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: Entertainer Judy Garland was both one of the greatest and one of the most tragic figures in American show business. The daughter of a pushy stage mother, Garland and her sisters were forced into a vaudeville act called the Gumm Sisters (her real name), which appeared in movie shorts and at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. It was clear from the outset that Judy was the star of the act, and, as such, was signed by MGM as a solo performer in 1936. The studio adored Garland's adult-sounding singing but was concerned about her puffy facial features and her curvature of the spine. MGM decided to test both Garland and another teenage contractee, Deanna Durbin, in a musical "swing vs. the classics" short subject entitled Every Sunday (1936). The studio had planned to keep Durbin and drop Garland, but, through a corporate error, the opposite took place. Nevertheless, MGM decided to allow Garland her feature film debut in another studio's production, just in case the positive audience response to Every Sunday was a fluke. Loaned to 20th Century Fox, Garland was ninth-billed in Pigskin Parade (1936), but stole the show with her robust renditions of "Balboa" and "Texas Tornado." Garland returned to MGM in triumph and was given better opportunities to show her stuff: the "Dear Mr. Gable" number in Broadway Melody of 1938, "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart" in Listen, Darling (1938), and so on. When MGM planned to star 20th Century Fox's Shirley Temple in The Wizard of Oz, Garland almost didn't get her most celebrated role, but the deal fell through and she was cast as Dorothy. But even after this, the actress nearly lost her definitive screen moment when the studio decided to cut the song "Over the Rainbow," although finally kept the number after it tested well in previews. The Wizard of Oz made Garland a star, but MGM couldn't see beyond the little-girl image and insisted upon casting her in "Hey, kids, let's put on a show" roles opposite Mickey Rooney (a life-long friend). Garland proved to the world that she was a grown-up by marrying composer David Rose in 1941, after which MGM began giving her adult roles in such films as For Me and My Gal (1942) -- although still her most successful film of the early '40s was in another blushing-teen part in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Once very popular on the set due to her infectious high spirits, in the mid-'40s Garland became moody and irritable, as well as undependable insofar as showing up on time and being prepared. The problem was an increasing dependency upon barbiturates, an addiction allegedly inaugurated in the 1930s when the studio had Garland "pepped up" with prescription pills so that she could work longer hours. Garland also began drinking heavily, and her marriage was deteriorating. In 1945, she married director Vincente Minnelli, with whom she had a daughter, Liza, in 1946. By 1948, Garland's mood swings and suicidal tendencies were getting the better of her, and, in 1950, she had to quit the musical Annie Get Your Gun. That same year, she barely got through Summer Stock, her health problems painfully evident upon viewing the film. Before 1950 was half over, Garland attempted suicide, and, after recovering, was fired by MGM. Garland and Vincente Minnelli divorced in 1951, whereupon she married producer Sid Luft, who took over management of his wife's career and choreographed Garland's triumphant comeback at the London Palladium, a success surpassed by her 1951 appearance at New York's Palace Theatre. Luft strong-armed Warner Bros. to bankroll A Star Is Born (1954), providing Garland with her first film role in four years. It was Garland's best film to date, earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and allowed her a wealth of songs to sing and a full range of emotions to play.Riding high once more, Garland was later reduced to the depths of depression when she lost the Oscar to Grace Kelly. Her subsequent live appearances were wildly inconsistent, and her film performances ranged from excellent (Judgment at Nuremberg [1961]) to appallingly undisciplined (A Child Is Waiting [1963]). Her third marriage on the rocks, Garland nonetheless pulled herself together for an unforgettable 1961 appearance at Carnegie Hall, which led indirectly to her 1963 weekly CBS series, The Judy Garland Show. As with most of the significant moments in Garland's life, much contradictory information has emerged regarding the program and her behavior therein; the end result, however, was its cancellation after one year, due less to the inconsistent quality of the series (it began poorly, but finished big with several "concert" episodes) as to the competition of NBC's Bonanza. Garland's marriage to Sid Luft, which produced her daughter Lorna, ended in divorce in 1965, and, from there on, Garland's life and career made a rapid downslide. She made a comeback attempt in London in 1968, but audiences ranged from enthusiastic to indifferent -- as did her performances. A 1969 marriage to discotheque manager Mickey Deems did neither party any good, nor did a three-week engagement at a London nightclub, during which Garland was booed off the stage. On June 22, 1969, Judy Garland was found dead in her London apartment, the victim of an ostensibly accidental overdose of barbiturates. Despite (or perhaps because of) the deprivations of her private life, Garland has remained a show business legend. As to her untimely demise, Ray Bolger summed it up best in his oft-quoted epitaph: "Judy didn't die. She just wore out."

Trivia: Originally billed as Gil Stratton Jr., this slight, apple-cheeked "juvenile" performer was barely out of his teens when he created the role of Bud Hooper in the 1941 Broadway musical Best Foot Forward. Stratton continued toting up stage and radio credits in New York until his 1943 film debut in Girl Crazy. His subsequent screen roles included Cookie, the stuttering narrator of Stalag 17 (1953), and pint-sized cyclist Mousie in The Wild One (1953). On television, he played the anemic collegiate Junior Jackson in the 1954 sitcom That's My Boy. That same year, he launched what would turn out to be a 20-year run as a top sportscaster at L.A.'s CBS TV affiliate KNXT. In his last few films, notably Mae West's Sextette (1977), he was cast as "himself." Gil Stratton retired to Hawaii in 1984, where for many years, he owned and maintained a radio station. He died of congestive heart failure in 2008.

Trivia: Before plunging into show business, comedian Rags Ragland was a truck driver, a boxer (which explains his cauliflower ears), and a movie projectionist. He entered burlesque in his twenties, working his way up to "top banana" at Minsky's. Among his fellow burlesque performers, Ragland was famous (or notorious) for his wild ad-libs, his unpredictable intrusions into other comics' acts, and his healthy off-stage libido. In 1940, he graduated to the big time in Ethel Merman's Broadway musical Panama Hattie. Shortly afterward, he became a contract player at MGM, where he gained popularity as Red Skelton's cohort in the Whistling movies (Whistling in the Dark, Whistling in Dixie, and Whistling in Brooklyn). Rags Ragland died suddenly of uremia at the age of 40.

Trivia: Though she despised the appellation "the girl next door," this was how June Allyson was promoted throughout most of her MGM career. The blonde, raspy-voiced actress was born in a tenement section of the Bronx. Her career nearly ended before it began when 8-year-old June seriously injured her back in a fall. For four years she wore a steel brace, then spent several more months in physical therapy. Thanks to the financial support of her grown half-brother, June was able to take dancing lessons. At 19, she made her film debut in the Vitaphone short Swing for Sale (1937). In her earliest movie appearances (notably the 1937 Educational Studios 2-reeler Dime a Dance) June projected a far more worldly, all-knowing image than she would convey in her later feature films. After co-starring in such Broadway productions as Sing Out the News, Very Warm for May and Panama Hattie and Best Foot Forward, June was signed to an MGM contract in 1942. The studio quickly began molding June's screen image of a freckled-faced, peaches-and-cream "best girl" and perfect wife. She was permitted to display some grit in The Girl in White (1952), playing New York City's first woman doctor, but most of her screen characters were quietly subordinate to the male leads. One of her favorite co-stars was James Stewart, with whom she appeared in The Stratton Story (1949) and The Glenn Miller Story (1954). In 1955, she completely broke away from her on-camera persona as the spiteful wife of Jose Ferrer in The Shrike (1955), a role for which she was personally selected by the demanding Ferrer. June was the wife of actor/ producer/ director Dick Powell, a union that lasted from 1945 until Powell's death in 1963, despite several well-publicized breakups. She starred in and hosted the 1960 TV anthology series The June Allyson Show, produced by Powell's Four Star Productions. After her film career ended, June made a handful of nightclub singing appearances; in 1972, she made a brief screen comeback in They Only Kill Their Masters, astonishing her fans by playing a murderess. In recent years, June Allyson has appeared in several TV commercials.

Trivia: The daughter of vaudevillians, 4'11" entertainer Nancy Walker had wanted to establish herself as a serious singer. But when Nancy auditioned for Broadway impresario George Abbott, he burst out laughing at her reading of the line "Is this where the aliens go to register?" and immediately cast her as the hoydenish Blind Date in his 1941 musical production Best Foot Forward. She went on to make her Hollywood debut in the film version of this production, then returned to Broadway, where she skyrocketed to stardom in such productions as On the Town (1944) and Look, Ma, I'm Dancin' (1948). She continued headlining on Broadway throughout the 1950s, occasionally showing up on television variety series, most memorably as the teen-aged president of the Milton Berle fan club. Despite her enormous success as a comedienne, Walker was the archetypal "laughing on the outside, crying on the inside" type in private life, undergoing several years of therapy to purge herself of her insecurities. When theatrical opportunities began drying up in the late 1960s, Nancy relied more and more on television for a living. She was featured as Rosie the waitress in a series of paper-towel commercials ("It's the quicker picker upper"), co-starred as Mildred the maid on MacMillan and Wife (1971-75), and, most memorably, was cast as Ida Morgenstern, the Jewish mama to end all Jewish mamas, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77) and Rhoda (1974-78). Though nominated for five Emmies, she never won the coveted statuette, a fact that seemed to bother her husband David Craig (a vocal coach whom she'd met when she lost her voice during Look Ma, I'm Dancing) more than Walker. Banking on her renewed celebrity, she attempted several TV starring vehicles of her own, but none lasted beyond the first season. She had better luck as a stage director, helming such theatrical productions of UTBU and A Pushcart Affair. In 1980, Walker made her film directorial debut with the Village People starrer Can't Stop the Music, produced by her then-manager Alan Carr. Nancy Walker's final regular TV-series stint was on the 1990 Fox Network weekly True Colors; two years later she died of lung cancer at the age of 71.

Trivia: It is possible that when actor Guy Kibbee portrayed newspaper editor Webb in the 1940 film version of Our Town, he harked back to his own father's experiences as a news journalist. The cherubic, pop-eyed Kibbee first performed on Mississippi riverboats as a teenager, then matriculated to the legitimate stage. The 1930 Broadway play Torch Song was the production that brought Kibbee the Hollywood offers. From 1931 onward, Kibbee was one of the mainstays of the Warner Bros. stock companies, specializing in dumb politicos (The Dark Horse [1932]), sugar daddies (42nd Street [1933]) and the occasional straight, near-heroic role (Captain Blood [1935]). In 1934, Kibbee enjoyed one of his rare leading roles, essaying the title character in Babbitt (1934), a role he seemed born to play. During the 1940s, Kibbee headlined the Scattergood Baines B-picture series at RKO. He retired in 1949, after completing his scenes in John Ford's Three Godfathers. Kibbee was the brother of small-part play Milton Kibbee, and the father of Charles Kibbee, City University of New York chancellor.

Trivia: While still attending U.C.L.A., Frances Rafferty was signed as a stock actress by MGM. Her resemblance to Donna Reed, both physically and in terms of technique, might lead one to believe that MGM was keeping Rafferty on the payroll to play any roles that Ms. Reed might choose to avoid. Outside of her performance as Orchid in Dragon Seed (1944) and her engaging leading lady stint in Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945), Rafferty did very little of consequence during her MGM years. Frances Rafferty finally became a star of sorts in the role of Ruth Henshaw on the mid-'50s TV sitcom December Bride and its 1961 sequel, Pete and Gladys.

Trivia: Portly American character actor Howard Freeman was the archetypal small-town banker or businessman. With his impeccably groomed pencil mustache, finicky manners and eternal air of condescension, Freeman was ideal for such roles as bank president J. P. Norton in Laurel and Hardy's Air Raid Wardens--and equally ideal for the injuries and indignities heaped upon him by the two comedians in their efforts to administer emergency first aid. Air Raid Wardens was made in 1943, Freeman's first year in pictures after several seasons on stage. He quickly found his niche in authoritative roles, even playing a few bureaucratic Nazis during the war years: Freeman portrays a fussy Heinrich Himmler, casually targeting the Czech village of Lidice for extermination in Hitler's Madmen (1943). After nearly two decades in Hollywood, Freeman resettled in New York, remaining available for stage and TV work. One of Howard Freeman's last roles was as a peace-loving police captain mistaken for a slave-driving martinet in a 1963 episode of Car 54, Where are You?

Trivia: New Jersey-born Henry O'Neill was a year into his college education when he dropped out to join a traveling theatrical troupe. His career interrupted by WWI, O'Neill returned to the stage in 1919, where his prematurely grey hair and dignified demeanor assured him authoritative roles as lawyers, doctors, and business executives (though his first stage success was as the rough-and-tumble Paddy in Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape). In films from 1933, O'Neill spent the better part of his movie career at Warner Bros. and MGM, usually playing parts requiring kindliness and understanding, but he was equally as effective in villainous assignments. Age and illness required Henry O'Neill to cut down on his film commitments in the 1950s, though he frequently showed up on the many TV anthology series of the era.

Trivia: American performer Sidney Miller started out as a child actor in such films as Penrod and Sam (1930), The Penguin Pool Murder (1932) and The Mayor of Hell (1933). Miller's pronounced ethnic features precluded stardom in a Hollywood that celebrated blonde, blue-eyed children, but he brought a welcome touch of urbanity to his supporting and minor roles. In 1938, Miller attained one of his better roles as Mo Kahn in Boys Town, in which he acted with his longtime friend Mickey Rooney. Again featured with Rooney in Babes in Arms, an unbilled Miller was allowed to play the piano in accompaniment to Rooney's makeshift stage show and even got to do a couple of celebrity imitations. In the '40s, Miller specialized in portraying nerdish college freshmen (notably in Columbia's Glove Slingers two-reelers) and streetwise intellectuals (as in The East Side Kids' Mr. Wise Guy). He also toured USO bases and hospitals in a pantomime-boxing sketch with fellow child performer Frank Coghlan Jr. With the advent of television, Miller gained a measure of fame as Donald O'Connor's accompanist/cohort in several of O'Connor's TV series and in his subsequent nightclub act. Miller gave up performing briefly in the mid '50s when he assumed the directing chores on the daily TV series Mickey Mouse Club; perhaps due to his own experiences as a child actor, Miller saw to it that the kids were treated professionally but with dignity, and also insisted that stage mothers be banned from the set. Later on in the '60s, Miller directed four grown-up adolescents on several episodes of the music/comedy tver The Monkees. Sidney Miller made an acting comeback in the early '70s with such films as Which Way to the Front? (as Hitler!) and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972); Miller was also on hand as director for the syndicated New Mickey Mouse Club in 1977. Sidney Miller was married to Dorothy Green; their son is actor Barry Miller.

Trivia: Peter Lawford was a bushy-browed, slender, aristocratic, good-looking British leading man in Hollywood films. At age eight he appeared in the film Poor Old Bill (1931); seven years later he visited Hollywood and appeared in a supporting role as a Cockney boy in Lord Jeff (1938). In 1942 he began regularly appearing onscreen, first in minor supporting roles; by the late 1940s he was a breezy romantic star, and his studio promised him (incorrectly) that he would be the "new Ronald Colman." His clipped British accent, poise, looks, and charm made him popular with teenage girls and young women, but he outgrew his typecast parts by the mid '50s and spent several years working on TV, starring in the series Dear Phoebe and The Thin Man. Off screen he was known as a jet-setter playboy; a member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack," he married Patricia Kennedy and became President John F. Kennedy's brother-in-law. From the 1960s he appeared mainly in character roles; his production company, Chrislaw, made several feature films, and he was credited as executive producer of three films, two in co-producer partnership with Sammy Davis Jr. In 1971-72 he was a regular on the TV sitcom The Doris Day Show. He divorced Kennedy in 1966 and later married the daughter of comedian Dan Rowan. He rarely acted onscreen after the mid-'70s.

Trivia: The Vargas girl in Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) and a show girl in many other MGM musicals of the 1940s, brunette, exotic-looking Eve Whitney is perhaps best remembered for playing the villainess, Nitra, in the Republic serial Radar Patrol vs. Sky King (1950). By then she had become the wife of studio composer-lyricist (and occasional bit player) Eddie Cherkose. She played "herself" in a 1954 episode of I Love Lucy.

Trivia: Together with Arthur Treacher, Olaf Hytten and Wilson Benge, Charles Coleman was one of Hollywood's "perfect butlers." On stage, he was Pauline Frederick's leading man for many years. After touring the U.S. and Australia, he settled in Hollywood in 1923. Coleman was virtually always cast as a gentleman's gentleman, often with a streak of effeminacy; representative Charles Coleman assignments include Bachelor Apartment (1931), Diplomaniacs (1933), Three Smart Girls (1937) and Cluny Brown (1946). Charles Coleman is best remembered by film buffs for two classic lines of dialogue. Explaining why he falsely informed his master Charlie Ruggles that he was to dress for a costume ball in Love Me Tonight (1932), Coleman "I did so want to see you in tights!" And when asked by Deanna Durbin in First Love (1939) why butlers are always so dour, Coleman moans "Gay butlers are extremely rare."

Trivia: Handsome American silent-screen comic Harry Depp starred for producer Al Christie in two-reel situation comedies such as Girl in the Box (1918) and 'Twas Henry's Fault (1919), both opposite pretty Elinor Field. He later showed a talent for female impersonation in several Universal comedies of the 1920s and continued to play bit parts through the late 1940s. In the talkie era, however, Depp was better known as an artists' representative.

Trivia: Sporting a pencil-thin mustache and an air of superiority, New York-born actor Richard Kipling played literally hundreds of unbilled bit parts from 1934 to 1955, often cast as "dignified men," the exact description of his character in the 1943 musical Girl Crazy. A veteran stock company actor, Kipling had formed Richard Kipling Enterprises in the late '10s to produce low-budget Westerns starring also-ran cowboys Bill Patton and Roy Stewart. At least five films were produced: The Midnight Rider (1920), Outlawed (1921), The Battlin' Kid (1921), and The Golden Silence (1923) -- all directed by Alvin J. Neitz and starring Patton -- and The Lone Hand (1920), starring Stewart.

Trivia: In films from 1928, heavy-set character actor Henry Roquemore essayed small-to-medium roles as politicians, storekeepers, judges, and "sugar daddies." A typical Roquemore characterization was "the Match King," one of Mae West's many over-the-hill suitors in Goin' to Town (1935). His more memorable roles include the Justice of the Peace who marries Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year (1941). Henry Roquemore was the husband of actress Fern Emmett.

Trivia: In films from 1926, former vaudevillian and stage actor/playwright Alphonse Martell was one of Hollywood's favorite Frenchmen. While he sometimes enjoyed a large role, Martell could usually be found playing bits as maitre d's, concierges, gendarmes, duelists, and, during WW II, French resistance fighters. In 1933, he directed the poverty-row quickie Gigolettes of Paris. Alphonse Martell remained active into the 1960s, guest-starring on such TV programs as Mission: Impossible.

Trivia: A cool and beautiful brunette, Barbara Bedford (born Violet Rose) appeared opposite William S. Hart in one of her earliest films, The Cradle of Courage (1920). It was not a large part, but director Maurice Tourneur liked her and cast her later that year as Cora Munro in his beautiful version of The Last of the Mohicans. Cora's death scene made her a star -- at least for a little while. Hart used her again, this time as his leading lady in Tumbleweeds (1925), the great cowboy's last film, and there were several roles opposite the rising star John Gilbert. She should have made the transition to talkies with ease, but a surprisingly throaty voice proved completely at odds with her ingenue image. The result was a trip down Poverty Row studios (Chesterfield, Peerless, and Monogram) in bit parts. She turned up in Our Gang shorts as Alfalfa's mother and was billed as "USO Manager" in The Clock (1945), her final credited film. Bedford was at one time married to actor Alan Roscoe, who had co-starred as Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans.

Trivia: Gawky, comic actor Victor Potel started out in one- and two-reel comedies, starring in Universal's Snakeville series. Potel went on to essay supporting parts in feature films of the 1920s, then played bits and walk-ons in such talkies as Three Godfathers (1936) and The Big Store (1941). He was a member of filmmaker Preston Sturges' unofficial stock company from 1940's Christmas in July until his death in 1947. One of Victor Potel's final film roles was diminutive Indian peddler Crowbar in The Egg and I (1947), a character played by Chief Yowlachie, Teddy Hart, Zachary Charles, and Stan Ross in the subsequent Ma and Pa Kettle series.

Trivia: Irving Bacon entered films at the Keystone Studios in 1913, where his athletic prowess and Ichabod Crane-like features came in handy for the Keystone brand of broad slapstick. He appeared in over 200 films during the silent and sound era, often playing mailmen, soda jerks and rustics. In The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) it is Irving, as a flustered jury foreman, who delivers the film's punchline. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Irving played the recurring role of Mr. Crumb in Columbia's Blondie series; he's the poor postman who is forever being knocked down by the late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead, each collision accompanied by a cascade of mail flying through the air. Irving Bacon kept his hand in throughout the 1950s, appearing in a sizeable number of TV situation comedies.

Trivia: Former model and chorus girl Katherine Hoffman was signed by Paramount in 1941, where she was billed as Katherine Booth. Moving to MGM in 1942, she changed her screen name to Karin Booth and was given the standard studio "star" build-up. After acquitting herself nicely in MGM's The Unfinished Dance (1947) and The Big City (1948), Karin was dropped by the studio for reasons that remain unclear. Karin Booth continued working in films into the 1950s, usually in such lower-berth programmers as The Cariboo Trail (1950), Tobor the Great (1955) and The World Was His Jury (1958); she retired in 1959.

Trivia: A Pennsylvania-born actor/director, Don Taylor appeared in such movies as Father of the Bride and Stalag 17 before switching to directing in 1961 with the juvenile comedy Everything's Ducky. His second film, Ride the Wild Surf (1964), was an above average teen exploitation movie that was very successful. But Taylor hit his stride as a serious filmmaker in 1968 with a jewel of a television feature called Something for a Lonely Man, a drama starring Dan Blocker and Susan Clark that became a favorite among critics. His next movie, Five Man Army (1970), was a popular spaghetti western, and his Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) secured good reviews and assured the series' survival beyond its third installment. Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) was a solid, handsomely produced version of the H.G. Wells story, and a hit, as was Taylor's Damien: Omen II (1979). Final Countdown (1980) proved a success as well, perhaps the last non-slasher/non-fantasy related science-fiction adventure to reach audiences with low-tech special effects. Taylor's subsequent work was confined to TV movies, where he was busy throughout the '80s.

Trivia: A serious-looking teenage actor of the 1930s, dark-haired Jimmy Butler earned good roles in such seminal dramas as Only Yesterday (1933), Manhattan Melodrama (1934), and Stella Dallas ([1938] as the grownup Con Morrison). Military Academy (1940) foreshadowed his eventual tour of duty in World War II. Sadly, he became one of a handful of Hollywood actors killed in action.

Trivia: After a tentative movie debut in the New York-filmed 1929 musical Glorifying the American Girl, stately character actress Sarah Edwards settled in Hollywood for keeps in 1935. Another of those performers who evidently jumped directly from birth to old age, Edwards portrayed many a kindly grandmother, imperious dowager, hardy pioneer wife, ill-tempered teacher and strict governess. She played peripheral roles in films like The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Shadow of the Doubt (1942), and enjoyed larger assignments in films like Hal Roach's Dudes are Pretty People (1942, as "The Colonel") and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Sarah Edwards is not related to the 1980s TV personality of the same name.

Trivia: American leading man William Bishop studied law at the University of West Virginia before settling upon an acting career. He came to Hollywood at the tail end of the "victory casting" period, when the major studios were hiring any and all handsome young actors to fill the gap until the major male stars like Gable and Fonda came back from the war. Under contract to MGM, Bishop was seen in sizeable but non-descript supporting roles in such films as A Guy Named Joe (1943) and Song of the Thin Man (1947). In the 1950s, the muscular, jut-jawed Bishop specialized in westerns like The Texas Rangers (1952), Redhead from Wyoming (1953) and Phantom Stagecoach (1954). His best showing during this period was as Carter Doone in Columbia's Technicolor costumer Lorna Doone (1952). For 39 weeks in 1954, Bishop costarred with Michael O'Shea and James Dunn in It's a Great Life, a TV sitcom about two ex-GIs living together in a small apartment. William Bishop died of cancer in his Malibu home at the age of 42; he had just completed work on his last film, The Oregon Trail (1959), in which he was billed just below star Fred MacMurray.

Trivia: A former illustrator, tall, handsome James Warren (born Wittlig) was discovered in a New York eatery in 1942 by an agent from MGM who awarded him a term contract. After playing servicemen in World War II melodramas, and usually finding himself near the bottom of the cast lists, Warren was approached by RKO, who needed a Western star to replace Robert Mitchum in the studio's Zane Grey Westerns. Mitchum, who had replaced draftee Tim Holt, was being promoted by the studio in Grade-A pictures and Warren, with his slight resemblance to Gary Cooper, seemed the perfect choice to take over the mantle of resident B-Western star. Unfortunately, after only three Westerns, all of them average or above, a reshuffling in RKO's executive offices and the return of Tim Holt left Warren out in the cold. He played Randolph Scott's brother in the high-budget Western Badman's Territory (1946) and later starred in a failed television pilot, Trigger Tales (1950). Gloria Swanson personally selected him as her co-star in the comedy 3 for Bedroom C (1952) and he starred in a rather ridiculous action-thriller, Port Sinister (1953). When both flopped, Warren left Hollywood for good and returned to working as a commercial artist. A longtime resident of Maui, HI, he enjoyed several prominent gallery showings, working mainly in watercolors.

Trivia: Lithe, dark-haired Fred Coby (born Frederick G. Beckner Jr.) turned into freakish Rondo Hatton in the 1946 horror melodrama The Brute Man, a chiller so tasteless and badly made that Universal sold it outright to Poverty Row company PRC. Coby stayed with PRC for Don Ricardo Returns (1946), a Zorro rip-off written by actor Duncan Renaldo and based on Johnston McCulley, the creator of the original. Although handsome -- Coby's slight resemblance to Tyrone Power may have won him the role in the first place -- Don Ricardo was too cheaply made to have any impact on the moviegoing audience. He spent the remainder of his career as a stunt performer and bit player.

Trivia: The faces of most movie extras are unmemorable blurs in the public's memory. Not so the elegant, statuesque Bess Flowers, who was crowned by appreciative film buffs as "Queen of the Hollywood Dress Extras." After studying drama (against her father's wishes) at the Carnegie Inst of Technology, Flowers intended to head to New York, but at the last moment opted for Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922, subsequently appearing prominently in such productions as Hollywood (1922) and Chaplin's Woman of Paris (1923). Too tall for most leading men, Flowers found her true niche as a supporting actress. By the time talkies came around, Flowers was mostly playing bits in features, though her roles were more sizeable in two-reel comedies; she was a special favorite of popular short-subject star Charley Chase. Major directors like Frank Lloyd always found work for Flowers because of her elegant bearing and her luminescent gift for making the people around her look good. While generally an extra, Flowers enjoyed substantial roles in such films as Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), Gregory La Cava's Private Worlds and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937). In 1947's Song of the Thin Man, the usually unheralded Flowers was afforded screen billing. Her fans particularly cherish Flowers' bit as a well-wisher in All About Eve (1950), in which she breaks her customary screen silence to utter "I'm so happy for you, Eve." Flowers was married twice, first to Cecil B. DeMille's legendary "right hand man" Cullen Tate, then to Columbia studio manager William S. Holman. After her retirement, Bess Flowers made one last on-camera appearance in 1974 when she was interviewed by NBC's Tom Snyder.

Trivia: Slightly built, snowy-haired American actor Harry C. Bradley had a long career on stage before his film bow in 1931's The Smiling Lieutenant. Usually sporting a well-tailored suit and a pair of rimless spectacles, Bradley played dozens of bookkeepers, court clerks, conductors and pharmacists. Two of his more visible screen roles were the justice of the peace in the 1936 comedy classic Libelled Lady and Keedish in the 1940 serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. He was also a member in good standing of the Frank Capra stock company, showing up fleetingly in such Capra productions as It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Harry C. Bradley's last film assignment included a pair of Henry Aldrich "B"-pictures, in which he was cast as a tweedy high school teacher named Tottle.

Trivia: To call child actor Spec O'Donnell homely, a critic once wrote, "would imply that your home was in grave need of repair." Alarmingly freckled and having beady little eyes, O'Donnell (real name Walter) was Hollywood's premiere enfant terrible in the 1920s. Although he bravely defended Mary Pickford's honor in Little Annie Rooney (1925), he was decidedly up to no good in her 1927 release Sparrows. As the spoiled son of baby mill owners, Spec is all but irredeemable in that classic melodrama, but offscreen Pickford and husband Douglas Fairbanks were his biggest boosters, the latter once calling him "the greatest child star" of the day. The boy Spec grew into a gawky young man who would play innumerable elevator boys, call boys, telegram boys, and so on. He remained homely, though, as attested by the description of his role in Life Begins in College (1937), which simply, and rather brutally, read: Ugly Student. O'Donnell's career, one of the longest in Hollywood, lasted at least until 1978, when he played a bit in the action comedy-drama Convoy. He passed away at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.