Trivia: Known as the "Lonely Cowboy," Tex Fletcher (born Geremino Bisceglia) began his show business career singing cowboy ballads on radio station WOR in New York City. In late 1938, Fletcher signed with low-budget company Grand National for a prospective series of music-Westerns to complement the studio's popular Tex Ritter vehicles. Fletcher played a college football hero searching for his father's killer in the series opener, Six-Gun Rhythm, released in early 1939. Although looking and sounding like a comic sidekick rather than a bona fide Western hero, Fletcher didn't do too badly in the romantic clinches with leading lady Joan Barclay and was well-served by such numbers as "Cabin in the Valley" and the signature tune "The Lonesome Cowboy", both written by prolific songwriters Johnny Lange and Lew Porter. Unfortunately, Grand National was experiencing deep financial troubles, the little studio's main drawing card, James Cagney, having returned to Warner Bros. after only two films. Ritter and another Grand National series star, James Newell, would find new hunting grounds at Monogram Pictures, but, Fletcher, with only one Western to his credit, was left pretty much in the lurch. The market was glutted with singing Western stars at that particular moment in history and Six-Gun Rhythm would prove Fletcher's only film. He returned, instead, to New York and a recording career that would last well into the 1960s.

Trivia: Moon-faced American character actor Ralph Peters was active in films from 1937 to 1956. At first, Peters showed up in Westerns, usually cast as a bartender. He then moved on to contemporary films, usually cast as a bartender. During the 1940s, Ralph Peters could be seen in scores of Runyon-esque gangster roles like Asthma Anderson in Ball of Fire (1941) and Baby Face Peterson in My Kingdom for a Cook (1943).

Trivia: One of several male models to achieve some success in action films of the '20s, Hermon Reed Howes was forever saddled with the tag "Arrow Collar Man," despite the fact that he had been only one of several future luminaries to have posed for famed artist J.C. Leyenecker's memorable Arrow ads. (Future screen actors Fredric March and Brian Donlevy also did yeoman duty for the company.)A graduate of the University of Utah and the Harvard Graduate School, Howes had served two and a half years in the navy prior to entering onto the stage. He became a leading man for the likes of Peggy Wood and Billie Burke, and entered films in 1923, courtesy of low-budget producer Ben Wilson, who cast the handsome newcomer as the lead in a series of breathless melodramas released by Rayart. Howes reached a silent screen pinnacle of sorts as Clara Bow's leading man in Rough House Rosie (1927), but his starring days were over with the advent of sound. There was nothing inherently wrong with Howes voice, but it didn't do anything for him either. His acting before the microphone seemed too stiff. He was still as handsome as ever, but his good looks were often hidden behind a scruffy beard or mustache. The veteran actor then drifted into supporting roles in B-Westerns and serials, his appearances sometimes devoid of dialogue, and more often than not, he was unbilled. Howes did his fair share of television in the '50s as well, but ill health forced him to retire after playing a police inspector in Edward D. Wood Jr.'s The Sinister Urge, filmed in July of 1960 and a guest spot on television's Mr. Ed. He died of cancer at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: Almost reptilian in appearance and disposition, B-Western heavy Ted Adams came out of a show business family and was reportedly born in the proverbial trunk. On-stage from childhood, Adams segued into films soon after the transition to sound, using several variations of his real name, Richard Theodore Adams. By the mid-'30s, he chose the friendlier Ted but there was nothing friendly about the characters he was given to play: He was sometimes the lead villain and often scruffy-looking so-called "dog heavies," the kind the audience could easily imagine kicking a dog. A constant presence in the low-budget Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Steele Westerns from producer A.W. Hackel, he later worked mainly for PRC and Monogram, the nether regions of sagebrush moviemaking. By the time of his retirement in the early '50s, Adams had added such television Westerns as The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, and Cowboy G-Men to his lengthy resumé.

Trivia: The husband of actress/writer/producer Corra Beach, Walter Shumway made his screen debut opposite his wife in What Becomes of the Children? (1918), an "uplift" melodrama dealing with divorce. The couple remade the film as a talkie in 1936, this time with Shumway directing Robert Frazer and Natalie Moorhead. As an actor, the tall, dark-haired Shumway usually played villains in low-budget Westerns and would continue to appear in bit parts onscreen until at least 1950. He died at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: One of the many unheralded stuntmen of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, Carl Mathews (born Carl Davis Mathews) doubled cowboy crooner Fred Scott at Spectrum and Ray "Crash" Corrigan at Republic. Nicknamed "Cherokee" and of Native American heritage, the burly Mathews later supported Al "Lash" LaRue at PRC, usually playing henchmen. His career lasted well into the television era.

Trivia: A cowboy troubadour who had recorded for both Victor and Columbia, rotund Art Davis appeared as a musician in a few B-Westerns before supporting one-time-only cowboy star Monte Rawlins (aka Dean Spencer) in the bizarre The Adventures of the Masked Phantom (1939). Davis billed himself as Larry Mason for the occasion, perhaps hoping that no one would notice his participation in this, one of the decade's more ridiculous (albeit entertaining) low-budget ventures. He was Art Davis again when signed by poverty row newcomer PRC in 1942, as one of the Frontier Marshals. The ramshackle studio's bid to compete with rival Republic Pictures' popular Three Mesquiteers Westerns, the Frontier Marshal vehicles co-starred Davis with screen newcomer and fellow troubadour Bill "Cowboy Rambler" Boyd and Lee Powell. The latter, who took care of most of the action, suffered the indignity of being billed below his two sidekicks but that was truly the sole remarkable feature of this wretched series. The demise of Frontier Marshals after only six installments came as a relief to everyone concerned and Davis returned to performing with his hillbilly singing group Art Davis and his Rhythm Rangers. The Art Davis of B-Westerns should not be confused with the animator of the same name.

Trivia: The youngest of the three acting Tansey brothers, Sherry Tansey began his long screen career in 1916, billed in the style of the day as Master Tansey. He was Sheridan Tansey in the classic tearjerker Over the Hill to the Poorhouse (1920), and as an adult, played weakling brothers, henchmen, and members of the posse in countless low-budget oaters under the names James Sheridan and Sherry Tansey. Often working for older brother Robert Emmett Tansey, Sherry's credits lasted well into the sound era, his last known screen appearance coming in 1941.

Trivia: Danish-born actor Kit Guard came to prominence in the mid 1920s as a regular in a trio of 2-reel comedy series: "The Go-Getters," "The Pacemakers" and "Bill Grimm's Progress." Guard appeared in at least 200 feature films, usually cast as sailors, barflies and foreign legionnaires. Usually unbilled, he managed to attain screen credit in the 1931 Ronald Colman vehicle The Unholy Garden and as Dinky in the 1940 Columbia serial The Green Archer. Kit Guard made his last fleeting film appearance in Carrie (1952).

Trivia: Born two weeks before the great San Francisco earthquake, Jack O'Shea held down a variety of jobs before entering films in 1938. Nearly always cast as swarthy, mustachioed Western villains, he more than earned his billing as "Black Jack O'Shea" and "the Man You Love to Hate." An able stunt man, he doubled for such stocky performers as Lou Costello, Leo Carrillo, and Orson Welles. Retiring from films in the mid-'50s, Jack O'Shea kept busy as the proprietor of an antique shop in Paradiso, CA, where he briefly served as honorary mayor (given his unsavory screen image, one wonders if he fixed the election).

Trivia: A small mustache and squinty eyes placed this B-Western supporting player squarely among the less desirable denizens of the Old West. In films from the late '30s, Parkinson (born Clifford Emmitt Pixley Parkinson) rode with most of the well-known hissables, including Republic Pictures' main villains, Leroy Mason and Roy Barcroft. Although often merely a member of the posse, Parkinson was awarded good roles in several Hopalong Cassidy entries in the mid-'40s. Parkinson died at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital.

Trivia: Snake-eyed, mustachioed character actor Frank Ellis seldom rose above the "member of the posse" status in "B" westerns. Once in a while, he was allowed to say things like "Now here's my plan" and "Let's get outta here," but generally he stood by waiting for the Big Boss (usually someone like Harry Woods or Wheeler Oakman) to do his thinking for him. Ellis reportedly began making films around 1920; he remained in the business at least until the 1954 Allan Dwan-directed western Silver Lode. Frank Ellis has been erroneously credited with several policeman roles in the films of Laurel and Hardy, due to his resemblance to another bit player named Charles McMurphy.