Trivia: Strappingly handsome leading man Grant Withers worked as an oil company salesman and newspaper reporter before he turned to acting in 1926. One of the more popular second echelon stars of the early '30s, Withers was unable to sustain his celebrity. By the end of the 1930s, Withers was pretty much limited to character roles and bits, with such notable exceptions as the recurring role of the brash Lt. Street in Monogram's Mr. Wong series. In 1930, Withers eloped with 17-year-old actress Loretta Young, but the marriage was later annulled. Some of Withers' later screen appearances were arranged through the auspices of his friends John Ford and John Wayne. Grant Withers committed suicide in 1959, leaving behind a note in which he apologized to all the people he'd let down during his Hollywood days.

Trivia: American character actor Paul McVey was a Fox contract player from 1934 to 1939. McVey had a substantial role in the 1934 Will Rogers vehicle Judge Priest, then settled into bit parts as detectives, stage manager and express agents. One of his meatier roles of the 1940s was "The Excellency Zanoff" in the 1941 Republic serial King of the Royal Mounted (1941). Before his retirement in 1953, Paul McVey appeared in a supporting part in the first-ever 3-D feature film, Bwana Devil (1952).

Trivia: American actor Charles Miller's screen credits are often lumped together with those of silent film director Charles C. Miller, but the actor Miller didn't start appearing in films until 1939. Generally cast in functionary roles -- jurors, cops, and the like -- he was allotted more screen time than usual as Senator Bromfield in Wilson and as the Burgomeister of Visaria in House of Frankenstein (both 1944). Retired since 1948, Miller was shot to death in 1955.

Trivia: With his silvery hair and dignified bearing, American actor John Dilson was a natural for "executive" roles. In films from 1935, Dilson was usually seen playing doctors, lawyers and newspaper editors. Occasionally, however, he played against type as sarcastic working stiffs, as witness his bit as an unemployment-office clerk in The Monster and the Girl (1941). John Dilson's larger screen roles can be found in Republic serials like Robinson Crusoe on Clipper Island (1936), and Dick Tracy (1937) and in such two-reel efforts as MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series.

Trivia: Michigan-born Jack Perrin moved to California with his family in the early 1900s. Perrin launched his film career in 1914 as a bit player and extra, working his way up to leading roles by 1917. After serving on a submarine in WWI, he resumed his movie work, attaining stardom in the 1919 Universal serial Lion Man. Handsome and athletic, Perrin became a popular Western star in the 1920s. Throughout the silent era, he worked for most of the major Western units (Universal, Pathe, First National) and not a few of the minor ones (Rayart, Mascot). In 1929, he was starred in the first all-talkie B-Western, Overland Bound. Perrin spent the early '30s laboring away for such Poverty Row concerns as Aywon and Big Four, where, despite shabby production values and substandard sound recording, he and his "wonder horse" Starlight remained Saturday-matinee favorites. He also briefly co-starred with Ben Corbett in a series of three-reel Westerns, released under the blanket title Bud and Ben. After his final starring series for producer William Berke in 1936, Perrin settled into character roles, both large (Davy Crockett in the 1937 serial The Painted Stallion) and small (the prison guard who escorts James Cagney to the hot seat in 1938's Angels With Dirty Faces). In 1956, Jack Perrin, together with several other former B-Western favorites, rode alongside Col. Tim McCoy in the "Cavalry rescue" sequence in Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

Trivia: Canadian actor Huntley Gordon began his film career in 1918, then spent the next two decades alternating between American and British productions. Gordon's Hollywood assignments include the role of jazz-baby Joan Crawford's father in Our Dancing Daughters (1928). His talkie credits include 1935's Daniel Boone, in which he was cast as Sir John Randolph, and 1937's Stage Door, in which he and several other distinguished character actors were seen in the play-within-a-play. Huntley Gordon was also busy in the world of network radio during the 1940s.

Trivia: Actor Victor Wong's first important role was Charlie the cook in King Kong (1933); though this unbilled appearance was to have been confined to a single scene, producer/directors Ernest Schoedsack and Willis O'Brien enjoyed the actor's work and expanded his role during shooting. He returned as Charlie -- this time with featured billing -- in the hastily assembled sequel Son of Kong (1933). For the rest of his Hollywood career, Wong was generally confined to bit roles, such as the bandit leader in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon. Victor Wong's screen credits are sometimes confused with those of contemporary Chinese-American character actor Victor Wong (Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, Shanghai Surprise, The Last Emperor, etc.).