Trivia: British-born actor Cary Grant (born Archibald Leach) escaped his humble Bristol environs and unstable home life by joining an acrobatic troupe, where he became a stilt-walker. Numerous odd jobs kept him going until he tried acting, and, after moving to the United States, he managed to lose his accent, developing a clipped mid-Atlantic speaking style uniquely his own. After acting in Broadway musicals, Grant was signed in 1932 by Paramount Pictures to be built into leading-man material. His real name would never do for marquees, so the studio took the first initials of their top star Gary Cooper, reversed them, then filled in the "C" and "G" to come up with Cary Grant. After a year of nondescript roles, Grant was selected by Mae West to be her leading man in She Done Him Wrong (1933) and I'm No Angel(1934). A bit stiff-necked but undeniably sexy, Grant vaulted to stardom, though Paramount continued wasting his potential in second rate films. Free at last from his Paramount obligations in 1935, Grant vowed never to be strictly bound to any one studio again, so he signed a dual contract with Columbia and RKO that allowed him to choose any "outside" roles he pleased. Sylvia Scarlett (1936) was the first film to fully demonstrate Grant's inspired comic flair, which would be utilized to the utmost in such knee-slappers as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1939), and The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947). (Only in Arsenic and Old Lace [1941] did he overplay his hand and lapse into mugging.) The actor was also accomplished at straight drama, as evidenced in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Destination Tokyo (1942), Crisis (1950), and in his favorite role as an irresponsible cockney in None but the Lonely Heart (1942), for which Grant was nominated for an Oscar -- he didn't win, although he was awarded a special Oscar for career achievement in 1970. Off-stage, most of Grant's co-workers had nothing but praise for his craftsmanship and willingness to work with co-stars rather than at them. Among Grant's yea-sayers was director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast the actor in three of his best films, most notably the quintessential Hitchcock thriller North by Northwest (1959). Seemingly growing handsomer and more charming as he got older, Grant retained his stardom into the 1960s, enriching himself with lucrative percentage-of-profits deals on such box-office hits as Operation Petticoat (1959) and Charade (1964). Upon completing Walk, Don't Run in 1966, Grant decided he was through with filmmaking -- and he meant it. Devoting his remaining years to an executive position at a major cosmetics firm, Grant never appeared on a TV talk show and seldom granted newspaper interviews. In the 1980s, however, he became restless, and decided to embark on a nationwide lecture tour, confining himself exclusively to small towns in which the residents might otherwise never have the chance to see a Hollywood superstar in person. It was while preparing to lecture in Davenport, IA, that the 82-year-old Cary Grant suffered a sudden and fatal stroke in 1986.

Trivia: At age 16, Jeanne Crain won a beauty contest as "Miss Long Beach" and became a model; the next year she was named "Camera Girl of 1942," leading to contacts in Hollywood. She debuted on screen in 1943 in The Gang's All Here, beginning a starring career that lasted through the '50s. She rose to prominence through her performance in Henry Hathaway's Home in Indiana (1944). Crain was frequently cast as the "girl next door," and was generally employed to be a "pretty face" in the midst of light films, but occasionally she got more serious roles, as in Pinky (1949) in which she played a black girl passing for white; for that performance she was nominated for a "Best Actress Oscar," repeating a nomination she got for her role in Margie (1946). Her career waned in the '60s, but she continued to appear in films through the '70s.

Trivia: Canadian-born actor Hume Cronyn was the son of a well-known Ontario politician. At his father's insistence, young Cronyn studied law at McGill University, but had by then already decided he wanted to be an actor; he made his stage bow with the Montreal Repertory Company at 19, while still a student. After taking classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and working with regional companies in Washington, DC and Virginia, Cronyn made it to Broadway in 1934. His first important role was as the imbibing, jingle-writing hero of Three Men on a Horse, directed and co-written by George Abbott. He remained with Abbott to work in Room Service and Boy Meets Girl - not only establishing himself as a versatile stage actor but also gleaning a lifelong appreciation of strict artistic discipline from the authoritarian Mr. Abbott. Cronyn went from one taskmaster to another when he made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. The 32-year-old Cronyn quietly stole several scenes in the film as a fiftyish mystery-novel fanatic. Cronyn would remain beholden to Hitchcock for the rest of his career: He acted in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) and worked several times thereafter on the director's TV series; he adapted the stage play Rope and the novel Under Capricorn for Hitchcock's filmizations; and he sprang to the late director's defense when a dubious biography of Hitchcock was published in the mid-1980s. Though well-versed in Shakespeare and Moliere on stage, Cronyn was often limited to unpleasant, weasely and sometimes sadistic characters in films; one of his nastiest portrayals was as the Hitleresque prison guard Munsey in Brute Force (1947). A somewhat less hissable Cronyn appeared in The Green Years (1946), wherein he portrayed the father of his real-life wife Jessica Tandy, who was in fact two years older than he. Cronyn had married Tandy in 1942, a union that was to last until the actress' death in 1994. They worked together often on stage (The Fourposter, The Gin Game) and in films (Batteries Not Included), and delighted in giving joint interviews where they'd confound and misdirect the interviewer. Their daughter, Tandy Cronyn, matured into a fine actress in her own right. Seemingly indefatigable despite health problems and the loss of one eye, Cronyn remained gloriously active in films, television and stage into the 1990s, encapsulating many of his experiences in his breezy autobiography A Terrible Liar.

Trivia: The son of legendary opera star Leo Slezak, Walter Slezak was a medical student before settling into the comfortable position of bank clerk. Slezak was coerced by his friend, actor/director Michael Curtiz, to accept an acting role in Curtiz's 1922 spectacular Sodom and Gomorrah -- and with this film, Slezak's career in the world of finance came to an end. Those familiar with Walter Slezak only as the corpulent supporting player in such films as Sinbad the Sailor (1947), People Will Talk (1951), and Emil and the Detectives (1964) will be surprised upon viewing Slezak's appearances as a slim, romantic leading man in his German silent films. Unable to keep his weight under control, Slezak decided around 1930 to become a character actor. He made his Broadway debut in the 1930 production Meet My Sister. After 12 years of stage work, Slezak was cast in his first American film, 1942's Once Upon a Honeymoon, playing the fifth-columnist husband of social-climbing Ginger Rogers. Equally adept at comedy and villainy, Slezak was able to combine these two extremes in such films as The Princess and the Pirate (1944) and The Inspector General (1949). Occasionally returning to the stage in the 1950s, Slezak won a Tony award for his portrayal of Cesar in the 1955 musical Fanny, and in 1957 followed in his father's footsteps by singing at the Metropolitan Opera. His TV assignments included the role of the Clock King on Batman (1966-1967). Slezak's 1962 autobiography What Time Is the Next Swan? derived its title from the punch line of an apocryphal story involving his father. At the age of 80, despondent over his many illnesses, Slezak committed suicide in his Beverly Hills home. Walter Slezak was the father of actress Erika Slezak, best known for her continuing role on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live.

Trivia: Scottish actor Finlay Currie's pre-theatrical occupations included choirmaster and organist. He entered show business at the turn of the century as a musical performer, billed as "Harry Calvo, the double-voiced vocalist." For ten years, Currie toured Australia as principal comedian in Sir Benjamin Fuller's acting troupe. He returned to the London stage in 1930, where over the next three decades he would appear in such hits as The Last Mile and Death of a Salesman. In films from 1932, Currie's most memorable screen role was as the surly convict Magwitch in Great Expectations (1946). He spent much of the early 1950s in Hollywood, playing such forceful character roles as St. Peter in Quo Vadis (1951) and the mysterious Mr. Shunderson in People Will Talk (1951). Still in harness into the mid-1960s, Finlay Currie was at one juncture the oldest working actor in Great Britain.

Trivia: Sidney Blackmer had planned to study law at the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, but football and amateur theatricals held more interest for him. Heading east to make his fortune as an actor, Blackmer accepted day work at various film studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, reportedly appearing in the pioneering Pearl White serial The Perils of Pauline (1914). After making his Broadway bow in 1917, Blackmer served as a lieutenant in World War I. His starmaking stage role was the title character in 1921's The Mountain Man. Eager to have a go at all branches of entertainment, Blackmer sang on radio in the 1920s, and participated in the first experimental dramatic presentations of the Allen B. DuMont television series. In films, Blackmer was usually cast as a smooth society villain, e.g. "The Big Boy" in the 1931 gangster flick Little Caesar. He appeared in both sinister and sympathetic roles in a handful of Shirley Temple pictures, and also starred as pulp-novel detective Thatcher Colt in the 1943 programmer The Panther's Claw. Blackmer is best remembered for his portrayals of President Theodore Roosevelt in over a dozen films, including This is My Affair (1937) and My Girl Tisa (1947). In 1950, Blackmer won the Tony award for his portrayal of the drink-sodden "Doc" in the William Inge play Come Back Little Sheba; he later created the role of Boss Finley in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. For several years, Blackmer served as the national vice president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Sidney Blackmer was married twice, to actresses Lenore Ulric and Suzanne Kaaren.

Trivia: Of Russian descent, American actor Basil Ruysdael was a successful opera singer in the 'teens and twenties. Firmly based in New York, Ruysdael made his first screen appearance in the Marx Brothers Astoria-filmed The Cocoanuts (1929). His portrayal of Detective Hennessy in this film was ordinary enough, save for his hilarious vocal rendition of "Tale of a Shirt," an elaborate parody of "The Toreador Song" from Bizet's Carmen. Ruysdael remained in Manhattan for nearly two decades after Cocoanuts, working on the stage, in radio, and in the occasional film short. He moved to California in 1949, showing up in no fewer than six films during his first year in Hollywood. Active until his death in 1960, Ruysdael was invariably cast as orotund authority figures: military officers, judges, governors, college deans. During the early 1950s, Basil Ruysdael was the radio and TV spokesperson for Lucky Strike cigarettes, imparting in pear-shaped tones the vital message "L.S.M.F.T....Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco."

Trivia: Katherine Locke achieved most of her fame on Broadway; during the late '30s she was among the Great White Way's brightest lights. Locke also occasionally dabbled in films during the '40s and '50s. Born in Russia but raised in the U.S. on the East Coast, she was originally groomed to be a concert pianist at New York's Damrosch Academy. Locke, however, rebelled against her family's wishes and ran off to Southern California to join the Potboilers, a vibrant group of young actors in Los Angeles. While learning to act on stage, Locke occasionally obtained bit movie roles. She won her first major film role in the crime drama Straight from the Shoulder (1938).

Trivia: San Franciscan Will Wright was a newspaper reporter before he hit the vaudeville, legitimate stage, and radio circuit. With his crabapple face and sour-lemon voice, Wright was almost instantly typecast as a grouch, busybody, or small-town Scrooge. Most of his film roles were minor, but Wright rose to the occasion whenever given such meaty parts as the taciturn apartment house manager in The Blue Dahlia (1946). In one of his best assignments, Wright remained unseen: He was the voice of the remonstrative Owl in the Disney cartoon feature Bambi (1942). Will Wright didn't really need the money from his long movie and TV career: His main source of income was his successful Los Angeles ice cream emporium, which was as popular with the movie people as with civilians, and which frequently provided temporary employment for many a young aspiring actor.

Trivia: A kindergarten teacher in her native Cleveland, Margaret Hamilton began her acting career there in community theatre and with the prestigious Cleveland Playhouse. In 1933, Hamilton was invited to repeat her stage role of the sarcastic daughter-in-law in the Broadway play Another Language for the MGM film version. Though only in her early '30s, the gloriously unpretty Hamilton subsequently played dozens of busybodies, gossips, old maids, and housekeepers in films bearing such titles as Hat, Coat and Glove (1934), Way Down East (1935) and These Three (1936). She proved an excellent foil for such comedians as W.C. Fields (in 1940's My Little Chickadee) and Harold Lloyd (in 1946's The Sin of Harold Diddlebock). Her most famous film assignment was the dual role of Elvira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West in the imperishable 1939 gem The Wizard of Oz -- a role which nearly cost her her life when her green copper makeup caught fire during one of her "disappearance" scenes. She played several smaller but no less impressive roles at 20th Century-Fox, including the first-scene plot motivator in People Will Talk (1951) and Carrie Nation in Wabash Avenue (1950). She alternated her film work with stage assignments in the 1950s and 1960s, frequently returning to her home base at the Cleveland Playhouse. Achieving "icon" status in the 1970s by virtue of The Wizard of Oz, Hamilton sometimes found herself being cast for "camp" effect (e.g. Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud), but also enjoyed some of her best-ever parts, including the role of professorial occult expert in the 1972 TV movie The Night Strangler. Despite her menacing demeanor, Hamilton was a gentle, soft-spoken woman; she was especially fond of children, and showed up regularly on such PBS programs as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. In the 1970s, Margaret Hamilton added another sharply etched portrayal to her gallery of characters as general-store proprietor Cora on a popular series of Maxwell House coffee commercials -- one of which ran during a telecast of The Wizard of Oz!

Trivia: There was always something slightly sinister about American actor Carleton G. Young that prevented him from traditional leading man roles. Young always seemed to be hiding something, to be looking over his shoulder, or to be poised to head for the border; as such, he was perfectly cast in such roles as the youthful dope peddler in the 1936 camp classic Reefer Madness. Even when playing a relatively sympathetic role, Young appeared capable of going off the deep end at any minute, vide his performance in the 1937 serial Dick Tracy as Tracy's brainwashed younger brother. During the 1940s and 1950s, Young was quite active in radio, where he was allowed to play such heroic leading roles as Ellery Queen and the Count of Monte Cristo without his furtive facial expressions working against him. As he matured into a greying character actor, Young became a special favorite of director John Ford, appearing in several of Ford's films of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, it is Young, in the small role of a reporter, who utters the unforgettable valediction "This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact...print the legend." Carleton G. Young was the father of actor Tony Young, who starred in the short-lived 1961 TV Western Gunslinger.

Trivia: Along with such colleagues as William Conrad, John Dehner, Vic Perrin, Sam Edwards, Barney Phillips, and Virginia Gregg, bald-pated American character actor Lawrence Dobkin was one of the mainstays of network radio in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Dobkin began popping up in films in 1949, playing any number of doctors, lawyers, attachés, military officials, and desk sergeants. Most of his parts were fleeting, many were unbilled: he can be seen as a soft-spoken rabbi in Angels in the Outfield (1951), one of the three psychiatrists baffled by alien visitor Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), an angered citizen of Rome in Julius Caesar (1953), and so on. Enjoying larger roles on TV, Dobkin was generally cast as a scheming villain (e.g., Dutch Schultz on The Untouchables). One of his showiest assignments was as the demented Gregory Praxas, horror film star turned mass murderer, in the 1972 pilot film for Streets of San Francisco. From the early '60s onward, Dobkin was busier as a writer and director than as an actor. He amassed a respectable list of TV directorial credits, as well as one theatrical feature, Sixteen (1972). Habitués of "speculation" docudramas of the 1970s and 1980s will recognize Lawrence Dobkin as the bearded, avuncular narrator of many of these efforts; he also appeared as Pontius Pilate in the speculative 1979 four-waller In Search of Historic Jesus.

Trivia: Cruelly but accurately described by one film historian as "that female mountain of flesh," actress/singer Jody Gilbert was one of moviedom's busiest "large" ladies. The major difference between Gilbert and other "sizeable" character actresses is that she could give back as good as she got in the insult department. As the surly waitress in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), Gilbert was more than a match for her troublesome customer W. C. Fields. She went on to trade quips with Shemp Howard in Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin' (1941) and to aggressively pursue the hapless Lou Costello in Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). On television, Gilbert was seen as J. Carroll Naish's plump would-be sweetheart Rosa in Life with Luigi (1952), a role she'd previously essayed on radio. One of Gilbert's last screen appearances was the belligerent railroad passenger whom holdup man Paul Newman imitates in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Jody Gilbert died at the age of 63 as the result of injuries sustained in an auto accident.

Trivia: One of the many pretty girls who tested for the plum role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, Adele Longmire later played Ann Rutledge in the hit Broadway play Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938). She was also in Two on an Island (1940) with Howard Da Silva and both were awarded contracts with Warner Bros. Longmire was cast as Regis Toomey's love interest in Bullet Scars (1942; Da Silva played the gangster) but returned to the stage soon after. She resumed her screen career in the late '40s and also earned guest spots on such television shows as The Lone Ranger and I Love Lucy.

Trivia: A leading light of network radio in the 1940s and 1950s, actor Parley Baer appeared on virtually every major program emanating from Los Angeles. Baer is most closely associated with the radio version of Gunsmoke, in which, from 1955 to 1961, he played Dodge City deputy Chester Proudfoot. Those who worked on Gunsmoke have had nothing but the kindest words for Baer, who endeared himself to his colleagues via his dedication, professionalism, and weekly purchase of donuts for the rehearsal sessions. The jowly, prematurely balding Baer began free-lancing in films around 1949. He played a number of small parts at 20th Century-Fox (his largest, and least typical, was the Nazi sergeant in 1957's The Young Lions), and later showed up in such films as Warner Bros.' Gypsy (1963) and Universal's Counterpoint (1993). On television, Baer portrayed Darby on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Mayor Stoner on The Andy Griffith Show (1962-63 season) and Mr. Hamble on the 1966 Red Buttons sitcom The Double Life of Henry Phyfe. Active into the 1990s--he was seen as the Senate Majority Leader in 1993's Dave--Parley Baer is most familiar to the public as the voice of commercialdom's Keebler Elf.

Trivia: The son of actress Nan Kelly Yorke, Jack Kelly was the younger brother of stage and film star Nancy Kelly. Like Nancy, Jack was a professional from an early age, acting in radio and on stage before the age of 10, and in films from 1937 (he is quite prominent in a brace of 1939 20th Century-Fox films, Young Mr. Lincoln and The Story of Alexander Graham Bell). He reemerged as a leading man in the early 1950s, appearing in such films as Forbidden Planet (1956, as the ill-fated Lieutenant Farnam). Signed by Warner Bros. in 1955, Kelly starred as Dr. Paris Mitchell in the weekly TV version of the 1942 film King's Row. He went on to play gamblin' man Bart Maverick on the longer-running Warners western series Maverick. Though his popularity never matched that of his co-star James Garner, Kelly still developed a fan following as Bart; he remained with the series from 1957 until its cancellation in 1962, appearing opposite such Garner successors as Roger Moore and Robert Colbert. Kelly dabbled in a little bit of everything after that: hosting the anthology series NBC Comedy Playhouse (1973), emceeing the game show Sale of the Century (1969-71), and playing hard-nosed Lt. Ryan on the Teresa Graves series Get Christie Love (1974) and Harry Hammond on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-79). He revived the Bart Maverick character on 1978's The New Maverick and the 1990 TV movie The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw. Chances are that, had he lived, Jack Kelly would have been invited to co-star again with Garner in the 1994 Mel Gibson theatrical-feature version of Maverick.

Trivia: Billy Mauch and his identical twin brother, Bobby Mauch, appeared in films of the '30s and '40s. They debuted in The Prince and the Pauper (1937) and went on to staff a number of the Penrod series. In the early '50s, Billy Mauch appeared in a couple of films without his brother.

Trivia: It is probably correct to assume that American actor Stuart Holmes never turned down work. In films since 1914's Life's Shop Window, Holmes showed up in roles both large and microscopic until 1962. In his early days (he entered the movie business in 1911), Holmes cut quite a villainous swath with his oily moustache and cold, baleful glare. He played Black Michael in the 1922 version of The Prisoner of Zenda and Alec D'Uberville in Tess of the D'Ubervilles (1923), and also could be seen as wicked land barons in the many westerns of the period. While firmly established in feature films, Holmes had no qualms about accepting bad-guy parts in comedy shorts, notably Stan Laurel's Should Tall Men Marry? (1926) In talkies, Holmes' non-descript voice tended to work against his demonic bearing. Had Tom Mix's My Pal the King (1932) been a silent picture, Holmes would have been ideal as one of the corrupt noblemen plotting the death of boy king Mickey Rooney; instead, Holmes was cast as Rooney's bumbling but honest chamberlain. By the mid '30s, Holmes' hair had turned white, giving him the veneer of a shopkeeper or courtroom bailiff. He signed a contract for bits and extra roles at Warner Bros, spending the next two decades popping up at odd moments in such features as Confession (1937), Each Dawn I Die (1939) and The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and in such short subjects as At the Stroke of Twelve (1941). Stuart Holmes remained on call at Central Casting for major films like Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) until his retirement; he died of an abdominal aortic aneurism at the age of 83.

Trivia: Ray Montgomery was a gifted character actor who spent his early career trapped behind a too-attractive face, which got him through the studio door in the days just before World War II, but limited him to callow, handsome supporting roles. Born in 1922, Montgomery joined Warner Bros. in 1941 and spent the next two years working in short-subjects and playing small, uncredited parts in feature films, including All Through The Night, Larceny, Inc., Air Force, and Action In The North Atlantic -- in all of which he was overshadowed by lead players such as Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and John Garfield, and the veteran character actors in supporting roles (including Alan Hale, William Demarest, Frank McHugh, Barton McLane, and Edward Brophy) at every turn. And even in The Hard Way as Jimmy Gilpin, he was overshadowed (along with everyone else) by Ida Lupino. Montgomery went into uniform in 1943 and didn't return to the screen until three years later, when he resumed his career precisely where he left off, playing a string of uncredited roles. He got what should have been his breakthrough in 1948 with Bretaigne Windust's comedy June Bride, and his first really visible supporting role -- but again, he was lost amid the presence of such players as Robert Montgomery and Bette Davis and a screwball-comedy story-line. It was back to uncredited parts for the next few years, until the advent of dramatic television. In the early 1950s, after establishing himself on the small-screen as a quick study and a good actor, Montgomery finally got co-starring status in the syndicated television series Ramar of the Jungle, playing Professor Howard Ogden, friend and colleague of the Jon Hall's title-character in the children's adventure series. The show was rerun on local television stations continuously into the 1960s. By then, Montgomery had long since moved on to more interesting parts and performances in a multitude of dramatic series and feature films. He proved much better with edgy character roles and outright bad guys than he had ever been at playing good natured background figures -- viewers of The Adventures of Superman (which has been in reruns longer than even Ramar), in particular, may know Montgomery best for two 1956 episodes, his grinning, casual villainy in the episode "Jolly Roger" and his sadistic brutality in "Dagger Island", where his character convincingly turns on his own relatives (as well as a hapless Jimmy Olsen). He could do comedy as well as drama, and was seen in multiple episodes of The Lone Ranger, The Gale Storm Show, and Lassie, in between movie stints that usually had him in taciturn roles, such as Bombers B-52 (1957) and A Gathering of Eagles (1963). During the 1960s, the now-balding, white-haired Montgomery was perhaps most visible in police-oriented parts, as a tough old NYPD detective in Don Siegel's Madigan (1968) and as an equally crusty (but sensitive) LAPD lieutenant in the Dragnet episode "Community Relations: DR-17". Montgomery's last screen appearance was in the series Hunter -- following his retirement from acting, he opened a notably successful California real estate agency.