Trivia: Throughout much of his screen career, actor George Sanders was the very personification of cynicism, an elegantly dissolute figure whose distinct brand of anomie distinguished dozens of films during a career spanning nearly four decades. Born in St. Petersburg on July 3, 1906, Sanders and his family fled to the U.K. during the Revolution, and he was later educated at Brighton College. After first pursuing a career in the textile industry, Sanders briefly flirted with a South American tobacco venture; when it failed, he returned to Britain with seemingly no other options outside of a stage career. After a series of small theatrical roles, in 1934 he appeared in Noel Coward's Conversation Piece; the performance led to his film debut in 1936's Find the Lady, followed by a starring role in Strange Cargo. After a series of other undistinguished projects, Sanders appeared briefly in William Cameron Menzies' influential science fiction epic Things to Come. In 1937, he traveled to Hollywood, where a small but effective role in Lloyd's of London resulted in a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. A number of lead roles in projects followed, including Love Is News and The Lady Escapes, before Fox and RKO cut a deal to allow him to star as the Leslie Charteris adventurer the Saint in a pair of back-to-back 1939 features, The Saint Strikes Back and The Saint in London. The series remained Sanders' primary focus for the next two years, and in total he starred in five Saint pictures, culminating in 1941's The Saint at Palm Springs. Sandwiched in between were a variety of other projects, including performances in a pair of 1940 Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Foreign Correspondent and the Best Picture Oscar-winner Rebecca.After co-starring with Ingrid Bergman in 1941's Rage in Heaven, Sanders began work on another adventure series, playing a suave investigator dubbed the Falcon; after debuting the character in The Gay Falcon, he starred in three more entries -- A Date With the Falcon, The Falcon Takes Over, and The Falcon's Brother -- before turning over the role to his real-life brother, Tom Conway. Through his work in Julien Duvivier's Tales of Manhattan, Sanders began to earn notice as a more serious actor, and his lead performance in a 1943 adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Moon and Sixpence established him among the Hollywood elite. He then appeared as an evil privateer in the Tyrone Power swashbuckler The Black Swan, followed by Jean Renoir's This Land Is Mine. A pair of excellent John Brahm thrillers, 1944's The Lodger and 1945's Hangover Square, helped bring Sanders' contract with Fox to its close.With his portrayal of the world-weary Lord Henry Wooten in 1945's The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Sanders essayed the first of the rakish, cynical performances which would typify the balance of his career; while occasionally playing more sympathetic roles in pictures like The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, he was primarily cast as a malcontent, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his venomous turn in 1951's All About Eve. The award brought Sanders such high-profile projects as 1951's I Can Get It for You Wholesale, 1952's Ivanhoe, and Roberto Rossellini's 1953 effort Viaggio in Italia. However, his star waned, and the musical Call Me Madam, opposite Ethel Merman, was his last major performance. A series of historical pieces followed, and late in the decade he hosted a television series, The George Sanders Mystery Theater. In 1960, he also published an autobiography, Memoirs of a Professional Cad.Sanders spent virtually all of the 1960s appearing in little-seen, low-budget foreign productions. Exceptions to the rule included the 1962 Disney adventure In Search of the Castaways, the 1964 Blake Edwards Pink Panther comedy A Shot in the Dark, and 1967's animated Disney fable The Jungle Book, in which he voiced the character of Shere Khan the Tiger. After appearing on Broadway in the title role of The Man Who Came to Dinner, Sanders appeared in John Huston's 1970 thriller The Kremlin Letter, an indication of a career upswing; however, the only offers which came his way were low-rent horror pictures like 1972's Doomwatch and 1973's Psychomania. Prior to the release of the latter, Sanders killed himself on August 25, 1972, by overdosing on sleeping pills while staying in a Costa Brava hotel; his suicide note read, "Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored." He was 66 years old.

Trivia: After working as a model in her native London, brunette leading lady Barbara Shelley began her filmmaking activities in Italy in 1953. Though exuding such qualities as class and intelligence, Shelley's film career was by and large limited to screaming and cringing in an endless stream of horror films. Her better-known credits within this genre include The Cat Girl, Blood of the Vampire, Shadow of the Cat, Village of the Damned, The Gorgon, Rasputin the Mad Monk, Dracula Prince of Darkness, 5,000,000 Years to Earth, and her last theatrical feature, Ghost Story (1974). On television, Barbara Shelley has been seen in worthwhile character roles in such productions as the 1979 miniseries Pride and Prejudice (as Mrs. Gardiner) and the 1989 British TV movie Maigret.

Trivia: British character actor Michael Gwynn first appeared onscreen in the '50s.

Trivia: Ex-Merchant Marine seaman Laurence Naismith made his London stage bow in the chorus of the 1927 musical production Oh, Boy. Naismith joined the Bristol Repertory at age 22, remaining with the troupe until joining the royal artillery at the outbreak of World War II; he spent nine years in military service, emerging with the rank of Acting Battery Commander. His officer's bearing served Naismith well in such authoritative film assignments as the ill-fated Captain Smith in A Night to Remember (1958). Other highlights in Naismith's lengthy movie career include the roles of the Prince of Wales in The Trial of Oscar Wilde (1960), Argus in Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Merlin in Camelot (1967). A frequent visitor to Broadway, Naismith played Kris Kringle in Here's Love, Meredith Willson's 1963 musical adaptation of Miracle on 34th Street. Among Laurence Naismith's hundreds of television credits was the recurring role of Judge Fulton on the 1971 Tony Curtis-Roger Moore adventure series The Persuaders.

Trivia: John Phillips is a British character player, active in films from 1954. He has been seen in such roles as the Duke of Norfolk in Olivier's Richard III (1954), as authority figures in the sci-fi movies Village of the Damned (1960) and Man in the Moon (1961), and as the prosecutor at the Esterhazy trial in I Accuse (1958). Phillips has also shown up in several TV miniseries (Jesus of Nazareth, Masada), and was cast as MacGown in the internationally syndicated The Forsyte Saga. This John Phillips is no relation to the American actor or the musical composer who share his name.

Trivia: British character actor Richard Vernon specialized in playing dignified, stiff upper-lipped nobles, military officers, and patriarchs in a wide variety of films and television programs. Though he had an uncredited bit part in Indiscreet (1958), Vernon did not make his formal film debut until he played Sir Edgar Hargreaves in Village of the Damned (1960).

Trivia: British character actor, onscreen from the early '50s.

Trivia: Child actor Martin Stephens was, on surface, your typical polite, cherub-faced British kid. There was nothing to alter this opinion in Martin's first film, Another Time, Another Place (1958), nor in his next few films. Then came Village of the Damned (1960), in which Martin was cast as a coldblooded, steely-eyed telepathic child who, as a result of a scientific experiment gone awry, organizes the other children in his village to overtake the world. Such was the power of this performance that Village of the Damned is one of the very few films in history (outside of The Good Son) where the audience is rooting for a child to be killed off! Martin followed this eerie performance with his portrayal of a young aristocrat guided into deadly behavior by a malevolent ghost in The Innocents (1961). At one point in the early '60s, Martin was the most popular child actor in England, but by the mid '60s he lost all interest in performing. At last report, Martin Stephens was contentedly employed as a London architect.

Trivia: British actress Charlotte Mitchell played second leads and character roles on stage, television, and in films of the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s.

Trivia: A slim, intellectual-looking British character actor, Archard was onscreen from the early '60s.

Trivia: Seemingly born in a tuxedo, British actor John Stuart began his stage and screen career directly after World War I service in The Black Watch. Stuart was a very popular leading man in British silent films, though it's hard to gauge that popularity since many of his best films of the '20s -- A Sporting Double (1923), Constant Hot Water (1924), Tower of London (1926) -- are either inaccessible or nonexistent. Remaining popular after his talkie debut in Kitty (1929), Stuart matured into character parts, spending much of World War II playing government officials and police inspectors. After showing up in the company of virtually the entire British film industry in 1951's The Magic Box, Stuart settled into bits and cameo roles in such films of the '50s and '60s as Your Past is Showing (1958), Blood of the Vampire (1958) and Sink the Bismarck (1960). One of his last appearances was a tiny role in Superman: The Movie (1978). An accomplished writer, John Stuart penned his autobiography, Caught in the Act, in 1971.

Trivia: British actor Peter Vaughan began alternating between stage and screen after his 1959 film bow in Sapphire. Nearly always cast as a frosty authority figure, Vaughan's movie assignments embraced both period films (he was Buhrud in 1968's Alfred the Great) and contemporary dramas (the Policeman in 1963's The Victors). On two occasions, Vaughan's talents were effectively utilized by director Terry Gilliam, first in the role of the Ogre in Time Bandits (1981), then in the part of Mr. Helpman in Brazil (1985). In 1986, Vaughan was seen on TV screens worldwide as the prosecutor in the miniseries Sins. He was seen as Mr. Stevens Sr. in Merchant-Ivory's Remains of the Day. Vaughan had a strong presence on British television for decades, appearing in shows like Fox, Masterpiece Theatre's Bleak House and Chancer. He later became known to an international set with his role of Maester Aemon on Games of Thrones. Vaughan died in 2016, at age 93.

Trivia: British character actor Richard Warner appeared onscreen from the '60s, he often played small-town cops.

Trivia: Tom Bowman was a British character actor who appeared on stage, screen, radio and television. In addition to acting, he also dubbed films, recorded books and made radio commentaries. He came to the U.S. in 1975.