Trivia: Voluptuous sex symbol and star of Hollywood films, TV, and nightclubs, Jane Russell was the daughter of an actress. She worked as a receptionist and model, and studied theater at Max Reinhardt's Theatrical Workshop and with Maria Ouspenskaya. Endowed with a large bust, she won the lead role in Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1941) after Hughes conducted a nationwide search for a curvaceous actress, eventually finding her working in his dentist's office. The film caused a storm of controversy due primarily to the amount of cleavage shown by Russell onscreen, and, after brief releases in 1941 and 1943, it was not officially released until 1950. The controversy brought her much publicity, often in the form of off-color, sophomoric jokes. However, she surpassed her mindless "bombshell" image and went on to perform with versatility in a number of films during the subsequent three decades, including comedies with Bob Hope and musicals with Marilyn Monroe. She often played cynical, "tough broads," and starred in the Broadway musical Company in 1971. TV viewers may also remember her for a series of bra commercials during the '70s.

Trivia: With his pencil-thin mustache, the suave, gallant George Brent was one of Hollywood's most dependable leading men. A handsome, but never very exciting or dynamic lead, he played opposite all of Warner's greatest actresses, including Barbara Stanwyck and Olivia de Havilland he is best known for his work with Bette Davis, with whom (according to some sources) he had a lasting but secret off-screen romance. He began his career playing small roles as a child in Abbey Theater (Ireland) plays. During the Irish Rebellion he participated in subversive activities and had to be smuggled out of the country to Canada where he eventually toured with a stock company for two years, before moving on to New York. There he continued to appear with several stock companies, three of which he formed on his own. Brent then found work on Broadway in the late '20s, before heading for Hollywood to begin a career that spanned two decades. Brent was typically cast as a gentlemanly, romantic leading man (after briefly being cast in tough hero roles). He debuted in Under Suspicion (1930). He retired from the big screen in 1953, going on to star in the TV series Wire Service (1956-59). He made his final screen appearance in 1978, playing a judge in Born Again. His six wives included actresses Ruth Chatterton (with whom he co-starred in The Rich Are Always With Us, [1932]), Constance Worth, and Ann Sheridan (with whom he appeared in Honeymoon for Three, [1941]).

Trivia: A onetime lumberjack, Scott Brady distinguished himself as a Navy boxing champion during the war. After VJ Day, Brady took drama classes, appearing in his first film, Canon City, in 1948. Usually assigned rough-and-tumble roles (many villainous in nature), Brady exhibited a normally untapped comic prowess in the 1952 film The Model and the Marriage Broker. He continued taking lead roles in cheap westerns, horror films and science-fiction pictures into the 1960s, occasionally surfacing in "A" films like Marooned (1969) and Gremlins (1985, his last film). In 1959, Brady starred in a syndicated western series, Shotgun Slade, which allowed him the opportunity to act opposite several of his non-showbiz idols, including war hero Pappy Boyington and athlete Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch; he also had a recurring role in the 1970s anthology Police Story. Scott Brady is the younger brother of Lawrence Tierney, an actor best known for his gangster portrayals.

Trivia: Forrest Tucker occupied an odd niche in movies -- though not an "A" movie lead, he was, nonetheless, a prominent "B" picture star and even a marquee name, who could pull audiences into theaters for certain kinds of pictures. From the early/mid-1950s on, he was a solid presence in westerns and other genre pictures. Born Forrest Meredith Tucker in Plainfield, Indiana in 1919, he was bitten by the performing bug early in life -- he made his debut in burlesque while he was still under-age. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1937, he enlisted in the United States Army, joining a cavalry unit. Tucker next headed for Hollywood, where his powerful build and six-foot-four frame and his enthusiasm were sufficient to get him a big-screen debut in The Westerner (1940), starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan. Signed to Columbia Pictures, he mostly played anonymous tough-guy roles over the next two years, primarily in B pictures, before entering the army in 1943. Resuming his career in 1946, he started getting bigger roles on a steady basis in better pictures, and in 1948 signed with Republic Pictures. He became a mainstay of that studio's star roster, moving up to a co-starring role in Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949), which also brought him into the professional orbit of John Wayne, the movie's star. Across the early/middle 1950s, Tucker starred in a brace of action/adventure films and westerns, alternating between heroes and villains, building up a significant fan base. By the mid-1950s, he was one of the company's top box-office draws. As it also turned out, Tucker's appeal was international, and he went to England in the second half of the decade to play starring roles in a handful of movies. At that time, British studios such as Hammer Films needed visiting American actors to boost the international appeal of their best productions, and Tucker fulfilled the role admirably in a trio of sci-fi/horror films: The Crawling Eye, The Cosmic Monsters, and The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. Part of Tucker's motivation for taking these roles, beyond the money, he later admitted, was his desire to sample the offerings of England's pubs -- Tucker was a two-fisted drinker and, in those days, was well able to handle the effects of that activity so that it never showed up on-screen. And he ran with the opportunity afforded by those three science fiction movies -- each of those films, he played a distinctly different role, in a different way, but always with a certain fundamental honesty that resonated with audiences. When he returned to Hollywood, he was cast as Beauregard Burnside in Auntie Mame (1958), which was the top-grossing movie of the year. Then stage director Morton De Costa, seeing a joyful, playful romantic huckster in Tucker (where others had mostly seen an earnest tough-guy), picked him to star as Professor Harold Hill in the touring production of The Music Man -- Tucker played that role more than 2000 times over the years that followed. He was also the star of the 1964 Broadway show Fair Game For Lovers (in a cast that included Leo Genn, Maggie Hayes, and a young Alan Alda), which closed after eight performances. The Music Man opened a new phase for Tucker's career. The wily huckster became his image, one that was picked up by Warner Bros.' television division, which cast him in the role of Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke, the charmingly larcenous post-Civil War cavalry soldier at the center of the western/spoof series F-Troop. That series only ran for two seasons, but was in syndicated reruns for decades afterward, and though Tucker kept his hand in other media -- returning to The Music Man and also starring in an unsold pilot based on the movie The Flim-Flam Man (taking over the George C. Scott part), it was the part of O'Rourke with which he would be most closely identified for the rest of his life. He did occasionally take tougher roles that moved him away from the comedy in that series -- in one of the better episodes of the series Hondo, entitled "Hondo And The Judas", he played Colonel William Clark Quantrill very effectively. At the end of the decade, he returned to straight dramatic acting, most notably in the John Wayne western Chisum, in which he played primary villain Lawrence Murphy. That same year, he appeared in a challenging episode of the series Bracken's World entitled "Love It Or Leave It, Change It Or Lose It", playing "Jim Grange," a sort of film-a-clef version of John Wayne -- a World War II-era film star known for his patriotism, Grange is determined to express his political views while working alongside a young film star (portrayed by Tony Bill) who is closely associated with the anti-war movement. Tucker continued getting television work and occasional film roles, in addition to returning to the straw-hat circuit, mostly as Professor Harold Hill. None of his subsequent series lasted very long, but he was seldom out of work, despite a drinking problem that did worsen significantly during his final decade. In his final years, he had brought that under control, and was in the process of making a comeback -- there was even talk of an F-Troop revival in film form -- when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and emphysema. He died in the fall of 1986 at age 67.

Trivia: Andy Devine was born in Kingman, Arizona, where his father ran a hotel. During his youth, Devine was a self-confessed hellraiser, and stories of his rowdy antics are still part of Kingman folklore (though they've undoubtedly improved in the telling). His trademarked ratchety voice was the result of a childhood accident, when he fell while carrying a stick in his mouth, resulting in permanent vocal-chord injuries. A star football player at Santa Clara University, Andy decided to break into movies in 1926; he was almost immediately cast in Universal's two-reel series The Collegians. When talkies came, Devine was convinced that his voice was unsuitable for the microphone. He reportedly became so despondent at one point that he attempted to commit suicide by asphyxiation, only to discover that his landlady had turned off the gas! Devine needn't have worried; his voice became his greatest asset, and from 1930 until his retirement, he was very much in demand for bucolic comedy roles. In 1937 he became a regular on Jack Benny's radio program, his howl of "Hiya, Buck!" becoming a national catchphrase. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he was a popular comedy sidekick in the western films of Roy Rogers. Later film assignments included his atypical performance as a corrupt Kansas City cop in Jack Webb's Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Most baby boomers retain fond memories of Devine's TV appearances as Jingles Jones on the long-running western series Wild Bill Hickock, and as host of the Saturday morning kid's program Andy's Gang. In his later years, Devine cut down his performing activities, preferring to stay on his Van Nuys (California) ranch with his wife and children. Made a very wealthy man thanks to real estate investments, Andy Devine abandoned moviemaking in 1970, resurfacing only to provide voices for a brace of Disney cartoon features; he remained active in civic and charitable affairs, at one juncture serving as honorary mayor of Van Nuys.

Trivia: When diehard American movie fans speak of Jack Lambert, they are generally not referring to the British character actor of that name, but of the New York-born supporting player who was most often seen in gangster roles. Following Broadway experience, Lambert came to Hollywood in 1943, to menace Kay Kyser in the MGM musical comedy Swing Fever. Usually a secondary bad guy, Lambert was the main menace -- a scarfaced thug with a hook for a hand -- in Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947). A less malevolent Jack Lambert was seen on a weekly basis as Joshua on the 1959-60 TV adventure series Riverboat.

Trivia: Wisconsinite John Litel was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. When World War I broke out in Europe, Litel didn't feel like waiting until America became officially involved and thus joined the French army, serving valiantly for three years. Returning to America, Litel studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and entered into the peripatetic world of touring stock companies. His first film was the 1929 talkie The Sleeping Porch, which starred top-hatted comedian Raymond Griffith. He settled in Hollywood for keeps in 1937, spending the next three decades portraying a vast array of lawyers, judges, corporate criminals, military officers, and even a lead or two. Litel was a regular in two separate "B"-picture series, playing the respective fathers of Bonita Granville and James Lydon in the Nancy Drew and Henry Aldrich series. On television, John Litel was appropriately ulcerated as the boss of Bob Cummings on the 1953 sitcom My Hero.

Trivia: Possessor of one of the meanest faces in the movies, American actor Ray Teal spent much of his film career heading lynch mobs, recruiting for hate organizations and decimating Indians. Naturally, anyone this nasty in films would have to conversely be a pleasant, affable fellow in real life, and so it was with Teal. Working his way through college as a saxophone player, Teal became a bandleader upon graduation, remaining in the musical world until 1936. In 1938, Teal was hired to act in the low-budget Western Jamboree, and though he played a variety of bit parts as cops, taxi drivers and mashers, he seemed more at home in Westerns. Teal found it hard to shake his bigoted badman image even in A-pictures; as one of the American jurists in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he is the only member of Spencer Tracy's staff that feels that sympathy should be afforded Nazi war criminals -- and the only one on the staff who openly dislikes American liberals. A more benign role came Teal's way on the '60s TV series Bonanza, where he played the sometimes ineffectual but basically decent Sheriff Coffee. Ray Teal retired from films shortly after going through his standard redneck paces in The Liberation of LB Jones (1970).

Trivia: Six-foot-tall American actor Rory Mallinson launched his screen career at the end of WW II. Mallinson was signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1945, making his first appearance in Price of the Marines. In 1947, he began free-lancing at Republic, Columbia and other "B"-picture mills. One of his larger roles was Hodge in the 1952 Columbia serial Blackhawk. Rory Mallinson made his last film in 1963.

Trivia: The son of an itinerant sharecropper, Roy Barcroft harbored dreams of becoming an army officer, and to that end lied about his age to enter the service during World War I. Discouraged from pursuing a military career by his wartime experiences, Barcroft spent the 1920s in a succession of jobs, ranging from fireman to radio musician. In the 1930s he and his wife settled in California where he became a salesman. It was while appearing in an amateur theatrical production that Barcroft found his true calling in life. He eked out a living as a movie bit player until finally being signed to a long contract by Republic Pictures in 1943. For the next decade, Barcroft was Republic's Number One villain, growling and glowering at such cowboy stars as Don "Red" Barry, Wild Bill Elliot, Sunset Carson, Allan Lane, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. His best screen moments occurred in Republic's serial output; his favorite chapter-play roles were Captain Mephisto in Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945) and the invading Martian in The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). In the 1948 serial G-Men Never Forget, Barcroft played a dual role--an honest police commissioner and his less-than-honest look-alike--ending the film by shooting "himself." In contrast to his on-screen villainy, Barcroft was one of the nicest fellows on the Republic lot, well-liked and highly respected by everyone with whom he worked. When the "B"-picture market disappeared in the mid-1950s, Barcroft began accepting character roles in such A-pictures as Oklahoma (1955), The Way West (1967), Gaily Gaily (1969) and Monte Walsh (1970). Heavier and more jovial-looking than in his Republic heyday, Roy Barcroft also showed up in dozens of TV westerns, playing recurring roles on Walt Disney's Spin and Marty and the long-running CBS nighttimer Gunsmoke.

Trivia: Character actor Holly Bane (who sometimes billed himself as Michael Ragan) specialized in playing bad guys in low-budget Westerns and serials. He made his first film appearance in Wake Island (1942), then appeared frequently in films through 1966, when he worked opposite Elvis Presley in Gunpoint. In the 1970s, Bane became a makeup director and worked on such television series as Barney Miller and Welcome Back Kotter.

Trivia: Burly American utility actor Gene Roth appeared in nearly 200 films, beginning around 1946. He was initially billed under his given name of Gene Stutenroth, shortening his surname in 1949. Most often cast as a hulking villain, Roth growled and glowered through many a Western and serial (he was the principal heavy in the 1951 chapter play Captain Video). He also showed up in several Columbia two-reel comedies, starting with the Shemp Howard/Tom Kennedy film Society Mugs (1946). A frequent foil of the Three Stooges, Columbia's top short-subject stars, Roth extended his association with the comedy trio into the 1962 feature The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. A ubiquitous TV actor, Roth was frequently cast as a judge or bailiff on the Perry Mason series and essayed two roles in the 1961 Twilight Zone classic "Shadow Play." An active participant on the nostalgia-convention circuit of the 1970s, Gene Roth died in 1976 when he was struck down by a speeding automobile.

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: Awarded the 1944 "Villain of the Year" award by the Photo Press Fan Poll, handsome, dark-haired Pierce Lyden had performed in Little Theater and vaudeville prior to entering films in 1940. Paramount reportedly briefly considered him leading man potential, but the son of a cavalry horse breeder was instead destined to become one of Hollywood's best "dog heavies" (so-called because this nasty breed was not averse to kicking a sleeping dog), appearing in more than 125 B-Westerns and serials between 1940 and 1956. He later added television to his repertoire and would become one of the most prolific performers of the 1950s. In retirement, Lyden kept a bygone era alive by frequently sharing his memories with B-Western and serial buffs and writing on the subject for various genre publications. The veteran performer was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1979, honored with the prestigious Golden Boot Award in 1992 and was the 1997 recipient of Nebraska's Buffalo Bill Award.

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).

Trivia: A stage actor since the 1920s, Kenneth MacDonald found the going rough in Hollywood until he published and distributed a pamphlet titled "The Case of Kenneth MacDonald." This little self-promotional book brought him to the attention of studio executives, and throughout the 1930s MacDonald could be seen as a mustachioed, mellifluous-voiced villain in scores of westerns and melodramas. His work in the Charles Starrett westerns at Columbia led to a lengthy association with that studio. From 1940 through 1954, MacDonald played featured roles in such Columbia productions as Island of Doomed Men (1940), Power of the Whistler (1945) and The Caine Mutiny (1954); he was also prominently cast in the studio's short subjects, especially in the comedies of the Three Stooges and Hugh Herbert, his most familiar role being that of a society criminal or shyster lawyer. During the 1960s, Kenneth MacDonald was a semi-regular on the Perry Mason TV series, playing a solemn judge.

Trivia: With his articulate speech patterns and his wide range of facial nuances, George Cheseboro was a cut above the usual western supporting player. He began his career with a stock company in 1907; three years later, he toured the Orient with another acting troupe. Vaudeville experience followed, and then in 1915 Cheseboro made his first motion picture. With 1918's Hands Up, Cheseboro became a popular serial star, extending his repertoire to western leads after serving in World War I. Though his star had faded by the time talkies arrived, Cheseboro prospered as a character actor in the many "B" westerns clogging the market in the 1930s, usually playing a scuzzy henchman, barroom bully or lynch-happy bystander. One of the actor's most satisfying screen moments occurred in the 1950 Roy Rogers feature Trail of Robin Hood. The climax contrives to have several popular western stars ride on the scene to rescue movie-star-turned-rancher Jack Holt from rustlers. As Allan Lane, Rex Allen, Monte Hale et. al. greet each other effusively, Cheseboro rides up to offer his help--whereupon he is roundly snubbed. A little girl steps out of the crowd to reprimand Cheseboro for spending his cinematic career on the wrong side of the law. "I know, honey," replies George Cheseboro with a warm smile. "But after being beaten up by Jack Holt in twenty pictures, he's reformed me!"

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: At first studying for the ministry, in college he was attracted to acting; at age 21 he went to Hollywood, working for several years as an extra. His first lead role came in A Woman Who Sinned (1924); three years later he was elevated to star status after his lead role opposite Sharon Lynne in Clancy's Kosher Wedding (1927). For the next several years he played romantic leads in numerous mysteries, drawing-room dramas, and comedies, and easily made the transition into the sound era. In the mid '30s he began specializing in Westerns and action serials, and last starred in 1936; after that he played supporting roles, both as the heroes' buddies and low-down villains, in dozens of B-Westerns and serials.

Trivia: A rugged and trustworthy Western hero from Boston, silent screen cowboy Franklyn Farnum's appeal was closer to William S. Hart than Tom Mix. Farnum's road to screen stardom began in vaudeville and musical comedy. While he was not related to stage and screen stars William Farnum and Dustin Farnum, two legendary brothers who also hailed from Boston, he never really dissuaded the name association, and while he never achieved the same success as the other Farnums, it was not for lack of trying. Onscreen from around 1914, Franklyn Farnum was usually found in inexpensive Westerns and reached a plateau as the star of the 1920 serial The Vanishing Trails and a series of oaters produced independently by "Colonel" William N. Selig, formerly of the company that bore his name. In 1918, Farnum received quite a bit of press for marrying screen star Alma Rubens, but the union proved extremely short-lived. As busy in the 1920s as in the previous decade, Farnum made the changeover to sound smoothly enough, but he was growing older and leading roles were no longer an option. He maintained his usual hectic schedule throughout the following three decades, more often than not playing villains and doing bit parts, working well into the television Western era. For many years, Farnum was the president of the Screen Extras Guild. In 1961, Franklyn Farnum died of cancer at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: From his first film, Don Quickshot of the Rio Grande (1923), to his last, Fancy Pants (1950) American supporting player Hank Bell specialized in westerns. While still relatively young, Bell adopted the "grizzled old desert rat" characterization, that sustained him throughout his career, simply by removing his teeth and growing a thick, inverted handlebar mustache. Though occasionally given lines to speak, he was usually consigned to "atmosphere roles:" if you'll look closely at the jury in the Three Stooges 2-reeler Disorder in the Court, you'll see Bell in the top row on the left, making swimming motions when Curly douses the jurors with a fire hose. A fixture of "B"-pictures, Hank Bell occasionally surfaced in "A" films like Abraham Lincoln (1930), Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), The Plainsman (1936), Geronimo (1939) and My Little Chickadee (1940).

Trivia: Snake-eyed, mustachioed character actor Frank Ellis seldom rose above the "member of the posse" status in "B" westerns. Once in a while, he was allowed to say things like "Now here's my plan" and "Let's get outta here," but generally he stood by waiting for the Big Boss (usually someone like Harry Woods or Wheeler Oakman) to do his thinking for him. Ellis reportedly began making films around 1920; he remained in the business at least until the 1954 Allan Dwan-directed western Silver Lode. Frank Ellis has been erroneously credited with several policeman roles in the films of Laurel and Hardy, due to his resemblance to another bit player named Charles McMurphy.

Trivia: Actor Stanley Andrews moved from the stage to the movies in the mid 1930s, where at first he was typed in steadfast, authoritative roles. The tall, mustachioed Adrews became familiar to regular moviegoers in a string of performances as ship's captains, doctors, executives, military officials and construction supervisors. By the early 1950s, Andrews had broadened his range to include grizzled old western prospectors and ageing sheriffs. This led to his most lasting contribution to the entertainment world: the role of the Old Ranger on the long-running syndicated TV series Death Valley Days. Beginning in 1952, Andrews introduced each DVD episode, doing double duty as commercial pitchman for 20 Mule Team Borax; he also became a goodwill ambassador for the program and its sponsor, showing up at county fairs, supermarket openings and charity telethons. Stanley Andrews continued to portray the Old Ranger until 1963, when the US Borax company decided to alter its corporate image with a younger spokesperson -- a 51-year-old "sprout" named Ronald Reagan.

Trivia: Short, portly, and possessed of a high-pitched laugh that cuts through the air like a buzzsaw, Massachussetts-born Dick Elliott had been on stage for nearly thirty before making his screen bow in 1933. Elliott was a frequent visitor to Broadway, enjoying a substantial run in the marathon hit Abie's Irish Rose. Physically and vocally unchanged from his first screen appearance in the '30s to his last in 1961, Elliott was most generally cast in peripheral roles designed to annoy the film's principal characters with his laughing jags or his obtrusive behavior; in this capacity, he appeared as drunken conventioneers, loud-mouthed theatre audience members, and "helpful" pedestrians. Elliott also excelled playing small-scale authority figures, such as stage managers, truant officers and rural judges. Still acting into his mid 70s, Dick Elliott appeared regularly as the mayor of Mayberry on the first season of The Andy Griffith Show, and was frequently cast as a department-store Santa in the Yuletide programs of such comics as Jack Benny and Red Skelton.