Trivia: British actress Susannah York studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she won the Arthene Seyler and Ronson Awards. Several theatrical appearances and TV plays later, York was cast in her first film, 1960's Tunes of Glory. Her best early film roles included Sophie Western in Tom Jones (1963) and a profoundly disturbed patient in John Huston's Freud (1962). She created a mild tabloid sensation in 1968 when she gamely participated in scenes involving masturbation and lesbian lovemaking in The Killing of Sister George. Her performance as a bleach-blonde 1930's loser in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? won her the BFA award and an Oscar nomination; she would go on to collect a Cannes award for her work in Robert Altman's Images (1972). The biggest box-office successes with which she was associated were the first two Superman films, cast as the Man of Steel's Kryptonian mother. Adding writing to her long list of accomplishments, Susannah York co-authored the script for her 1980 film Falling in Love Again, and published several popular children's books. She died at age 72 in early 2011.

Trivia: One of the finest American actors of his generation, George C. Scott was born in Virginia and raised in Detroit. After serving in the Marines from 1945 to 1949, Scott enrolled at the University of Missouri, determined to become an actor. Though his truculent demeanor and raspy voice would seem to typecast him in unpleasant roles, Scott exhibited an astonishing range of characterizations during his seven years in regional repertory theater. He also found time to teach a drama course at Stephens College. By the time Scott moved to New York in 1957, he was in full command of his craft; yet, because he was largely unknown outside of the repertory circuit, he considered himself a failure. While supporting himself as an IBM machine operator, Scott auditioned for producer Joseph Papp. Cast as the title character in Papp's production of Richard III, Scott finally achieved the stardom and critical adulation that had so long eluded him. Amidst dozens of choice television guest-starring performances, Scott made his movie debut in 1959's The Hanging Tree. That same year, he earned the first of four Oscar nominations for his incisive portrayal of big-city attorney Claude Dancer in Anatomy of a Murder. Over the next few years, Scott appeared in a dizzying variety of roles, ranging from Paul Newman's mercenary manager Bert Gordon in The Hustler (1961) to erudite British detective Anthony Gethryn in The List of Adrian Messenger (1962) to ape-like General "Buck" Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove (1963). After turning down several TV series offers, Scott accepted the role of social director Neil Brock on the David Susskind-produced "relevance" weekly East Side/West Side (1963-1964). He left the series in a huff in early 1964, citing the censorial idiocies of the program's network and sponsors; he also vowed to never again appear in a TV series -- at least until 1987, when the Fox network offered him 100,000 dollars per episode to star in the nonsensical sitcom Mr. President. In 1971, Scott made international headlines by refusing to accept his Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the title role of Patton, deriding the awards ceremony as a "meat parade." Two years later, he turned down an Emmy for his work in the TV adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price. Curiously, he had no qualms about accepting such honors as the Golden Globe or Canada's Genie Award for the 1980 film The Changeling. Gravitating toward directing, Scott staged both the Broadway and TV productions of The Andersonville Trial, and he also directed two of his films: Rage (1973) and The Savage Is Loose (1974). In 1976, he added singing and dancing to his accomplishments when he starred on Broadway in Sly Fox, a musicalization of Ben Jonson's Volpone. In the '80s, Scott played Fagin in Oliver Twist (1982), Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1984), and Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1987); he also starred in a 1987 TV biopic of Mussolini, and enacted one of the most excruciatingly drawn-out death scenes in television history in The Last Days of Patton (1986). Making his cartoon voice-over debut in the anti-drug TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1988), Scott served up more vocal villainy in the Disney-animated feature The Rescuers Down Under (1990). Not until his later years did he show signs of slowing down; in 1996, while appearing as Henry Drummond in the National Actors Theater production of Inherit the Wind, he suddenly took ill in mid-performance, excused himself, and left the stage, obliging director Tony Randall to take over the part for the balance of the show. He made one of his final appearances in an Emmy-winning performance in the all-star TV remake of 12 Angry Men with Jack Lemmon. Scott was married five times; his third and fourth wife was the distinguished actress Colleen Dewhurst, while wife number five was another stage and film actress, Trish Van Devere. Two of his children, Devon and Campbell, have also pursued acting careers. Scott died on September 22, 1999.

Trivia: A respected character actor and occasional leading man of the stage, screen, and television, Scottish-born Ian Bannen acted in over 80 productions during his long career. Shortly after enrolling at Ratcliffe College, Bannen, who was born in Airdrie, Scotland, on June 29, 1918, made his first stage appearance at Dublin's Gate Theatre. A year after making his 1955 London theatrical debut, he entered films with A Private's Progress and Battle Hell. A prolific stage actor (with a special fondness for the works of Eugene O'Neill), Bannen nonetheless found time for quite a few impressive film characterizations. One of these, the cynical Crow in Flight of the Phoenix (1965), earned him an Academy Award nomination. His later screen assignments ranged from a cameo as a policeman in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) to the irascible Grandfather George in John Boorman's Hope and Glory (1987) to a turn as Robert the Bruce's leprous father in Braveheart (1995). It was with the 1998 comedy Waking Ned Devine that Bannen earned some of his best notices, playing a loveably crafty Irishman. Sadly, Bannen's life was cut short the following year, as he died in an auto accident on November 3, 1999, near Loch Ness, Scotland. He was survived by his wife of 23 years, as well as a rich theatrical legacy that stretched over almost half a century.

Trivia: Noted for being a prominent figure among first-generation British television actors, Nyree Dawn Porter achieved stardom after appearing in The Forsyth Saga (1967), the BBC's first major international export and the first BBC series to be sold to the Soviet Union.Born in New Zealand and later changing her name to the English phonetic pronunciation, Porter's other prominent works included prominent roles in the BBC's highly praised Madam Bovary (1964), as well as guest roles in such seminal British television series as The Avengers and The Saint. After appearing in such other period pieces as Jane Eyre (1970) and later starring opposite Robert Vaughn in the 1972 television series The Protectors, Porter was cast in the popular Martian Chronicles (1979) miniseries. Her final role came in 1998's Hillary and Jackie.Britain lost one of its most beloved actresses when Nyree Dawn Porter died of unreported causes at a London hospital. She was 61.

Trivia: Rachel Kempson began her acting career playing a supporting role in Girl in Distress (1942). In 1955, she left acting until 1963 when she reappeared in Tom Jones. Kempson was married to the late Michael Redgrave and is the mother of distinguished actors Vanessa, Lynn, and Corin Redgrave.

Trivia: Welsh character actor Kenneth Griffith was the archetypal "little man with big ideas" in most of his films. He spent his younger days playing weaklings and cowards then graduated to petty thieves, blackmailers and abusive parents as the character lines increased on his face. Historian William K. Everson has described Griffith as "the English equivalent to Elisha Cook Jr." -- true enough, especially since Griffith's characters, like Cook's, seldom lived long enough to be around at fadeout time. On both stage and screen since his teens, Kenneth Griffith was seen in such films as Love on the Dole (1941), The Shop at Sly Corner (1947) (perhaps his definitive screen appearance, as a lecherous extortionist), I'm All Right Jack (1959), Payroll (1962), The Whisperers (1967), and S.P.Y.S. (1974).

Trivia: Dancer/model Jean Marsh appeared in her first film, Tales of Hoffman, at the age of 17. For those out there who associate Marsh with prim, severe roles, it will probably come as a mild surprise to discover that she made her first American TV appearance as a sexy, sloe-eyed native girl in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Moon and Sixpence. Laboring in comparative obscurity throughout the 1960s (she was uncredited for her appearance as Marc Antony's wife Octavia in 1963's Cleopatra), Marsh began attracting attention in the 1970s in roles calling for tight-lipped outrage (Hitchcock's 1972 Frenzy) or glazed-eyed lunacy (Mrs. Rochester in the 1971 TV movie version of Jane Eyre). After nearly 20 years in the business, Marsh was voted "Most Outstanding New Actress of 1972" by a British film organization. She achieved international stardom (and won an Emmy) as Rose the maid in Upstairs Downstairs, a multipart British television series co-created by Marsh and actress Eileen Atkins. Subsequent TV-series work included the part of Roz Keith on the American sitcom 9 to 5 and the 1990s British TVer The House of Eliott, which like Upstairs Downstairs sprang largely from Marsh's personal creative input. Jean Marsh was at one time married to Dr. Who star Jon Pertwee.

Trivia: Crusty, craggy British leading man Jack Hawkins began as a child actor, studying at the Italia Court School of Acting. After his first film, 1930's Birds of Prey, Hawkins languished for several years in secondary roles before achieving minor stardom by the end of the '30s. During the war, Hawkins was a colonel in ENSA, the British equivalent of the USO. He became a major movie "name" in the postwar era, often as coolly efficient military officers in such films as The Cruel Sea (1953), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The League of Gentlemen (1961), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962, as General Allenby). He was considered an Academy Award shoe-in for his portrayal of Quintus Arrius in 1959's Ben-Hur, but the "Best Supporting Actor Oscar" went to another actor in that blockbuster, Hugh Griffith. Around this same time, Hawkins was one of four rotating stars in the J. Arthur Rank-produced TV series The Four Just Men; the other three were Vittorio de Sica, Dan Dailey and Richard Conte. In 1966, Hawkins underwent an operation for cancer of the larynx. Though the operation cost him his voice, publicity releases indicated that Hawkins was training himself to talk again with an artificial device -- and also that he defiantly continued chain-smoking. Hawkins remained in films until his death, but his dialogue had to be dubbed by others. In his next-to-last film Theatre of Blood (1973), he was effectively cast in a substantial role that required no dialogue whatsoever -- something that the viewer realizes only in retrospect. Ironically, Hawkins' biography was titled Anything for a Quiet Life. Jack Hawkins was married twice, to actresses Jessica Tandy and Doreen Lawrence.

Trivia: British actor Peter Copley made his reputation as a stage performer, debuting in 1932 after dropping plans for a career in the navy. Balding, slightly withered and usually sporting glasses, he could be seen picking up an occasional paycheck in films. Copley made his first screen appearance in 1934, and in the years after the war settled into roles calling for everything from disgruntled meekness to downright villainy. Many of his films were readily available for American audiences in the early days of television. Among Copley's British-made films given wide U.S. distribution were The Golden Salamander (1949), Foreign Intrigue (1956), Victim (1961), The Knack and How to Get It (1966) and Jane Eyre (1971). Offscreen, Peter Copley was an sharp-witted law expert and part-time attorney who successfully handled several court cases in the '60s.

Trivia: Was born in a family of actors, both her parents and sisters are actors.Made her stage debut when she was three weeks old.Met Edward Woodward in 1959 when he was doing a play with her father at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.After watching the scene from Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em where her character is hanging over a cliff, her mother slapped her in the face and told her to never do a stunt like that again.Studied at the Corona Academy.In 1987, appeared in an episode of The Equalizer with her future husband actor Edward Woodward.

Trivia: The daughter of an attorney father and an opera-diva mother, Constance Cummings took dancing lessons in the hopes of becoming a prima ballerina. She switched to acting, landing the role of Diana in a stock-company production of Seventh Heaven when she was only 16. Within a few years, she was appearing on Broadway as a chorus dancer in the company of such leading lights as Gertrude Lawrence and Clifton Webb. In 1930, she was brought to Hollywood by Sam Goldwyn for the Ronald Colman vehicle The Devil to Pay. She was replaced in that film by Loretta Young, but the next year she was prominently cast in Howard Hawks' prison picture The Criminal Code (1931). Seldom cast as a conventional ingenue, Constance enjoyed such complex roles as the twin-personality heroine in Harold Lloyd's Movie Crazy (1932). Upon her marriage to British playwright W. Benn Levy in 1933, Constance moved to England, where she remained for the rest of her career. Matriculating into a topnotch character actress, Constance starred in the London production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in Long Day's Journey Into Night. Constance Cummings was honored with the Order of the British Empire in 1974, and in 1979 she won a "Best Actress" Tony for her Broadway performance in Arthur Kopit's Wings.

Trivia: British actor Clive Morton was an employee of the East India Dock Company before deciding to "tread the boards." Morton's old-school-tie personality and men's-club looks served him well in securing numerous film roles as aristocrats or snobbish business executives. Seldom having more than a scene or two in any film (his first was 1932's Fires of Fate, his last was 1974's 11 Harrowhouse), Morton nonetheless made the most of his limited screen time in such quality productions as Scott of the Antarctic (1949), Richard III (1956), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Young Winston (1971). Perhaps as a reward for his long cinema service, Clive Morton was allowed longer scenes and better lines, in his prolific TV work.

Trivia: Born in South Africa, actress Nan Munro is best remembered for her five-decade career in British theater. She also occasionally appeared in British films.