Trivia: Alan Ladd was a short (5' 5"), unexpressive lead actor with icy good looks and a resonant voice. He worked a variety of odd jobs -- in addition to radio and in local theater -- before entering films in his late teens as a bit player and grip. In the mid-'30s, he began appearing regularly in minor screen roles. Hollywood agent Sue Carol discovered him and began trumpeting him as star material, and the actor eventually landed a major role in This Gun for Hire (1942) opposite Veronica Lake. He quickly became a major star, and was teamed with Lake in other films -- all hits. Ladd and Carol married in 1942, and she remained his agent for the rest of his life. On the Top Ten box-office attractions list in 1947, 1953, and 1954, he continued to star in films throughout the '50s, but -- with the exception of Shane (1953) -- few of his films were noteworthy; most were entertaining adventures featuring Ladd bare-chested and in fistfights, but, by the late '50s, their appeal was waning. Ladd was the father of actors Alan Ladd Jr. and David Ladd, and former child actress Alana Ladd. He died in 1964.

Trivia: At age 16, Jeanne Crain won a beauty contest as "Miss Long Beach" and became a model; the next year she was named "Camera Girl of 1942," leading to contacts in Hollywood. She debuted on screen in 1943 in The Gang's All Here, beginning a starring career that lasted through the '50s. She rose to prominence through her performance in Henry Hathaway's Home in Indiana (1944). Crain was frequently cast as the "girl next door," and was generally employed to be a "pretty face" in the midst of light films, but occasionally she got more serious roles, as in Pinky (1949) in which she played a black girl passing for white; for that performance she was nominated for a "Best Actress Oscar," repeating a nomination she got for her role in Margie (1946). Her career waned in the '60s, but she continued to appear in films through the '70s.

Trivia: Born Luis Antonio Damaso De Alonso, this Mexican-born Latin lover appeared in silent and sound films. He trained to be a bullfighter (his father's profession) but gave it up for acting after his family moved to the U.S. At age 13 he debuted onscreen as an extra; he made his screen acting debut seven years later in The Plastic Age (1925). In the mid '20s he frequently played dashing romantic leading men, notably in Camille (1927) opposite Norma Talmadge. In the sound era he played leads and then later character and supporting roles in many films; he continued working until the late '70s. He was married to actress Constance Bennett.

Trivia: One of the more talented members of the "Philadelphia school" of rock-n-rollers, Frankie Avalon was the reigning teen singing idol from 1958 through 1960. Devotees of American Bandstand will hold affectionate memories of such Avalon top-tenners as "Gingerbread" and "Venus." Avalon made a gradual transition from singer to actor beginning in 1957. He successfully essayed supporting roles in such films as Guns of the Timberland (1960) and The Alamo (1960) before starring in a string of inexpensive but moneymaking "Beach Party" flicks for American-International. As his film stardom eclipsed in the early 1970s, Avalon returned to singing, briefly starring in the 1976 nostalgia-oriented TV variety series Easy Does It. In 1987, Frankie Avalon was reteamed with his "Beach Party" leading lady Annette Funicello in the retro film musical Back to the Beach (1987), which he also co-produced. Over the next few years he could be seen in cameo performances portraying himself in a diverse string of projects including Troop Beverly Hills, the kid-friendly ABC sitcom Full House, and Martin Scorsese's violent Vegas gangster film Casino. In 1995 he reteamed with many of his old co-horts, including Annette and Dick Clark, for the feel-good made-for-TV showbiz film A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story.

Trivia: Frequently cast as Western heavies due to his steely gaze, longtime character actor Lyle Bettger traveled the well-worn path from stage to screen, making a name for himself on such small screen oaters as Rawhide and Bonanza before stepping into a more contemporary setting with frequent appearances on Hawaii Five-O. A Philadelphia native and graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, subsequent work in theater and summer stock eventually lead Bettger to Broadway, and later a contract with Paramount. In 1950, Bettger made his screen debut with the film noir drama No Man of Her Own,and the fruitful following decade found him building a solid resumé with roles in Union Station (1950) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), among numerous others. Success followed the actor to the small screen, with Bettger donning his spurs as numerous baddies and even moving on to starring roles in the series The Court of Last Resort and The Grand Jury in the late '50s. Later work on Hawaii Five-O found the easygoing actor warming to the hospitable climate in which the show was set, and after appearing in the show's 1979 series finale, Bettger retired and made a home for himself in Paia. Lyle Bettger died of natural causes September 24, 2003, in Atascadero, CA. He was 88.

Trivia: Born in New York City while his father Noah Beery Sr. was appearing on-stage, Noah Beery Jr. was given his lifelong nickname, "Pidge," by Josie Cohan, sister of George M. Cohan "I was born in the business," Pidge Beery observed some 63 years later. "I couldn't have gotten out of it if I wanted to." In 1920, the younger Beery made his first screen appearance in Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920), which co-starred dad Noah as Sergeant Garcia. Thanks to a zoning mistake, Pidge attended the Hollywood School for Girls (his fellow "girls" included Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Jesse Lasky Jr.), then relocated with his family to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, miles from Tinseltown. While some kids might have chafed at such isolation, Pidge loved the wide open spaces, and upon attaining manhood emulated his father by living as far away from Hollywood as possible. After attending military school, Pidge pursued film acting in earnest, appearing mostly in serials and Westerns, sometimes as the hero, but usually as the hero's bucolic sidekick. His more notable screen credits of the 1930s and '40s include Of Mice and Men (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (again 1939, this time as the obligatory doomed-from-the-start airplane pilot), Sergeant York (1941), We've Never Been Licked (1943), and Red River (1948). He also starred in a group of rustic 45-minute comedies produced by Hal Roach in the early '40s, and was featured in several popular B-Western series; one of these starred Buck Jones, whose daughter Maxine became Pidge's first wife. Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation, Beery appeared with his camera-hogging uncle Wallace Beery only once, in 1940's 20 Mule Team. Children of the 1950s will remember Pidge as Joey the Clown on the weekly TV series Circus Boy (1956), while the more TV-addicted may recall Beery's obscure syndicated travelogue series, co-starring himself and his sons. The 1960s found Pidge featured in such A-list films as Inherit the Wind (1960) and as a regular on the series Riverboat and Hondo. He kicked off the 1970s in the role of Michael J. Pollard's dad (there was a resemblance) in Little Fauss and Big Halsey. Though Beery was first choice for the part of James Garner's father on the TV detective series The Rockford Files, Pidge was committed to the 1973 James Franciscus starrer Doc Elliot, so the Rockford producers went with actor Robert Donley in the pilot episode. By the time The Rockford Files was picked up on a weekly basis, Doc Elliot had tanked, thus Donley was dropped in favor of Beery, who stayed with the role until the series' cancellation in 1978. Pidge's weekly-TV manifest in the 1980s included Quest (1981) and The Yellow Rose (1983). After a brief illness, Noah Beery Jr. died at his Tehachapi, CA, ranch at the age of 81.

Trivia: Actress Verna Felton had spent years honing her craft on the stage before she established her reputation on radio. Felton's contributions to the airwaves ranged from the part of Mme. DeFarge in a Lux Radio Theatre version of Tale of Two Cities to the recurring role of the Mean Widdle Kid's grandma on The Red Skelton Show. After the death of her actor/husband Lee Millar in 1941, Felton began her screen career. Her movie assignments consisted largely of voiceover work for Walt Disney's animated features: she can be heard as a gossiping elephant in Dumbo (1941), the Fairy Godmother who sings "Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo" in Cinderella (1950), the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Flora the good fairy in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and still another elephant in The Jungle Book (1967). She carried her voiceover activities into television, supplying the voice of Fred Flintstone's eternally nagging mother-in-law in The Flintstones (1960-66). Verna Felton is best-known to TV fans as Hilda Crocker on the popular sitcoms December Bride (1954-58) and Pete and Gladys (1960-62).

Trivia: Taking up dramatics while attending the University of Pittsburgh, Regis Toomey extended this interest into a profitable career as a stock and Broadway actor. He specialized in singing roles until falling victim to acute laryngitis while touring England in George M. Cohan's Little Nellie Kelly. In 1929, Toomey made his talking-picture bow in Alibi, where his long, drawn-out climactic death scene attracted both praise and damnation; he'd later claim that, thanks to the maudlin nature of this scene, producers were careful to kill him off in the first or second reel in his subsequent films. Only moderately successful as a leading man, Toomey was far busier once he removed his toupee and became a character actor. A lifelong pal of actor Dick Powell, Regis Toomey was cast in prominent recurring roles in such Powell-created TV series of the 1950s and 1960s as Richard Diamond, Dante's Inferno, and Burke's Law.

Trivia: Johnny Seven was the quintessential character actor of the television era, with over 600 small-screen appearance to his credit -- on top of several dozen film roles -- in a career lasting over 50 years. He was born John Anthony Fetto II in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in 1926. The only son among six children in a working-class family, he didn't aspire to a performing career until after he'd served in the U.S. Army. He was assigned to a combat unit, the 187th Gun Battalion, but happened to appear in some shows while in uniform, and in one army instructional film dating from 1950, and he decided to try acting after returning to civilian life. Based in New York, he did a lot of Off-Broadway theater in the early '50s, and made his movie debut as a longshoreman in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954). Seven did a lot of live television and also appeared in several episodes of Sgt. Bilko, but he mostly played tough guys in hard-edged crime dramas, such as Cop Hater (1958), starring a young Robert Loggia and featuring a very young Jerry Orbach in a small role; and The Last Mile (1959), with Mickey Rooney.Seven was put under contract with Universal's television division in 1958, and for the next two decades became something of a fixture on their various action shows, right up to and including The Rockford Files in the 1970s. In the early '60s, he turned up in small roles in a few major motion pictures, such as playing Shirley MacLaine's brother in Billy Wilder's The Apartment. But most of his work was in television, on everything from Get Smart to Marcus Welby, M.D. Ironside gave Seven one of his rare chances for a recurring role, as Lt. Carl Reese in over two dozen episodes across the series' run. He also wrote plays, starting with Salvage in 1958, and screenplays, and turned to directing as well as producing in 1964 with the Western Navajo Run, in which he also starred. His other writing and producing credits included the dramatic short Gina & Me (1980). Seven's last screen credit dated from the mid-'90s, and he died of lung cancer in early 2010.

Trivia: Perennial western supporting actor Budd Buster acted under his own, somewhat show-bizzy given name, and briefly under the "nom de stage" of George Selk. His earliest recorded screen credits occur in 1935. Buster continued laboring in B westerns for the next quarter century, spending a great deal of his time at such Poverty Row concerns as Grand National and PRC (where he showed up in 44 oaters over an eight-year period). Budd Buster's final appearance was a bit in the Alan Ladd big-budgeter Guns of the Timberland (1960).

Trivia: Wizened character actor Paul E. Burns tended to play mousey professional men in contemporary films and unshaven layabouts in period pictures. Bob Hope fans will recall Burns' con brio portrayal of boozy desert rat Ebeneezer Hawkins in Hope's Son of Paleface (1952), perhaps his best screen role. The general run of Burns' screen assignments can be summed up by two roles at both ends of his career spectrum: he played "Loafer" in D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) and "Bum in Park" in Barefoot in the Park (1967).

Trivia: A rotund, balding supporting actor, Henry Kulky began his show business career wrestling professionally under the alarming name of "Bomber Kulkovich." Fellow wrestler-turned-screen actor Mike Mazurki arranged for Kulky to make his acting debut in Call Northside 777 (1947), and the die was cast. Because of his rather off-putting appearance, Kulky became typecast as thugs, gangsters, and bartenders, who were at times quite lovable characters. He even showed up in a Western or two, including a 1949 Durango Kid entry. Like many supporting players of his generation, Kulky would enjoy his greatest popularity on television, including a five-year stint on Life of Riley and as Chief Curly Jones on The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The latter was his final role; he died of a heart attack while studying a script during the show's second season.