Trivia: Though he claimed to be a born-and-bred Californian, Julian Rivero was actually born in Texas. Rivero started out as a Shakespearean actor under the tutelage of Robert B. Mantell. He made his film debut in the New York-filmed The Bright Shawl (1923), then relocated in Hollywood, where he remained active until 1973. Most often cast in Westerns, he played opposite such horse-opera heroes as Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, and Harry Carey. His parts ranged from such bits as the barber in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947) to the major role of ruthless Mexican General Santa Anna (which he played sympathetically) in Heroes of the Alamo (1937). The addition of a well-groomed, snow-white beard enabled Rivero to play dozens of aristocratic Latin American patriarchs in the 1950s and 1960s. Julian Rivero was the husband of former Mack Sennett bathing beauty Isabelle Thomas.

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: In films after 1915, hatchet-faced Robert Kortman claimed to have served in the U.S. Cavalry prior to going on-stage. With producer Thomas H. Ince in the mid-1910s, the menacing actor often supported the era's great Western icon William S. Hart (he was one of the rowdy townsmen in 1916's Hell's Hinges) and was equally busy in the '20s. Kortman, however, came into his own in sound serials, especially at Mascot and its successor Republic Pictures, where his menacing visage turned up everywhere, from playing Magua in Last of the Mohicans (1932) to portraying One-Eye Chapin in Adventures of Red Ryder (1940). His roles grew increasingly smaller, and Kortman continued to play mostly villains until at least 1951. He died of cancer.

Trivia: When the fair Eleanor Fair was elected a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1924, she had already been in films since 1919 and in vaudeville before that. A highly variable actress, she was capable of great things when provided with the proper direction. She did some of her best work under contract to Cecil B. DeMille, appearing in such DeMille-produced fare as Yankee Clipper (1927) and Let 'Er Go Gallagher (1927). From 1926 to 1929, she was the wife of another DeMille contractee, William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd. Reduced to minor roles in the talkie era, Elinor Fair left the screen in 1934, spending the rest of her life in virtual anonymity.

Trivia: Western film star Harry Carey was the Eastern-born son of a Bronx judge. Carey's love and understanding of horses and horsemanship was gleaned from watching the activities of New York's mounted policemen of the 1880s. He worked briefly as an actor in stock, then studied law until a bout of pneumonia forced him to quit the job that was paying for his education. He reactivated his theatrical career in 1904 by touring the provinces in Montana, a play he wrote himself. In 1911, Carey signed with the Bronx-based Biograph film company, playing villain roles for pioneer director D. W. Griffith. Though only in his mid-30s, Carey's face had already taken on its familiar creased, weatherbeaten look; it was an ideal face for westerns, as Carey discovered when he signed with Hollywood's Fox Studios. Under the guidance of fledgling director John Ford, Carey made 26 features and two-reelers in the role of hard-riding frontiersman Cheyenne Harry. Throughout the 1920s, Carey remained an audience favorite, supplementing his acting income with occasional scripting, producing and co-directing assignments. At the dawn of the talkie era, Carey had been around so long that he was considered an old-timer, and had resigned himself to playing supporting parts. His starring career was revitalized by the 1931 jungle epic Trader Horn, in which he appeared with his wife Olive Golden. While he still accepted secondary roles in "A" features (he earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the Vice President in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939]), Carey remained in demand during the 1930s as a leading player, notably in the autumnal 1936 western The Last Outlaw and the rugged 1932 serial Last of the Mohicans. In 1940, Carey made his belated Broadway debut in Heavenly Express, following this engagement with appearances in Ah, Wilderness (1944) and But Not Goodbye (1944). By the early 1940s, Carey's craggy face had taken on Mount Rushmore dimensions; his was the archetypal "American" countenance, a fact that director Alfred Hitchcock hoped to exploit. Hitchcock wanted to cast Carey against type as a Nazi ringleader in 1942's Saboteur, only to have these plans vetoed by Mrs. Carey, who insisted that her husband's fans would never accept such a radical deviation from his image. Though Carey and director John Ford never worked together in the 1930s and 1940s, Ford acknowledged his indebtedness to the veteran actor by frequently casting Harry Carey Jr. (born 1921), a personable performer in his own right, in important screen roles. When Carey Sr. died in 1948, Ford dedicated his film Three Godfathers to Harry's memory. A more personal tribute to Harry Carey Sr. was offered by his longtime friend John Wayne; in the very last shot of 1955's The Searchers, Wayne imitated a distinctive hand gesture that Harry Carey had virtually patented in his own screen work.

Trivia: A legendary stuntman/stunt coordinator, Cliff Lyons was as handsome as any of the stars he doubled and had indeed starred in his own series of silent Westerns under the name of Tex Lyons. Having begun his professional career performing with minor rodeos, Lyonsdrifted to Hollywood in the early '20s, where he found work as a stuntman in such films as Ben-Hur (1925) and Beau Geste (1927). In between these major releases, the newcomer did yeoman duty for Poverty Row entrepreneur Bud Barsky, who produced eight Westerns in Sequoia National Park starring, alternately, Lyons and Al Hoxie. Lyons would do a second series of eight equally low-budget jobs for producer Morris R. Schlank, filmed at Kernville, CA, and released 1928-1930. This time, he would alternate with another cowboy star, Cheyenne Bill. Commented Lyons: "We would go on location and make two pictures at a time -- one of Cheyenne Bill's and one of mine -- and also play the villain in each other's." Sound put an end to Lyons' starring career and he spent the next four decades or so as a riding double for the likes of Johnny Mack Brown, Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and even Tom Mix (in the 1935 serial The Miracle Rider). In his later years he became closely associated with good friends John Wayne and John Ford, for whom he also did some second-unit directing. Although not as remembered today as Yakima Canutt, Lyons was a major force in the burgeoning stunt business and many of his innovations are still used by modern practitioners of the craft. He was married from 1938 to 1955 to B-Western heroine Beth Marion, with whom he had two sons.

Trivia: Virtually the prototype of all grizzled old-codger western sidekicks, George "Gabby" Hayes professed in real life to hate westerns, complaining that they all looked and sounded alike. For his first few decades in show business, he appeared in everything but westerns, including travelling stock companies, vaudeville, and musical comedy. He began appearing in films in 1928, just in time to benefit from the talkie explosion. In contrast to his later unshaven, toothless screen persona, George Hayes (not yet Gabby) frequently showed up in clean-faced, well groomed articulate characterizations, sometimes as the villain. In 1933 he appeared in several of the Lone Star westerns featuring young John Wayne, alternating between heavies and comedy roles. Wayne is among the many cowboy stars who has credited Hayes with giving them valuable acting tips in their formative days. In 1935, Hayes replaced an ailing Al St. John in a supporting role in the first Hopalong Cassidy film, costarring with William Boyd; Hayes' character died halfway through this film, but audience response was so strong that he was later brought back into the Hoppy series as a regular. It was while sidekicking for Roy Rogers at Republic that Hayes, who by now never appeared in pictures with his store-bought teeth, earned the soubriquet "Gabby", peppering the soundtrack with such slurred epithets as "Why, you goldurned whipersnapper" and "Consarn it!" He would occasionally enjoy an A-picture assignment in films like Dark Command (1940) and Tall in the Saddle (1944), but from the moment he became "Gabby", Hayes was more or less consigned exclusively to "B"s. After making his last film appearance in 1952, Hayes turned his attentions to television, where he starred in the popular Saturday-morning Gabby Hayes Show ("Hullo out thar in televisium land!") and for a while was the corporate spokesman for Popsicles. Retiring after a round of personal appearance tours, Hayes settled down on his Nevada ranch, overseeing his many business holdings until his death at age 83.