Trivia: Paul Kelly was one of the few actors who not only played killers, but also had first-hand experience in this capacity! On stage from age 7, "Master" Paul Kelly entered films at 8, performing on the sunlight stages of Flatbush's Vitagraph Studios. His first important theatrical role was in Booth Tarkington's Seventeen; he later appeared in Tarkington's Penrod, opposite a young Helen Hayes. Star billing was Kelly's from 1922's Up the Ladder onwards. In films from 1926, Kelly alternated between stage and screen until his talkie debut in 1932's Broadway Through A Keyhole. The actor's career momentum was briefly halted with a two-year forced hiatus. On May 31, 1927, Kelly was found guilty of manslaughter, after killing actor Ray Raymond in a fistfight. The motivating factor of the fatal contretemps was Raymond's wife, Dorothy MacKaye, who married Kelly in 1931, after he'd served prison time for Raymond's death (MacKaye herself died in an automobile accident in 1940). This unfortunate incident had little adverse effect on Kelly's acting career, which continued up until his death in 1956. Returning to Broadway in 1947, Paul Kelly won the Donaldson and Tony awards for his performance in Command Decision; three years later, he starred in the original stage production of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl.

Trivia: American actor Bruce Cowling appeared in numerous films during the '40s and '50s. Many of those films were actioners or westerns.

Trivia: A well-known stage actor since his debut in 1924, Art Smith (born Arthur Gordon Smith) won the New York Critics Award for his performance in Rocket to the Moon. He made his screen debut the following year as one of the Norwegian resistance fighters in the World War II melodrama Edge of Darkness (1942). With his trademark snowy hair, Smith became a visible and welcome presence in films thereafter, usually cast as studious types. Working well into the television era, the veteran performer retired after a starring role in the 1967 television play Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night. He should not be confused with ubiquitous B-Western entrepreneur Denver Dixon (aka Art Mix), who billed himself "Colonel Art Smith" in a couple of films in the early '30s.

Trivia: A sadly neglected supporting actress, Ann Doran played everything from Charley Chase's foil in Columbia two-reelers of the late '30s to James Dean's mother in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and also guest starred in such television shows as Superman, Petticoat Junction, Bewitched, and The A Team. A former child model and the daughter of silent screen actress Rose Allen (1885-1977), Doran made her screen bow in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922) but then spent the next 12 years or so getting herself an education. She returned to films in 1934 and joined the Columbia short subject department two years later. While with Columbia, Doran worked on all of Frank Capra's films save Lost Horizon (1937) and she later toiled for both Paramount and Warner Bros., often receiving fine reviews but always missing out on the one role that may have made her a star. Appearing in more than 500 films and television shows (her own count), Doran worked well into the 1980s, often unbilled but always a noticeable presence.

Trivia: Native American actor Chief Yowlachie (pronounced "Yo-latchee") spent many years on stage as an opera singer, performing under his given name of Daniel Simmons. His film career began in the mid-1920s with feathered-headdress bits in such productions as Ella Cinders (1925). Though well into middle age when he started showing up on screen, he was youthful-looking enough to play fierce Indian warriors and renegades well into the 1930s. His larger roles include the nominal villain in Ken Maynard's Red Raiders (1928), Billy Jackrabbit in the 1930 version of Girl of the Golden West (1930) and Geronimo in Son of Geronimo. After years of portraying noble, taciturn characters with names like Running Deer, Yellow Feather, Long Arrow, Little Horse and Black Eagle, Chief Yowlachie let his hair down in the role of "Chief Hi-Octane" in the Bowery Boys' Bowery Buckaroos (1948).

Trivia: The son of famed horse trainer Fez Reynolds and a champion trick and fancy rider from early childhood, Don Kay Reynolds replaced Bobby Blake (later Robert Blake as the hero's Native American sidekick in the last four films of the long-running Red Ryder series. Blake, the former Mickey Gubitosi of Our Gang fame, played Little Beaver at Republic Pictures opposite both William Elliott and his replacement Allan Lane, but when the series was sold to low-budget Eagle Lion in 1948, that studio cast Reynolds, along with Jim Bannon -- the new Red Ryder -- and veteran silent-screen actress Marin Sais, who replaced Martha Wentworth as the Duchess. Nicknamed "Little Brown Jug," Reynolds became a great favorite with the series' mostly juvenile audience. Alas, only four films were actually produced -- albeit in garish Cinecolor -- and Reynolds left Hollywood soon after to tour with various circuses. He later owned a restaurant in Northern California, but retained the nickname of "Jug."

Trivia: Courageous, silken haired, brown-eyed American actor of Scottish heritage with distinctive blaze on face, Lassie remains one of the best known and most beloved figures in cinema. Lassie made her screen debut in 1943 in Lassie Come Home, an adaptation of Eric Knight's novel. There her onscreen heroism, unusual intelligence and selfless devotion to her masters made her an instant star -- an unusual feat for a dog. It is probably one of Hollywood's worst-kept secrets, that Lassie, in her many incarnations, has always been played by a male dog. The first "Lassie" was played by a smart and attractive collie named Pal; he was chosen from 300 candidates. The producers chose a male to play her because traditionally male dogs are more attractive; they are also slightly less intelligent, but the trainer compensated for that on the set. Since then, all subsequent Lassies have been descendants of Pal. And though he and his sons and daughters have whelped many a purebred pup, only very few have been able to play the part as one of the requirements is the white blaze on the face. Following the success of Lassie's screen debut, Pal and four of his descendents played in six more sequels until 1951. In 1947, there was a Lassie radio show on ABC in which the original Pal provided the barking on the air; all of his other doggy vocalizations were performed by a human. In 1954 the first televised version of Lassie appeared. It ran, in different incarnations (including an animated series) until 1975. The courageous canine also appeared briefly in a syndicated TV series in the 1980s. In 1963, four episodes from the current Lassie television series were combined to make the feature film, Lassie's Greatest Adventure. In 1978, yet another Lassie feature appeared, the big-budget The Magic of Lassie, starring James Stewart. While promoting the film in New York, the dog star had a private suite at the posh Plaza Hotel. In 1994, Lassie appeared in another feature film simply titled Lassie.