Trivia: Along with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly was the most successful song-and-dance man in film history, a towering figure in the development and enduring success of the movie musical. Born August 23, 1912, in Pittsburgh, PA, he initially studied economics, funding his education by working alternately as a soda jerk and a brick layer. With brother Fred, he also gave dancing lessons. In 1937, the Kelly brothers both unsuccessfully sought choreography work in New York. A year later, however, Gene was cast in the chorus of Leave It to Me, and in 1939 he graduated to a small role in the revue One for the Money. A more prominent performance in the drama The Time of Your Life caught the attention of Richard Rodgers, who cast him as the titular Pal Joey. Kelly left Broadway for Hollywood when David O. Selznick offered him a contract, immediately loaning him to MGM to star opposite Judy Garland in 1942's For Me and My Gal. At the insistence of producer Arthur Freed, MGM bought out the remainder of Kelly's Selznick contract, and cast him in the 1943 war drama Pilot No. 5.After the musical Du Barry Was a Lady, Kelly appeared in the all-star Thousands Cheer. The Cross of Lorraine, a Resistance drama, quickly followed. MGM then loaned him to Paramount for the Rita Hayworth vehicle Cover Girl and also allowed him to share choreography duties with an up-and-coming Stanley Donen, who continued on as his assistant; the result was a major critical and commercial hit, and while the follow-up, Christmas Holiday, passed by unnoticed, 1945's Anchors Aweigh -- which cast Kelly opposite Frank Sinatra -- earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination, confirming his brilliance as a dancer and choreographer as well as solidifying his increasing power at the box office. In 1944, Kelly had starred in Ziegfield Follies, but the picture did not see the light of day until two years later. In the interim he served in the Navy, and upon returning from duty starred in 1947's Living in a Big Way. For 1948's The Pirate, Kelly teamed with director Vincente Minnelli, followed by a turn as D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers. Next, in the 1948 Rodgers-and-Hart biography Words and Music, he teamed with Vera Ellen for a performance of "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue."In 1949, Kelly and Donen contributed the original story for Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Later that year, the duo was handed the directorial reins for the classic On the Town, a groundbreaking, exuberant adaptation of the Betty Comden/Adolph Green/Leonard Bernstein Broadway smash. Black Hand (a Mafia drama) and Summer Stock (another collaboration with Garland) followed before Kelly reteamed with Minnelli for 1951's masterful An American in Paris, one of the most acclaimed musicals in Hollywood history. In addition to seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, it also earned Kelly a special Oscar in honor of "his versatility as actor, singer, director, and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film." After the stop-gap It's a Big Country, Kelly and Donen mounted 1952's Singin' in the Rain, arguably the most honored and beloved musical in the canon; a tale of Hollywood set as the silent era gave way to the sound era, it represented an unparalleled zenith for the musical comedy genre, and Kelly's centerpiece performance of the title song remains among the most indelible sequences in film. From this peak, however, there was seemingly nowhere else to go but down: Kelly traveled to Europe to qualify for tax exemption, and there shot a lifeless German thriller, The Devil Makes Three. In Britain, he began work on a planned all-ballet project, Invitation to the Dance, but the picture was never completed. Finally shown in its unfinished state in 1956, it received disastrous critical notice. In the U.K., Kelly also starred in Seagulls Over Sorrento before returning stateside for Minnelli's disappointing Brigadoon. Again working with Donen, he co-directed 1955's It's Always Fair Weather. A slight return to form, it performed poorly at the box office, another sign of the impending demise of the Hollywood musical. Kelly also directed and starred in 1957's whimsical The Happy Road, but after headlining George Cukor's Les Girls, MGM told him they had no more musicals planned for production, and he was freed from his contract. A number of independent projects were announced, but none came to fruition. Instead, Kelly starred in 1958's Marjorie Morningstar for Warners and then directed the romantic comedy The Tunnel of Love.In between appearing as a reporter in 1960's Inherit the Wind, Kelly returned to the stage: In 1958, he directed a Broadway production of the musical Flower Drum Song and two years later choreographed a Parisian ballet based on Gershwin's Concerto in F. He also appeared frequently on television, starring in a series based on Going My Way. In 1964, Kelly returned to film, appearing with Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go! Two years later, he starred in Jacques Demy's musical homage Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. He also continued directing, most famously 1969's Hello Dolly!, but was largely inactive during the 1970s. In 1980, he starred opposite Olivia Newton-John in the much-maligned Xanadu, but the performance was his last for the big screen. Kelly later starred in a pair of TV miniseries, 1985's North and South and Sins, but then spent his remaining years in retirement, out of the spotlight. Gene Kelly died February 2, 1996, at the age of 83.

Trivia: Whether he was called "The Voice," "Ol' Blue Eyes," or "The Chairman of the Board," Frank Sinatra's nicknames all conveyed the adulation and respect reserved for a man who was commonly thought of as the best American popular singer of the 20th century. Sinatra's voice, whether manifested in song or spoken word, caressed the ears of many a listener for more than five decades. Sinatra's legacy -- countless songs and more than 70 films -- continue to ensure him the kind of popularity that has reached beyond the grave to elevate him past the status of mere icon to that of cultural institution.Born Francis Albert Sinatra on December 12, 1915, Sinatra grew up poor in Hoboken, NJ. After working for a newspaper, he organized the Hoboken Four, a singing group. He got his first break when he won first prize on radio's "Major Bowes Amateur Hour," and went on to perform in nightclubs and on radio. Sinatra then landed the job of vocalist with the Harry James band, and later switched to Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. It was during his tenure with Dorsey's group that Sinatra made his first two films in uncredited roles as a singer in the bands in Las Vegas Nights (1941) and Ship Ahoy (1942). In 1942, Sinatra's attempt to become a solo artist met with great success, especially in the hearts, minds, and ears of many American women and girls, who flocked to his performances with a fervor that would be replicated two decades later with the arrival of the Beatles. Soon, Sinatra was the "dream-date" idol of millions of American girls and, for several years, was enormously popular on-stage in addition to other venues, including radio, records, and nightclubs. To complement his popularity as a singer, Sinatra began acting, playing in a number of light musical films throughout the '40s. His first real acting role came in Higher and Higher (1943); other notable movies from this period in his career included Take Me out to the Ballgame (1949), co-starring Gene Kelly and Esther Williams, and On the Town, also made in 1949 and co-starring Kelly, who co-directed the picture with Stanley Donen. Sinatra suffered a career setback in 1952 when his vocal cords hemorrhaged and he was dropped by MCA, the monolithic talent agency. Having established a shaky screen career, he fought back and landed the role of Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953) after begging Columbia for the part and then agreeing to take it for a mere 8,000 dollars. His performance won him the 1954 Best Supporting Actor Oscar and a Golden Globe, and, in the process, resuscitated his faltering career. Sinatra appeared in several more movies in the '50s, receiving a 1956 Best Actor Oscar nomination and a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for his portrayal of a drug addict in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). In addition, he took home a Golden Globe for his performance in Pal Joey (1957). Soon Sinatra was back on top as a performer, earning the nickname "The Chairman of the Board." Sinatra continued to do frequent film work, making a screen appearance with his Rat Pack colleagues Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop in Ocean's Eleven (1960). Most notably, Sinatra gave a subtle, troubled portrayal of the haunted Captain Bennett Marco in John Frankenheimer's Cold War classic The Manchurian Candidate. His last role was as an aging detective in The First Deadly Sin (1980). Sinatra also appeared on various television shows during the '80s and went on to have hit records as late as the early '90s. His four wives included actresses Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow, and he fathered actor/singers Frank Sinatra Jr. and Nancy Sinatra, as well as another daughter, Tina. Sinatra died of a heart attack on May 14, 1998, in Los Angeles. He is buried in Palm Springs, CA.

Trivia: In the latter stages of her long career, musical comedy star Ann Miller spent much of her time thanking her colleagues for not revealing a secret concerning her early days in Hollywood. According to Miller, she was but 14 years old when she began receiving sizeable screen roles in such RKO films as New Faces of 1937 (1937), Having Wonderful Time (1938), and Room Service (1938), thus it was illegal for her to appear on the set without a guardian or tutor. Perhaps the reason that her co-stars conspired to keep her age a secret was because she was doing so; Miller was in fact 18 when she signed her RKO contract. Not that any of this bears the slightest relevance to Ms. Miller's dazzling terpsichorean talent (in one of her Columbia-starring vehicles, she set a world record for taps-per-minute) nor her stellar contributions to such MGM Technicolor musicals as Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949), and Kiss Me Kate (1953). More famous for her winning personality and shapely stems than her acting ability, Miller tended to flounder a bit in her non-singing and non-dancing appearances; thus, when the MGM brand of musicals went out of fashion in the mid-'50s, her film career came to a standstill. Continuing to prosper on the nightclub circuit, Miller made a return before the cameras in a celebrated 1970 TV soup commercial, produced and directed by Stan Freberg and choreographed by Hermes Pan in the all-stops-out manner of a Busby Berkeley spectacular. During that same period, Miller played to SRO crowds in the touring company of Mame. In the mid-'70s, she enjoyed a personal triumph when she co-starred with Mickey Rooney in the Broadway musical Sugar Babies. Ann Miller is the author of two autobiographies, 1974's Miller's High Life (which details her three marriages in an engagingly cheeky fashion) and 1990's Tapping the Force (which dwelt upon her fascination with the Occult).

Trivia: Vivacious, long-stemmed blonde musical star Vera-Ellen was dancing professionally before she was a teenager. After service as a Radio City Music Hall Rockette and a Manhattan nightclub dancer, she graduated to the Broadway stage. She made her film debut in the 1945 Danny Kaye vehicle Wonder Man, then went on to team with such male stars as Gene Kelly (in 1949's On the Town), Fred Astaire (in 1952's Belle of New York), and Bing Crosby (1954's White Christmas). In a moment of weakness, Vera-Ellen agreed to co-star in the Marx Brothers' valedictory film Love Happy (1949), where she was "rewarded" with some of her worst-ever costumes and camera angles. After her final screen appearance in the British Let's Be Happy (1957), Vera-Ellen retired from movies, making a handful of TV appearances before marrying wealthy businessman Victor Rothschild in 1954. Following her divorce in 1966 and the subsequent death of her infant daughter, Vera-Ellen went into seclusion in her Los Angeles home, dropping completely from the public's consciousness until her death from cancer in 1981.

Trivia: As a teenager, American performer Betty Garrett won a scholarship to New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, and in 1938 she debuted onstage in the Mercury Theater production of Danton's Death. Later she danced with the Martha Graham company, sang in nightclubs and resort hotels, and held down odd jobs between engagements. In 1942 Garrett debuted on Broadway in the revue Let Freedom Ring, leading to other Broadway appearances. For her work in Call Me Mister she won the Donaldson Award in 1946, after which MGM signed her to a movie contract. She went on to make five musicals in the late '40s, impressing critics with her singing, dancing, and bright comic acting; as an energetic and effervescent second lead, she typically played the heroine's best friend. Garrett took two years off to give birth to two children; meanwhile, her husband, actor Larry Parks, admitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had been a Communist. This ruined Garrett's screen career for several years, during which she and Parks appeared in a nightclub act and toured the U.S. with a play. In the mid-'50s she appeared in two more films and had the chance to renew her career; however, her husband was still blacklisted, so she chose to retire from the screen. She and Parks went on to work in stock and occasionally on TV, but they derived their income primarily from real estate. In the mid-'70s Garrett had a recurring role as Archie Bunker's neighbor on the TV sitcom All In the Family, and played landlady Edna Babish on Laverne and Shirley.

Trivia: An American comedian with hang-dog eyes, Jules Munshin began his career singing, dancing, and telling jokes in the Catskill resorts. He later switched to vaudeville, which led him to Broadway, where in 1946, he became a star after starring in the musical Call Me Mister. During the late '40s, he began appearing in MGM musicals. His most memorable role was playing one of the three carefree sailors on leave in On the Town (1949). Munshin then resumed his stage career, and only infrequently returned to films.

Trivia: American actress Florence Bates had been a moderately successful lawyer for two decades when, as a lark, she started acting at California's Pasadena Playhouse in the mid 1930s. After playing a small role in the 1937 film Man In Blue (1937), Bates was "officially" discovered by Hollywood when she was cast as vainglorious dowager Mrs. Van Hopper in Alfred Hitchcock's Oscar-winning Rebecca (1940). From that point onward, Bates became one of Hollywood's favorite "society dragons," most effectively cast in comedies like Heaven Can Wait (1943), as one of Don Ameche's hell-bound old flames, and in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1948), as Danny Kaye's terrifying future mother-in-law. Her most significant "straight" part was in I Remember Mama (1948), as the forbiddingly famous author Florence Dana Morehead, whom Irene Dunne, as Mama, timidly approaches on behalf of Dunne's aspiring-writer daughter. Though in fragile health, Florence Bates entered television with the same forcefulness as she'd invaded movies, providing a welcome touch of professionalism to the otherwise atrocious early 1950s situation comedy The Hank McCune Show.

Trivia: Short, acid-tongued character comedienne Alice Pearce built her reputation in Broadway musicals. Her first screen appearance was as Lucy Schmeeler, the girl with a really bad sneeze, in the Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra musical On the Town (1949). Preferring stage to screen work, she didn't settle down in Hollywood on a permanent basis until the early '60s. On television, Pearce starred in her own weekly, 15-minute musical program in 1949, singing such novelty tunes as "I'm in Love With a Coaxial Cable." At the time of her death from cancer, Alice Pearce was appearing as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched, a role which won her a posthumous Emmy.

Trivia: General purpose actor Lester Dorr kept himself busy in every size role there was in Hollywood, in a screen career lasting nearly 35 years. Born in Massachusetts in 1893, he was working on Broadway in the late 1920s, including the cast of Sigmund Romberg's New Moon (1928). The advent of talking pictures brought Dorr to Hollywood, where, working mostly as a day-player, he began turning up in everything from two-reel shorts (especially from Hal Roach) in the latter's heyday) to major features (including Michael Curtiz's Female and Raoul Walsh's The Bowery, both 1933), in which he usually had tiny parts, often in crowd scenes, with an occasional line or two of dialogue -- in the mid-1930s he was literally appearing in dozens of movies each year, though usually with scarcely more than a minute's screen time in any one of them. Dorr was also one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild.He was almost as busy after World War II, and starting in 1951 he also started working in television, ranging from westerns to anthology series. He slowed down significantly in the 1960s, by which time he was in his seventies. Among his rare screen credits are two of his most oft-repeated large- and small-screen appearances -- in W. Lee Wilder's Killers From Space, the public domain status of which has made it a ubiquitous presence on cable television and low-priced VHS and DVD releases, he is the gas station attendant who spots fugitive scientist Peter Graves' car; and in The Adventures of Superman episode The Mind Machine, repeated for decades as part of the ever-popular series, Dorr plays the hapless but well-intention school bus driver whose vehicle (with three kids inside) is stolen by mentally unhinged mob witness Harry Hayden. His last three appearances were in full-blown feature films: Richard Quine's Hotel (1967), Gene Kelly's Hello Dolly (1969), and Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love (1975).

Trivia: This callow, mustachioed American actor showed up in utility roles in films beginning in the early 1930s. Usually playing bits in features, Brodie was given a wider range in short subjects, notably as gentleman thief "Baffles" in the 1941 El Brendel 2-reeler Yumpin' Yiminy. Some of his more notable credits include his voiceover work in the Disney cartoon feature Dumbo and his subtly sleazy portrayal of the used car salesman in the noir classic Detour (1946). He also worked off and on as a dialogue director.

Trivia: Diminutive, jug-eared comic actor Sid Melton cut his acting teeth in the touring companies of such Broadway hits as See My Lawyer and Three Men on a Horse. Though he once listed his film debut as being 1945's Model Wife, Melton showed up onscreen as early as 1942, playing one of the students in Blondie Goes to College. Mostly showing up in bits and minor roles in big-studio features, Melton enjoyed starring assignments at bargain-basement Lippert Studios, notably the 1951 "sleeper" The Steel Helmet. His film career extended into the 1970s, when he was seen in a sizeable role in the Diana Ross starrer Lady Sings the Blues (1975). Sid Melton's TV credits include the cult-favorite roles of Ichabod Mudd ("with two D's!") on Captain Midnight and nightclub owner Charley Halper on The Danny Thomas Show.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1937.

Trivia: Supporting actor Murray Alper's earliest screen credit was 1930's The Royal Family of Broadway. For the next 35 years, Alper was an inescapable movie presence, playing dozens of cab drivers, bookies, cops and GIs. One of his few credited appearances in an "A" picture was in The Maltese Falcon; he plays the friendly cabbie who drives Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) on a mid-film wild goose chase. Frequently seen in comedies, Alper showed up in eight Bowery Boys farces of the 1940s and 1950s, and was prominently featured in the Three Stooges' Trick Dicks (1953) and The Outlaws is Coming (1965, as Chief Crazy Horse!). One of Murray Alper's least characteristic roles was the judo instructor in Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor (1963).

Trivia: Actor Hans Conried, whose public image was that of a Shakespearean ham, was born not in England but in Baltimore. Scrounging for work during the Depression era, Conried offered himself to a radio station as a performer, and at 18 became a professional. One of his earliest jobs was appearing in uncut radio adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, and before he was twenty he was able to recite many of the Bard's lengthier passages from memory. After several years in summer stock and radio, Conried made his screen debut in Dramatic School (1938). Conried's saturnine features and reedy voice made him indispensable for small character roles, and until he entered the service in World War II the actor fluctuated between movies and radio. Given a choice, Conried would have preferred to stay in radio, where the money was better and the parts larger, but despite the obscurity of much of his film work he managed to sandwich in memorable small (often unbilled) appearances in such "A" pictures as Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942), The Big Street (1942) and Passage to Marseilles (1944). While in the army, Conried was put in charge of Radio Tokyo in postwar Japan, where he began his lifelong hobby of collecting rare Japanese artifacts; the actor also had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of American Indian lore. As big-time radio began to fade during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Conried concentrated more on film work. He was awarded the starring role in the bizarre musical 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1952), written by his friend Dr. Seuss; unfortunately, the studio, not knowing how to handle this unorthodox project, cut it to ribbons, and the film was a failure. Later he was engaged for a choice co-starring role in Cole Porter's Broadway musical Can Can; in addition, he became a favorite guest on Jack Paar's late-night TV program, popped up frequently and hilariously as a game show contestant, and in 1957 made the first of many special-guest visits as the imperishable Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show. Cartoon producers also relied heavily on Conried, notably Walt Disney, who cast the actor as the voice of Captain Hook in the animated feature Peter Pan, and Jay Ward, for whom Conried played Snidely Whiplash on The Bullwinkle Show and Uncle Waldo on Hoppity Hooper. In 1963, Jay Ward hired Conried as the supercilious host of the syndicated comedy series Fractured Flickers. Conried cut down on his TV show appearances in the 1970s and 1980s, preferring to devote his time to stage work; for well over a year, the actor co-starred with Phil Leeds in an Atlanta production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. Just before his death, Conried was cast in a recurring role on the "realistic" drama series American Dream, where he was permitted to drop the high-tone Shakespearean veneer in the gruff, down-to-earth part of Jewish oldster Abe Berlowitz.

Trivia: Brassy, bleached-blonde Claire Carleton was a reliable supporting actress on Broadway, in films and on TV for nearly thirty years. Carleton's New York stage credits include The Body Beautiful, 20th Century and The Women. In films, she was usually cast as"B"-girls, strippers, gum-chewing manicurists and divorce correspondents: her character names were generally along the lines of Mamie, Tessie, Nellie or simply "The Blonde." She was afforded leading roles in the two-reelers of such comedians as The Three Stooges and Leon Errol, entering into the slapstick proceedings with relish and abandon: in the 1946 Columbia short Headin' for a Weddin', Carleton has a light bulb broken in her mouth, and in the final scene engages in a knock-down, drag-out fight with star Vera Vague. A frequent TV performer, Claire Carleton co-starred as Mickey Rooney's mother (she was eight years older than he!) in the 1955 sitcom Hey, Mulligan!, and played Alice Purdy on the 1958 western Cimarron City.

Trivia: American actor Dick Wessel had a face like a Mack Truck bulldog and a screen personality to match. After several years on stage, Wessel began showing up in Hollywood extra roles around 1933; he is fleetingly visible in the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933), Laurel and Hardy's Bonnie Scotland (1935), and the Columbia "screwball" comedy She Couldn't Take It (1935). The size of his roles increased in the '40s; perhaps his best feature-film showing was as the eponymous bald-domed master criminal in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946). He was a valuable member of Columbia Pictures' short subject stock company, playing a variety of bank robbers, wrestlers, jealous husbands and lazy brother-in-laws. Among his more memorable 2-reel appearances were as lovestruck boxer "Chopper" in The Three Stooges' Fright Night (1947), Andy Clyde's invention-happy brother-in-law in Eight Ball Andy (1948), and Hugh Herbert's overly sensitive strongman neighbor in Hot Heir (1947). Wessel was shown to good (if unbilled) advantage as a handlebar-mustached railroad engineer in the superspectacular Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and had a regular role as Carney on the 1959 TV adventure series Riverboat. Dick Wessel's farewell screen appearance was as a harried delivery man in Disney's The Ugly Dachshund (1965).

Trivia: Muscular actor William "Bill" Phillips attended George Washington University, where he distinguished himself in such contact sports as football and boxing. After cutting his acting teeth with Eva Le Galienne's Civic Repertory group, Phillips made his film debut in 1940. He landed a long-term MGM contract after registering well in a small role in See Here Private Hargrove (1944). By the 1950s, Phillips was typed as a Western actor, usually in such secondary roles as the barber in High Noon (1952). William "Bill" Phillips made his last appearance in the Ronald Reagan-Nancy Davis starrer Hellcats of the Navy (1957).

Trivia: Many research sources arbitrarily begin the list of French actor Eugene Borden's films in 1936. In fact, Borden first showed up on screen as early as 1917. Seldom afforded billing, the actor was nonetheless instantly recognizable in his many appearances as headwaiters, porters, pursers and coachmen. Along with several other stalwart European character actors, Borden was cast in a sizeable role in the above-average Columbia "B" So Dark the Night (1946). Musical buffs will recall Eugene Borden as Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant's landlord in An American in Paris (1951).

Trivia: Bespectacled American actor Walter Baldwin was already a venerable stage performer at the time he appeared in his first picture, 1940's Angels over Broadway. With a pinched Midwestern countenance that enabled him to portray taciturn farmers, obsequious grocery store clerks and the occasional sniveling coward, Baldwin was a familiar (if often unbilled) presence in Hollywood films for three decades. Possibly Baldwin's most recognizable role was as Mr. Parrish in Sam Goldwyn's multi-Oscar winning The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), for which the actor received thirteenth billing. He also had a prime opportunity to quiver and sweat as a delivery man whose truck is commandeered by homicidal prison escapee Robert Middleton in The Desperate Hours (1955). Seemingly ageless, Walter Baldwin made his last film appearance three years before his death in 1969's Hail Hero.

Trivia: Arriving in America from his native Australia at the turn of the century, Frank S. Hagney eked out a living in vaudeville. He entered films during the silent era as a stunt man, gradually working his way up to featured roles. While most of Hagney's film work is forgettable, he had the honor of contributing to a bonafide classic in 1946. Director Frank Capra hand-picked Frank S. Hagney to portray the faithful bodyguard of wheelchair-bound villain Lionel Barrymore in the enduring Yuletide attraction It's A Wonderful Life (1946).