Trivia: A versatile American screen actor and former juvenile star who made up in energy what he lacked in height, Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920, in Brooklyn, NY. The son of vaudevillians, Rooney first became a part of the family act when he was 15-months-old, and was eventually on-stage singing, dancing, mimicking, and telling jokes. He debuted onscreen at the age of six in the silent short Not to Be Trusted (1926), playing a cigar-smoking midget. His next film was the feature-length Orchids and Ermine (1927). Over the next six years, he starred in more than 50 two-reel comedies as Mickey McGuire (a name he legally adopted), a series based upon a popular comic strip, "Toonerville Folks." In 1932, he changed his name to "Mickey" Rooney when he began to appear in small roles in feature films. He was signed by MGM in 1934 and gave one of the most memorable juvenile performances in film history as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). A turning point in Rooney's career came with his 1937 appearance as Andy Hardy, the wise-cracking son of a small-town judge, in the B-movie A Family Affair. The film proved to be such a success that it led to a string of 15 more Andy Hardy pictures over the next twenty years. The films were sentimental light comedies that celebrated small-town domestic contentment and simple pleasures, and the character became the one with which the actor became most identified. Rooney went on to a memorable role in Boys Town (1938) and several high-energy musicals with Judy Garland. Added to his Andy Hardy work, these performances caused his popularity to skyrocket, and, by 1939, he was America's biggest box-office attraction. Rooney was awarded a special Oscar (along with Deanna Durbin) in 1939 for his "significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and, as a juvenile player, setting a high standard of ability and achievement." His popularity peaked in the early '40s with his appearances in such films as The Human Comedy (1943) and National Velvet (1944), the latter with a young Elizabeth Taylor. After his World War II service and subsequent military discharge, however, his drawing power as a star decreased dramatically, and was never recovered; suddenly he seemed only acceptable as a juvenile, not a grown man. In the late '40s Rooney formed his own production company, but it was a financial disaster and he went broke. To pay off his debts, he was obliged to take a number of low-quality roles. By the mid-'50s, though, he had reinvented himself as an adult character actor, starring in a number of good films, including the title role in Baby Face Nelson (1957). Rooney continued to perform in both film, television, stage, and even dinner theater productions over the next four decades, and debuted on Broadway in 1979 with Sugar Babies. Although his screen work was relatively erratic during the '90s, he managed to lend his talents to diverse fare, appearing in both Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and the independent Animals (And the Tollkeeper) (1997). In 2006 Rooney was back on the big screen in the comedy hit A Night at the Museum, with a slew of subsequent roles on low-budget fare preceding an appearance in 2011's The Muppets. That same year, Rooney made headlines when he testified before Congress on the issue of elder abuse, and revealing himself as one of many seniors who had been victimized as a result of their age. Rooney continued working until his death in 2014 at age 93.During the course of his career, Rooney received two Best Actor and two Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations, the last of which for his work in 1979's The Black Stallion. He also won a Golden Globe for the 1981 TV movie Bill. In 1983, while undergoing a well-publicized conversion to Christianity, he was awarded a special Lifetime Achievement Oscar "in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances." Rooney published his autobiography, Life Is Too Short, in 1991. His eight wives included actresses Ava Gardner and Martha Vickers.

Trivia: He was an established matinee idol in his mid-thirties when he broke into films in 1915. After a career interruption caused by service in the cavalry in World War I, he returned to films as a popular leading man. Throughout the '20s, he was very busy onscreen playing dignified, well-mannered romantic heroes. For his work in The Patriot (1928), he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Stone's career remained very busy through the mid-'30s, and then continued at a slower pace through the early '50s; in the early sound era, when he was in his fifties, he played mature leads for some time before moving into character roles. Stone is best remembered as Judge Hardy, Andy's father in the Andy Hardy series of films with Mickey Rooney; typically, later in his career, he played Judge Hardy-like senior citizens. Ultimately, he appeared in over 200 films, almost all of them at MGM.

Trivia: Born Dorothy Fay Hammerton, she appeared as a dancer on the British stage by the age of nine, and later turned to acting; eventually she worked with California's Pasadena Playhouse. Not until her early 40s did she enter films, working in Hollywood and debuting onscreen in 1936; at first she was billed as "Gaby Fay," which she soon changed to "Fay Holden." For the next two-plus decades she played supporting roles in numerous films, frequently cast as a warm, devoted mother. She is perhaps best remebered as Mickey Rooney's wise and loving mother in the popular Andy Hardy series. She retired from the screen after 1958. She was married to actor David Clyde, the brother of actor Andy Clyde.

Trivia: Born into a show-biz family, Bonita Granville first appeared onstage at the age of 3 and began making films at 9. As a child actress she was frequently cast as a mean, spiteful, naughty little girl; examples include These Three (1936), in which she played a mischievous girl spreading malicious lies about her teachers (and for which, at the age of 13, she received a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination), and Maid of Salem (1937), in which she lead a hysterical group of village girls as accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. As a teen she also played "nicer" girls, as in the title role in the series of four detective-reporter Nancy Drew movies, as well as a blond, blue-eyed Aryan Nazi "ideal youth" in the huge hit Hitler's Children (1943). She later gained standard leading lady roles before retiring from the screen in the '50s. Bonita Granville married a millionaire in 1947 and subsequently became a businesswoman as well as the producer of the TV series Lassie.

Trivia: The daughter of stage and film actress Charlotte Walker, Sara Haden's own theatrical work included several seasons with Walter Hampden's Shakespearean Repertory Company. She entered films in 1934 with a character role in the Katharine Hepburn vehicle Spitfire. The majority of her screen characterizations were as stern schoolteachers, town gossips and harried secretaries. Sara Haden is most familiar to filmgoers for her portrayal of spinsterish, ever-disapproving Aunt Millie in MGM's Andy Hardy series of the 1930s and 1940s; indeed, her final screen appearance was in the 1958 "revival" picture Andy Hardy Comes Home.

Trivia: Latin-American singer/actress Lina Romay was active in films from 1942 to 1952. She came to Hollywood under contract to Columbia, then worked briefly at MGM and RKO. In 1949, she began a three-year run as featured vocalist on the TV series Paul Whiteman's Goodyear Revue. Lina Romay's screen credits should not be confused with those of the same-named actress/director of the 1970s and 1980s.

Trivia: Some actresses may give off the aura from the screen of being larger than life, but Dorothy Ford presented that image for real, in person. Standing 6'2" tall, the dark-haired, beautifully proportioned Ford parlayed her height (which should have been an impediment) and good looks into a Hollywood career lasting more than 20 years. Born in Perris, CA, and raised in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Tucson, AZ, Ford appeared in school pageants and went into modeling after she graduated; her 38-26-38-and-a-half figure coupled with her 6'2" frame made her ideal for photographic work. Her first experience as a performer came about when Billy Rose cast Ford in his aquacade alongside Johnny Weissmuller. She also did a stint as an Earl Carroll showgirl, appearing in revues including Something to Shout About and Star Spangled Glamour. Ford's physique and striking good looks quickly brought her to the attention of casting offices, and she made her screen debut in 1942 in Lady in the Dark, playing a model. MGM put her under contract in 1943 and cast her in the musical Thousands Cheer (1944) and Broadway Rhythm (1944), in which she was seen sipping champagne with Charles Winninger; her other appearances that year included roles in Meet the People, Bathing Beauty, Two Girls and a Sailor, and The Thin Man Goes Home. She was seen in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) as part of an onscreen performing act, and worked in King Vidor's An American Romance (1945) before she left MGM. Ford took acting seriously and even spent time working and studying as a member of the Actors' Lab, the West Coast equivalent of New York's Group Theater. She did decidedly better in screen time and roles in her Universal Pictures debut, in Abbott and Costello's Here Come the Co-Eds (1945), which at last gave Ford a chance to act. Playing the towering captain of a women's basketball team appearing as "ringers" in a college game, Ford exuded confidence and boldness, as well as a sly streak, and dominated every shot she was in. Most of Ford's subsequent screen roles were genuine acting assignments. After a brief return to modeling in Rio de Janeiro, as part of South America's first postwar fashion show, she went back to MGM in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy, in which she played a young woman who is dateless until she crosses paths with Mickey Rooney -- the height difference between the actress and the diminutive star became a centerpiece of the plot. This was also Ford's first major role to play off of her height. By that time, Ford was often referred to in the press, in a complimentary manner, as a "Glamazon," and she was outspoken in encouraging more tall women to stand up for themselves: In one interview, she advised female readers that "if nature has made you tall, then be good and tall," chiding tall women who tried to stoop over or otherwise hide their height. Ford herself wore her 145 pounds extremely well and was regarded at one point in the 1940s as one of the most strikingly beautiful women in Hollywood. In an era in which Maureen O'Hara was regarded as formidable at 5'8", Ford made her 6'2" work for her, and not just in "freak" roles, which she resisted taking. Following an appearance in a New York stage production called The Big People, which played off of her height in a positive way, she was back in Hollywood in On Our Merry Way (1948), an unusual independently made anthology film. In 1949, she got cast in the Western Three Godfathers, directed by John Ford, and was given one of the more interesting parts of her career, portraying a woman who becomes the potential love interest of the character played by John Wayne in two key scenes. Ford's career slowed down considerably as the 1950s began. Her biggest role of all, in terms of screen time, came along in 1952 when she was cast in the Bud Abbott/Lou Costello comedy-fantasy Jack and the Beanstalk -- the movie gave her several choice bits of comedy and choreography with Lou Costello as a very tall woman in modern times and the servant of the giant in the fantasy sequences. Costello evidently liked Ford and appreciated her sense of humor, because he later put her into one installment of The Abbott & Costello Show ("The Vacuum Cleaner Salesman") on television. She also made small-screen appearances on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet and The Red Skelton Show, among other series, during the 1950s. Following an appearance in the Bowery Boys vehicle Feudin' Fools, Ford's big-screen career wound down in some surprisingly high-visibility films; John Wayne cast Ford in The High and the Mighty (1954), in a small role as a glamour girl with her hooks into Phil Harris, and Billy Wilder used her in the opening segment of The Seven Year Itch (1955). Ford faded out of movies over the next couple of years in much lower-budgeted films, in a pure eye candy part in The Indestructible Man and as a stripper in Fritz Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. She remained involved with the movie business even after giving up acting, joining MGM as a technician in the studio's film lab beginning in 1965. Many of Ford's old films are still widely shown on cable, and -- often thanks to her presence -- remain inherently striking to contemporary viewers, who marvel at the boldness and beauty of this extraordinary screen figure.

Trivia: An alumnus of both Washington State University and Pomona College, Addison Richards began acting on an amateur basis in California's Pilgrimage Play, then became associate director of the Pasadena Playhouse. In films from 1933, Richards was one of those dependable, distinguished types, a character player of the Samuel S. Hinds/Charles Trowbridge/John Litel school. Like those other gentlemen, Richards was perfectly capable of alternating between respectable authority figures and dark-purposed villains. He was busiest at such major studios as MGM, Warners, and Fox, though he was willing to show up at Monogram and PRC if the part was worth playing. During the TV era, Addison Richards was a regular on four series: He was narrator/star of 1953's Pentagon USA, wealthy Westerner Martin Kingsley on 1958's Cimarron City, Doc Gamble in the 1959 video version of radio's Fibber McGee and Molly, and elderly attorney John Abbott on the short-lived 1963 soap opera Ben Jerrod.

Trivia: Both his parents were vaudeville and burlesque performers. His first job was selling pralines on street corners in the French Quarter of New Orleans when he was 8 years old. Took the name "Richard" after an uncle who paid for his college tuition. Was an obese child, weighing 200 lbs in the eighth grade and 268 lbs when he graduated high school. Considered becoming a priest before entering college to study art. While living in Florence, Italy as an exchange student, he appeared in many television commercials including one where he played a dancing meatball. Around the age of 20 he lost 149 lbs in two and a half months. His starvation diet landed him in the hospital and caused all his hair to fall out. The experience inspired him to learn about healthy dieting and exercise. Owns 400 pairs of his trademark Dolfin brand shorts. Collects art glass and dolls, and has over 400 dolls he displays on a rotating basis at his Hollywood Hills home. His 65 fitness videos have sold over 20 million copies. With the help of Congressmen Zach Wamp and Ron Kind, he introduced the Fit Kids Bill in favor of funding physical education in schools and has testified on its behalf.

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: Versatile character actor Lucien Littlefield attended a military academy before making his first stage appearance at the age of 17, and his first film in 1913. Short and balding even in his teens, Littlefield began impersonating old men before he was of voting age. In 1925, he played the grizzled comedy relief sidekick of William S. Hart (27 years Littlefield's senior!) in Tumbleweeds; three years later he portrayed the sore-footed father of Mary Pickford (born two years before Littlefield) in My Best Girl. His most memorable silent role was as the menacing red-herring doctor in the "old dark house" mystery The Cat and the Canary (1927). When talkies came in, Littlefield was able to provide a fresh new voice for each characterization. He starred in his own Vitaphone short subjects series, The Potters, and played roles both large and small in any number of feature films. He was veterinarian Horace Meddick in Laurel and Hardy's Sons of the Desert (1934), a prissy office manager in W.C. Fields' The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935), the snobbish Belknap-Jackson in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), and an ancient rustic sheriff in Whistling in Brooklyn (1942). In Paramount's Henry Aldrich "B"-picture series of the 1940s, Littlefield played the recurring role of ill-tempered schoolteacher Mr. Crosley. He also wrote several screenplays, most notably the Charlie Ruggles/Mary Boland vehicle Early to Bed (1936). Reversing the usual process, Lucien Littlefield's characters became younger as he grew older, as witness his spirited performances on such TV series as Superman and The Abbott and Costello Show.

Trivia: A former circus and minstrel-show performer, British actor Holmes Herbert toured on the provincial-theatre circuit as a juvenile in the early 1900s. Born Edward Sanger, Herbert adopted his professional first name out of admiration for Sherlock Holmes -- a role which, worse luck, he never got to play. Herbert never appeared in films in his native country; he arrived in Hollywood in 1918, appeared in a film version of Ibsen's A Doll's House (1918), and never looked homeward. Talking pictures enabled Holmes Herbert to join such countrymen as Reginald Denny and Roland Young in portraying "typical" British gentlemen. The stately, dynamic-featured Herbert nearly always appeared in a dinner jacket, selflessly comforting the heroine as she pined for the man she really loved. He received some of his best roles in the early-talkie era; he appeared as a soft-spoken police inspector in The Thirteenth Chair (1929), then recreated the role for the 1937 remake. Herbert also appeared as Dr. Lanyon, Henry Jekyll's closest friend and confidante in the Fredric March version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). By the '40s, many of Herbert's roles were uncredited, but he was still able to make a maximum impression with a minimum of lines in such roles as the village council head in Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). Herbert's second wife was another supporting-cast stalwart of the '30s, Beryl Mercer (best remembered as James Cagney's mother in Public Enemy [1931]). Holmes Herbert remained in films until 1952's The Brigand; reportedly, he also appeared in a few early west-coast television productions.

Trivia: A professional pilot, mustachioed Richard Simmons was reportedly discovered by Louis B. Mayer while vacationing on a dude ranch near Palm Springs, CA. Mayer signed the strapping six-footer to a stock contract right then and there, promising the neophyte "outdoor roles." As it turned out, the tycoon couldn't quite keep his promise and Simmon's roles -- in such fare as Sergeant York (1941), Thousands Cheer (1943), Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), and Battle Circus (1953) -- proved minor. In fact, the actor had to pay his dues in little more than walk-ons for nearly a decade before finally reaching stardom -- and then it was on the small screen. Filmed in color in central California, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon teamed Simmons with Yukon King, a handsome malamute, and Rex, an equally impressive stallion, and the trio became a mainstay on children's television from 1955 to 1958 and in syndication ever since. Simmons, who also guest starred on such shows as Perry Mason, Rawhide, The Brady Bunch, and ChiPS, should not be confused with the frenetic video exercise guru of the same name.