Trivia: The quintessential blue-eyed, blonde-haired, freckle-faced Boy Next Door, Van Johnson was the son of a Rhode Island plumbing contractor. Making his Broadway bow in The New Faces of 1936, Johnson spent several busy years as a musical-comedy chorus boy. After understudying Gene Kelly in Pal Joey, he came to Hollywood to recreate his minor role in the film version of the Broadway musical hit Too Many Girls. Proving himself an able actor in the Warner Bros. "B" picture Murder in the Big House (1942), Johnson was signed by MGM, where he was given the traditional big buildup. He served his MGM apprenticeship as Lew Ayres' replacement in the "Dr. Kildare" series, latterly known as the "Dr. Gillespie" series, in deference to top-billed Lionel Barrymore. While en route to a preview showing of an MGM film, Johnson was seriously injured in an auto accident. This proved to be a blessing in disguise to his career: the accident prevented his being drafted into the army, thus he had the young leading-man field virtually to himself at MGM during the war years. Delivering solid dramatic performances in such major productions as The Human Comedy (1943) A Guy Named Joe (1943) and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Johnson rapidly became a favorite with the public--particularly the teenaged female public. He remained a favorite into the 1950s, alternating serious characterizations with lightweight romantic fare. One of his best roles was Lt. Maryk in The Caine Mutiny (1954), for which he was loaned to Columbia. When his MGM contract came to an end, Johnson free-lanced both in Hollywood and abroad. He also made his London stage debut as Harold Hill in The Music Man, a role he'd continue to play on the summer-theater circuit well into the 1970s. His TV work included the lead in the elaborate 1957 musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (released theatrically in 1961) and his "special guest villain" turn as The Minstrel on Batman (1967). He staged a film comeback as a character actor in the late 1960s, earning excellent reviews for his work in Divorce American Style (1967). And in the mid-1980s, Van Johnson again proved that he still had the old star quality, first as one of the leads in the short-lived TVer Glitter, then in a gently self-mocking role in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and finally as Gene Barry's replacement in the hit Broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles (1985).

Trivia: Universally regarded among the screen's greatest actors, Spencer Tracy was a most unlikely leading man. Stocky, craggy-faced, and gruff, he could never be considered a matinee idol, yet few stars enjoyed greater or more consistent success. An uncommonly versatile performer, his consistently honest and effortless performances made him a favorite of both audiences and critics throughout a career spanning well over three decades. Born April 5, 1900, in Milwaukee, WI, Tracy was expelled from some 15 different elementary schools prior to attending Rippon College, where he discovered and honed a talent for debating; eventually, he considered acting as a logical extension of his skills, and went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His first professional work cast him as a robot in a stage production of R.U.R. at a salary of ten dollars a week. He made his Broadway debut in 1923's A Royal Fandango and later co-starred in a number of George M. Cohan vehicles. Tracy's performance as an imprisoned killer in 1930's The Last Mile made him a stage star, and during its Broadway run he made a pair of shorts for Vitaphone, The Hard Guy and Taxi Talks. Screen tests for MGM, Universal, and Warners were all met with rejection, however, but when John Ford insisted on casting Tracy as the lead in his prison drama Up the River, Fox offered a five-year contract.Tracy's second film was 1931's Quick Millions, in which he portrayed a racketeer. He was frequently typecast as a gangster during his early career, or at the very least a tough guy, and like the majority of Fox productions throughout the early part of the decade, his first several films were unspectacular. His big break arrived when Warners entered a feud with Jimmy Cagney, who was scheduled to star in 1933's 20,000 Years in Sing Sing; when he balked, the studio borrowed Tracy, and the picture was a hit. His next two starring roles in The Face in the Sky and the Preston Sturges epic The Power and the Glory were also successful, earning very positive critical notice. Still, Fox continued to offer Tracy largely low-rent projects, despite extending his contract through 1937. Regardless, much of his best work was done outside of the studio grounds; for United Artists, he starred in 1934's Looking for Trouble, and for MGM starred as The Show-Off. After filming 1935's It's a Small World, executives cast Tracy as yet another heavy in The Farmer Takes a Wife; he refused to accept the role and was fired. Despite serious misgivings, MGM signed him on. However, the studio remained concerned about his perceived lack of sex appeal and continued giving the majority of plum roles to Clark Gable. As a consequence, Tracy's first MGM offerings -- 1935's Riff Raff, The Murder Man, and 1936's Whipsaw -- were by and large no better than his Fox vehicles, but he next starred in Fritz Lang's excellent Fury. For the big-budget disaster epic San Francisco, Tracy earned the first of nine Academy Award nominations -- a record for male stars -- and in 1937 won his first Oscar for his work in Victor Fleming's Captains Courageous. Around the release of the 1938 smash Test Pilot, Time magazine declared him "cinema's number one actor's actor," a standing solidified later that year by Boys' Town, which won him an unprecedented second consecutive Academy Award. After 1939's Stanley and Livingstone, Tracy starred in the hit Northwest Passage, followed by a turn as Edison the Man. With the success of 1941's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he even usurped Gable's standing as MGM's top draw.Tracy was happily married to actress Louise Treadwell when he teamed with Katharine Hepburn in 1942's Woman of the Year. It was the first in a long series of collaborations that established them as one of the screen's greatest pairings, and soon the two actors entered an offscreen romance which continued for the remainder of Tracy's life. They were clearly soulmates, yet Tracy, a devout Catholic, refused to entertain the thought of a divorce; instead, they carried on their affair in secrecy, their undeniable chemistry spilling over onto their onscreen meetings like Keeper of the Flame. Without Hepburn, Tracy next starred in 1943's A Guy Named Joe, another major hit, as was the following year's 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. Without Love, another romantic comedy with Hepburn, premiered in 1945; upon its release Tracy returned to Broadway, where he headlined The Rugged Path. Returning to Hollywood, he appeared in three more films with Hepburn -- The Sea of Grass, Frank Capra's State of the Union, and George Cukor's sublime Adam's Rib -- and in 1950 also starred as Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride, followed a year later by the sequel Father's Little Dividend. On Hepburn's return from shooting The African Queen, they teamed with Cukor in 1952's Pat and Mike. Without Hepburn, Tracy and Cukor also filmed The Actress the following year. Venturing outside of the MGM confines for the first time in years, he next starred in the 1954 Western Broken Lance. The well-received Bad Day at Black Rock followed, but as the decade wore on, Tracy was clearly growing more and more unhappy with life at MGM -- the studio had changed too much over the years, and in 1955 they agreed to cut him loose. He first stopped at Paramount for 1956's The Mountain, reuniting with Hepburn for Fox's Desk Set a year later. At Warners, Tracy then starred in the 1958 adaptation of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, a major box-office disaster; however, The Last Hurrah signalled a rebound. After 1960's Inherit the Wind, Tracy subsequently reunited with director Stanley Kramer for 1961's Judgment at Nuremburg and the 1963 farce It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The film was Tracy's last for four years. Finally, in 1967 he and Hepburn reunited one final time in Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; it was another great success, but a success he did not live to see. Tracy died on June 10, 1967, just weeks after wrapping production.

Trivia: The daughter of a Supreme Court judge, Phyllis Thaxter followed the example of her mother, a former actress. Thaxter made her first stage appearance, at the Ogunquit (Maine) Playhouse. In her teens, she received on-the-job training with the Montreal Repertory. On Broadway from 1938, she appeared in such popular plays as What a Life!, There Shall Be No Night, and Claudia. Signed to an MGM contract in 1944, Phyllis was often wasted in traditional faithful-wife roles, but on occasion was permitted a wider acting range in such parts as the schizophrenic heroine of Arch Oboler's Bewitched (1944). While at MGM, Phyllis married James Aubrey, who later ascended to the presidency of CBS-TV (and still later, took over MGM); the union lasted until 1962, producing a daughter, actress Skye Aubrey. Sidelined by an attack of infantile paralysis in 1952, Thaxter made a slow, steady stage, screen and TV comeback in character parts, frequently accepting roles that would challenge her physical limitations. In 1978, after a long absence from the screen, Phyllis Thaxter was cast as Martha Kent, mother of Clark Kent, in Superman: The Movie. She made her last on-camera appearance in a 1992 episode of Murder, She Wrote.

Trivia: Actor Scott McKay performed on stage, television, and occasionally in feature films.

Trivia: Character actor Don Defore was the son of an Iowa-based locomotive engineer. His first taste of acting came while appearing in church plays directed by his mother. Defore briefly thought of becoming an attorney, but gave up a scholarship to the University of Iowa to study at the Pasadena Playhouse. He began appearing in films in 1937 and in professional theatre in 1938, billed under his given name of Deforest. Defore's career turning point was the Broadway play The Male Animal, in which he played a thickheaded college football player; he repeated the role in the 1942 film version, and later played a larger part in the 1952 remake She's Working Her Way Through College. In most of his film assignments, Defore was cast as the good-natured urbanized "rube" who didn't get the girl. For several years in the 1950s, Defore played "Thorny" Thornberry, the Nelson family's well-meaning next door neighbor, on TV's Ozzie and Harriet. Don Defore's best-known TV role was George Baxter on the Shirley Booth sitcom Hazel (1961-65).

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: Practiced law in the 1930s before pursuing acting. Perfomed on stage in New York before moving to Los Angeles in 1942 to act in dozens of films during the 1940s and 1950s. Started his stage career using his real name Horace McNally, then changed his stage name to Stephen McNally (name of his son). Was a one-time president of the Catholic Actors Guild. Known for playing hard-hearted characters or villains.

Trivia: American utility actor Donald Curtis made his screen bow sometime around 1940. Plying his trade in serials and Westerns, Curtis specialized in villainy, usually at Columbia Pictures. One of his larger roles was as a sourpussed murder suspect in Red Skelton's The Fuller Brush Man (1948). Active until 1967, when he left show business to become a clergyman, Donald Curtis worked frequently in television, co-starring with Lynn Bari in the 1950 comedy-mystery series The Detective's Wife.

Trivia: It was once said of the versatile Louis Jean Heydt that he played everything except a woman. Born in New Jersey, the blonde, chiseled-featured Heydt attended Worcester Academy and Dartmouth College. He briefly served as a reporter on the New YorkWorld before opting for a stage career. Among his Broadway appearances was the lead in Preston Sturges' Strictly Dishonorable, establishing a long working relationship with Sturges that would extend to the latter's film productions The Great McGinty (1940) and The Great Moment (1942). Heydt's film characters often seemed destined to be killed off before the fourth reel, either because they were hiding something or because they'd just stumbled upon important information that could prove damaging to the villains. He was knocked off in the first three minutes of Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) and was shot full of holes just before revealing an important plot point to Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946) (this after an unforgettable interrogation scene in which Heydt is unable to look Bogart straight in the eye). Heydt's many other assignments include the hungry soldier in Gone with the Wind (1939), Mentor Graham in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), a frustrated general practitioner in Tortilla Flat (1941), a squadron leader in Gung Ho (1943) and a loquacious rural family man in Come to the Stable (1949). Our Gang fans will recall Heydt as Bobby Blake's stepfather in the MGM "Gang" shorts Dad For a Day (1939) and All About Hash (1940). A ubiquitous TV actor, Louis Jean Heydt was seen on many anthology series, and as a semi-regular on the 1958 syndicated adventure weekly MacKenzie's Raiders.

Trivia: Muscular actor William "Bill" Phillips attended George Washington University, where he distinguished himself in such contact sports as football and boxing. After cutting his acting teeth with Eva Le Galienne's Civic Repertory group, Phillips made his film debut in 1940. He landed a long-term MGM contract after registering well in a small role in See Here Private Hargrove (1944). By the 1950s, Phillips was typed as a Western actor, usually in such secondary roles as the barber in High Noon (1952). William "Bill" Phillips made his last appearance in the Ronald Reagan-Nancy Davis starrer Hellcats of the Navy (1957).

Trivia: Making his movie bow in 1941, Paul Langton became a contract player at MGM, frequently appearing in war films. During the 1950s, Langton was seen in character parts like publicist Buddy Bliss in Big Knife (1955). He often showed up in horror films, notably The Snow Creature (1954), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957; as the hero's brother), It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958) and The Cosmic Man (1959). Paul Langton achieved TV stardom in the role of Leslie Harrington on the prime time serial Peyton Place (1964-68).

Trivia: Hollywood's favorite "dear old dad," Leon Ames began his stage career as a sleek, dreamy-eyed matinee idol in 1925. He was still billing himself under his real name, Leon Waycoff, when he entered films in 1931. His best early leading role was as the poet-hero of the stylish terror piece Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1933, Ames was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, gaining a reputation amongst producers as a political firebrand--which may have been why his roles diminished in size during the next few years (Ironically, when Ames was president of the SAG, his conservatism and willingness to meet management halfway incurred the wrath of the union's more liberal wing). Ames played many a murderer and caddish "other man" before he was felicitously cast as the kindly, slightly befuddled patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). He would play essentially this same character throughout the rest of his career, starring on such TV series as Life With Father (1952-54) and Father of the Bride (1961). When, in 1963, he replaced the late Larry Keating in the role of Alan Young's neighbor on Mr. Ed, Ames' fans were astounded: his character had no children at all! Off screen, the actor was the owner of a successful, high profile Los Angeles automobile dealership. In 1963, he was the unwilling focus of newspaper headlines when his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. In one of his last films, 1983's Testament, Leon Ames was reunited with his Life With Father co-star Lurene Tuttle.

Trivia: Born and educated in Utah, tall, piercing-eyed actor Moroni Olsen learned how to entertain an audience as a Chautaqua tent-show performer. In the 1920s, he organized the Moroni Olsen Players, one of the most prestigious touring stock companies in the business. After several successful seasons on Broadway, Olsen came to films in the role of Porthos in the 1935 version of The Three Musketeers. Though many of his subsequent roles were not on this plateau, Olsen nearly always transcended his material: In the otherwise middling Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Mummy's Boys (1936), for example, Olsen all but ignites the screen with his terrifying portrayal of a lunatic. Thanks to his aristocratic bearing and classically trained voice, Olsen was often called upon to play famous historical personages: he was Buffalo Bill in Annie Oakley (1935), Robert E. Lee in Santa Fe Trail (1940), and Sam Houston in Lone Star (1952). Throughout his Hollywood career, Moroni Olsen was active as a director and performer with the Pasadena Playhouse, and was the guiding creative force behind Hollywood's annual Pilgrimage Play.

Trivia: The story goes that Benson Fong was a California grocer when, in 1943, he was asked by a talent scout if he'd like to be in a movie (Asian types were, of course, highly sought after during the War years). Actually, Fong had been accepting occasional movie bit parts as early as 1937. After his requisite wartime appearances as hateful Japanese soldiers and courageous Chinese freedom fighters, Fong showed up as Charlie Chan's "number three son" Tommy in four Monogram-produced "Chan" programmers. On the advice of his friend Gregory Peck, Fong added to his acting income by becoming a successful restaurateur, with several top eateries in the southern California region to his name. Active in films into the 1980s, Benson Fong also showed up from time to time on TV, notably as "The Old One" on Kung Fu.

Trivia: Beautiful brunette Dorothy Morris played the disturbed Ingeborg Jensen in MGM's Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945). The role was brief but Morris made every moment count and it remains a mystery why the studio, who had put her under contract in 1941, didn't at least attempt to star her. She had studied under Maria Ouspenskaya before testing for The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942) and although she failed to get the part (it went instead to Donna Reed), Morris hung in there and even managed a British accent for the war drama Cry Havoc (1943). Vines, however, became the highlight of a rather unfulfilled Hollywood career that later included guest-starring roles on such television series as Wagon Train, The Donna Reed Show, and Dragnet. She is the younger sister of dancer/actress Caren Marsh.

Trivia: American actress Ann Shoemaker was 19 years old when she made her Broadway bow in Nobody's Widow. Shoemaker's subsequent stage credits ranged from the Eugene O'Neill efforts The Great God Brown and Ah, Wilderness! to the mid-'60s musical comedy Half a Sixpence. In films from 1931, she was ideally cast in dowager roles, notably Sara Roosevelt, FDR's mother, in Sunrise at Campobello (1960). She made her last appearance as a cynical nun in Billy Wilder's The Fortune Cookie (1966). Ann Shoemaker was the widow of British actor Henry Stephenson.

Trivia: Though no one in his family had ever pursued a theatrical career (one of his more illustrious relatives was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain), Alan Napier was stagestruck from childhood. After graduating from Clifton College, the tall, booming-voiced Napier studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with such raw young talent as John Gielgud and Robert Morley. He continued working with the cream of Britain's acting crop during his ten years (1929-1939) on the West End stages. Napier came to New York in 1940 to co-star with Gladys George in Lady in Waiting. Though his film career had begun in England in the 1930s, Napier had very little success before the cameras until he arrived in Hollywood in 1941. He essayed dignified, sometimes waspish roles of all sizes in such films as Cat People (1942), The Uninvited (1943), and House of Horror (1946); among his off-the-beaten-track assignments were the bizarre High Priest in Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948) and a most elegant Captain Kidd in the 1950 Donald O'Connor vehicle Double Crossbones. In 1966, Alan Napier was cast as Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, on the smash-hit TV series Batman, a role he played until the series' cancellation in 1968. Alan Napier's career extended into the 1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as QB VII and such weeklies as The Paper Chase.

Trivia: Blonde American leading lady Jacqueline White was signed to an MGM contract in 1943. During her three-year stay at the studio, White's co-stars included Laurel and Hardy (Air Raid Wardens) and Red Skelton (The Show-Off). She then moved to RKO, where she remained until 1952. Her best part at that studio was her last: the deceptively carefree young mother whom detective Charles McGraw befriends on a perilous train trip in the noir classic The Narrow Margin (1952).

Trivia: After stock experience in New England and a starring role in a Broadway flop, American actor John Kellogg was selected to play the lead in the road company of the long-running service comedy Brother Rat. He continued working steadily on stage until interrupted by World War II service. After a smattering of movie exposure at other studios, Kellogg signed a Columbia contract in 1946. Good-looking and dependable enough for secondary roles but not quite star material, Kellogg was seen in such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1943), A Walk in the Sun (1945), Johnny O'Clock (1947) and 12 O'Clock High (1949).

Trivia: When casting about for a non de film, upon embarking on a movie career in 1944, Kansas-born stage actor John Stevenson chose the name of the fellow who allegedly jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1880s. As "Steve Brodie," Stevenson spent the 1940s working at MGM, RKO and Republic. He flourished in two-fisted "outdoors" roles throughout the 1950s, mostly in westerns. He holds the distinction of being beaten up twice by Elvis Presley, in Blue Hawaii (1961) and Roustabout (1964). Steve Brodie's screen career was pretty much limited to cheap exploitation flicks in the 1970s, though he did function as co-producer of the "B"-plus actioner Bobby Jo and the Outlaw (1976), a film distinguished by its steady stream of movie-buff "in" jokes.

Trivia: American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as Robert Preston and Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were Rocketship X-M (1950), Red Planet Mars (1952), Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director Joe Dante's 1993 comedy Matinee: the military officer played by Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film Mant is named General Ankrum.

Trivia: It was rare in 1940s Hollywood for actors to portray their real-life exploits, but Selena Royle was also a rare talent, who first became known to most moviegoers portraying herself, and her real-life work on behalf of America's war effort. Though nearly forgotten today, apart from her work in a handful of films, Selena Royle was one of the most respected actresses on the Broadway stage from the 1920s onward, and in Hollywood during the 1940s. The daughter of celebrated playwright Edwin Milton Royle (best remembered as the author of the play The Squaw Man, which was a hit on three separate occasions -- 1914, 1918, 1931 -- for Cecil B. DeMille and helped Samuel Goldwyn get a foothold in the movie business), Selena Royle embarked on a theatrical career over her parents' objections, earning her first professional acting credit playing Guinevere in a play that her father had written, Launcelot and Elaine. Her next few roles were, to her embarrassment, all in works written or produced by friends of her family, but she finally proved her own talent by winning a part (before her name was known to the producers) in the Theater Guild's production of Peer Gynt in 1923, opposite Joseph Schildkraut. Royle distinguished herself in long-running plays such as When Ladies Meet and Days Without End. She tried life in Hollywood in the early '30s, in The Misleading Lady (1932), but she quickly returned to New York where she spent ten more years on-stage, easing into maternal roles with grace and dignity, and also establishing herself on radio as a star of long-running series such as "Hilda Hope, M.D." and "Kate Hopkins." Royle also endeared herself to a generation of her colleagues by organizing the Actor's Dinner Club at the Hotel Woodstock in New York City, as a means of feeding members of her profession who were left out of work during the Great Depression. This experience served Royle in good stead 11 years later, after America's entry into WWII, when she organized the Stage Door Canteen, a Broadway institution that entertained and served millions of free meals to many hundreds of thousands of servicemen who passed through New York on their way to or from the world's battle-fronts. The canteen also brought Royle back into movies, playing herself in Frank Borzage's feature film Stage Door Canteen (1943). She spent the next 11 years in Hollywood, principally in maternal roles, most notably as the mother of the five young, doomed sailors in The Sullivans and Elizabeth Taylor's mother in Courage of Lassie, and in such famous movies of the period as Night and Day (the alleged Cole Porter biographical film) and The Harvey Girls. She remained busy throughout the 1940s and into the early '50s in every kind of movie, from big-budgeted epics such as Victor Fleming's Joan of Arc, small-scale psychological dramas such as Frank Borzage's Moonrise, William Wyler's high-profile literary adaptation The Heiress, and crime dramas such as He Ran All the Way. In 1951, however, her career came to a halt when Royle was denounced in the publication Red Channels as an alleged Communist sympathizer, and subsequently refused to appear before Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's investigative committee. She was suddenly "wrong" for every role that she tested for and her screen career was effectively ended -- she sued Red Channels and the American Legion (who had published the Red Channels list of supposed subversives) and mounted a publicity campaign that ended with the Red baiters backing off. Royle had beaten the blacklist, but she only made two more movies, Phil Tucker's ultra-low-budget Robot Monster, and Edgar G. Ulmer's independently made Murder Is My Beat, neither of which was produced on a scale resembling the films of her earlier days. In 1954, seeing that she was no longer wanted or needed in Hollywood, Royle and her second husband, George Renavent, decided to leave the United States. They moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, where they lived happily until his death in 1968. During her final 20 years, Royle was a successful author of books about cooking and about Mexico.

Trivia: Slight, grey-templed, bespectacled actor Harry Hayden was cast to best advantage as small-town store proprietors, city attorneys and minor bureaucrats. Dividing his time between stage and screen work from 1936, Hayden became one of the busiest members of Central Casting, appearing in everything from A-pictures like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) to the RKO 2-reelers of Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. Among his better-known unbilled assignments are horn factory owner Mr. Sharp (his partner is Mr. Pierce) in Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea (1940) and Farley Granger's harrumphing boss who announces brusquely that there'll be no Christmas bonus in O. Henry's Full House (1951). Hayden's final flurry of activity was in the role of next-door-neighbor Harry on the 1954-55 season of TV's The Stu Erwin Show (aka The Trouble with Father), in which he was afforded the most screen time he'd had in years -- though he remains uncredited in the syndicated prints of this popular series. From the mid '30s until his death in 1955, Harry Hayden and his actress wife Lela Bliss ran Beverly Hills' Bliss-Hayden Miniature Theatre, where several Hollywood aspirants were given an opportunity to learn their craft before live audiences; among the alumni of the Bliss-Hayden were Jon Hall, Veronica Lake, Doris Day, Craig Stevens, Debbie Reynolds, and Marilyn Monroe.

Trivia: American filmmaker Blake Edwards was the grandson of J. Gordon Edwards, director of such silent film epics as The Queen of Sheba (1922). Blake started his own film career as an actor in 1943; he played bits in A-movies and leads in B-movies, paying his dues in such trivialities as Gangs of the Waterfront and Strangler of the Swamp (both 1945). He turned to writing radio scripts, distinguishing himself on the above-average Dick Powell detective series Richard Diamond. As a screenwriter and staff producer at Columbia, Edwards was frequently teamed with director Richard Quine for such lightweight entertainment as Sound Off (1952), Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder (1953), and Cruisin' Down the River (1953). He also served as associate producer on the popular syndicated Rod Cameron TV vehicle City Detective the same year. Given his first chance to direct a movie in 1955, Edwards turned out a Richard Quine-like musical, Bring Your Smile Along; ironically, as Edwards' prestige grew, his style would be imitated by Quine. A felicitous contract at Universal led Edwards to his first big box-office successes, including the Tony Curtis film Mister Cory (1957) and Cary Grant's Operation Petticoat (1959).In 1958, Edwards produced, directed, and occasionally wrote for a hip TV detective series, Peter Gunn, which was distinguished by its film noir camerawork and driving jazz score by Henry Mancini. A second series, Mr. Lucky (1959), contained many of the elements that made Peter Gunn popular, but suffered from a bad time slot and network interference. (Lucky was a gambler, a profession frowned upon by the more sanctimonious CBS executives.) The show did, however, introduce Edwards to actor Ross Martin, who later appeared as an asthmatic criminal in Edwards' film Experiment in Terror (1962). Continuing to turn out box-office bonanzas like Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Edwards briefly jumped on the comedy bandwagon of the mid-'60s with the slapstick epic The Great Race (1965), which the director dedicated to his idols, "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy." (Edwards' next homage to the duo was the far less successful 1986 comedy A Fine Mess). In 1964, Edwards introduced the bumbling Inspector Clouseau to an unsuspecting world in The Pink Panther, leading to a string of money-spinning Clouseau films starring Peter Sellers; actually, The Pink Panther was Edwards' second Clouseau movie, since A Shot in the Dark, although released after Panther, was filmed first. Despite the carefree spirit and great success of his comedies, Edwards hit a snag with Darling Lili (1969), a World War I musical starring Edwards' wife Julie Andrews. The film was a questionable piece to begin with (audiences were asked to sympathize with a German spy who cheerfully sent young British pilots to their deaths), but was made incomprehensible by Paramount's ruthless editing. Darling Lili sent Edwards career into decline, although he came back with the 1979 comedy hit 10 and the scabrous satirical film S.O.B. (1981). Edwards' track record in the 1980s and '90s was uneven, with such films as Blind Date (1987), Sunset (1988), and Switch (1991). The director was also unsuccessful in his attempts to revive the Pink Panther comedies minus the services of Sellers (who had died in 1980) as Clouseau. Still, Edwards always seemed able to find someone to bankroll his projects. And he left something of a legacy to Hollywood through his actress daughter Jennifer Edwards and screenwriter son Geoffrey Edwards.In 2004, just when the world began to think it might never again hear from Edwards, the filmmaker gave a slapsticky acceptance speech in response to an honorary Academy Award. He died six years later, of complications from pneumonia, at the age of 88.

Trivia: Educated at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn-born Bill Williams broke into performing as a professional swimmer. Williams went on to work as a singer/actor in regional stock and vaudeville before making his film bow in 1943. After World War II service, he was signed by RKO Radio Pictures, which gave him the star buildup with such 1946 releases as Till the End of Time and Deadline at Dawn. Also in 1946, he wed another RKO contractee, Barbara Hale, with whom he co-starred in A Likely Story (1948) and Clay Pigeon (1949). His film career on the wane in the early 1950s, Williams signed up to star in the weekly TV western The Adventures of Kit Carson, which ran from 1952 to 1955. After the cancellation of Kit Carson, he remained active in television starring opposite Betty White in the 1955 sitcom Date with the Angels and showing off his athletic and aquatic prowess in the 1960 Sea Hunt clone Assignment: Underwater. He stayed active into the 1980s, playing rugged character roles. Bill Williams was the father of actor William Katt, star of the 1980s adventure weekly The Greatest American Hero.

Trivia: In films from 1943, pugnacious American character actor Wally Cassell was afforded star billing for the first time in The Story of GI Joe (1945). As Private Dondaro, Cassell spent half of his time searching for his ethnic roots in war-torn Italy, and the other half seeking out wine, women and more wine. His other war-related filmic efforts included Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Flying Leathernecks (1951). He later appeared in westerns, then worked steadily during the late-1950s gangster-movie cycle, playing such raffish characters as Cherry Nose in I Mobster (1959). Wally Cassell was married to musical performer Marcy Maguire.

Trivia: American leading lady Myrna Dell came to Hollywood in 1944 by way of an RKO Radio contract. After serving her apprenticeship in westerns and 2-reel comedies, she was promoted to femme fatale roles in features like Step By Step. She later worked for Paramount (The Furies), Warner Bros. (several films, including Girl from Jones Beach) and even Monogram, where she played straight to the Bowery Boys in Here Come the Marines (1952). Active in the early days of television, Dell showed up periodically as "The Empress" on the Dan Duryea adventure series China Smith (1952-55). Long retired, Myrna Dell returned before the cameras for a small role in Billy Wilder's Buddy Buddy (1981).

Trivia: Blonde and uncommonly pretty, Elaine Shepard had her hands full in her first screen assignment, Republic Pictures' 15-chapter serial Darkest Africa (1936), what with Big Game hunter Clyde Beatty and pudgy circus tyke Manuel King attempting (and succeeding) in stealing every scene. She had even less luck in her second film, the Our Gang short Night N' Gales (1937), in which she was Darla's mother and married to the fey Johnny Arthur. The remainder of Shepard's ten-year or so screen career was spent playing secretaries and chorus girls and is rather less memorable.

Trivia: Though she despised the appellation "the girl next door," this was how June Allyson was promoted throughout most of her MGM career. The blonde, raspy-voiced actress was born in a tenement section of the Bronx. Her career nearly ended before it began when 8-year-old June seriously injured her back in a fall. For four years she wore a steel brace, then spent several more months in physical therapy. Thanks to the financial support of her grown half-brother, June was able to take dancing lessons. At 19, she made her film debut in the Vitaphone short Swing for Sale (1937). In her earliest movie appearances (notably the 1937 Educational Studios 2-reeler Dime a Dance) June projected a far more worldly, all-knowing image than she would convey in her later feature films. After co-starring in such Broadway productions as Sing Out the News, Very Warm for May and Panama Hattie and Best Foot Forward, June was signed to an MGM contract in 1942. The studio quickly began molding June's screen image of a freckled-faced, peaches-and-cream "best girl" and perfect wife. She was permitted to display some grit in The Girl in White (1952), playing New York City's first woman doctor, but most of her screen characters were quietly subordinate to the male leads. One of her favorite co-stars was James Stewart, with whom she appeared in The Stratton Story (1949) and The Glenn Miller Story (1954). In 1955, she completely broke away from her on-camera persona as the spiteful wife of Jose Ferrer in The Shrike (1955), a role for which she was personally selected by the demanding Ferrer. June was the wife of actor/ producer/ director Dick Powell, a union that lasted from 1945 until Powell's death in 1963, despite several well-publicized breakups. She starred in and hosted the 1960 TV anthology series The June Allyson Show, produced by Powell's Four Star Productions. After her film career ended, June made a handful of nightclub singing appearances; in 1972, she made a brief screen comeback in They Only Kill Their Masters, astonishing her fans by playing a murderess. In recent years, June Allyson has appeared in several TV commercials.

Trivia: The son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker Jr. began training for his own show business career at the Actors' Studio in the early '60s. "I would like to develop as an actor in obscurity," Walker commented in reference to his parents' fame, but the young actor's striking resemblance to his father (who died in 1951) made it virtually impossible for the two Robert Walkers to be separated in the minds of the public. The younger Walker worked steadily on television and stage, and co-starred in films of varying quality from 1963 to 1984. Robert Walker Jr. is best remembered for valiantly stepping into the shoes of Jack Lemmon when he was cast in the title role in the Mister Roberts sequel Ensign Pulver (1964).