Trivia: In the first ten years of his life, Raymond Burr moved from town to town with his mother, a single parent who supported her little family by playing the organ in movie houses and churches. An unusually large child, he was able to land odd jobs that would normally go to adults. He worked as a ranch hand, a traveling tinted-photograph salesman, a Forest service fire guard, and a property agent in China, where his mother had briefly resettled. At 19, he made the acquaintance of film director Anatole Litvak, who arranged for Burr to get a job at a Toronto summer-stock theater. This led to a stint with a touring English rep company; one of his co-workers, Annette Sutherland, became his first wife. After a brief stint as a nightclub singer in Paris, Burr studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and took adult education courses at Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Chunking. His first New York theatrical break was in the 1943 play Duke in Darkness. That same year, his wife Sutherland was killed in the same plane crash that took the life of actor Leslie Howard. Distraught after the death of his wife, Burr joined the Navy, served two years, then returned to America in the company of his four-year-old son, Michael Evan Burr (Michael would die of leukemia in 1953). Told by Hollywood agents that he was overweight for movies, the 340-pound Burr spent a torturous six months living on 750 calories per day. Emerging at a trim 210 pounds, he landed his first film role, an unbilled bit as Claudette Colbert's dancing partner in Without Reservations (1946). It was in San Quentin (1946), his next film, that Burr found his true metier, as a brooding villain. He spent the next ten years specializing in heavies, menacing everyone from the Marx Brothers (1949's Love Happy) to Clark Gable (1950's Key to the City) to Montgomery Clift (1951's A Place in the Sun) to Natalie Wood (1954's A Cry in the Night). His most celebrated assignments during this period included the role of melancholy wife murderer Lars Thorwald in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) and reporter Steve Martin in the English-language scenes of the Japanese monster rally Godzilla (1956), a characterization he'd repeat three decades later in Godzilla 1985. While he worked steadily on radio and television, Burr seemed a poor prospect for series stardom, especially after being rejected for the role of Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke on the grounds that his voice was too big. In 1957, he was tested for the role of district attorney Hamilton Burger in the upcoming TV series Perry Mason. Tired of playing unpleasant secondary roles, Burr agreed to read for Burger only if he was also given a shot at the leading character. Producer Gail Patrick Jackson, who'd been courting such big names as William Holden, Fred MacMurray, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., agreed to humor Burr by permitting him to test for both Burger and Perry Mason. Upon viewing Burr's test for the latter role, Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner jumped up, pointed at the screen, and cried "That's him!" Burr was cast as Mason on the spot, remaining with the role until the series' cancellation in 1966 and winning three Emmies along the way. Though famous for his intense powers of concentration during working hours -- he didn't simply play Perry Mason, he immersed himself in the role -- Burr nonetheless found time to indulge in endless on-set practical jokes, many of these directed at his co-star and beloved friend, actress Barbara Hale. Less than a year after Mason's demise, Burr was back at work as the wheelchair-bound protagonist of the weekly detective series Ironside, which ran from 1967 to 1975. His later projects included the short-lived TVer Kingston Confidential (1976), a sparkling cameo in Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982), and 26 two-hour Perry Mason specials, lensed between 1986 and 1993. Burr was one of the most liked and highly respected men in Hollywood. Fiercely devoted to his friends and co-workers, Burr would threaten to walk off the set whenever one of his associates was treated in a less than chivalrous manner by the producers or the network. Burr also devoted innumerable hours to charitable and humanitarian works, including his personally financed one-man tours of Korean and Vietnamese army bases, his support of two dozen foster children, and his generous financial contributions to the population of the 4,000-acre Fiji island of Naitauba, which he partly owned. Despite his unbounded generosity and genuine love of people, Burr was an intensely private person. After his divorce from his second wife and the death from cancer of his third, Burr remained a bachelor from 1955 until his death. Stricken by kidney cancer late in 1992, he insisted upon maintaining his usual hectic pace, filming one last Mason TV movie and taking an extended trip to Europe. In his last weeks, Burr refused to see anyone but his closest friends, throwing "farewell" parties to keep their spirits up. Forty-eight hours after telling his longtime friend and business partner Robert Benevides, "If I lie down, I'll die," 76-year-old Raymond Burr did just that -- dying as he'd lived, on his own terms.

Trivia: According to her Rockford, Illinois, high-school yearbook, Barbara Hale hoped to make a career for herself as a commercial artist. Instead, she found herself posing for artists as a professional model. This led to a movie contract at RKO Radio, where she worked her way up from "B"s like The Falcon in Hollywood (1945) to such top-of-the-bill attractions as A Likely Story (1947) and The Boy With Green Hair (1949). She continued to enjoy star billing at Columbia, where among other films she essayed the title role in Lorna Doone (1952). Her popularity dipped a bit in the mid-1950s, but she regained her following in the Emmy-winning role of super-efficient legal secretary Della Street on the Perry Mason TV series. She played Della on a weekly basis from 1957 through 1966, and later appeared in the irregularly scheduled Perry Mason two-hour TV movies of the 1980s and 1990s. The widow of movie leading man Bill Williams, Barbara Hale was the mother of actor/director William Katt. Hale died in 2017, at age 94.

Trivia: Child actress Luana Patten was discovered by Walt Disney in 1946, when she was eight years old. Patten was prominently featured in Disney's Song of the South (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and So Dear to My Heart (1948), then left films to finish schooling. Back in Hollywood in 1956, she was the nominal female lead in Disney's Johnny Tremain (1957), but her adult career never took hold. Amidst long periods of inactivity and several forgettable projects, she made her last appearance for Disney in 1966, playing a very minor role in Follow Me, Boys (1966). From 1960 to 1964, Patten was married to actor John Smith. Long retired, Luana Patten died of respiratory failure at the age of 57.

Trivia: Sandy-haired, 6'1" leading man Will Hutchins established his reputation with "aw, shucks," country bumpkin roles -- even though he was born in a suburb of Los Angeles, won a Shakespearean festival Best Actor award while still in high school, and specialized in Greek drama at Pomona College. After military service, he took cinema classes at U.C.L.A., learning virtually every technical aspect of filmmaking. Discovered by TV producer Albert McCreery, he was signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1956. The following year he was cast as the title character in the TV Western Sugarfoot, playing laconic, easygoing frontier lawyer Tom "Sugarfoot" Brewster (so named because he was "one grade lower than a tenderfoot") from 1957 through 1960. He continued appearing in guest roles on TV until his next series stint as Dagwood Bumstead in the short-lived 1968 revival of Blondie. Eventually Will Hutchins left films to write poetry and pursue a second career as a circus clown.

Trivia: A professional actor since his teens, Gene Evans made his first film appearance in 1947's Under Colorado Skies. Evans' gritty, no-nonsense approach to his craft attracted the attention of like-minded director Sam Fuller, who cast the actor in several of his 1950s film projects. Many consider Evans' portrayal as the grim, born-survivor sergeant in Fuller's The Steel Helmet (1951) to be not only the actor's best performance, but also one of the best-ever characterizations in any war film. Active in films until 1984, Gene Evans also co-starred in the TV series My Friend Flicka (1956), Matt Helm (1975) and Spencer's Pilots (1976).

Trivia: Red-haired character-actor Michael Gough was brought to Hollywood in 1948 after 14 years on Broadway. Gough's burgeoning film career was cut short when he was blacklisted on the basis of alleged communist ties; likewise prohibited from working in films was Gough's wife, Karen Morley. The most immediate effect of Gough's blacklisting occurred in the opening titles of RKO's Rancho Notorious (1952); though Gough was prominently cast as the film's principal villain, RKO head man Howard Hughes, a rabid commie-hater, demanded that the actor's name be removed from the credits. Gough retreated to the stage, returning before the cameras in the 1960s, by which time Hollywood's witch-hunt mentality had dissipated. One of his first "comeback" roles was as Michael Axford in the 1966 TV series The Green Hornet. In the 1976 film The Front, Lloyd Gough was reunited with several other former blacklistees, including actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi and Joshua Shelley, director Martin Ritt and screenwriter Walter Bernstein.

Trivia: A radio and stage actress since early childhood, Mala Powers made her first film appearance at age 11 in the 1942 Dead End Kids opus Tough As They Come. After attending U.C.L.A., she was discovered by filmmaker/actress Ida Lupino who starred Powers in her 1950 film Outrage. That same year, Stanley Kramer signed Powers to star opposite Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac. Though critical reviews for the film were mixed, Powers was praised for her beauty, sensitivity, and naturalness in portraying Cyrano's great love, Roxanne. It remains her best-known role. Her promising career was nipped in the bud the following year by a life-threatening illness. Following her recovery, Powers had difficulty obtaining production insurance and this in turn made it difficult for her to appear in A-features. As a result, she spent the majority of her subsequent career appearing in low-budget Westerns and adventure films. She died of complications from leukemia, at age 76, in early June 2007.

Trivia: A former teacher, American actor Clinton Sundberg realized from the moment he set foot on stage that he'd never be a romantic lead, but settled -- profitably, as it turned out -- for character work. Sundberg's prim demeanor and light, throaty voice enabled him to carve a significant Hollywood niche as desk clerks and minor bureaucrats, though he was capable of coarse villainy, as proven in Undercover Maisie (1949). The actor worked most often at MGM throughout his career, from 1946's Undercurrent to 1963's How the West Was Won. Probably the closest he got to a full lead was as corpulent private eye J. Scott Smart's "Man Friday" in the enjoyable Universal low-budget mystery The Fat Man (1951). Clinton Sundberg contributed numerous voice-overs to commercials of the '70s, and was seen to good advantage in one advertisement as an unflappable tailor outfitting a large, talking Seven-Up bottle!

Trivia: Where does one go after one has played The Devil Himself in one's very first film? Richard Devon, who indeed portrayed Satan in 1957's The Undead, was consigned to ordinary "mortal" parts for the remainder of his film career. Usually he played Latino types in such films as The Comancheros (1961), Kid Galahad (the 1962 Elvis Presley version) and Magnum Force (1973). More recently, Richard Devon has cast aside his horns and cloven hooves from The Undead to play a Cardinal in Seventh Sinner (1988).

Trivia: The daughter of actress Martha Daniels, Connie Gilchrist was herself on stage from the age of 16, touring both Europe and the U.S. Her theatrical credits include such long-runners as Mulatto and Ladies and Gentlemen, the latter featuring a contemporary of Gilchrist's named Helen Hayes. While acting in the pre-Broadway tour of Ladies and Gentlemen in 1939, Gilchrist was signed to a ten-year contract at MGM, where amidst the studio's patented gloss and glitter, the actress' brash, down-to-earth characterizations brought a welcome touch of urban reality. Usually cast as Irish maids, tenement housewives and worldly madams (though seldom designated as such), Gilchrist was given a rare chance to show off her musical talents in Presenting Lily Mars, where she sang a duet with Judy Garland. After her MGM tenure, Gilchrist free-lanced in such films as Houdini (1953), Auntie Mame (1958) (as governess Nora Muldoon) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). Devoted TV fans will recall Connie Gilchrist as the bawdy pubkeeper Purity on the 1950s Australian-filmed adventure series Long John Silver.

Trivia: American character actor William Joseph Keene is best remembered for playing the preacher on the Andy Griffith Show and re-creating the same role on Mayberry, RFD.

Trivia: An actress best known for her multi-season role as Kelly Gaines-Boyd, the spacey girlfriend and eventual wife of dim-witted bartender Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), fair-haired actress Jackie Swanson jump-started her career in her early twenties with a series of small roles in features including Wayne Wang's Slam Dance and Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon (1987). Swanson signed for the Cheers role in 1989 (the program's seventh season) and remained with the series until it folded in May 1993, as did co-star Harrelson; during that time, she was seen on an occasional basis. After Cheers wrapped, Swanson appeared in additional projects from time to time, such as the sci-fi-Western hybrid Oblivion (1994) and its sequel, Backlash: Oblivion 2 (1996). She also made guest appearances on the dramas NYPD Blue and Cold Case through the mid-2000s.