Trivia: It is hardly necessary to enumerate the accomplishments, patriotic services, charitable donations, awards, medals, and honorariums pertaining to Bob Hope, a man for whom the word "legend" seems somehow inadequate. Never mind that he was born in England; the entertainer unquestionably became an American institution.Hope's father was a stonemason and his mother a one-time concert singer; when he was two, his parents moved him and his brothers to Cleveland, where relatives awaited. Since everyone in the Hope clan was expected to contribute to the family's income, he took on several part-time jobs early in life. One of these was as a concessionaire at Cleveland's Luna Park, where Hope had his first taste of show business by winning a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest. (He later claimed he'd gotten his brothers to strong-arm all the neighborhood kids to vote for him). At 16, Hope entered the work force full-time as a shoe salesman for a department store, then as a stock boy for an auto company. At night, he and a friend picked up spare change singing at local restaurants and saloons, and, for a brief time, he was an amateur boxer, calling himself "Packy East." Picking up dancing tips from older vaudevillians, Hope decided to devote himself to a show business career, first in partnership with his girlfriend Mildred Rosequist, then with a pal named Lloyd Durbin. Comedian Fatty Arbuckle, headlining a touring revue, caught Hope and Durbin's comedy/dancing act and helped the boys get better bookings. Following the accidental death of Durbin, Hope found another partner, George Byrne, with whom he developed a blackface act. After several career reversals, Hope and Byrne were about to pack it in when they were hired to emcee Marshall Walker's Whiz Bang review in New Castle, PA. As the more loquacious member of the team, Hope went out on-stage as a single and got excellent response for his seemingly ad-libbed wisecracks. It was in this and subsequent vaudeville appearances that Hope learned how to handle tough audiences by having the guts to wait on-stage until everyone in the crowd had gotten his jokes; he was still using this technique seven decades later. Dropping his blackface makeup and cannibalizing every college humor magazine he could get his hands on, Hope took on yet another partner (Louise Troxell) in 1928 and started getting choice vaudeville bookings on the Keith Circuit. A year later, he was given a movie screen test, but was told his ski-slope nose didn't photograph well. With material from legendary gagster Al Boasberg, Hope appeared as a single in The Antics of 1931, which led to a better theatrical gig with Ballyhoo of 1932, in which he was encouraged to ad-lib to his heart's content. He then went back to vaudeville and squeezed in his first radio appearance in 1933 before being hired as the comedy second lead in an important Jerome Kern Broadway musical, Roberta. During the long run of this hit, Hope met and married nightclub singer Dolores Reade, who became still another of his on-stage partners when the play closed and Hope yet again returned to vaudeville. He scored a major success in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, which spotlighted his talent for sketch comedy, and then co-starred with Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante in Red, Hot and Blue. In 1937, he was brought to Hollywood for Paramount's The Big Broadcast of 1938, in which he duetted with Shirley Ross in the Oscar-winning song "Thanks for the Memory," which became his signature theme from then on. Hope's first few years at Paramount found him appearing in relatively sedate comedy leads, but with The Cat and the Canary (1939) he solidified his screen persona as the would-be great lover and "brave coward" who hides his insecurities with constant wisecracking. In 1940, Hope was teamed with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour for Road to Singapore, the first of the still-uproarious "Road" series that featured everything from in-jokes about Bob and Bing's private lives to talking camels. While continuing to make money at the box office, Hope was also starring in his long running NBC radio program, which was distinguished by its sharp topical humor and censor-baiting risqué material. But it was not so much his show business earnings as his profitable real estate deals and holdings that formed the basis of Hope's immense personal fortune. In the midst of all his media clowning during World War II, Hope worked tirelessly as a U.S.O. entertainer for troops in the U.S. and abroad -- so much so that he was unable to make any films at all in 1944. In 1950, Hope inaugurated a long-term television contract with NBC, which resulted in more than 40 years worth of periodic specials that never failed to sweep the ratings. He also later hosted (and occasionally starred in) an Emmy-winning '60s anthology series, Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre. With his film box-office receipts flagging in the early '50s (audiences didn't quite buy the idea of a 50-year-old man playing a 30-ish girl chaser), Hope took the advice of writer/directors Norman Panama and Melvin Frank and attempted a dramatic film role as Eddie Foy Sr. in The Seven Little Foys (1955). He succeeded in both pulling off the character and in packing a relatively maudlin script with humanity and humor. Hope's last "straight" film part was as New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker in Beau James (1957), in which he again acquitted himself quite nicely. Having long taken a percentage of profits on his Paramount releases, Hope became his own producer in 1957, which at first resulted in such fine pictures as Alias Jesse James (1959) and The Facts of Life (1960, with frequent co-star Lucille Ball). But the quality of Hope's films took a depressing downward spiral in the '60s, and even hard-core Hope fans were hard-pressed to suffer though such dogs as Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966) and The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell (1968). It has been theorized that Hope was too wealthy and much too busy with a multitude of other projects to care about the sorry state of his films. Besides, even the worst of the Hope pictures posted a profit, which to him evidently meant more than whether or not the films were any good. His last feature film appearance was a 1985 cameo in Spies Like Us, a spoof of the road pictures he made with Crosby. In 1991, he again traveled overseas to entertain U.S. troops -- this time in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. Though Hope's only onscreen appearances through the remainder of the decade would prove archival in origin, generations of fans would later show their appreciation for his enduring career in the 2003 television special 100 Years of Hope and Humor. Hope proved too frail to attend the celebration in person, though his friends and family assured the public that the star was indeed overwhelmed at the outpouring of public affection.On Sunday, July 27, 2003, the world lost one of its most beloved comic talents when Bob Hope died of pneumonia in Taluca Lake, CA. He was 100.

Trivia: American actor/singer Bing Crosby acquired his nickname as a child in Washington state. As the legend goes, little Harry Lillis Crosby's favorite comic strip was "The Bingville Bugle," in which the leading character was called Bingo. Hence, the boy was "Bingo" Crosby, with the "O" dropping off as he got older. A restless youth, Crosby tried studying law at Gonzaga University, but spent more time as a drummer and singer in a Spokane band. He and his pal Al Rinker worked up a musical act, and were later joined by Harry Barris. As the Rhythm Boys, the three young entertainers were hired by bandleader Paul Whiteman, who featured them in his nightclub appearances and his film debut, The King of Jazz (1930). Crosby managed to score on radio in 1931, and a series of two-reel comedies made for Mack Sennett helped him launch a screen career; his starring feature debut was in 1932's The Big Broadcast. During this period, he married singer Dixie Lee, with whom he had sons Gary, Dennis, Philip and Lindsay. As one of Paramount's most popular stars of the '30s, and with his carefully cultivated image of an easygoing, golf-happy, regular guy, generous contributor to charities, devoted husband, father, and friend, Crosby became an icon of American values. In 1940, he made the first of several appearances with his golfing buddy Bob Hope, ultimately resulting in seven "Road" pictures which, thanks to the stars' laid-back improvisational style, seem as fresh today as they did at the time. Another milestone occurred in 1944, when director Leo McCarey asked Crosby to play a priest in an upcoming film. Crosby, a devout Catholic, at first refused on the grounds that it would be in bad taste. But McCarey persisted, and Crosby ended up winning an Oscar for his performance in Going My Way (1944). He ushered in a new technological era a few years later when he signed a contract to appear on a weekly ABC variety show provided that it not be live, but tape recorded -- a first for network radio -- so that Crosby could spend more time on the golf course. With the death of his wife Dixie in 1952, the devastated entertainer dropped out of the movie business for a full year; but his life took an upswing when he married young actress Kathryn Grant in 1957. His film roles were few in the '60s, but Crosby was a television fixture during those years, and could be counted on each Yuletide to appear on just about everyone's program singing his signature holiday tune, "White Christmas." Burdened by life-threatening illnesses in the mid-'70s, the singer nonetheless embarked on concert tours throughout the world, surviving even a dangerous fall into an orchestra pit. Crosby died from a heart attack in 1977, shortly after he had finished the 18th hole on a Spanish golf course.

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.

Trivia: Sloe-eyed character actress whose icy persona lent itself to the portrayal of villainous women, Sondergaard took up acting after college, paying her dues with several years in stock and then reaching Broadway in the late '20s. In 1930 she married director Herbert Biberman, whom she followed to Hollywood in the mid 1930s. Reluctantly, she accepted a role in Anthony Adverse (1936), her screen debut; for her work she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (the first ever awarded). For the next decade-plus she specialized in playing evil women, though occasionally her characters were warm-hearted. In the late '40s she became yet another victim of the Red Scare witch hunts -- her husband was one of the "Hollywood Ten" sentenced to prison terms following appearances before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and neither he nor she could get any more work. Sondergaard returned to acting in 1965 with Woman, an off-Broadway one-woman show. Her first film appearance in 20 years was in Slaves (1969) -- the last film her husband ever directed. After Slaves she appeared in two more movies throughout the next fifteen years.

Trivia: American actor Frank Faylen was born into a vaudeville act; as an infant, he was carried on stage by his parents, the song-and-dance team Ruf and Clark. Traveling with his parents from one engagement to another, Faylen somehow managed to complete his education at St. Joseph's Prep School in Kirkwood, Missouri. Turning pro at age 18, Faylen worked on stage until getting a Hollywood screen test in 1936. For the next nine years, Faylen played a succession of bit and minor roles, mostly for Warner Bros.; of these minuscule parts he would later say, "If you sneezed, you missed me." Better parts came his way during a brief stay at Hal Roach Studios in 1942 and 1943, but Faylen's breakthrough came at Paramount in 1945, where he was cast as Bim, the chillingly cynical male nurse at Bellevue's alcoholic ward in the Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend. Though the part lasted all of four minutes' screen time, Faylen was so effective in this unpleasant role that he became entrenched as a sadistic bully or cool villain in his subsequent films. TV fans remember Faylen best for his more benign but still snarly role as grocery store proprietor Herbert T. Gillis on the 1959 sitcom Dobie Gillis. For the next four years, Faylen gained nationwide fame for such catch-phrases as "I was in World War II--the big one--with the good conduct medal!", and, in reference to his screen son Dobie Gillis, "I gotta kill that boy someday. I just gotta." Faylen worked sporadically in TV and films after Dobie Gillis was canceled in 1963, receiving critical plaudits for his small role as an Irish stage manager in the 1968 Barbra Streisand starrer Funny Girl. The actor also made an encore appearance as Herbert T. Gillis in a Dobie Gillis TV special of the 1970s, where his "good conduct medal" line received an ovation from the studio audience. Faylen was married to Carol Hughes, an actress best-recalled for her role as Dale Arden in the 1939 serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and was the father of another actress, also named Carol.

Trivia: Character actor Joseph Vitale had a busy career in feature films and on 1950s and 1960s television in shows such as Superman, The Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, and Rawhide.

Trivia: Sicilian actor Frank Puglia started his career with a travelling operetta company at age 13. He and his family moved to the US in 1907, where he worked in a laundry until he hooked up with an Italian-language theatrical troupe based in New York. In 1921, Puglia was appearing as Pierre Frochard in a revival of the old theatrical warhorse The Two Orphans when he was spotted by film director D.W. Griffith. Puglia was hired to repeat his role for Griffith's film version of the play, retitled Orphans of the Storm; while Pierre Frochard was slated to die at the end of the film, preview-audience reaction to the death was so negative that Griffith called Puglia back to reshoot his final scenes, allowing him to survive for the fade-out. For the rest of his long film career, Puglia essayed a wide variety of ethnic supporting parts, portraying priests, musicians, diplomats and street peddlers. In 1942's Casablanca, Puglia has a memorable bit as a Morroccan rug merchant who automatically marks down his prices to any friends of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart). Frank Puglia played a larger and less likable role as a treacherous minion to sultan Kurt Katch in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944); when the film was remade as Sword of Ali Baba in 1965, so much stock footage from the 1944 film was utilized that Puglia was hired to replay his original part.

Trivia: Nestor Paiva had the indeterminate ethnic features and gift for dialects that enabled him to play virtually every nationality. Though frequently pegged as a Spaniard, a Greek, a Portuguese, an Italian, an Arab, an even (on radio, at least) an African-American, Paiva was actually born in Fresno, California. A holder of an A.B. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Paiva developed an interest in acting while performing in college theatricals. Proficient in several languages, Paiva made his stage bow at Berkeley's Greek Theatre in a production of Antigone. His subsequent professional stage career was confined to California; he caught the eye of the studios by appearing in a long-running Los Angeles production of The Drunkard, which costarred another future film player of note, Henry Brandon. He remained with The Drunkard from 1934 to 1945, finally dropping out when his workload in films became too heavy. Paiva appeared in roles both large and small in so many films that it's hard to find a representative appearance. Fans of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby can take in a good cross-section of Paiva's work via his appearances in Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1945) and Road to Rio (1947); he has a bit as a street peddler in Morocco, is desperado McGurk in Utopia, and plays the Brazilian theatre manager who isn't fooled by the Wiere Brothers' attempt to pass themselves off as Americans ("You're een the groove, Jackson") in Rio. During his busiest period, 1945 through 1948, Paiva appeared in no fewer than 117 films. The familiar canteloupe-shaped mug and hyperactive eyebrows of Nestor Paiva graced many a film and TV program until his death in 1966; his final film, the William Castle comedy The Spirit is Willing (1967), was released posthumously.

Trivia: In his youth, Jerry Colonna worked as a longshoreman by day to finance his music studies by night. He became a star trombonist in several major bands, fronting his own jazz aggregation for a time. Not willing to become just one more sideliner, Colonna decided to develop a wacky comic persona, growing a huge handlebar mustache for that purpose. He skyrocketed to popularity as a combination stooge/heckler for radio comedian Bob Hope, coining such catch phrases as "Who's Yehudi?" and "Ah, yes...exciting, isn't it?" On his own, Colonna recorded several best-selling records, offering ear-piercing renditions of such songs as "On the Road to Mandalay" (he could hold a high note longer--and to better effect--than any "serious" opera diva). After his film debut in 52nd Street (1937), Colonna played several hilarious supporting roles, and also starred in a few lively "B"-movies like Priorities on Parade (1944) and Kentucky Jamboree (1950); he was also seen in an ersatz version in dozens of Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s, Colonna continued making USO tours with Bob Hope (as he'd done during the war), headlined a nightclub act, and showed up with great frequency as a TV guest star on such series as The Monkees and McHale's Navy. After Colonna fell victim to a stroke in the late 1960s, his old boss Hope saw to it that Jerry and his family were well-provided for. In addition to his performing credits, Jerry Colonna also penned a novel, The Loves of Tullio (1970).

Trivia: Tall, handsome, wavy-haired character actor George Meeker was never in the upper echelons of Hollywood stardom; off-camera, however, he was highly regarded and much sought after -- as an expert polo player. Meeker switched from stage to screen in the silent era, playing leading roles in such important features as Four Sons (1928). In talkies, Meeker seemingly took every part that was tossed his way, from full secondary leads to one-line bits. In his larger roles, Meeker was frequently cast as a caddish "other man," a spineless wastrel who might be (but seldom was) the mystery killer, or the respectable businessman who's actually a conniving crook. He showed up frequently in the films of Humphrey Bogart, most memorably as the white-suited gent in Casablanca (1942) who turns to Bogart after the arrest of Peter Lorre and sneers "When they come to get me, Rick, I hope you'll be more of a help." Other significant George Meeker credits include the role of Robespierre in Marie Antoinette (1938) (cut down to a sniff and a single line -- "Guilty!" -- in the final release print), the supercilious dude who wins Mary Beth Hughes away from Henry Fonda in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), and the smarmy would-be bridegroom of heiress Dorothy Lamour in The Road to Rio (1947).

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: An effort by a Films in Review writer of the '60s to catalogue the film appearances of American actor Harry Woods came a-cropper when the writer gave up after 400 films. Woods himself claimed to have appeared in 500 pictures, further insisting that he was violently killed off in 433 of them. After a lengthy and successful career as a millinery salesman, Woods decided to give Hollywood a try when he was in his early thirties. Burly, hatchet-faced, and steely eyed, Woods carved an immediate niche as a reliable villain. So distinctive were his mannerisms and his razor-edged voice that another memorable movie heavy, Roy Barcroft, admitted to deliberately patterning his performances after Woods'. While he went the usual route of large roles in B-pictures and serials and featured parts and bits in A-films, Harry Woods occasionally enjoyed a large role in an top-of-the-bill picture. In Cecil B. De Mille's Union Pacific (1939), for example, Woods plays indiscriminate Indian killer Al Brett, who "gets his" at the hands of Joel McCrea; and in Tall in the Saddle (1944), Woods is beaten to a pulp by the equally muscular John Wayne. Comedy fans will remember Harry Woods as the humorless gangster Alky Briggs in the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business (1931) and as the bullying neighbor whose bratty kid (Tommy Bond) hits Oliver Hardy in the face with a football in Block-Heads (1938).

Trivia: Character actor Donald Kerr showed up whenever a gumchewing Runyonesque type (often a reporter or process server) was called for. A bit actor even in two-reelers and "B" pictures, Kerr was one of those vaguely familiar faces whom audiences would immediately recognize, ask each other "Who is that?", then return to the film, by which time Kerr had scooted the scene. The actor's first recorded film appearance was in 1933's Carnival Lady. Twenty-two years later, Donald Kerr concluded his career in the same anonymity with which he began it in 1956's Yaqui Drums.

Trivia: Wisconsonite actor Stanley Blystone was the brother of director John G. Blystone and assistant director Jasper Blystone. Entering films in 1915, the burly, muscular, mustachioed Blystone excelled in gruff, villainous roles; he was particularly menacing as a crooked ringmaster in Tom Mix's The Circus Ace (1927). In the talkie era, Blystone was busiest at the 2-reel comedy mills of RKO, Columbia and Hal Roach, often cast as brutish authority figures at odds with the comedy leads. In the Three Stooges' Half Shot Shooters (1936), he plays the sadistic Sgt. McGillicuddy, who reacts to the Stooges' ineptness by taking aim with a long-range cannon and blowing the three comedians right out of their boots! Blystone was much in demand as both "action" and "brains" heavies in Columbia's westerns and serials of the 1940s. Extending his activities to television in the 1950s, the 71-year-old Stanley Blystone was en route to Desilu Studios to play a small role on the TV series Wyatt Earp when he collapsed on the sidewalk and died of heart failure.

Trivia: European character actor George Sorel made his first American film appearance in 1936. Usually showing up unbilled as gendarmes and maître d's, Sorel was afforded rare screen billing for his one scene and one line as Walter Woolf King's valet in Laurel and Hardy's Swiss Miss (1938). He flourished during WWII thanks to his rather shifty, sinister features, which permitted him to play many a Nazi or collaborator. One of George Sorel's most extensive assignments was in the 1946 Universal serial Lost City of the Jungle; when the serial's principal heavy, Lionel Atwill, died during production, Sorel was called in to double for Atwill in several transitional scenes.

Trivia: Vaudevillian John "Skins" Miller was a Hollywood habitue from the early 1930s until his retirement in 1951. Miller's biggest screen role was the Comedy Hillbilly in 1934's Stand Up and Cheer; holding Stepin Fetchit at bay with a shotgun, the bearded, barefooted Miller sings a love song to his gargantuan sweetheart Sally, then inexplicably falls flat on his back. During the 1930s, he was briefly under contract to MGM, where one of his duties was to imitate Groucho Marx during rehearsals of such Marx Bros. films as Day at the Races at At the Circus, so that Groucho could decide whether or not the material written for him would "play." Some sources have incorrectly listed John "Skins" Miller as a member of the original Three Stooges, in truth, he appeared in 1934's Gift of Gab as one-third of another team calling themselves the Three Stooges, who never worked together before or since (for the record, Miller's fellow "stooges" were Sid Walker and Jack Harling).

Trivia: Best known as the voice of Elmer Fudd in numerous Warner Bros. cartoons, Arthur Q. Bryan also appeared in various live action character roles, most notably as a newspaper editor in the 1941 film The Devil Bat. He was a prolific radio talent as well.

Trivia: A delightful comedienne, rotund Babe London reportedly began her screen career as a teenager after purchasing a makeup kit. She played a switchboard operator in Douglas Fairbanks' When the Clouds Roll By (1919) but hit her stride for comedy companies Christie and Educational in the 1920s. Scrambled Eggs (1925), from the latter studio, is extant and features London as a correspondence bride, who has used the oldest trick in the book and substituted her own portrait with that of glamorous friend Helen Marlowe. Today, however, London is best remembered for her onetime-only partnership with Oliver Hardy, in the 1931 Laurel and Hardy two-reeler Our Wife. London plays Hardy's equally hefty fiancée and the comedy's absolute highlight has Stan Laurel attempting to squeeze the hefty couple, as well as himself, into a tiny automobile. According to London, the sequence took two days and quite a bit of bruising to complete, mainly because of the mirth it generated among the crew. Continuing to appear in minor roles on screen until 1970, Babe London was also an accomplished artist, whose series of paintings depicting various silent stars is housed at the University of Wyoming.

Trivia: Enjoying one of the longer careers in Hollywood history, Gino Corrado is today best remembered as a stocky bit-part player whose pencil-thin mustache made him the perfect screen barber, maître d', or hotel clerk, roles he would play in both major and Poverty Row films that ranged from Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942) to serials such as The Lost City (1935) and, perhaps his best-remembered performance, the Three Stooges short Micro Phonies (1945; he was the bombastic Signor Spumoni).A graduate of his native College of Strada, Corrado finished his education at St. Bede College in Peru, IL, and entered films with D.W. Griffith in the early 1910s, later claiming to have played bit parts in both Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). By the mid-1910s, he was essaying the "other man" in scores of melodramas, now billed under the less ethnic-sounding name of Eugene Corey. He became Geno Corrado in the 1920s but would work under his real name in literally hundreds of sound films, a career that lasted well into the 1950s and also included live television appearances. In a case of life imitating art, Corrado reportedly supplemented his income by working as a waiter in between acting assignments.

Trivia: Comic actor George Chandler entered the University of Illinois after World War I service, paying for his education by playing in an orchestra. He continued moonlighting in the entertainment world in the early 1920s, working as an insurance salesman by day and performing at night. By the end of the decade he was a seasoned vaudevillian, touring with a one-man-band act called "George Chandler, the Musical Nut." He began making films in 1927, appearing almost exclusively in comedies; perhaps his best-known appearance of the early 1930s was as W.C.Fields' prodigal son Chester in the 1932 2-reeler The Fatal Glass of Beer. Chandler became something of a good-luck charm for director William Wellman, who cast the actor in comedy bits in many of his films; Wellman reserved a juicy supporting role for Chandler as Ginger Rogers' no-good husband in Roxie Hart (1942). In all, Chandler made some 330 movie appearances. In the early 1950s, Chandler served two years as president of the Screen Actors Guild, ruffling the hair of many prestigious stars and producers with his strongly held political views. From 1958 through 1959, George Chandler was featured as Uncle Petrie on the Lassie TV series, and in 1961 he starred in a CBS sitcom that he'd helped develop, Ichabod and Me.

Trivia: Australian-born actor George Lloyd spoke without a trace of accent of any kind in his hundreds of movie appearances. Lloyd's mashed-in mug and caterpillar eyebrows were put to best use in roles calling for roughneck sarcasm. He was often seen as second-string gangsters, escape-prone convicts, acerbic garage mechanics and (especially) temperamental moving men. George Lloyd's film career began in the mid-1930s and petered out by the beginning of the TV era.

Trivia: Billed as Duke York Jr. when he entered films in 1933, this muscular actor essayed such action-oriented roles as King Kala in Flash Gordon (1936). By the 1940s, York had found his particular niche as a second-string Lon Chaney Jr. He was a mainstay at Columbia's short-subject unit in the 1940s, playing the various hunchbacks, werewolves, goons, and Frankensteins who menaced such comedians as the Three Stooges, El Brendel, and Andy Clyde. One of his rare roles out of makeup was in the Stooges' 1943 comedy Higher Than a Kite, which revealed that York wasn't quite as adept at handling dialogue as he was at grunting and growling. Though Duke York committed suicide in 1952, he kept appearing in Columbia's two-reelers and Westerns through the magic of stock footage until the mid-'50s.

Trivia: Ralph Dunn used his burly body and rich, theatrical voice to good effect in hundreds of minor feature-film roles and supporting appearances in two-reel comedies. He came to Hollywood during the early talkie era, beginning his film career with 1932's The Crowd Roars. A huge man with a withering glare, Dunn was an ideal "opposite" for short, bumbling comedians like Lou Costello in the 1944 Abbott and Costello comedy In Society, Dunn plays the weeping pedestrian who explains that he doesn't want to go to Beagle Street because that's where a two-ton safe fell on his head and killed him. A frequent visitor to the Columbia short subjects unit, Dunn shows up in the Three Stooges comedy Mummie's Dummies as the ancient Egyptian swindled at the Stooges' used chariot lot. Ralph Dunn kept busy into the '60s, appearing in such TV series as Kitty Foyle and such films as Black Like Me (1964).

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: Satanic-featured British actor Brandon Hurst was once singled out by a prominent film historian as one of the five finest villains of the silent screen. He started out as a Philology student, gravitating to the stage in the 1880s. He was 50 years old at the time of his first film appearance in Via Wireless (1916), and 54 when he portrayed the first in his gallery of memorable screen heavies, Sir George Carewe in the 1920 Barrymore version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Other reprobates in Hurst's cinematic repertoire included the sadistic Jehan in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), the wicked Caliph in The Thief of Baghdad (1924), the diabolical court jester in The Man Who Laughs (1928) and the insidious Merlin in A Connecticut Yankee (1931). Most of his talkie appearances were in such minor roles as condescending butlers and grouchy coroners. Brandon Hurst continued to pop up briefly in films like The Princess and the Pirate (1944) and House of Frankenstein (1945) until his death at the age of 80.

Trivia: When actor Robert H. Barrat moved from stage to films in the early 1930s, he found himself twice blessed: He was dignified-looking enough to portray business and society types, but also athletic enough to get down and dirty in barroom-brawl scenes. An ardent physical-fitness advocate in real life, Barrat was once described by his friend and frequent co-worker James Cagney as having "a solid forearm the size of the average man's thigh"; as a result, the usually cautious Cagney was extra careful during his fight scenes with the formidable Barrat. The actor's size and menacing demeanor served him well when pitted against such comparatively pint-sized comedians as the Marx Bros. (in Go West). When not intimidating one and all with his muscle power, the actor was fond of playing roles that called for quaint, colorful accents, notably his Lionel Barrymore-ish turn as a suicidal baron in the 1934 Grand Hotel derivation Wonder Bar. Robert H. Barrat's last film appearance was in the rugged western Tall Man Riding (55).

Trivia: To six decades' worth of filmgoers, Kentucky-born character actor Charles B. Middleton was Ming the Merciless, the megalomaniac ruler of the planet Mongo in three 1930s serials based on Alex Raymond's comic strip Flash Gordon. Beginning his career in circuses and carnivals in the South, Middleton worked in vaudeville and stock companies before his 1927 entree into films. With his hatchet face, bad teeth, and rolling-toned voice, Middleton was ideally cast as stern judges, cruel orphanage officials, backwater sheriffs, and small town bigots. Outside of his extensive work in serials and Westerns, he was used to best advantage in the films of Laurel and Hardy and Will Rogers. In a far less villainous vein, Charles Middleton was cast as Tom Lincoln, father of the 16th president, in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940); he also portrayed the Great Emancipator himself on several occasions -- while in 1937's Stand-In, Middleton was hilariously cast as an unsuccessful actor who dresses like Lincoln in hopes of landing a movie role.

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Trivia: It is usually axiomatic that any actor who uses the nickname "Tiny" is anything but. Such was the case of tall, stockily built Paul "Tiny" Newlan. Born in Nebraska, Newlan began his acting career in repertory at the Garden Theater in Kansas City. After attending the University of Missouri, he played pro football and basketball, then returned to acting. In films from 1935, he signed a two-year Paramount contract in 1938, leading to dozens of tiny roles as bartenders, bouncers, stevedores, and the like. The size of his screen roles increased in the late '40s-early '50s, though Newlan didn't start landing truly important parts until he entered television. Paul Newlan is best remembered for his recurring appearances as Captain Grey on the TV cop show M-Squad (1957-1960).

Trivia: Maxene Andrews and her sisters Patty and Laverne Andrews comprised one of the most popular musical trios of the 1940s, "The Andrews Sisters." With her siblings, Andrews appeared in close to 20 films, in which she most frequently played herself.

Trivia: Arriving in America from his native Australia at the turn of the century, Frank S. Hagney eked out a living in vaudeville. He entered films during the silent era as a stunt man, gradually working his way up to featured roles. While most of Hagney's film work is forgettable, he had the honor of contributing to a bonafide classic in 1946. Director Frank Capra hand-picked Frank S. Hagney to portray the faithful bodyguard of wheelchair-bound villain Lionel Barrymore in the enduring Yuletide attraction It's A Wonderful Life (1946).