Trivia: One of the best movie equestrians of all time, Ken Maynard had been a 1920 world champion trick-rider and had toured with Pawnee Bill (aka Ted Wells) and Ringling Bros. before doubling for Marion Davies and playing the small, but important, role of Paul Revere in Janice Meredith (1924). A year later, Maynard starred in poverty row producer J. Charles Davis in a series of very low-budget oaters that also featured a group of ex-Follies girls, an odd mix that, in many ways, foreshadowed Maynard's later career and ultimate downfall. From Gower Gulch, Ken Maynard moved up to become First National's resident cowboy hero prior to the advent of sound. The Maynard-First National Westerns were top-flight affairs, with the star performing daring feats on his famous palomino horse, Tarzan. (A copyright infringement suit by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of the pulp-fiction jungle hero of the same name, was finally dismissed in 1935.) The string of box-office and critical successes, of which, sadly, few examples remain, ended when Maynard left First National in favor of more pedestrian Universal. Increasingly difficult to handle, Maynard's reign at Carl Laemmle's huge, family-oriented lot proved brief, however, and he returned to star for a poverty row company, in this case Samuel Bischoff's KBS. Universal brought him back in 1933 as a replacement for the retiring Tom Mix, but Maynard's ego had, by then, gotten nearly out of control. He is credited with introducing the Singing Cowboy fad at this juncture (despite a voice that he himself often dismissed as "nasal soundin'" and amateurish, at best) and his Westerns became increasingly flamboyant, both in attitude and expenditure. The star, who had become his own producer, spent money with abandon, but the market for B-Westerns was diminishing and the otherwise so avuncular Carl Laemmle summarily replaced him with the less expensive (and far less volatile) Buck Jones. Still a potential moneymaker in the hinterlands, Maynard continued to star in low-budget Westerns through the mid-'40s -- at a reported salary of 850 dollars per picture as opposed to the 10,000-dollar paycheck he had received in his heyday -- but an ever expanding waistline and an impossible ego put the final nails in his cinematic coffin. Sadly, Maynard was never able to shake rumors that he had mistreated his equine co-stars and spent his declining years if not in outright poverty then in very diminished circumstances and, some said, an alcoholic stupor. One of the great showmen of early Hollywood action fare, Maynard died at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA. He was preceded in death by his brother, ultra-low-budget Western star, stunt double, and all-around good fellow Kermit Maynard, with whom he had always retained a rather strained relationship.

Trivia: A grandson of the legendary Apache chief Geronimo, Charles Stevens (often billed as Charles "Injun" Stevens because of his ethnic background) made his film bow as an extra in The Birth of a Nation (1915). The close friend and "mascot" of cinema idol Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Stevens appeared in all but one of Fairbanks' starring films, beginning with 1915's The Lamb. He was often seen in multiple roles, never more obviously than in Fairbanks' The Black Pirate (1926). His largest role during his Fairbanks years was Planchet in The Three Musketeers (1921) and its sequel The Iron Mask (1929). In talkies, Stevens was generally cast as a villain, usually an Indian, Mexican, or Arab. Outside of major roles in early sound efforts like The Big Trail and Tom Sawyer (both 1930), he could be found playing menacing tribal chiefs and bandits in serials and B-pictures, and seedy, drunken "redskin" stereotypes (invariably named Injun Joe or Injun Charlie or some such) in big-budget films like John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946). He was also much in demand as a technical adviser on Native American lore and customs. Charles Stevens remained active until 1956, 17 years after the death of his pal and mentor Doug Fairbanks.

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Trivia: In films from 1918, dark, mustachioed Harry Semels was a reliable serial villain for Pathe and other studios. Semels spent the 1920s menacing the heroes and heroines of such chapter plays as Hurricane Hutch, Pirate Gold, Plunder, and Play Ball; he even found time to spoof his screen image in the serial parody Bound and Gagged (1919). Active in talkies until his death in 1946, Semels played mostly bit roles, usually as excitable foreigners. During this period, Harry Semels was also a fixture of Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedy unit, in support of such funmakers as Andy Clyde, Buster Keaton, Monty Collins, Tom Kennedy, Gus Schilling, Dick Lane, and especially the Three Stooges: He made seven appearances with the last-named team, most memorably as the prosecuting attorney ("Whooo killed Kirk Robin?") in Disorder in the Court (1936).

Trivia: Someone once called American supporting actor Charles "Slim" Whitaker a "no good yellow-bellied polecat," and that is as good a description as any for this paunchy, mustachioed gent, a former stage manager and stock company actor from Kansas City, MO. Whitaker's screen career was spent almost entirely in B-Westerns, where he would skulk around as lazy ranch hands, tobacco-chewing henchmen, Mexican "half-breeds," and even the occasional corrupt lawman. More versatile than most Western supporting players, Whitaker was adept at comedy as well, and was humorously billed "Slender" Whitaker in 1925's Border Intrigue, in which he played a comedic Mexican bandito. Whitaker, who made his screen bow around 1925, was busiest in the 1930s, appearing in over 25 films in 1935 alone! He continued in pictures through the late '40s, but spent his final years working as a short-order cook in a Hollywood coffee shop.

Trivia: Born in Connecticut and raised in Los Angeles, Frank Coghlan Jr. began appearing in films at age 3; his meager income helped to pay his father's way through chiropractic college. Though his mother was reluctant to allow her son to appear before the cameras, young Frank took to performing with ease, playing bits in 2-reel comedies. Placed under contract to Cecil B. DeMille, who considered the boy "the perfect example of a homeless waif," Frank became a popular juvenile performer. Billed as Junior Coghlan, he appeared prominently in such major silent films as The Yankee Clipper (1926), Let 'Er Go Gallegher (1927) and Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927). During the early talkie era, Coghlan was co-starred with fellow child actor Leon Janney in Penrod and Sam (1930) and played James Cagney as a boy in Public Enemy (1931). As a free-lancer, Coghlan appeared in several serials, including 1941's The Adventures of Captain Marvel, in which he was top-billed as the Captain's youthful alter ego Billy Batson. He also showed up in many bit roles, usually playing a Western Union messenger boy. With the onslaught of World War II, Coghlan began his 23-year Navy career as an aviator. He rose to the rank of Commander, and from 1952 through 1954 was in charge of the movie section of the Pentagon's Office of Information, acting as liaison and technical advisor for such films as The Caine Mutiny (1954) and Bridges of Toko-Ri (1955). He was later in charge of the navy's Hollywood office, coordinating official naval cooperation for films like In Harm's Way (1964) and TV series like Hennessey. After retiring from the Navy, Coghlan worked in public relations for the Los Angeles Zoo and the Port of Los Angeles. He also resumed his acting career, spending seven years as commercial spokesman for Curtis Mathes. As of 1995, Frank Coghlan Jr. was still very active on the nostalgia-convention circuit, and still as unfailingly courteous and likeable as ever.

Trivia: Mustachioed Hooper Atchley was one of Hollywood's better "brains villains," one of those suspicious yet nattily dressed saloon owners, assayers, or cattle barons calling the shots in B-Westerns of the '30s and '40s. He came to films in 1928 after a long stage career that included Broadway appearances opposite Marie Dressler in The Great Gambol (1913). Onscreen Atchley came into his own in talkies where his distinguished stage-trained voice lent credence to numerous bad deeds opposite the likes of Ken Maynard and Tim McCoy. The actor's screen career waned in the latter part of the '30s; a fact that may have contributed to his 1943 suicide by a gunshot.

Trivia: Mustachioed, French-born silent screen villain James Mason, a former musician, was one of the few professional extras to move into featured roles. In the 1920s, Mason established himself as the ideal "Boss Villain" in budget Westerns and would play variations of that role well into the sound era. In his later years, the no longer svelte Mason would find himself further down the cast lists playing one of the villain's henchmen or a deputy marshal. Often using the friendlier "Jim" rather than "James," this veteran screen actor should of course not be confused with the sophisticated British leading man of the same name.

Trivia: The brother of western star Ken Maynard, Kermit Maynard was a star halfback on the Indiana University college team. He began his career as a circus performer, billed as "The World's Champion Trick and Fancy Rider." He entered films in 1926 as a stunt man (using the stage name Tex Maynard), often doubling for his brother Ken. In 1927, Kermit starred in a series for Rayart Films, the ancestor of Monogram Pictures, then descended into minor roles upon the advent of talking pictures, taking rodeo jobs when things were slow in Hollywood. Independent producer Maurice Conn tried to build Kermit into a talkie western star between 1931 and 1933, and in 1934 launched a B-series based on the works of James Oliver Curwood, in which the six-foot Maynard played a Canadian mountie. The series was popular with fans and exhibitors alike, but Conn decided to switch back to straight westerns in 1935, robbing Maynard of his attention-getting gimmick. Kermit drifted back into supporting roles and bits, though unlike his bibulous, self-indulgent brother Ken, Kermit retained his muscular physique and square-jawed good looks throughout his career. After his retirement from acting in 1962, Kermit Maynard remained an active representative of the Screen Actors Guild, lobbying for better treatment and safer working conditions for stuntpersons and extras.