had appeared with the famous Bush Temple Stock Company and opposite matinee idol Robert Edeson prior to making his film debut with Paramount in 1917. Extremely busy in the 1920s, Steers usually played professional men, doctors, lawyers, and politicians, typecasting that continued well into the sound era, albeit in much diminished circumstances. By the mid-'30s, the veteran actor had become a Hollywood dress extra.

Edward S. Brophy (Actor) .. Eddie Delaney

Born: March 27, 1895
Died: May 30, 1960

Trivia: Born in New York City and educated at the University of Virginia, comic actor Edward Brophy entered films as a small part player in 1919. After a few years, he opted for the more financially secure production end of the business, though he never abandoned acting altogether. While working as property master for the Buster Keaton unit at MGM, Brophy was lured before the cameras for a memorable sequence in The Cameraman (1928) in which he and Buster both try to undress in a tiny wardrobe closet. Keaton saw to it that Brophy was prominently cast in two of the famed comedian's talking pictures, and by 1934 Brophy was once again acting full-time. Using his popping eyes, high pitched voiced and balding head to his best advantage, Brophy scored in role after role as funny gangsters and dyspeptic fight managers (he was less effective in such serious parts as the crazed killer in the 1935 horror film Mad Love). In 1940, Brophy entered the realm of screen immortality as the voice of Timothy Mouse in Walt Disney's feature-length cartoon Dumbo (1940). Curtailing his activities in the 1950s, he did his last work for director John Ford. Brophy died during production of Ford's Two Rode Together (1961); according to some sources, the actor's few completed scenes remain in the final release version of that popular western.

Clarence H. Wilson (Actor) .. Public Defender

Born: November 17, 1876
Died: October 05, 1941

Trivia: Evidently weaned on a diet of pickles and vinegar, wizened screen sourpuss Clarence H. Wilson grimaced and glowered his way through over 100 films from 1920 until his death in 1941. Clarence Hummel Wilson was born in Cincinnati, OH. He began his 46-year acting career in Philadelphia in 1895, in a stock company, and spent years touring the United States and Canada in various road shows. On stage in New York, he later played supporting roles to such stars as James K. Hackett, Virginia Harned, Marguerite Clark, Amelia Bingham, Charles Cherry, and Wilton Lackaye. He entered motion pictures in 1920 and ultimately moved to Hollywood. With the coming of sound, his bald, mustachioed, stoop-shouldered persona, topped by a distinctive and annoying high, whining voice, and coupled with his broad approach to acting, made him an ideal villain. Wilson, whose slightly squinty yet hovering gaze seemed to invoke bad fortune upon whomever it landed, played dozens of irascible judges, taciturn coroners, impatient landlords, flat-footed process servers, angry school superintendents, miserly businessmen, and cold-hearted orphanage officials. Whenever he smiled, which wasn't often, one could almost hear the creak of underused facial muscles. Though he generally played bits, he was occasionally afforded such larger roles as the drunken sideshow-impresario father of heroine Helen Mack in Son of Kong (1933), with his pathetic trained animal act. He was the perfect over-the-top villain, a nastier male equivalent to Margaret Hamilton, and indispensable to comedy films, in which he served brilliantly as the humorless foil of such funmakers as W.C. Fields, Wheeler & Woolsey, Charley Chase, and especially the Our Gang kids. Although he appeared in such major films as the 1931 version of The Front Page (playing the corrupt sheriff) and the aforementioned Son of Kong, Wilson's most prominent screen roles for modern audiences were in a pair of short subjects in the Our Gang series of films: first as Mr. Crutch, the greedy orphanage manager who is undone when a pair of adults get transformed into children by a magical lamp in Shrimps for a Day (1934); and, at the other end of the series' history, as nasty schoolboard chairman Alonzo K. Pratt in Come Back, Miss Pipps (1941), his penultimate film release.

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