Trivia: The day after 79-year-old Robert Mitchum succumbed to lung cancer, beloved actor James Stewart died, diverting all the press attention that was gearing up for Mitchum. So it has been for much of his career. Not that Mitchum wasn't one of Hollywood's most respected stars, he was. But unlike the wholesome middle-American idealism and charm of the blandly handsome Stewart, there was something unsettling and dangerous about Mitchum. He was a walking contradiction. Behind his drooping, sleepy eyes was an alert intelligence. His tall, muscular frame, broken nose, and lifeworn face evoked a laborer's life, but he moved with the effortless, laid-back grace of a highly trained athlete. Early in his career critics generally ignored Mitchum, who frequently appeared in lower-budget and often low-quality films. This may also be due in part to his subtle, unaffected, and deceptively easy-going acting style that made it seem as if Mitchum just didn't care, an attitude he frequently put on outside the studio. But male and female audiences alike found Mitchum appealing. Mitchum generally played macho heroes and villains who lived hard and spoke roughly, and yet there was something of the ordinary Joe in him to which male audiences could relate. Women were drawn to his physique, his deep resonant voice, his sexy bad boy ways, and those sad, sagging eyes, which Mitchum claimed were caused by chronic insomnia and a boxing injury. He was born Robert Charles Duran Mitchum in Bridgeport, CT, and as a boy was frequently in trouble, behavior that was perhaps related to his father's death when Mitchum was quite young. He left home in his teens. Mitchum was famous for fabricating fantastic tales about his life, something he jokingly encouraged others to do too. If he is to be believed, he spent his early years doing everything from mining coal, digging ditches, and ghost writing for astrologer Carroll Richter, to fighting 27 bouts as a prizefighter. He also claimed to have escaped from a Georgia chain gang six days after he was arrested for vagrancy. Mitchum settled down in 1940 and married Dorothy Spence. They moved to Long Beach, CA, and he found work as a drop-hammer operator with Lockheed Aircraft. The job made Mitchum ill so he quit. He next started working with the Long Beach Theater Guild in 1942 and this led to his becoming a movie extra and bit player, primarily in war movies and Westerns, but also in the occasional comedy or drama. His first film role was that of a model in the documentary The Magic of Make-up (1942). Occasionally he would bill himself as Bob Mitchum during this time period. His supporting role in The Human Comedy (1943) led to a contract with RKO. Two years later, he starred in The Story of G.I. Joe and earned his first and only Oscar nomination. Up to that point, Mitchum was considered little more than a "beefcake" actor, one who was handsome, but who lacked the chops to become a serious player. He was also drafted that year and served eight months in the military, most of which he spent promoting his latest film before he was given a dependency discharge. Mitchum returned to movies soon after, this time in co-starring and leading roles. His role as a woman's former lover who may or may not have killed her new husband in When Strangers Marry (1944) foreshadowed his import in the developing film noir genre. The very qualities that led critics to dismiss him, his laconic stoicism, his self-depreciating wit, cynicism, and his naturalism, made Mitchum the perfect victim for these dark dramas; indeed, he became an icon for the genre. The Locket (1946) provided Mitchum his first substantial noir role, but his first important noir was Out of the Past (1947), a surprise hit that made him a real star. Up until Cape Fear (1962), Mitchum had played tough guy heroes and world-weary victims; he provided the dying noir genre with one of its cruelest villains, Max Cady. In 1955, Mitchum played one of his most famous and disturbing villains, the psychotic evangelist Reverend Harry Powell, in Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, a film that was a critical and box-office flop in its first release, but has since become a classic. While his professional reputation grew, Mitchum's knack for getting into trouble in his personal life reasserted itself. He was arrested in August 1948, in the home of actress Lila Leeds for allegedly possessing marijuana and despite his hiring two high-calibre lawyers, spent 60 days in jail. Mitchum claimed he was framed and later his case was overturned and his record cleared. Though perhaps never involved with marijuana, Mitchum made no apologies for his love of alcohol and cigarettes. He had also been involved with several public scuffles, this in contrast with the Mitchum who also wrote poetry and the occasional song. Though well known for noir, Mitchum was versatile, having played in romances (Heaven Knows Mr. Allison [1957]), literary dramas (The Red Pony [1949]), and straight dramas (The Sundowners [1960], in which he played an Australian sheepherder). During the '60s, Mitchum had only a few notable film roles, including Two for the See Saw (1962), Howard Hawks' El Dorado (1967), and 5 Card Stud (1968). He continued playing leads through the 1970s. Some of his most famous efforts from this era include The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) and a double stint as detective Phillip Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely (1975) and The Big Sleep (1978). Mitchum debuted in television films in the early '80s. His most notable efforts from this period include the miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and its sequel, War and Remembrance (1989). Mitchum also continued appearing in feature films, often in cameo roles. Toward the end of his life, he found employment as a commercial voice-over artist, notably in the "Beef, it's what's for dinner" campaign. A year before his death, Robert Mitchum was diagnosed with emphysema, and a few months afterward, lung cancer. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, his daughter, Petrine, and two sons, Jim and Christopher, both of whom are actors.

Trivia: Energetic red-haired leading lady Susan Hayward (born Edythe Marrener) specialized in portraying gutsy women who rebound from adversity. She began working as a photographer's model while still in high school, and when open auditions were held in 1937 for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, she arrived in Hollywood with scores of other actresses. Unlike most of the others, however, she managed to become a contract player. Her roles were initially discouragingly small, although she gradually work her way up to stardom. For her role in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) -- the first in which she played a strong-willed, courageous woman -- Hayward received the first of her five Oscar nominations; the others were for performances in My Foolish Heart (1950), With a Song in My Heart (1952), I'll Cry Tomorrow (1956), and I Want to Live (1958), winning for the latter. Although the actress maintained her star status through the late '50s, the early '60s saw her in several unmemorable tearjerkers, and although she formally retired from films in 1964, that retirement was not a permanent one - as she later returned to the screen for a few more roles including parts in a couple of telemovies and one theatrical feature during the early 1970s. Her ten-year marriage to actor Jess Barker ended in 1954 with a bitter child-custody battle, and she died in 1975 after a two-year struggle with a brain tumor, one of several cast and crew members from 1956's The Conqueror to be stricken with cancer later in life.

Trivia: American actor Arthur Kennedy was usually cast in western or contemporary roles in his films; on stage, it was another matter. A graduate of the Carnegie-Mellon drama department, Kennedy's first professional work was with the Globe Theatre Company touring the midwest in abbreviated versions of Shakespearian plays. From here he moved into the American company of British stage star Maurice Evans, who cast Kennedy in his Broadway production of Richard III. Kennedy continued doing Shakespeare for Evans and agit-prop social dramas for the Federal Theatre, but when time came for his first film, City for Conquest (1940), he found himself in the very ordinary role of James Cagney's musician brother. Throughout his first Warner Bros. contract, Kennedy showed promise as a young character lead, but films like Bad Men of Missouri (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1942) and Air Force (1943) did little to tap the actor's classical training. After World War II service, Kennedy returned to Broadway, creating the role of Chris Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1947). This led to an even more prestigious Miller play, the Pulitzer Prize winning Death of a Salesman (1948), in which Kennedy played Biff. Sadly, Kennedy was not permitted to repeat these plum roles in the film versions of these plays, but the close association with Miller continued on stage; Kennedy would play John Proctor in The Crucible (1957) and the doctor brother in The Price (1965). While his film work during this era resulted in several Academy Award nominations, Kennedy never won; he was honored, however, with the New York Film Critics award for his on-target portrayal of a newly blinded war veteran battling not only his handicap but also his inbred racism in Bright Victory (1951). The biggest box office success with which Kennedy was associated was Lawrence of Arabia (1962), wherein he replaced the ailing Edmund O'Brien in the role of the Lowell Thomas character. Working continually in film and TV projects of wildly varying quality, Kennedy quit the business cold in the mid-1980s, retiring to live with family members in a small eastern town. Kennedy was so far out of the Hollywood mainstream in the years before his death that, when plans were made to restore the fading Lawrence of Arabia prints and Kennedy was needed to re-record his dialogue, the restorers were unable to locate the actor through Screen Actor's Guild channels -- and finally had to trace him through his hometown telephone directory.

Trivia: One of the youngest "old codgers" in show business, Arthur Hunnicutt left college when funds ran out and joined an acting troupe in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His first important New York engagement was in the Theatre Guild's production of Love's Old Sweet Song. Hunnicutt entered films in 1942, specializing in grizzled western sidekicks even though he was only in his early 30s. When Percy Kilbride retired from the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series in 1955, Hunnicutt, still a youngster in comparison to Kilbride's sixtysomething co-star Marjorie Main, filled the gap in The Kettles in the Ozarks (1955). And when director Howard Hawks needed someone to play a Walter Brennan-type role when Brennan wasn't available for The Big Sky (1952) and El Dorado (1967), Hunnicutt was the man of the hour (his work in Big Sky won him an Oscar nomination). Arthur Hunnicutt was last seen in 1975's The Moonrunners, at long playing someone closer to his own age.

Trivia: American actor Frank Faylen was born into a vaudeville act; as an infant, he was carried on stage by his parents, the song-and-dance team Ruf and Clark. Traveling with his parents from one engagement to another, Faylen somehow managed to complete his education at St. Joseph's Prep School in Kirkwood, Missouri. Turning pro at age 18, Faylen worked on stage until getting a Hollywood screen test in 1936. For the next nine years, Faylen played a succession of bit and minor roles, mostly for Warner Bros.; of these minuscule parts he would later say, "If you sneezed, you missed me." Better parts came his way during a brief stay at Hal Roach Studios in 1942 and 1943, but Faylen's breakthrough came at Paramount in 1945, where he was cast as Bim, the chillingly cynical male nurse at Bellevue's alcoholic ward in the Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend. Though the part lasted all of four minutes' screen time, Faylen was so effective in this unpleasant role that he became entrenched as a sadistic bully or cool villain in his subsequent films. TV fans remember Faylen best for his more benign but still snarly role as grocery store proprietor Herbert T. Gillis on the 1959 sitcom Dobie Gillis. For the next four years, Faylen gained nationwide fame for such catch-phrases as "I was in World War II--the big one--with the good conduct medal!", and, in reference to his screen son Dobie Gillis, "I gotta kill that boy someday. I just gotta." Faylen worked sporadically in TV and films after Dobie Gillis was canceled in 1963, receiving critical plaudits for his small role as an Irish stage manager in the 1968 Barbra Streisand starrer Funny Girl. The actor also made an encore appearance as Herbert T. Gillis in a Dobie Gillis TV special of the 1970s, where his "good conduct medal" line received an ovation from the studio audience. Faylen was married to Carol Hughes, an actress best-recalled for her role as Dale Arden in the 1939 serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and was the father of another actress, also named Carol.

Trivia: Life literally began at 60 for American actor Burt Mustin, who didn't enter show business until that age and didn't make his film debut until Detective Story (1951), at which time he was 68. After a decade of uncredited movie roles as hillbilly patriarchs and Town's Oldest Citizens, Mustin began getting name recognition for numerous TV appearances in the late '50s and early '60s. The actor was a particular favorite of producer/actor Jack Webb, who cast Mustin several times on Dragnet; in one episode Burt was an octogenarian burglar, and in another was a retired detective who solved a murder case - and chewed out a young cop for not knowing the proper way to take fingerprints! Situation comedy producers made good use of Burt Mustin as well, and he was featured in innumerable cameos on such programs as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Get Smart and The Jack Benny Program, usually stealing most of the laughs from the stars. Mustin had regular TV roles as eccentric neighbor Finley on Date with the Angels, Gus the Fireman on Leave It to Beaver, barber shop patron Jud Crowley on The Andy Griffith Show, the amorous senior-citizen husband of Queenie Smith on The Funny Side, and nursing-home refugee Justin Quigley on All in the Family. Mustin got the biggest press coverage of his career when, in character as Arthur Lanson, he married Mother Dexter - played by 82-year-old Judith Lowry - on the December 13, 1976 episode of Phyllis. It was a hilarious and, in retrospect, poignant moment in TV history: Judith Lowry had died a few days before the program was aired, and Burt Mustin, who was too ill to watch the show, passed away six weeks later.

Trivia: Although he is perhaps best remembered as the emcee of Walt Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club television show, for which he also wrote the opening theme, curly-haired actor/composer Jimmy Dodd (sometimes given as Jimmie Dodd) played sidekick Lullaby Joslin in the last six entries in Republic Pictures' long-running "Three Mesqueteers" series, replacing Rufe Davis and joining veterans Tom Tyler and Bob Steele. Dodd, however, was probably more city than prairie and spent the remainder of his career playing G.I.'s, elevator boys, and messengers. The people at Disney paid rather more attention to his composing of such tunes as "Rosemary,", "Ginny," and "Meet Me in Monterey" when they signed him to the Mickey Mouse Club, which ran from 1955-1959. Retired and living in Honolulu, Dodd was scheduled to star in yet another Disney venture, The Jimmie Dodd Aloha Show, when he succumbed to a fatal heart attack.

Trivia: A busy western actor from the 1940s onward, Riley Hill spent the better part of his career playing villains in formula "B"s. Occasionally, Hill would show up in some of Hollywood's costlier oaters, notably Howard Hawk s' Rio Bravo. His television work included several guest spots on the various series churned by Gene Autry's Flying A Productions, and the semi-regular Marshal Riley Roberts in Marshal of Gunsight Pass (1950), Hollywood's only live (as opposed to filmed) TV western. Riley Hill could later be seen in crusty character parts in films like The Trial of Billy Jack (1974) and When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979).

Trivia: Robert Bray entered films as an RKO contractee in 1946. The studio was billing the leathery, laconic Bray as the "next Gary Cooper," even though there was still plenty of life left in the original Cooper. One of his better roles under the RKO banner was western outlaw John Younger in Best of the Bad Men. Free-lancing in the 1950s, Bray played roles of all sizes and varieties. He played doggedly moralistic bus driver Carl in 1956's Bus Stop, followed by a violent, amoral Mike Hammer in My Gun is Quick. His TV-series credits include a secondary role on the 1959 western Man from Blackhawk and the larger assignment of driver/family man Simon Kane in 1960's Stagecoach West. Viewers of the 1960s knew Robert Bray best as forest ranger Corey Stewart in the long-running weekly series Lassie.

Trivia: After some 15 years on the country & western circuit, singer/actor Sheb Wooley finally cracked popular music's Top Ten in 1958. It was Wooley who introduced the world to the "One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater," which remained the number one song for six straight weeks and stayed in the Top Ten for three weeks more. Thereafter, Wooley's recording career fluctuated between blue-ribbon country & western ballads and silly novelty songs. As an actor, Wooley was seen in such films as Little Big Horn (1951), High Noon (1952), Giant (1956), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), and several other films with a sagebrush setting and equestrian supporting cast. From 1961 through 1965, Sheb Wooley played Pete Nolan, frontier scout for the never-ending cattle drive on the weekly TV Western Rawhide.

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: 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: Actress Sally Yarnell appeared in numerous films of the late '40s through the late '50s, beginning with Winged Victory (1947).

Trivia: Chuck Roberson was a rancher before serving in World War II. Upon his discharge, he sought out film work as a stunt man. While under contract to Republic Pictures, Roberson doubled for John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch (1948). Thereafter, he worked in virtually all of Wayne's films as stunt double, action coordinator, second-unit director and bit actor. His best speaking part was Sheriff Lordin in the Duke's McClintock (1963). Chuck Roberson's career served as the inspiration for the Lee Majors TV series The Fall Guy (1981-86).

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: Chances are when a doctor made a house call in a '40s movie, that doctor was portrayed by Sam Flint. Silver-haired, authoritative, and distinguished by an executive-style moustache, Flint entered films in the early '30s after a long stage career. Though his movie roles were usually confined to one or two scenes per picture, Flint was always instantly recognizable in his characterizations of businessmen, bankers, chairmen of the board, politicians, publishers, fathers of the bride--and, as mentioned before, doctors. In addition to his prolific feature-film work, Sam Flint was always welcome in short subjects, appearing in support of everyone from Our Gang to the Three Stooges.

Trivia: Whether in vaudeville, burlesque, "legit" theatre or radio, Emmet "Pop" Lynn played variations on the toothless-old-reprobate roles that brought him screen fame. Though he'd made a tentative foray into films as a teenager in 1913, Lynn truly came into his own after 1940, playing the cantankerous sidekick to such western heroes as Don Barry and Allan "Rocky" Lane. In non-westerns, he could usually be spotted as a janitor, night watchman or rural rustic. He enjoyed a longtime association with Columbia Pictures' short-subject unit, where he was harmoniously teamed with such comics as Andy Clyde and Slim Summerville. Emmet Lynn made his final screen appearance as a downtrodden Hebrew peasant in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956).

Trivia: A New Mexican of Native American extraction, actor Glenn Strange held down several rough-and-tumble jobs, from deputy sheriff to rodeo rider, before settling on a singing career. He made his radio bow on Los Angeles station KNX (the CBS-owned affiliate) as a member of the Arizona Wranglers singing group. Thanks to his husky physique and plug-ugly features, Strange had no trouble finding work as a stuntman/villain in western films and serials. He also displayed a flair for comedy as the sidekick to singing cowboy Dick Foran in a series of B-sagebrushers of the late '30s. During the war years, Strange became something of a bargain-basement Lon Chaney Jr., playing homicidal halfwits in a handful of horror pictures made at PRC and other low-budget studios. These appearances led to his being cast as the Frankenstein monster in the 1944 Universal programmer House of Frankenstein; he was coached in this role by the "creature" from the original 1931 Frankenstein, Boris Karloff. Given very little to do in House of Frankenstein and the 1945 sequel House of Dracula other than stalk around with arms outstretched at fadeout time, Strange brought none of the depth and pathos to the role that distinguished Karloff's appearances. Strange was shown to better advantage in his last appearance as The Monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) where he convincingly menaced the eternally frightened Lou Costello and even indulged in a couple of time-honored "scare" routines, while still remaining in character (Some scenes had to be reshot because Strange couldn't stop laughing at Costello's antics; towards the end of shooting, Strange broke his ankle and had to be replaced in a few shots by Lon Chaney Jr., who was costarring in the film as the Wolf Man). Though typecast as heavies in both movies and television -- he played the hissable Butch Cavendish in the Lone Ranger TV pilot -- Strange was well known throughout Hollywood as a genuine nice guy and solid family man. Glenn Strange's last engagement of note was his 11-year run (1962-73) as Sam, the Long Branch bartender on TV's Gunsmoke.

Trivia: Had he been born a decade earlier, American actor Denver Pyle might well have joined the ranks of western-movie comedy sidekicks. Instead, Pyle, a Colorado farm boy, opted for studying law, working his way through school by playing drums in a dance band. Suddenly one day, Pyle became disenchanted with law and returned to his family farm, with nary an idea what he wanted to do with his life. Working in the oil fields of Oklahoma, he moved on to the shrimp boats of Galveston, Texas. A short stint as a page at NBC radio studios in 1940 didn't immediately lead to a showbiz career, as it has for so many others; instead, Pyle was inspired to perform by a mute oilfield coworker who was able to convey his thought with body language. Studying under such masters as Michael Chekhov and Maria Ouspenskaya, Pyle was able to achieve small movie and TV roles. He worked frequently on the western series of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; not yet bearded and grizzled, Pyle was often seen as deputies, farmers and cattle rustlers. When his hair turned prematurely grey in his early '30s, Pyle graduated to banker, sheriff and judge roles in theatrical westerns -- though never of the comic variety. He also was a regular on two TV series, Code 3 (1956) and Tammy (1966). But his real breakthrough role didn't happen until 1967, when Pyle was cast as the taciturn sheriff in Bonnie and Clyde who is kidnapped and humilated by the robbers -- and then shows up at the end of the film to supervise the bloody machine-gun deaths of B&C. This virtually nonspeaking role won worldwide fame for Pyle, as well as verbal and physical assalts from the LA hippie community who regarded Bonnie and Clyde as folk heroes! From this point forward, Denver Pyle's billing, roles and salary were vastly improved -- and his screen image was softened and humanized by a full, bushy beard. Returning to TV, Pyle played the star's father on The Doris Day Show (1968-73); was Mad Jack, the costar/narrator of Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1978-80); and best of all, spent six years (1979-85) as Uncle Jesse Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. Looking stockier but otherwise unchanged, Denver Pyle was briefly seen in the 1994 hit Maverick, playing an elegantly dishonest cardshark who jauntily doffs his hat as he's dumped off of a riverboat. Pyle died of lung cancer at Burbank's Providence St. Joseph Medical Center at age 77.

Trivia: In films from 1939, character actor Dan White trafficked in small-town blowhards and rustic constables. Often unbilled in bit roles, White was occasionally afforded such larger roles as Deputy Elmer in Voodoo Man (1944), Millwheel in The Yearling (1946) and Abel Hatfield in Roseanna McCoy (1949). He remained active until the early 1960s. The "Dan White" who appeared in 1977's Alien Factor is a different person.

Trivia: A genuine westerner, Lane Chandler, upon leaving Montana Wesleyan College, moved to LA and worked as a garage mechanic while seeking out film roles. After several years in bit parts, Chandler was signed by Paramount in 1927 as a potential western star. For a brief period, both Chandler and Gary Cooper vied for the best cowboy roles, but in the end Paramount went with Cooper. Chandler made several attempts to establish himself as a "B" western star in the 1930s, but his harsh voice and sneering demeanor made him a better candidate for villainous roles. He mostly played bits in the 1940s, often as a utility actor for director Cecil B. DeMille. The weather-beaten face and stubbly chin of Lane Chandler popped up in many a TV and movie western of the 1950s, his roles gradually increasing in size and substance towards the end of his career.

Trivia: American actor Dennis Moore made his first stage appearance with a Texas stock company in 1932. If his official bio is to be believed, Moore was 18 at the time, casting some doubt over his claim of having been a commercial pilot before inaugurating his acting career. Whatever the case, it is a matter of record that Moore entered films in 1936 when he was discovered by a Columbia Pictures talent scout. Two years later, he made the first of his many Westerns at Republic Pictures. In his earliest sagebrush appearances, he was a bit player, stunt man, or villain; in 1940, he attained his first cowboy leading role in The Man From Tascosa, though he would continue to take bad-guy parts (notably as a serial killer in the East Side Kids' 1941 feature Spooks Run Wild) even after his good-guy debut. In 1943, Moore joined Ray "Crash" Corrigan and Max Terhune as a member of the Range Busters in the Monogram Western series of the same name. Until his retirement from films in 1957, Moore alternated between Westerns and such serials as The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). Dennis Moore owns the distinction of starring in the last serial ever made by Republic, King of the Carnival (1956), and the last serial ever made in Hollywood, Columbia's Blazing the Overland Trail (1956).