Trivia: Before becoming a notable early director and actor on the silver screen, Oscar Apfel was a veteran opera producer and director. His career in cinema began in 1911 when became a director for Edison. Apfel also directed films for other studios including Selig. His work became popular in 1914 when he began co-directing feature-length films with the legendary Cecil B. De Mille for Lasky-Paramount Studios. In 1916, he moved to Fox and later continued director for smaller studios until his career began to wane in the 1920s. At the end of his directorial career, Apfel had been reduced to churning out low-grade melodramas for cut-rate studios. He directed his final film in 1927. One year later, Apfel appeared again as an actor known for playing distinguished characters in films such as Romance of the Underworld (1928), and the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon.

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

Trivia: Mustachioed character actor Bradley Page had the slick looks that made him the ideal choice for playing oily villains or crime lords and it was into those roles that he was most frequently cast in the '30s and '40s.

Trivia: A theatrical performer from the 1880s, Florence Roberts was able to convey extreme youth on-stage even in her forties and fifties. At 42, Roberts played Bo Peep in the Victor Herbert musical Babes in Toyland; and at 50, she played the vampish title role in Sappho, repeating this portrayal on film in 1912. Her Hollywood career began in earnest in the talkie era. Her characterizations ranged from snooty dowagers to downtrodden pensioners. Among her more famous 1930s film roles were Widow Peep in the Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy version of Babes in Toyland (1934), the title character's mother in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), and Mrs. Bowling Green in Abe Lincoln Illinois (1940). She also appeared as the cantankerous, outspoken Granny Jones in 20th Century Fox's Jones Family series (1936-1940). Florence Roberts was married to actor Walter Gale.

Trivia: Burly, puffy-cheeked American actor Spencer Charters entered films in 1923, after decades of stage experience. In his first talkie appearances (Whoopee [1930], The Bat Whispers [1931], etc.), Charters was often seen as an ill-tempered authority figure. Traces of this characterization continued into such mid-'30s efforts as Wheeler and Woolsey's Hips Hips Hooray, but before the decade was over Charters was firmly locked into playing such benign types as rustic sheriffs, bucolic hotel clerks and half-asleep justices of the peace. Advancing age and the attendant infirmities made it difficult for Charters to play anything other than one-scene bits by the early '40s. At the age of 68, he ended his life by downing an overdose of sleeping pills and then inhaling the exhaust fumes of his car.

Trivia: In films from 1928, Lorrin Raker (aka Lorin and Loren Raker) was typecast early on as henpecked husbands and fussy office managers. Raker could often be found playing minor roles in major films, notably Les Miserables (1935) and Two-Faced Woman (1941). He was even busier in the two-reel comedy field, playing opposite such funsters as Clark and McCullough, Andy Clyde and Vera Vague. Lorrin Raker's final film role was the landlord in 1951's Tales of Robin Hood.

Trivia: Sometimes billed Arnold Gregg, Ohio-born Arnold Gray (born Samberg) began his screen career in Universal two-reel action melodramas. Gray later starred opposite Seena Owen in Flame of the Yukon (1925) but spent the remainder of his screen career in supporting roles and as Joel McCrea's stand-in.