Trivia: Beatrice Roberts only ever had one notable acting role in a career lasting a little more than 15 years. But she started out with a lot of hope and encouragement, growing out of her partial success in beauty pageants while in her late teens. She was born Alice Beatrice Roberts in New York City in 1905. And she was clearly a striking beauty and also advanced for her years, as she married cartoonist Robert L. Ripley (of believe-it-or-not fame) in 1919, a union that only lasted three months, but which wasn't dissolved officially until 1926. They evidently never saw each other again after 1919, and Roberts competed in the Miss America pageants of 1924 and 1925, as Miss Manhattan and Miss Greater New York. She won awards in both years as "Best Dressed Girl In Evening Gown," an honor that, with its implications of a dignified, imperious quality, seemed to point toward her one significant contribution to the screen, a little more than a decade later.She arrived in Hollywood in 1933 and, after appearances in a few low-budget productions (including the serial The Return of Chandu, starring Bela Lugosi), she landed at MGM. She seldom ascended above smaller, uncredited supporting roles in the studio's productions; typical was her portrayal of one of the three graces in the 1935 fantasy/comedy The Night Life of the Gods. Offscreen, however, she was one of the most notable women on the studio lot, as the mistress of studio chief Louis B. Mayer. They were together for two years, ending in 1936, and she continued to work in MGM films in small roles for another few years. It was at Universal in 1938, however, that Roberts got the most prominent and enduring role of her career, as Queen Azura in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. She brought startling beauty as well as an imperious evil to the role of the witch queen, who is an ally of the evil Emperor Ming (Charles Middleton) and also responsible for the curse upon the Clay People. It might not have been a heavy-lifting acting assignment, but she was just about as memorable within the context of the Flash Gordon serials as Priscilla Lawson's wild-eyed, lustful Princess Aura in the first chapterplay or Anne Gwynne's devious Lady Sonya in the third serial. In those days, regardless of the worth of one's performance, serial work was not conducive to an advancing career in features, and Roberts never did get another starring role. She continued to appear in movies, mostly at Universal, until 1949, after which she retired.

Trivia: Character actor Donald Kerr showed up whenever a gumchewing Runyonesque type (often a reporter or process server) was called for. A bit actor even in two-reelers and "B" pictures, Kerr was one of those vaguely familiar faces whom audiences would immediately recognize, ask each other "Who is that?", then return to the film, by which time Kerr had scooted the scene. The actor's first recorded film appearance was in 1933's Carnival Lady. Twenty-two years later, Donald Kerr concluded his career in the same anonymity with which he began it in 1956's Yaqui Drums.

Trivia: Athletic actor Buster Crabbe, born Clarence Crabbe, grew up in Hawaii where he developed into a first-rate swimmer and athlete, going on to win the gold medal in 400-meter swimming at the 1932 Olympics (he broke the record held by another actor-athlete, Johnny Weissmuller). After the Olympics he found work in Hollywood playing Tarzan, branching out from this character to eventually play Flash Gordon, Billy the Kid, and Buck Rogers, among other action heroes. He became enormously popular with young audiences for his appearances in many serials and action flicks of the '30s and '40s, and ultimately starred in over 100 films. He also made westerns (in the '40s he was teamed with sidekick Al "Fuzzy" St. John), and was on the list of Top Ten Western Stars at the box office in 1936. Crabbe went on to star in the '50s TV series Captain Gallant, which also featured his son Cullen "Cuffy" Crabbe. He considerably slowed down his acting output in the '50s and '60s, becoming the athletic director for a resort hotel in the Catskills and investing in the swimming pool business. He also authored Energetics, a book on physical fitness for people over 50. Crabbe later returned to the screen once, for a large role in The Alien Dead (1980).

Trivia: Blonde, wide-eyed film ingénue Jean Rogers came to Hollywood on the strength of a beauty contest. She rose to stardom as the fetchingly underdressed, ever-imperiled Dale Arden in the popular Universal serial Flash Gordon (1936). She also co-starred in the second Gordon serial, as well as such chapter plays as Ace Drummond (1935) and The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1936). From Universal, Rogers moved on to 20th Century Fox, where she starred in a series of enjoyable B-pictures, the best of which (though not her personal favorite) was Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence (1939). She appeared in supporting parts in several MGM films of the 1940s, then freelanced in independent productions. Jean Rogers retired from show business in 1951 upon her marriage to a successful actors' agent.