Trivia: Rugged Canadian-born leading man Rod Cameron entered films as a stunt man and stand-in, doubling for such actors as Fred MacMurray and Buck Jones. His earliest speaking part, in 1939's The Old Maid, ending up on the cutting room floor; within one year, however, he was a busy Paramount contract player, his roles increasing in size with each passing year. After wrapping up his Paramount responsibilities in 1942, Cameron was starred in the Republic serial Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943). He spent the rest of the 1940s as a western leading man at both Republic and Universal. In 1953, Cameron and producer Richard Irving collaborated on the first of three syndicated television series, City Detective. The 65-episode series was sold to 117 markets, a record at the time, and made more money for Cameron than any of his movie endeavors. The second Cameron/Irving TV project, 1956's State Trooper, was even more successful, clocking in at 104 episodes. Cameron's third syndicated series, Coronado 9, was released in January of 1960. Rod Cameron's last professional years were spent in such potboilers as Evel Knievel (1971), Psychic Killer (1975) and Love and the Midnight Auto Supply (1978).

Trivia: American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as Robert Preston and Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were Rocketship X-M (1950), Red Planet Mars (1952), Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director Joe Dante's 1993 comedy Matinee: the military officer played by Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film Mant is named General Ankrum.

Trivia: Redheaded Jane Nigh was a defense-plant worker when she was discovered for films in 1944. Nigh made her screen debut in the 20th Century Fox musical Something for the Boys, then went on to play both sweet young things and femme fatales for a variety of studios. In 1952, she co-starred as Lorelei on the popular TV series Big Town. The third actress to play this role, Nigh was replaced in 1953 by Beverly Tyler, who in turn was replaced by Trudy Wroe. Jane Nigh's last screen appearance was in the Bowery Boys entry Hold That Hypnotist (1957); her vivid memories of that experience have been duly recorded in David Hayes and Brent Walker's The Films of the Bowery Boys (Citadel, 1984).

Trivia: American general-purpose actor Douglas Kennedy attended Deerfield Academy before trying his luck in Hollywood, using both his own name and his studio-imposed name Keith Douglas. He was able to secure contract-player status, first at Paramount and later at Warner Bros. Kennedy's Paramount years weren't what one could call distinguished, consisting mainly of unbilled bits (The Ghost Breakers [1940]) and supporting roles way down the cast list (Northwest Mounted Police [1940]); possibly he was handicapped by his close resemblance to Paramount leading man Fred MacMurray. Warner Bros., which picked up Kennedy after his war service with the OSS and Army Intelligence, gave the actor some better breaks with secondary roles in such A pictures as Nora Prentiss (1947), Dark Passage (1948), and The Adventures of Don Juan (1949). Still, Kennedy did not fill a role as much as he filled the room in the company of bigger stars. Chances are film buffs would have forgotten Kennedy altogether had it not been for his frequent appearances in such horror/fantasy features as Invaders from Mars (1953), The Alligator People (1959) and The Amazing Transparent Man (1960), playing the title role in the latter. Douglas Kennedy gain a modicum of fame and a fan following for his starring role in the well-circulated TV western series Steve Donovan, Western Marshal, which was filmed in 1952 and still posting a profit into the '60s.

Trivia: Trained for an industrial career but sidetracked into showbiz by a few seasons at Pasadena Playhouse, "Mr. Average Man" utility player John Ridgely spent most of his Hollywood years at Warner Bros. From his first film Submarine D-1 (1937), Ridgely was one of the studio's most reliable and ubiquitous supporting players, portraying first-reel murder victims, last-reel "surprise" killers, best friends, policemen, day laborers, and military officers. One of his largest film roles was the commanding officer in Howard Hawks' Air Force (1943), in which he was billed over the more famous John Garfield. His indeterminate features could also convey menace, as witness his portrayal of blackmailing gangsters Eddie Mars in Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946). Freelancing after 1948, John Ridgely continued to essay general-purpose parts until he left films in 1953; thereafter he worked in summer-theater productions and television until his death from a heart attack at the age of 58.

Trivia: With his slight built, narrow face and pencil-thin mustache, I. Stanford Jolley did not exactly look trustworthy, and a great many of his screen roles (more than 500) were indeed to be found on the wrong side of the law. Isaac Stanford Jolley had toured as a child with his father's traveling circus and later worked in stock and vaudeville, prior to making his Broadway debut opposite Charles Trowbridge in Sweet Seventeen (1924). Radio work followed and he arrived in Hollywood in 1935. Pegged early on as a gangster or Western outlaw, Jolley graduated to playing lead henchman or the boss villain in the '40s, mostly appearing for such poverty-row companies as Monogram and PRC. Although Jolley is often mentioned as a regular member of the Republic Pictures' stock company, he was never under contract to that legendary studio and only appeared in 25 films for them between 1936 and 1954. From 1950 on, Jolley worked frequently on television and remained a busy performer until at least 1976. According to his widow, the actor, who died of emphysema at the Motion Picture Country Hospital, never earned more than 100 dollars on any given movie assignment. He was the father of art director Stan Jolley.

Trivia: Whenever Ellen Corby or Mary Field weren't available to play a timid, spinsterish film role, chances are the part would go to Dorothy Adams. Though far from a shrinking violet in real life, Ms. Adams was an expert at portraying repressed, secretive women, usually faithful servants or maiden aunts. Her best-remembered role was the overly protective maid of Gene Tierney in Laura (1944). Dorothy Adams was the wife of veteran character actor Byron Foulger; both were guiding forces of the Pasadena Playhouse, as both actors and directors. Dorothy and Byron's daughter is actress Rachel Ames, who played Audrey March on TV's General Hospital.

Trivia: Blessed with matinee idol looks, an athletic physique, and a generous supply of talent, Francis J. McDonald entered films in 1912 after brief stage experience. A popular leading man of the teen years, McDonald segued into villainous characterizations in the 1920s, notably as the title character in Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926). He remained busy during the talkie era, primarily as a mustachioed heavy in "B" westerns and a featured player in the films of Cecil B. DeMille. Francis J. McDonald was at one time the husband of the "ever popular" Mae Busch.

Trivia: The face of American actor Myron Healey was not in and of itself villainous. But whenever Healey narrowed his eyes and widened that countenance into a you-know-what-eating grin and exposed those pointed ivories, the audience knew that he was about to rob a bank, hold up a stagecoach, or burn out a homesteader, which he did with regularity after entering films in the postwar years. Still, Healey could temper his villainy with a marvelous sense of humor: for example, his hilarious adlibs while appearing in stock badguy roles in such TV series as Annie Oakley and Gene Autry. With 1949's Colorado Ambush Healey broadened his talents to include screenwriting. Usually heading the supporting cast, Myron Healey was awarded a bonafide lead role in the 1962 horror film Varan the Unbelievable (a Japanese film, with scattered English-language sequences), though even here he seemed poised to stab the titular monster in the back at any moment.

Trivia: American actor Lane Bradford spent most of his film career in westerns - and in so doing carried on the tradition of his father, veteran sagebrush villain John Merton. Breaking into movies in bit parts, Bradford's first verified screen role was in 1946's Silver Range. He came a bit too late to flourish in B westerns (which died out in 1954), but Bradford essayed cowpoke roles, usually menacing in nature, until 1968. Once in a while, Bradford would venture far afield from the Old West - notably as the Martian villain Marex in the 1952 Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere. Lane Bradford retired to Hawaii shortly after completing his last film, Journey to Shiloh (1968).

Trivia: While maintaining his whole life that he was part Cree and part Cherokee, actor Iron Eyes Cody was in fact born Espera DeCorti, a second generation Italian-American. He started out as a Wild-West-show performer, like his father before him. His earliest recognizable film appearances date back to 1919's Back to God's Country. While his choice of film roles was rather limited in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Cody made himself a valuable Hollywood commodity by offering his services as a technical advisor on Indian lore, customs, costuming and sign language. In between his TV work and personal appearances with the Ringling Bros. Circus and other such touring concerns, Iron Eyes continued accepting supporting roles in Hollywood westerns of the 1950s; he played Chief Crazy Horse twice, in Sitting Bull (1954) and The Great Sioux Massacre (1965). Far more erudite and well-read than most of his screen characters, Iron Eyes has in recent years become a popular interview subject and a fixture at western-movie conventions and film festivals. His famous appearance as the tear-shedding Indian in the "Keep America Beautiful" TV campaign of the 1970s recently enjoyed a "revival" on cable television. In 1982, Cody wrote his enjoyably candid autobiography, in which several high-profile movie stars were given the "emperor has no clothes" treatment. As well as being an actor, Cody owns an enormous collection of Indian artifacts, costumes, books and artwork; has written several books with Indian themes; is a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Indian Center, the Southwest Museum and the Los Angeles Library Association; is vice-president of the Little Big Horn Indian Association; is a member of the Verdugo Council of the Boy Scouts of America; and has participated as Grand Marshal of Native American pow-wows throughout the U.S.

Trivia: American actress Vera Vague (born Barbara Jo Allen in New York City) usually played ditzy pals to the female lead in many 1940s musicals, but sometimes she played the lead. She was best known as a radio comic and also appeared on-stage.

Trivia: Character actor Hal Baylor made a career out of pummeling (or being pummeled by) heroes ranging from John Wayne to Montgomery Clift. The 6'3", 210-pound Baylor, born Hal Fieberling, was an athlete in school and did a hitch in the United States Marines before embarking on a boxing career. He moved into acting in the late '40s, initially by way of one of the most acclaimed boxing films ever made in Hollywood, Robert Wise's The Set-Up (1949), playing Tiger Nelson, the young fighter in the film, whose fresh good looks stood out from the pug-worn visages of most of the men around him. His first released film, however -- a short feature done after The Set-Up but released first -- was a very different kind of boxing movie, Joe Palooka in Winner Take All. He also appeared in Allan Dwan's 1949 The Sands of Iwo Jima, playing Private "Sky" Choyuski, which was where he first began working with John Wayne. All of those early appearances were credited under his real name, Hal Fieberling (sometimes spelled "Feiberling"), but by 1950 the actor had changed his name to Hal Baylor. Whether in Westerns, period dramas, or war movies, Baylor usually played tough guys, and as soon as John Wayne began producing movies, he started using him, in Big Jim McLain (1952), in which Baylor played one of the two principal villains, a tough, burly Communist (just to show, from the movie's point of view, that they weren't all slimy-mannered, smooth-talking intellectuals) who is always getting in the face of Wayne's two-fisted investigator, and who is bounced all over the set in the film's climactic punch-up; and in Island in the Sky (1953), as Stankowski the engineer. As with any working character actor, his films ranged in quality from John Ford's exquisite period drama The Sun Shines Bright (1953) to Lee Sholem's juvenile science fiction-adventure Tobor the Great (1954), and every class of picture in between. If anything, he was even busier on television; beginning in 1949 with an appearance on The Lone Ranger, Baylor was a fixture on the small screen in villainous parts. He was downright ubiquitous in Westerns during the 1950s and early '60s, working regularly in Gunsmoke, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Cheyenne, Have Gun Will Travel, 26 Men, The Californians, Maverick, and The Alaskans; Rawhide, The Virginian, The Rifleman, Bonanza, Bat Masterson, The Big Valley, and Temple Houston (the latter allowing him to hook up with actor/producer Jack Webb, who would become one of his regular employers in the mid- to late '60s). During the mid-'60s, as Westerns faded from the home screen, Baylor got more work in crime shows, sometimes as police officers but more often as criminals, including a notably violent 1967 episode of Dragnet entitled "The Shooting," in which he and diminutive character actor Dick Miller played a Mutt-and-Jeff pair of would-be cop killers. He also played a brief comic-relief role in the Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever," as a 1930s police officer who confronts a time-transported Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock stealing clothes. Baylor's career was similar to that of his fellow tough-guy actors Leo Gordon, Jack Elam, and Lee Van Cleef, almost always centered on heavies, and, like Gordon, on those rare occasions when he didn't play a villain, Baylor stood out -- in Joseph Pevney's Away All Boats (1956), he proved that he could act without his fists or his muscle, with a memorable portrayal of the chaplain of the attack transport Belinda; but it was his heavies that stood out, none more so than his portrayal of the anti-Semitic Private Burnecker in Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions, tormenting and then beating Jewish draftee Montgomery Clift to a bloody pulp, before being similarly pummeled himself. During the later '60s, he acquired the nickname around the industry as "the Last of the Bigtime Bad Guys," with 500 television shows and 70 movies to credit and still working, in everything from Disney comedies (The Barefoot Executive, Herbie Rides Again) to cutting-edge science fiction (A Boy and His Dog). At the end of his career, he returned to Westerns in The Macahans, the two-hour made-for-television feature starring James Arness (who had used Baylor numerous times on Gunsmoke, and had known him at least since they both worked in Big Jim McLain) that served as the pilot for the series How the West Was Won.

Trivia: Slender brunette leading lady Margo Woode was signed by 20th Century Fox in 1944. For the next two years, the studio tried to make a star out of Woode by giving her prominent billing in B-pictures. For example, she was billed third after Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in The Bullfighters (1945), even though her role was limited to two lines and a handful of close-ups. Her best showing at Fox was in Joseph Mankiewicz's Somewhere in the Night (1946), in which she shared several important scenes with John Hodiak. Dropped by Fox in 1946, Margo Woode continued showing up in supporting roles into the 1950s; her last film was 1957's Bop Girl.

Trivia: The brother of Buck Bucko, American screen actor Roy Bucko usually played ranch hands or rustlers in "B"-westerns. The Bucko brothers almost always appeared together in their films, including The Man from Black Hills (1952), their final (credited) work.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1947.

Trivia: Despite his less than masculine moniker, Carol Henry was a tough-looking hombre who appeared in countless B-Westerns and quite a few serials of the 1940s. Often cast as a henchman, Henry could also play stage drivers, townsmen, or even, as in Three Desperate Men (1951), a lawman. When B-Westerns bit the dust in the early '50s, Henry went into television, where he appeared on such popular shows as The Cisco Kid, Wild Bill Hickock, Wagon Train, and Cimarron Strip. He retired in the late 1960s.

Trivia: American actor Russ Conway was most at home in the raincoat of a detective or the uniform of a military officer. Making his movie bow in 1948, Conway worked in TV and films throughout the '50s and '60s. Some of his films include Larceny (1948), My Six Convicts (1952), Love Me Tender (1956) (as Ed Galt, in support of Elvis Presley) Fort Dobbs (1958) and Our Man Flint (1966). TV series featuring Conway in guest spots included The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters and Petticoat Junction. Russ Conway settled down in 1959 to play Lieutenant Pete Kyle on David Janssen's private eye TV weekly Richard Diamond.

Trivia: In films from 1944, actor Marshall Reed played all sorts of roles in all sorts of westerns. Occasionally the lead (especially if the budget was beneath $80,000), Reed was more often a supporting player in films like Angel and the Badman (1947) and The Way West (1967). He was also active in serials, appearing in such chapter plays of the 1940s and 1950s as Federal Agents vs. Underworld Inc, The Invisible Monster Strikes, and Blackhawk. On television, Reed played Lt. Fred Asher on The Lineup (1954-58), and later became a TV documentary producer. Colorado-born Marshall Reed should not be confused with the British actor of the same name, nor the child performer who appeared as John Curtis Willard on the 1970s TV series The Waltons.

Trivia: American silent screen cowboy Buddy Roosevelt came to Hollywood in 1914 with the C.B. Irwin Wild West Show. Working primarily as a stunt man in William S. Hart Westerns at Triangle, Roosevelt was earning 22 dollars a week plus board when World War I took him overseas. Working his way back to Hollywood after the Armistice, Roosevelt doubled Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1920), as well as William Desmond. Universal starred him as Kent Sanderson in the two-reeler Down in Texas (1923), but he somehow fell between the cracks at that studio, signing instead a personal contract with independent producer Lester F. Scott Jr. Scott didn't like the name Kent Sanderson and changed it to Buddy Roosevelt, in honor of former president Theodore Roosevelt. Making 25 fast-paced Westerns for Scott's Action Pictures, the former stunt man proved to be an acceptable actor who did not look the fool even with the heavy doses of comedy that Scott seemed to favor. Unfortunately, the Roosevelt budgets deteriorated as Scott brought Buffalo Bill Jr. and Wally Wales into the fold and Roosevelt bolted in January 1928, in favor of Rayart. With the veteran J.P. McGowan at the helm, Roosevelt continued to do strong work, but sound interrupted what could have been a career on the upswing. He was tested for the lead in the Fox Western In Old Arizona (1929), but a broken leg caused him to be replaced by Warner Baxter, who, of course, went on to earn an Academy Award for his role as the Cisco Kid. A chance to star in a new series reportedly went out the window when Mrs. Roosevelt, a cousin of Clark Gable, got into an argument with the producer, ex-stunt man Paul Malvern; John Wayne earned the berth instead and the rest, as they say, is history. There would be a few Western leads to come, but only for bottom-rung producers such as Jack Irwin and Victor Adamson. Roosevelt continued playing bits in Westerns through the early '60s, however; his final role -- a mere walk-on -- came in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Retiring to his hometown in Colorado, Buddy Roosevelt kept up a correspondence with Western fans from around the world.