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: Radiantly beautiful blonde actress Virginia Mayo was a chorus dancer when she began her film career as a bit player in 1942. She rose to face as Danny Kaye's leading lady in a series of splashy Technicolor musicals produced by Samuel Goldwyn. Though never regarded as a great actress, she was disturbingly convincing as Dana Andrews' faithless wife in Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and as James Cagney's sluttish gun moll in White Heat (1949). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mayo was one of the most popular female stars at Warner Bros., appearing in musicals, melodramas and westerns. Many of her characters were so outre that one wonders whether Mayo was having some sport with us: her turn as Jack Palance's paramour in The Silver Chalice (1955) and as Cleopatra in the guilty pleasure The Story of Mankind (1957) immediately come to mind. And it is Mayo who, in Warners' King Richard and the Crusaders (1955), utters the immortal high-camp line "Fight, fight, fight! That's all you ever do, Dick Plantagenet!" When her film career faltered in the 1960s, Mayo turned to stage work on the touring-company and dinner-theatre circuit; more recently, she has been a frequent interview subject on TV documentaries dealing with the old Hollywood studio system. Virginia Mayo is the widow of actor Michael O'Shea.

Trivia: Maltese-born character actor Joseph Calleila first came to prominence as a concert singer in England and Europe. He made his screen bow in 1935's Public Hero Number 1, playing the first of many gangsters. Usually a villain, Calleila often leavened his screen perfidy with a subtle sense of humor, notably as the masked bandit who motivates the plot of the Mae West/W.C. Fields comedy My Little Chickadee (1940). In 1936, Calleila tried his hand at screenwriting with Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936), a fanciful western based on the criminal career of Joaquin Murietta. Joseph Calleila delivered some of his best and most varied screen performances in the last years of his film career, especially as the kindly Mexican priest in Disney's The Littlest Outlaw (1955) and the weary border-town detective in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958).

Trivia: The wide eyes and cool smile of actress/model Phyllis Kirk graced many a magazine cover before she made her film debut in 1950. While her deep, sultry voice precluded most of the typical ingénue roles, Kirk nonetheless achieved film fame as a woman in peril, in André De Toth's 1953 3-D horror classic House of Wax. Born Phyllis Kirkegaard in Plainfield, NJ, on September 18, 1926, Kirk shortened her name after moving to the Big Apple during her teens to formally train as a thespian. She officially launched her career with a series of supporting turns on Broadway, then migrated to Hollywood in the early '50s, where she landed parts in such films as Johnny Concho (1956, opposite Frank Sinatra) and The Sad Sack (1957, opposite Jerry Lewis). During the '50s, Kirk appeared on television semi-frequently as well, guest-starring in dozens of live and prerecorded anthology series, and briefly appearing as Red Buttons' wife on the comedian's weekly variety series, The Red Buttons Show. From 1957 through 1959, Kirk starred as the inquisitive Nora Charles on the TV version of The Thin Man (Peter Lawford played her detective hubby Nick Charles). After 1960, Kirk concentrated on stage acting, but devoted the preponderance of her time to various social causes, such as establishing two inner-city preschools in south Los Angeles after the Watts riots. Kirk continued to crop up on television, however, as a celebrity contestant on such quiz shows as To Tell the Truth and Password. In 1965, she hosted an erudite ABC daytime talk show, The Young Set. A hip injury obliged Phyllis Kirk to curtail her acting career; she married a former CBS news executive and turned to the production end of the business, as a public-relations liaison for several TV specials of the 1970s.Following two decades of big- and small-screen inactivity, 79-year-old Phyllis Kirk died of a post-cerebral aneurysm at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, on October 19, 2006.

Trivia: Swedish actor/director Alf Kjellin studied for a theatrical career, but was swept into movie stardom thanks to his appearance as a troubled student in the Ingmar Bergman-scripted film Hets (1944), released in the US after the war as Frenzy. Hailed as a "new discovery" (though he'd been in Swedish films since 1937), Kjellin was brought to Hollywood on the strength of Torment, making his American bow in MGM's Madame Bovary (1949). MGM wasn't fond of Kjellin's name, so he was billed as Christopher Kent for Bovary, reverting to his real moniker for such subsequent American films as My Six Convicts (1952). Feeling confined by the second leads and villains he played in Hollywood, Kjellin turned to directing with Girl in the Rain in 1957. Few of his films as a director were memorable, though Kjellin gained an excellent reputation directing such TV series as I Spy in the '60s and Columbo in the '70s. I Spy became something of a crusade for Kjellin; in tandem with director of photography Fouad Said, the director lobbied for the right to use more flexible hand-held cameras rather than the cumbersome boxes then required by the American Society of Cinematographers. (Kjellin was victorious, but the resultant bad photography on many TV shows of the '70s may have caused him second thoughts.) Even as his stock as a director rose in Tinseltown, Alf Kjellin took on the occasional acting role in such films as Ice Station Zebra (1968) and Zandy's Bride (1974).

Trivia: American-born Anthony Caruso decided early in his showbiz career to cash in on his last name by becoming a singer. Though he enjoyed some success in this field, Caruso had better luck securing acting roles. Typecast as a villain from his first film, Johnny Apollo (1940), onward, he remained a reliable screen menace until the 1980s. Usually cast as an Italian (he was Louis Chiavelli in 1950's The Asphalt Jungle), he has also played his share of Greeks, Spaniards, Slavs, and Indian chiefs. He was occasionally afforded an opportunity to essay sympathetic characters on the various TV religious anthologies of the 1960s and 1970s, notably This Is the Life. In 1976, Anthony Caruso enjoyed one of his biggest and most prominent screen roles in Zebra Force.On April 4, 2003 Anthony Caruso died following an extended illness in Brentwood, CA. He was 86.

Trivia: Actor George Voskovec made his first stage appearance in his native Czechoslovakia, where he also made his first film, Powder and Gas (1930). Emigrating to America after Czechoslovakia fell to Hitler's armies, Voskovec quickly gained a Broadway reputation as an actor, playwright, and musical composer. Though he spoke with very little accent, Voskovec was frequently cast as foreigners, usually Teutonic or Slavic in nature. George Voskovec maintained a busy schedule to the end of his life, appearing in films (1980's Somewhere in Time was his last), plays, and a lot of television; in the latter medium, Voskovec was seen on a regular basis as Fritz the butler (his last role) on the 1981 TV series Nero Wolfe.

Trivia: American actor Robert Emhardt began his Broadway career in the late '30s as an understudy for corpulent character star Sidney Greenstreet whom he closely resembled. In films from 1952, the paunchy, phlegmatic Emhardt carved a niche in characterizations calling for gross, obnoxious villainy. His best and most typical screen role was the "respectable" crime boss in Sam Fuller's Underworld U.S.A. (1961). A television fixture well into the 1980s, Robert Emhardt showed up in several Alfred Hitchcock Presents installments, was seen on a regular basis as Mackenzie Cory on the daytime soap opera Another World, and won an Emmy for his wonderful performance as an ulcerated businessman stranded in Mayberry, NC, in "Man in a Hurry," a 1963 episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

Trivia: Dapper, rotund character actor Don Beddoe was born in New York and raised in Cincinnati, where his father headed the Conservatory of Music. Beddoe's professional career began in Cincinnati, first as a journalist and then an actor. He made his Broadway debut in the unfortunately titled Nigger Rich, which starred Spencer Tracy. Beddoe became a fixture of Columbia Pictures in the 1930s and 1940s, playing minor roles in "A"s like Golden Boy, supporting parts ranging from cops to conventioneers in the studio's "B" features, and flustered comedy foil to the antics of such Columbia short subject stars as The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde and Charley Chase. Beddoe kept busy until the mid-1980s with leading roles in 1961's The Boy Who Caught a Crook and Saintly Sinners, and (as a singing leprechaun) in 1962's Jack the Giant Killer.

Trivia: American actor Jay Novello began his film career with Tenth Avenue Kid (1938). Small, wiry and mustachioed, Novello found a home in Hollywood playing shifty street characters and petty thieves; during the war he displayed a friendlier image as a Latin-American type, appearing as waiters and hotel clerks in innumerable Good Neighbor films set south of the border. Once the war was over, it was back to those scraggly little characters, even in such period pieces as The Robe (1953), in which Novello played the unsavory slave dealer who sold Victor Mature to Richard Burton. Adept in TV comedy roles as meek milquetoasts and henpecked husbands, Novello was a particular favorite of Lucille Ball, who used the actor prominently in both I Love Lucy (first as the man duped by the "Ethel to Tillie" seance, then as a gondolier in a later episode) and The Lucy Show (as a softhearted safecracker). Jay Novello remained active in films into the '60s, as scurrilous as ever in such fantasy films as The Lost World (1960) and Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961); he also stayed busy in such TV programs as The Mothers in Law, My Three Sons and McHale's Navy, playing a recurring role in the latter series as a resourceful Italian mayor.

Trivia: Greek-born actor Nick Dennis may have been short of stature, but that didn't prevent him from cutting a prominent and memorable image onscreen (and on-stage) in a career that crossed 40 years and two coasts. Indeed, his diminutive physique was more than matched by an outsized talent, and an ability to steal almost any scene he was in, working among the stars of whatever the production happened to be. Dennis was born in Thessaly in 1904, and his American stage career dated from the mid-'30s. He made his debut on Broadway in September 1935 playing a telegraph boy in the Howard Lindsay/Damon Runyon comedy A Slight Case of Murder; and in April 1936, he played a thug in the original Broadway production of Richard Rodgers' and Lorenz Hart's On Your Toes, starring Ray Bolger. His other early stage credits included On Borrowed Time and The World We Make, of which only the latter was a conspicuous success at the time. He continued to find steady work through the Second World War and beyond, including roles in José Ferrer's Broadway production of Cyrano De Bergerac. It was around the time of the latter's run that he made his big-screen debut with a role in the New York-filmed drama A Double Life (1947). But it was the part of Pablo Gonzales in A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan, that brought him to Hollywood, to appear in the Kazan-directed film version. Dennis' screen credits multiplied by the dozens over the next few years, in pictures such as Sirocco (1951) and Eight Iron Men (1952), as well as television work on anthology shows such as Fireside Theatre. Kazan used him in East of Eden (1955), and Robert Aldrich gave him the role of extrovert garage mechanic and car enthusiast Nick in Kiss Me Deadly, which also offered him a prominent exit scene and key role in the plot. It was in that picture, with Dennis running on all cylinders, so to speak, that one could see him at his flamboyant best, stealing at least two key scenes from star Ralph Meeker. Aldrich also used Dennis in The Big Knife, and he would show up in numerous films and television shows across the 1950s, sometimes in delightfully bizarre moments; in a gypsy wedding scene in Nicholas Ray's Hot Blood, his character is leading a trained bear on a leash. Dennis became something of a cinematic specialty act during this period with his outsized, flamboyant persona, and he was much-loved by audiences in all genres. Additionally, he appeared in dozens of television shows over the next six years, and it was television where he made his biggest long-term impression as an actor. In 1962, he became a regular, recurring character as hospital orderly Nick Kanavaras on Ben Casey, where he frequently provided lighter moments in the drama. Following the series' cancellation, he continued to work, mostly in television, into the mid-'70s, including several made-for-TV features and a string of appearances on the series Kojak, starring Telly Savalas.

Trivia: Character actress Sarah Selby came to films by way of radio. In fact, her first screen assignment was a voice-over as one of the gossiping elephants in Disney's animated feature Dumbo (1941). She continued to play minor roles as nurses, housekeepers, and town gossips until her retirement in 1977; one of her last roles was Aunt Polly in a 1975 TV-movie adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. On television, Sarah Selby was seen on a semi-regular basis as storekeeper Ma Smalley on Gunsmoke (1955-1975).

Trivia: A real-life British military officer, the dignified-looking, often mustachioed Ramsay Hill (real name Cyril Seys Ramsay-Hill) popped up in countless Hollywood films and television shows from 1934-1966, almost always playing, well, military officers. Between acting jobs, Hill functioned as technical advisor on a number of productions dealing with the British Empire including The Sun Never Sets (1939) and the 3-D Bwana Devil (1952).

Trivia: Many research sources arbitrarily begin the list of French actor Eugene Borden's films in 1936. In fact, Borden first showed up on screen as early as 1917. Seldom afforded billing, the actor was nonetheless instantly recognizable in his many appearances as headwaiters, porters, pursers and coachmen. Along with several other stalwart European character actors, Borden was cast in a sizeable role in the above-average Columbia "B" So Dark the Night (1946). Musical buffs will recall Eugene Borden as Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant's landlord in An American in Paris (1951).

Trivia: French character actor Jean Del Val was a regular in American films from at least 1927. In the early days of the talkies, he offered his services as translator and vocal coach for the French-language versions of American films. Many of his later roles were fleeting but memorable: he's the French aviator in Block-Heads (1938) who rescues over-aged doughboy Stan Laurel from the trenches ("Why, you blockhead. Ze war's been over for twenty years!") and the French radio announcer who opens Casablanca (1942) by spreading the news of the murder of two German couriers carrying letters of transit. He enjoyed a larger role in Columbia's So Dark the Night (1946), a film seemingly conceived as a showcase for the best of Hollywood's foreign-accented bit players. Active in films until the 1960s, Jean del Val played a crucial non-speaking role in Fantastic Voyage (1966): he's the comatose scientist whose arterial system and brain are explored by the miniaturized heroes.

Trivia: The older sister of actress Lillian Randolph, Amanda Randolph worked her way up the black vaudeville circuit as a singer and comedienne. She made her first screen appearance in the Vitaphone two-reeler The Black Network (1935) as the supposedly untalented wife of a radio sponsor; ironically, she sounded better than the film's official leading lady Nina Mae McKinney. After appearing in a handful of all-black feature films she established herself as a character actress on network radio. In the 1950s she was generally cast as maidservants in films, with the notable exception of her performance as Sidney Poitier's mother in 1950's No Way Out. On television, Amanda Randolph was seen to excellent advantage as the Kingfish's domineering mother-in-law on The Amos 'N' Andy Show (1951-1953) and as Louise the maid on Make Room for Daddy (1954-1964).

Trivia: Richard Crane was recruited by Hollywood in his early twenties, making his screen debut in the 1940 Joan Crawford vehicle Susan and God (1940). Crane coasted on his good looks and pleasant personality throughout the war years, while most of Hollywood's top leading men were in uniform, appearing in 20th Century Fox's Happy Land (1943) and A Wing and a Prayer (1944). By 1951, he was accepting make-work jobs along the lines of the Columbia serial Mysterious Island. His film career in almost total eclipse, Crane briefly rallied as star of the popular syndicated sci-fi TV series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1953). He was later seen in the supporting role of Lt. Gene Plethon on TV's Surfside Six (1961-1962). Richard Crane's last big-screen appearance was in Surf Party (1964).

Trivia: One of several male models to achieve some success in action films of the '20s, Hermon Reed Howes was forever saddled with the tag "Arrow Collar Man," despite the fact that he had been only one of several future luminaries to have posed for famed artist J.C. Leyenecker's memorable Arrow ads. (Future screen actors Fredric March and Brian Donlevy also did yeoman duty for the company.)A graduate of the University of Utah and the Harvard Graduate School, Howes had served two and a half years in the navy prior to entering onto the stage. He became a leading man for the likes of Peggy Wood and Billie Burke, and entered films in 1923, courtesy of low-budget producer Ben Wilson, who cast the handsome newcomer as the lead in a series of breathless melodramas released by Rayart. Howes reached a silent screen pinnacle of sorts as Clara Bow's leading man in Rough House Rosie (1927), but his starring days were over with the advent of sound. There was nothing inherently wrong with Howes voice, but it didn't do anything for him either. His acting before the microphone seemed too stiff. He was still as handsome as ever, but his good looks were often hidden behind a scruffy beard or mustache. The veteran actor then drifted into supporting roles in B-Westerns and serials, his appearances sometimes devoid of dialogue, and more often than not, he was unbilled. Howes did his fair share of television in the '50s as well, but ill health forced him to retire after playing a police inspector in Edward D. Wood Jr.'s The Sinister Urge, filmed in July of 1960 and a guest spot on television's Mr. Ed. He died of cancer at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.