Trivia: An "Okie" whose parents died when he was a child, William Boyd became a manual laborer before breaking into the movies in 1919 as an extra in Cecil B. De Mille's Why Change Your Wife? He soon became one of De Mille's favorite actors and was cast as an unassuming leading man in comedies and swashbuckling adventure films. Boyd continued his success in the sound era, but was hurt when a scandal hit another actor named "William Boyd" and the public confused the two. His career took off in 1935 when he began to appear in "Hopalong Cassidy" films (based on the Clarence E. Mulford stories of the Old West), beginning with Hop-A-Long Cassidy and eventually amounting to 66 episodes, the final twelve of which Boyd produced. Cassidy, dressed in black and mounted on his famous horse Topper, was a clean-living good guy who didn't smoke, drink, or swear, and hardly ever kissed the heroine; the character became an enormous hero to millions of American boys, and Boyd bought the rights to it. With the breakthrough of TV in the early 50s, Boyd began to reap huge profits from the character as the old shows found a new audience and by-products began to be produced and sold; he played Cassidy the rest of his life, even into genial, gray-haired old age. Ultimately, William Boyd Enterprises was sold for $8 million. Boyd was married four times and divorced three, each time to an actress: Ruth Miller, Elinor Fair, Dorothy Sebastian, and Grace Bradley.

Trivia: The son of a Scottish theatrical producer/manager, Andy Clyde joined his siblings David and Jean on stage in childhood. At the invitation of his close friend James Finlayson, Clyde came to the U.S. in the early 1920s to join producer Mack Sennett's roster of comedians. An expert at makeup, Clyde played a variety of supporting roles, from city slickers to unshaven bums; he was also co-starred with Billy Bevan for such classic Sennett 2-reelers as Wandering Willies (1926) and Ice Cold Cocos (1927). His best-known characterization was as a grizzled, paintbrush-mustached old codger. In this guise, Andy was Sennett's most popular star in the early talkie era, appearing in as many as 18 comedies per year. After parting company with Sennett in 1932, Clyde worked briefly at Educational Studios, then in 1934 signed on with Columbia's short subject unit, where he remained the next 22 years. With 79 shorts to his credit, Andy was second only to the Three Stooges as Columbia's premiere comedy attraction. He also appeared as "California," comic sidekick to western star William Boyd, in the popular Hopalong Cassidy westerns of the 1940s. Clyde filled out his busy schedule with character roles in such films as Million Dollar Legs (1932), Annie Oakley (1936) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). Barely pausing for breath, Clyde kept up his hectic pace on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing regularly on the weekly series The Real McCoys, Lassie and No Time for Sergeants. A real trouper, Andy Clyde was one of Hollywood's best-liked actors, never giving less than 100% to any role of any size.

Trivia: Hayden was born Pate Lucid. After working behind the scenes in films as a grip, sound recorder, film cutter, and assistant cameraman, he began acting in films in the mid '30s. Between 1937-41 he played Lucky Jenkins, William Boyd's saddle pal, in 27 Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. He starred in his own Western series in the '40s, and in 1943-44 he was voted one of the Top Ten Cowboy stars; he also costarred with James Ellison in numerous Westerns which he co-produced, and occasionally had leads in non-Westerns as well as one adventure serial. Beginning in the early '50s (when he retired from films) he produced and directed TV Westerns, including the series 26 Men and Judge Roy Bean, starring in the latter. He married and divorced actress Jan Clayton, who was his leading lady in some of the Hopalong Cassidy films. Later he married actress Lillian Porter.

Trivia: A model and the winner of a Chicago Tribune screen test competition, brunette Eleanor Stewart signed with MGM in 1936, but made her mark elsewhere as a leading lady of B-movies. A good rider, she braved the wilderness in no less than 15 low-budget Westerns, including three Hopalong Cassidy entries and two films each opposite Tex Ritter, Tom Keene, and Jack Luden. Stewart retired from filmmaking in 1944 to raise her daughter with MGM publicity man Les Peterson.

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: William Haade spent most of his movie career playing the very worst kind of bully--the kind that has the physical training to back up his bullying. His first feature-film assignment was as the arrogant, drunken professional boxer who is knocked out by bellhop Wayne Morris in Kid Galahad (37). In many of his western appearances, Haade was known to temper villainy with an unexpected sense of humor; in one Republic western, he spews forth hilarious one-liners while hacking his victims to death with a knife! William Haade also proved an excellent menace to timorous comedians like Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello; in fact, his last film appearance was in Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (55).

Trivia: American actor Dennis Moore made his first stage appearance with a Texas stock company in 1932. If his official bio is to be believed, Moore was 18 at the time, casting some doubt over his claim of having been a commercial pilot before inaugurating his acting career. Whatever the case, it is a matter of record that Moore entered films in 1936 when he was discovered by a Columbia Pictures talent scout. Two years later, he made the first of his many Westerns at Republic Pictures. In his earliest sagebrush appearances, he was a bit player, stunt man, or villain; in 1940, he attained his first cowboy leading role in The Man From Tascosa, though he would continue to take bad-guy parts (notably as a serial killer in the East Side Kids' 1941 feature Spooks Run Wild) even after his good-guy debut. In 1943, Moore joined Ray "Crash" Corrigan and Max Terhune as a member of the Range Busters in the Monogram Western series of the same name. Until his retirement from films in 1957, Moore alternated between Westerns and such serials as The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). Dennis Moore owns the distinction of starring in the last serial ever made by Republic, King of the Carnival (1956), and the last serial ever made in Hollywood, Columbia's Blazing the Overland Trail (1956).

Trivia: In films since the earliest days of sound, distinguished-looking Henry Hall specialized in playing small-town doctors, lawyers, benign businessmen, or the heroine's father, often in low-budget Westerns and frequently unbilled. On Broadway in the first decade of the 20th century, Hall spent his final years as a resident at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: An amiable, big-nosed former vaudevillian from Tennessee, Brit Wood's main claim to cinematic fame was his brief 1939-1940 stint as William Boyd's comic sidekick Speedy in the long-running Hopalong Cassidy B-Western series. Although he was summarily replaced with the better-known (and plain better) Andy Clyde, Wood wasn't too annoying and could actually play dramatic scenes better than most B-Western rubes. An accomplished harmonica virtuoso, Wood supplied hillbilly tunes to several B-Westerns, including "The Covered Wagon Rolled Right Along" from Gene Autry's Saddle Pals (1947).