Trivia: A longtime theater actress with a handful of movies to her credit and work in dozens of filmed and live prime-time television dramas, Frances Reid was best known for the last 44 years of her life for her portrayal of Alice Horton on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. From the show's first broadcast on NBC, on November 8, 1965, until her last on-air appearance in 2007, she was the matriarchal presence on the series -- a loving wife, mother, and grandmother (and, ultimately, great-great-grandmother), known for her wise counsel, patient nature, occasional bravery, and also for her homemade doughnuts. Reid was born in 1914, in Wichita Falls, TX, but was raised in Berkeley, CA, where her father was a banker. She trained at the Pasadena Playhouse, and in the 1930s appeared in a series of Broadway shows, as well as in a handful of movies, in small, uncredited roles (most notably in Gregory La Cava's Stage Door [1937], starring Katharine Hepburn). Reid made her television debut unusually early, in a 1939 production of Little Women in the role of Beth March, on NBC. As a New York-based actress in the late '40s and '50s, she worked regularly in television, mostly in dramatic roles and on anthology series, and Reid's East Coast presence also allowed her to get her voice into Alfred Hitchcock's New York-filmed production of The Wrong Man (1956). She also starred in two soap operas, Portia Faces Life and As the World Turns, in the 1950s and early '60s, and admitted to not appreciating the grind of the daytime drama format. During the 1950s, Reid was also busy primarily in theater, and won special praise for her work in the classics, most notably her Roxane, opposite José Ferrer, in Cyrano De Bergerac, which was described as "enchanting" by Brooks Atkinson, the New York Times critic. By 1965, however, Reid had turned 40 and discovered that roles for women in that age group were increasingly scarce. It was then that she took on the part of Alice Horton on Days of Our Lives. Her character's main issues in that more innocent age concerned her oldest son, Tommy, who had been reported as missing in action in the Korean War; and the empty nest left behind as her other children had grown up and moved out. In later decades, the plots involving Alice Horton and her doctor husband, Tom (played by Hitchcock alumnus MacDonald Carey), came to involve kidnappings and other, wilder notions, and even Alice's apparent death. She outlived Carey by 15 years, and continued in the role onscreen through 2007 -- long before that, even non-soap opera fans marveled at the love and devotion that Reid displayed in her long-running portrayal. The series' annual Christmas tree-decorating episode, in which Alice Horton was inevitably at the center, remained a beloved event, right into the 21st century. Reid received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 for her work on the series.

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: After a few desultory movie appearances in the mid-1930s, rotund American actor Stanley Adams came to films permanently in 1952, to re-create his stage role as the bartender in the movie version of Death of a Salesman. His busiest period was 1955-1965, when he appeared on virtually every major TV series in America. His video roles ranged from a pompous time-travelling scientist on Twilight Zone to a wisecracking witch doctor on Gilligan's Island. Shortly after completing his last film, 1976's Woman in the Rain, Stanley Adams committed suicide at the age of 62.

Trivia: The odyssey of Dennis Hopper was one of Hollywood's longest, strangest trips. A onetime teen performer, he went through a series of career metamorphoses -- studio pariah, rebel filmmaker, drug casualty, and comeback kid -- before finally settling comfortably into the role of character actor par excellence, with a rogues' gallery of killers and freaks unmatched in psychotic intensity and demented glee. Along the way, Hopper defined a generation, documenting the shining hopes and bitter disappointments of the hippie counterculture and bringing their message to movie screens everywhere. By extension, he spearheaded a revolt in the motion picture industry, forcing the studio establishment to acknowledge a youth market they'd long done their best to deny. Born May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper began acting during his teen years, and made his professional debut on the TV series Medic. In 1955 he made a legendary collaboration with the director Nicholas Ray in the classic Rebel Without a Cause, appearing as a young tough opposite James Dean. Hopper and Dean became close friends during filming, and also worked together on 1956's Giant. After Dean's tragic death, it was often remarked that Hopper attempted to fill his friend's shoes by borrowing much of his persona, absorbing the late icon's famously defiant attitude and becoming so temperamental that his once-bright career quickly began to wane. Seeking roles far removed from the stereotypical 'troubled teens' which previously dotted his resume, Hopper began training with the Actors Studio. However, on the set of Henry Hathaway's From Hell to Texas he so incensed cast and crew with his insistence upon multiple takes for his improvisational techniques -- the reshoots sometimes numbering upwards of 100 -- that he found himself a Hollywood exile. He spent much of the next decade mired in "B"-movies, if he was lucky enough to work at all. Producers considered him such a risk that upon completing 1960's Key Witness he did not reappear on-screen for another three years. With a noteworthy role in Hathaway's 1965 John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder, Hopper made tentative steps towards a comeback. He then appeared in a number of psychedelic films, including 1967's The Trip and the following year's Monkees feature Head, and earned a new audience among anti-establishment viewers.With friends Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in front of the camera, Hopper decided to direct his own movie, and secured over $400,000 in financing to begin filming a screenplay written by novelist Terry Southern. The result was 1969's Easy Rider, a sprawling, drug-fueled journey through an America torn apart by the conflict in Vietnam. Initially rejected by producer Roger Corman, the film became a countercultural touchstone, grossing millions at the box office and proving to Hollywood executives that the ever-expanding youth market and their considerable spending capital would indeed react to films targeted to their issues and concerns, spawning a cottage industry of like-minded films. Long a pariah, Hopper was suddenly hailed as a major new filmmaker, and his success became so great that in 1971 he appeared in an autobiographical documentary, American Dreamer, exploring his life and times.The true follow-up to Easy Rider, however, was 1971's The Last Movie, an excessive, self-indulgent mess that, while acclaimed by jurors at the Venice Film Festival, was otherwise savaged by critics and snubbed by audiences. Once again Hopper was left picking up the pieces of his career; he appeared only sporadically in films throughout the 1970s, most of them made well outside of Hollywood. His personal life a shambles -- his marriage to singer/actress Michelle Phillips lasted just eight days -- Hopper spent much of the decade in a haze, earning a notorious reputation as an unhinged wild man. An appearance as a disturbed photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now did little to repair most perceptions of his sanity. Then in 1980, Hopper traveled to Canada to appear in a small film titled Out of the Blue. At the outset of the production he was also asked to take over as director, and to the surprise of many, the picture appeared on schedule and to decent reviews. Slowly he began to restake his territory in American films, accepting roles in diverse fare ranging from 1983's teen drama Rumble Fish to the 1985 comedy My Science Project. In 1986 Hopper returned to prominence with a vengeance. His role as the feral, psychopathic Frank Booth in David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet was among the most stunning supporting turns in recent memory, while his touching performance as an alcoholic assistant coach in the basketball drama Hoosiers earned an Academy Award nomination. While acclaimed turns in subsequent films like 1987's The River's Edge threatened to typecast Hopper, there was no doubting his return to Hollywood's hot list, and in 1988 he directed Colors, a charged police drama starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. While subsequent directorial efforts like 1989's Chattahoochee and 1990's film noir The Hot Spot failed to create the same kind of box office returns as Easy Rider over two decades earlier, his improbable comeback continued throughout the 1990s with roles in such acclaimed, quirky films as 1993's True Romance and 1996's Basquiat. Hopper was also the villain-du-jour in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including 1994's Speed and the following year's Waterworld, and was even a pitchman for Nike athletic wear. He also did a number of largely forgettable films such asRon Howard's EdTV (1999). In addition, he also played writer and Beat extraordinaire William S. Burroughs in a 1999 documentary called The Source with Johnny Depp as Jack Kerouac and John Turturro as Allen Ginsberg. In 1997 Hopper was awarded the distinction of appearing 87th in Empire Magazine's list of "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time."Hopper contracted prostate cancer in the early 2000s, and died of related complications in Venice, CA, in late May 2010. He was 74 years old.

Trivia: A versatile, commanding, leathery character actor, he learned to raise and ride broncos on his family's ranch during his youth. He attended college for two years, became a seaman, then began his performing career as a radio announcer; he became nationally known as an announcer on the "March of Time" broadcasts. Onscreen from the late '40s, he often portrayed law officers; he was also convincing as a villain. He was well-known for his TV work; he starred in the series Naked City and Wagon Train. He was married to actress Jeanette Nolan, with whom he appeared in Saddle Tramp (1950) and Two Rode Together (1961); they also acted together on radio, and in the late '60s they joined the cast of the TV series The Virginian, portraying a married couple. Their son was actor Tim McIntire.

Trivia: Redheaded leading man Robert Horton attended UCLA, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, and acted in California-based stage productions before making his entree into films in 1951. Horton's television career started off on a high note in 1955, when he was cast in the weekly-TV version of King's Row as Drake McHugh (the role essayed by Ronald Reagan in the 1942 film version). The series barely lasted three months, but better things were on the horizon: in 1957, Horton was hired to play frontier scout Flint McCullough in Wagon Train, which became the highest-rated western on TV. Horton remained with Wagon Train until 1962. He then did some more stage work before embarking on his third series, 1965's The Man Called Shenandoah. When this one-season wonder ran its course, Horton toured the dinner-theatre circuit, then in 1982 accepted a major role on the popular daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Horton continued acting until the late 1980s. He died in 2016, at age 91.