Trivia: American actress Bebe Daniels and the motion picture industry virtually grew up together. After touring with her stage-actor parents, Daniels made her film debut at age seven in the silent one-reeler A Common Enemy (1908). After unsuccessfully applying for a job as a Mack Sennett bathing beauty (she was well under the age of consent), Daniels secured a job at Hal Roach's comedy studio in 1915, co-featured with Roach's biggest (and only) star Harold Lloyd in a series of zany slapstick comedies. In 1919, Daniels was signed by producer-director Cecil B. DeMille to star in a group of slick, sophisticated feature films in the company of DeMille regulars Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan. Though successful in these glamorous ventures, Daniels found herself more at home in fast-moving comedy roles, in which she specialized while contracted with Paramount Pictures in the mid-1920s; the actress played everything from a female Zorro type in Senorita (1927) to a "lady Valentino" in She's a Sheik (1927). When talking pictures came around, Paramount dropped Daniels' contract, worried that she wouldn't be able to make the transition to sound. But Daniels surprised everyone by scoring a hit in RKO's expensive musical feature Rio Rita (1929), managing to keep her career in high gear until her last American film, Music Is Magic (1935). Upon her retirement from Hollywood, Daniels moved to England with her actor husband Ben Lyon in 1935. Enormously popular with London audiences, Daniels and Lyon starred in stage plays and films, and in the 1940s, headlined the successful radio series Life with the Lyons, which graduated to an even more successful TV program in the 1950s.

Trivia: Having acted onstage since boyhood, in his early 20s he and his wife headlined as a vaudeville comedy team; several years later they became Broadway stars in The Ziegfeld Follies. In 1927, Ziegfeld teamed him with Robert Woolsey in the Broadway musical Rio Rita; they reprised their roles in the musical's film version (1929), launching a screen career as a very successful comedy team until Woolsey's death in 1938. Wheeler appeared in Broadway shows and on the road, and also made a few more films. He was a regular on the '50s TV series Brave Eagle. In the '60s he performed in New York and Las Vegas nightclubs.

Trivia: Robert Woolsey, the cigar-chomping, slick-haired, bespectacled member of the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy team, was born in California and raised in Carbondale, IL. After the death of his father, it was up to Woolsey and his brother, Charlie, to support their family. Small and wiry, Woolsey found work as a jockey, but a fall from a horse at age 15 ended his equestrian career. Looking for a less strenuous occupation, he became an actor, playing up to 80 different roles in various regional stock companies. While appearing with the Rorick's Company in upstate New York, he befriended a fellow Californian, comedian Walter Catlett. An admirer of Catlett's brisk, commanding style, Woolsey decided to deliberately pattern himself after Catlett -- right down to the horn-rimmed glasses and ever-present cigar. He finally made it to Broadway in 1919, and for the next decade was gainfully employed as a utility comic in such productions as The Right Girl, The Blue Kitten, and Poppy, co-starring in the last-named production with W.C. Fields. In 1927, Woolsey was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld to play wheeler-dealer divorce attorney Chick Bean in the Broadway musical spectacular Rio Rita; it was in this production that he was teamed for the first time with a pixie-ish, wavy-haired comedian named Bert Wheeler. When Rio Rita was transferred to film by RKO Radio Pictures in 1929, Wheeler and Woolsey came along for the ride. They scored an immediate hit, and a new Hollywood comedy team was born. Over the next eight years, Wheeler and Woolsey churned out 21 films, many of them -- Diplomaniacs, Hips Hips Hooray, Cockeyed Cavaliers -- among the best and most profitable comedies of the 1930s. Offscreen, Woolsey was admired by co-workers as a studious, hard-working "technician" -- not truly funny in himself, but wise in the ways of getting big laughs. He was also the businessman of the team, feistily badgering RKO for higher salaries and better material throughout his Hollywood career. After teaming with Wheeler, Woolsey appeared as a "single" only once, starring in the 1931 film Everything's Rosie, a blatant (and unsuccessful) rip-off of his earlier Broadway musical Poppy. Woolsey became seriously ill in 1937, but courageously completed two films that year, On Again-Off Again and High Flyers. On August 27, 1937, Robert Woolsey was confined to his bed, where he would spend the remainder of his life; he died 14 months later at the age of 49.

Trivia: Actor E. G. Marshall started out on radio in his native Minnesota, then headed for New York and Broadway. After several years' solid stage service, Marshall began accepting small roles in such films as 13 Rue Madeline (1945) and Call Northside 777 (1947). A mainstay of television's so-called Golden Age, Marshall excelled in incisive, authoritative roles. Long before winning two Emmy awards for his portrayal of lawyer Lawrence Preston on TV's The Defenders (1961-65), Marshall was associated with fictional jurisprudence as the military prosecutor in The Caine Mutiny (1954) and as Juror #4 in Twelve Angry Men (1957). In contrast to his businesslike demeanor, Marshall is one of Hollywood's most notorious pranksters; he was never more impish than when he ad-libbed profanities and nonsequiturs while his lips were hidden by a surgical mask in the 1969-73 TV series The Bold Ones. The best of E.G. Marshall's work of the 1970s and 1980s includes the role of the straying husband in Woody Allen's Interiors (1977), the U.S. President in Superman II (1978) and General Eisenhower in the 1985 TV miniseries War and Remembrance. Continuing to flourish into the 1990s, Marshall was seen in the 1993 TV adaptation of Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, and was cast as Arthur Thurmond on the 1994 medical series Chicago Hope. Radio fans will remember E.G. Marshall as the unctuous host ("Pleasant dreeeaaammms") of the 1970s anthology The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre.

Trivia: Joseph Cawthorn launched his seven-decade show business career at age four as a performer in "variety" revues (the precursor to American vaudeville). At age five, Cawthorn was appearing in minstrel shows, and at seven he moved to England, where he became a successful child performer. Back in America, he toured in vaudeville as a "Dutch" comic, fracturing audiences with his Yiddish dialect and hyperkinetic gestures. He first appeared on Broadway in the 1895 musical Excelsior Jr; two years later he got his biggest break when he replaced William Collier as principal comedian in Miss Philadelphia (1897). A popular Broadway attraction for the next 25 years, Cawthorn starred or co-starred in such tuneful extravaganzas as Victor Herbert's The Fortune Teller (1898), Mother Goose (1903, in the title role!), Little Nemo (1910), The Sunshine Girl (1913), The Girl From Utah (1914) and Rudy Friml' s The Blue Kitten (1922). By the time he appeared in the 1925 Marilyn Miller vehicle Sally, however, Cawthorn was being written off as a "fading star. Rather than stubbornly cling to his Broadway fame, Cawthorn moved to Hollywood in 1927, where he began a whole new career as a movie character actor. He revived his old dialect routines as Cornelius Van Horn in Dixiana (1930) and Joe Bruno in Peach o' Reno; both of these films starred Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, who'd known Cawthorn "way back when" in New York (Woolsey in fact had supported Cawthorn in The Blue Kitten). Not always confined to "Dutch" roles, he was effectively cast as Shakespearean suitor Gremio in the Mary Pickford/Doug Fairbanks version of Taming of the Shrew(1929) and as a French physician in Lubitsch's Love Me Tonight (1932). Nor was he limited to comedy parts: he was most persuasive in the largely serious role of Dr. Bruner, the "Van Helsing" counterpart in Bela Lugosi's White Zombie (1932). Because of his celebrated Broadway past, Cawthorn was often cast in period "backstage" musicals, essaying such roles as the title character's father in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Leopold Damrosch in Lillian Russell (1940). Joseph Cawthorn died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home in 1949. His wife, actress Queenie Vassar, lived until 1960.

Trivia: A former "Gibson Girl" and a stage performer from the age of nine, Amazonian actress Jobyna Howland acted in a couple of Norma Talmadge silent vehicles in the late 1910s but became a star in the long-running Broadway hit The Gold Diggers. She returned to films after the changeover to sound, appearing opposite the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey in The Cuckoos (1930) and Dixiana (1930), as Sidney Fox's mother in One in a Lifetime (1932), and as the retired burlesque dancer in Stepping Sisters (1932). Retiring due to illness in 1933, Howland was the sister of supporting actor Olin Howlin and the wife of novelist Arthur Stringer.

Trivia: After a brief period of training at a Los Angeles coaching school, Dorothy Lee went straight from high school to the stage: as historian Leonard Maltin put it, "it looked that way." Lee's stage and screen personality was very reminiscent of Ruby Keeler (Keeler once understudied Lee on Broadway). The two performers were also evenly matched in ability: Lee's nasal singing, heavy-footed dancing and first-grade-pageant acting can best be described as "passable," Still, she possessed a great deal of charm and vivacity, and proved an excellent leading lady/foil to the comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. In their first films together at RKO Radio, Wheeler, Woolsey and Lee were so inextricably enjoined in the eyes of the public that they shared equal billing. Lee also starred in the first-ever RKO Radio talkie release Syncopation (1929), and was cast opposite Joe E. Brown in the delightful Local Boy Makes Good (1931). In 1932, Lee married Hollywood columnist Jimmy Fidler and briefly retired from films. When the marriage dissolved in 1934, Lee returned to the Wheeler and Woolsey fold in two of the team's best efforts, Hips Hips Hooray (1934) and Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934). In all, Lee co-starred in 13 of Wheeler and Woolsey's 21 films, and also appeared with Bert Wheeler in his 1931 solo effort Too Many Cooks (1931). After playing a minor role in 1939's Twelve Crowded Hours, Lee retired from films, relocating to Chicago with her second husband. In 1994, Dorothy Lee wrote the foreword for Edward Watz' book Wheeler and Woolsey: The Vaudeville Comic Duo and Their Films.

Trivia: The best way to physically describe actor Ralf Harolde is to note his striking resemblance to Zeppo Marx. However, Harolde projected a far more sinister image than Marx, beginning with his film debut as the "gentlemanly" villain in Bebe Daniels' Dixiana (1930). Often cast as a low-life crook, he played an escaped convict who hid behind his wife and children in Picture Snatcher (1933) and the erstwhile kidnapper of little Shirley Temple in Baby Take a Bow (1934). He also showed up in such minor roles as a Tribunal prosecutor in Tale of Two Cities (1935) and a tuxedoed society gangster in Laurel and Hardy's Our Relations (1936). Harolde's film career came to a screeching halt when, in 1937, he was involved in a traffic accident that resulted in the death of fellow actor Monroe Owsley. When he re-emerged on screen in 1941, it was clear that the tragedy had taken its toll: Harolde's facial features had taken on a gaunt, haunted look, and his hair had turned completely white. Remaining active until the mid-1950s, Ralf Harolde still had a few good screen characterizations left in him, most notably the sleazy sanitarium doctor in Murder My Sweet (1944).

Trivia: Stocky character actor Eddy Chandler's movie career stretched from 1915 to 1947. In 1930, Chandler was afforded a large (if uncredited) role as Blondell, partner in crime of villain Ralf Harolde, in the RKO musical extravaganza Dixiana. Thereafter, he made do with bit parts, usually playing cops or military officers. His brief appearance in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night as the bus driver who begins singing "The Man on a Flying Trapeze"--and plows his bus into a ditch as a result--assured him choice cameos in all future Capra productions. Chandler can also be seen as the Hospital Sergeant in 1939's Gone with the Wind. One of Eddy Chandler's few billed roles was Lewis in Monogram's Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944).

Trivia: The grandson of a slave, as a child Bill Robinson first performed on street corners for nickels and dimes. Developing into one of the world's foremost tap-dancers, he became a vaudeville star and later played such big theaters as the Roxy and the Palace; he also appeared in a number of major stage musicals. In the early '30s he broke into movies, usually playing the stereotypical happy-go-lucky blacks that populated Hollywood films. He became famous and popular for the four films in which he co-starred with Shirley Temple (1935-38). Well-liked by the black community, he was called "the Honorary Mayor of Harlem." He also coined the word "copacetic" and it soon came into general use. He was the subject of the hit Sammy Davis Jr. song "Mr. Bojangles." In 1989, Congress declared his birthday to be National Tap-Dancing Day.

Trivia: Rising to fame as Pineapple in Hal Roach's Our Gang shorts in the mid-1920s, comic child actor Eugene Jackson performed in vaudeville in addition to his film work, and later continued to work alongside such comic icons as Redd Foxx. Born in Buffalo, NY, in 1916, Jackson got his break in show business while performing the shimmy for a bag of groceries at Central Avenue's Rosebud Theater in 1923. Winning the competition for three weeks in a row, his mother recognized the youngster's talents and soon took him to Hollywood to attempt a career in the entertainment industry. Soon signed to a two-year contract by Roach (who dubbed the child Pineapple due to his afro-frizz), Jackson made his Our Gang debut in The Mysterious Mystery! Later working for Mack Sennett and alongside Mary Pickford, Jackson made a successful transition into talkies with his role in the 1928 musical Hearts in Dixie, and toured in vaudeville when adolescence took hold. Later turning up on television in both Julia and Sanford and Son, the former child-star published a biography titled Eugene Pineapple Jackson: His Own Story in 1998. Jackson also established studios in both Compton and Pasadena, where he taught dance. Eugene Jackson died of a heart attack in Compton, CA, on October 26, 2001. He was 84.

Trivia: American actress/singer Dorothy Lamour graduated from Spencer Business College, after spending a few teen years as an elevator operator in her home town of New Orleans. By 1930, she'd turned her back on the business world and was performing in the Fanchon and Marco vaudeville troupe. In 1931, she became vocalist for the Herbie Kay Band, and soon afterward married (briefly) Kay. In the years just prior to her film debut, Lamour built up a solid reputation as a radio singer, notably on the 1934 series Dreamer of Songs. Paramount Pictures signed Lamour to a contract in 1936, creating an exotic southseas image for the young actress: she wore her fabled sarong for the first time in Jungle Princess (1936), the first of three nonsensical but high-grossing "jungle" films in which the ingenuous island girl asked her leading man what a kiss was. A more prestigious "sarong" role came about in Goldwyn's The Hurricane (1937), wherein Lamour, ever the trouper, withstood tons of water being thrust upon her in the climactic tempest of the film's title. A major star by 1939, Lamour had developed enough onscreen self awareness to amusingly kid her image in St. Louis Blues (1939), in which she played a jaded movie star who balked at playing any more southseas parts. Lamour's latter-day fame was secured in 1940, when she co-starred in Road to Singapore (1940), the first of six "Road" pictures teaming Lamour with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. It represented both a career summit and a downslide: As the "Road" series progressed, Lamour found herself with fewer and fewer comic lines, and by 1952's Road to Bali she was little more than a decorative "straight woman" for Bob and Bing. Very popular with the troops during World War II, Lamour gave selflessly of her time and talent in camp tours, USO shows and bond drives throughout the early 1940s. A tough cookie who brooked no nonsense on the set, Lamour was nonetheless much loved by Paramount casts and crews, many of which remained friends even after the studio dropped her contract in the early 1950s. Occasionally retiring from films during her heyday to devote time to her family, Lamour was out of Hollywood altogether between 1952 and 1962, during which time she developed a popular nightclub act. She returned to films for Hope and Crosby's Road to Hong Kong (1962), not as leading lady (that assignment was given to Joan Collins) but as a special guest star -- this time she was allowed as many joke lines as her co-stars in her one scene. More on stage than on film in the 1960s and 1970s, Lamour was one of several veteran actresses to star in Hello Dolly, and spent much of her time in regional productions of such straight plays as Barefoot in the Park. She took on a few film and television roles in the '70s and '80s, participated in many Bob Hope TV birthday specials, and was the sprightly subject of an interview conducted by Prof. Richard Brown on cable's American Movie Classics channel. Dorothy Lamour passed away in her North Hollywood, California home in 1996 at the age of 81.