Trivia: The son of a chemical analyst, American actor William Holden plunged into high school and junior college sports activities as a means of "proving himself" to his demanding father. Nonetheless, Holden's forte would be in what he'd always consider a "sissy" profession: acting. Spotted by a talent scout during a stage production at Pasadena Junior College, Holden was signed by both Paramount and Columbia, who would share his contract for the next two decades. After one bit role, Holden was thrust into the demanding leading part of boxer Joe Bonaparte in Golden Boy (1939). He was so green and nervous that Columbia considered replacing him, but co-star Barbara Stanwyck took it upon herself to coach the young actor and build up his confidence -- a selfless act for which Holden would be grateful until the day he died. After serving as a lieutenant in the Army's special services unit, Holden returned to films, mostly in light, inconsequential roles. Director Billy Wilder changed all that by casting him as Joe Gillis, an embittered failed screenwriter and "kept man" of Gloria Swanson in the Hollywood-bashing classic Sunset Boulevard (1950). Wilder also directed Holden in the role of the cynical, conniving, but ultimately heroic American POW Sefton in Stalag 17 (1953), for which the actor won an Oscar. Holden became a man of the world, as it were, when he moved to Switzerland to avoid heavy taxation on his earnings; while traversing the globe, he developed an interest in African wildlife preservation, spending much of his off-camera time campaigning and raising funds for the humane treatment of animals. Free to be selective in his film roles in the '60s and '70s, Holden evinced an erratic sensibility: For every Counterfeit Traitor (1962) and Network (1976), there would be a walk-through part in The Towering Inferno (1974) or Ashanti (1978). His final film role was in S.O.B. (1981), which, like Sunset Boulevard, was a searing and satirical indictment of Hollywood. But times had changed, and one of the comic highlights of S.O.B. was of a drunken film executive urinating on the floor of an undertaker's parlor. Holden's death in 1981 was the result of blood loss from a fall he suffered while alone.

Trivia: Gloria Swanson may not have been the world's best actress, but she was certainly one of the screen's greatest personalities. The daughter of a peripatetic army officer, she was educated in public schools from Chicago to Puerto Rico. While visiting Chicago's Essanay studios in 1913, the 15-year-old Swanson was hired as an extra and it was in this capacity that she met her first husband, Wallace Beery, then starred in the studio's Sweedie comedies. Not long after making a brief appearance in Charlie Chaplin's first Essanay starrer His New Job (1915), she accompanied her husband to Hollywood, where he'd been signed by Mack Sennett's Keystone studios. Often teamed with diminutive leading man Bobby Vernon, Swanson earned a measure of fame as the deadpan heroine of such comedies as Teddy at the Throttle (1916) and The Pullman Bride (1916) (she later claimed that she had no sense of humor at the time and thus played her roles seriously, which made them all the funnier to the audience). Divorced from Beery in 1917, Swanson also left Keystone that same year to accept an offer to appear in dramatic roles for Triangle Pictures. She then went to work for Cecil B. DeMille, who admired her courage and tenacity and cast her as the glamorously (and provocatively) garbed heroines of such lavish productions as Don't Change Your Husband (1918), Male and Female (1919), and The Affairs of Anatol (1920). A full-fledged superstar by the early '20s, Swanson carefully controlled every aspect of her career, from choosing her leading men and directors to approving her publicity layouts. She also remained in the public eye via her succession of high-profile husbands, including the Marquis de la Falaise de Coudray. Though at her best in tear-stained romantic dramas, she could still deliver a top-notch comedy performance, as witness her portrayal of a dowdy, gum-chewing working girl in Allan Dwan's Manhandled (1924). In the late '20s she set up her own production company with the sponsorship of her then-lover, financier Joseph P. Kennedy. After a successful start with 1928's Miss Sadie Thompson, Swanson's company went bankrupt as a result of her benighted association with the Erich Von Stroheim-directed fiasco Queen Kelly (1929). Contrary to popular belief, she made a successful transition to sound, displaying her fine singing voice in films like Tonight or Never (1931) and Music in the Air (1934). But the public had adopted new favorites and no longer flocked to Swanson's films as they once had. She retired in the mid-'30s, briefly returning in 1941 to star with Adolphe Menjou in the undistinguished comedy Father Takes a Wife. Her next film appearance in 1949 turned out to be one of the finest achievements in anybody's career: Her Oscar-nominated virtuoso performance as faded, self-delusional silent screen star Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's vitriolic Hollywood melodrama Sunset Boulevard. So convincing was Swanson in this role that many of her fans believed that she was Norma Desmond, though nothing could have been further from the truth. Unfortunately, her attempts to follow up this triumph proved unsuccessful, prompting her to turn her back on filmmaking for the third time in her career. She did rather better on television in the 1950s, emceeing her own local New York TV talk show and hosting the syndicated anthology Crown Theatre Starring Gloria Swanson (1954). She also dabbled in scores of business enterprises, with mixed but generally satisfying results. Her most successful business venture was a line of organic cosmetics, "Essence of Nature;" she was also very active in the burgeoning health food movement of the 1960s, her ageless beauty and boundless energy serving as the best arguments in favor of proper nutrition. In the 1970s, she appeared on Broadway and on tour in Butterflies Are Free, and made her final screen appearance in Airport 74 (1974), more or less playing herself. Still active right up to her death, Gloria Swanson was survived by her sixth husband and several grandchildren.

Trivia: The son of a Jewish hat manufacturer, born in Vienna, Erich Oswald Von Stroheim moved from running his father's factory to the pinnacle of the Hollywood community as a director, only to fall hard due to his extravagant approach to filmmaking and end up as a peripheral figure. Von Stroheim came to America during the first decade of the twentieth century and supported himself in various jobs before coming to Hollywood in 1914. He was a bit player in several films, and became a member of D.W. Griffith's stock company, parlaying his experience as a bit player into a job as assistant director and military advisor (he had served briefly in the Austro-Hungarian Army) -- he moved into greater prominence in 1917 with American entry into World War I, portraying villainous Prussian officers. He moved into the director's chair at Universal, where he proved a virtual one-man show at first, providing original story, deigning sets, and starring in several of his own films. He quickly showed a talent for translating sexual subject matter -- not yet taboo in Hollywood--onto the screen in ways that were both witty and ostentatious, and his films Blind Husbands, The Devil's Pass Key, and Foolish Wives, were (and remain) among the most acclaimed sophisticated films of the silent era. His autocratic manner in dealing with the studio, coupled with his painstaking attention to detail, however, resulted in production schedules of as long as a year on his movies. He left Universal for Goldwyn Films, which was merged into Metro Pictures during the production of Greed, a monumental film whose 42 reels represented a high-water mark in Von Stroheim's career, but also its effective end--the studio took over the eight hour film and recut it, shortening it to under two hours, and the final release version was condemned by critics and ignored by audiences. He found similar set-backs with The Merry Widow, and he was dismissed from MGM. He directed Queen Kelly (1928), a bizarre story of white slavery and sexual obsession, for its star/producer Gloria Swanson, which proved the effective end of his career when he was fired during production. He directed Walking Down Broadway (1932-33), which was never released and then settled into character roles. With his bald head and stern visage, Von Stroheim was still a well-known screen presence, and he specialized in complex villainous roles, most notably as the cultured commandant of the P.O.W. camp in Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937). In 1950, he made what was probably his most important screen appearance as an actor in an American movie, as Gloria Swanson's fiercely loyal servant in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950). Although repudiated by Hollywood as a filmmaker, Von Stroheim was honored throughout his life by the European filmmaking community, and in the years after his death his work as a director was rediscovered to fresh appreciation by a new generation, and in the '80s Kino International undertook a major restoration and retrospective of Von Stroheim's silent films. The cut 32 reels of Greed remain among the most speculated upon and sought after lost films in screen history.

Trivia: The daughter of a Milwaukee physician, Nancy Olson attended UCLA, then briefly acted on stage before signing a Paramount Pictures contract in 1949. Her best screen assignment at Paramount was as self-effacing script clerk Betty Schaffer in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. She went on to be teamed with her Boulevard co-star William Holden in Union Station (1950), Force of Arms (1951) and Submarine Command (1951). Olson briefly retired in the mid-1950s when she married songwriter Alan Jay Lerner (they later divorced; her second husband was record executive Alan Livingston). In 1960, Olson went back before the cameras as Betty Carlisle, ever-patient fiance of would-be inventor Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) in Disney's The Absent Minded Professor; she repeated this characterization in the 1963 sequel Son of Flubber. She went on to do a smattering of TV films, including the 1967 pilot of the Darren McGavin private eye series The Outsider. Nancy Olson also played continuing roles in the 1977 weekly Kingston: Confidential and the 1984 prime-time soaper Paper Dolls.

Trivia: American actor Fred Clark embarked upon his lifelong career immediately upon graduation from Stanford University. With his lantern jaw, bald pate and ulcerated disposition, Clark knew he'd never be a leading man and wisely opted for character work. After several years on stage, during which time he was briefly married to musical comedy actress Benay Venuta, Clark made his movie debut in Ride the Pink Horse (1947), playing one of his few out-and-out villains. The actor's knowing portrayal of a callous movie producer in Sunset Boulevard (1949) led to his being typecast as blunt, sometimes shady executives. Clark's widest public recognition occurred in 1951 when he was cast as next-door neighbor Harry Morton on TV's Burns and Allen Show; when Clark insisted upon a larger salary, producer-star George Burns literally replaced him on the air with actor Larry Keating. Dividing his time between films and television for the rest of his career, Clark earned latter-day fame in the 1960s as star of a series of regionally distributed potato chip commercials. Though most of his fans prefer to remember the disappointing Otto Preminger farce Skiddoo (1968) as Fred Clark's screen farewell, the truth is that Clark's last performance was in I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew (1969).

Trivia: Red-haired character-actor Michael Gough was brought to Hollywood in 1948 after 14 years on Broadway. Gough's burgeoning film career was cut short when he was blacklisted on the basis of alleged communist ties; likewise prohibited from working in films was Gough's wife, Karen Morley. The most immediate effect of Gough's blacklisting occurred in the opening titles of RKO's Rancho Notorious (1952); though Gough was prominently cast as the film's principal villain, RKO head man Howard Hughes, a rabid commie-hater, demanded that the actor's name be removed from the credits. Gough retreated to the stage, returning before the cameras in the 1960s, by which time Hollywood's witch-hunt mentality had dissipated. One of his first "comeback" roles was as Michael Axford in the 1966 TV series The Green Hornet. In the 1976 film The Front, Lloyd Gough was reunited with several other former blacklistees, including actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi and Joshua Shelley, director Martin Ritt and screenwriter Walter Bernstein.

Trivia: Following World War II, California native Jack Webb planned to renew the art studies that he'd abandoned for the military. Instead, he turned to acting, appearing on various San Francisco-based radio programs. He briefly hosted his own satirical comedy series before finding his true metier in detective melodramas. In collaboration with future Oscar-winning screenwriter Richard L. Breen (who remained a Webb associate until his death in 1967), Webb concocted a hard-boiled private eye show entitled Pat Novak for Hire. The popularity he gained from this effort enabled Webb to secure small film roles -- one of these was as a police lab technician in the 1948 film noir He Walked by Night (1948). Intrigued by the police procedure he'd learned while preparing for the role, Webb immersed himself in the subject until he felt ready to launch what many observers still consider the first realistic radio cop show: Dragnet, which premiered June 3, 1949. Webb carried over his terse characterization of L.A. police sergeant Joe Friday into the Dragnet TV series (which he also directed) beginning in 1952. Armed with a bottomless reserve of police terminology and a colorful repertoire of catchphrases, the laconic, ferret-faced Webb became one of the most successful -- and most widely imitated -- TV personalities of the 1950s; almost always in the Top Ten, Dragnet, produced by Webb's own Mark VII Productions, ran until 1959. Webb's newfound industry clout permitted him to direct for the big screen as well -- his 1950s movie credits (outside of such pre-star efforts as The Men, Sunset Boulevard, and Halls of Montezuma) include the 1954 feature version of Dragnet, 1955's Pete Kelly's Blues (based on another of Webb's radio series), 1957's The D.I., and 1959's 30. In addition, Webb's Mark VII produced such TV series as Noah's Ark, The D.A.'s Man, and the video version of Pete Kelly's Blues. Webb kicked off the 1960s with a rare attempt at directing comedy, The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961). From 1962 through 1964, he was in charge of Warner Bros.' television division, an assignment which came to an end as a result of several failed TV ventures. A 1966 TV-movie version of Dragnet kicked off Webb's second career. He went on to star in a successful weekly Dragnet revival, which ran from 1967 through 1970, while his Mark VII outfit was responsible for a score of TV series, the most successful of which were Emergency and Adam 12. Regarded as something of a relic by the "hipper" viewers, Jack Webb nonetheless remained profitably active in television until the late '70s; he might have continued into the 1980s had not his drinking and smoking habits accelerated his death at the age of 62. Married three times, Jack Webb's first wife was singing star Julie London, whom he'd first met when he was 21 and she was 15.

Trivia: American actress and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper was born Elda Furry, but used the last name of her then-husband, Broadway star DeWolf Hopper, when she launched her movie career in 1915. Never a major star in silent films, Hedda was a competent character actress specializing in "best friend" and "other woman" roles. When she divorced DeWolf Hopper, Hedda found that she had to take any roles that came her way in order to support herself and her son DeWolf Jr. (who later became a film and TV actor under the name William Hopper). Her career running smoothly if not remarkably by 1932, Ms. Hopper decided to branch out into politics, running for the Los Angeles city council; she lost and returned to movies, where good roles were becoming scarce. Practically unemployed in 1936, Hedda took a job on a Hollywood radio station, dispensing news and gossip about the film capital. Impressed by Hedda's chatty manner and seemingly bottomless reserve of "dirt" on her fellow actors (sometimes gleaned from her own on-set experiences, sometimes mere wild-card speculations), the Esquire news syndicate offered Ms. Hopper her own column, one that would potentially rival the Hearst syndicate columnist Louella Parsons. Carried at first by only 17 papers, Hedda did much better for herself by switching to the Des Moines Register and Tribune syndicate; her true entree into the big time occured in 1942, when she linked up with the behemoth Chicago Tribune-Daily News syndicate. Between them, Hedda and archrival Louella Parsons wielded more power and influence than any other Hollywood columnists - and they exploited it to the utmost, horning in uninivited at every major social event and premiere, and throwing parties that few dared not to attend. While Louella had the stronger newspaper affiliations, Hedda was more popular with the public, due to her breezy, matter-of-fact speaking style and her wry sense of humor; she also more flamboyant than Louella, given to wearing elaborate hats which cost anywhere from $50 to $60 each. On the credit side, Hedda touted several new young stars without expecting favors in return from their studios; she'd admit her errors (and there were many) in public, giving herself "the bird" - a bronx cheer - during her broadcasts; and wrote flattering and affectionate pieces about old-time stars who had long fallen out of favor with filmakers. On the debit side, Hedda carried long and vicious grudges; demanded that stars appear for free as guests on her radio program, or else suffer the consequences; and set herself up as an arbiter of public taste, demanding in the '50s and '60s that Hollywood censor its "racy" films. Hedda's greatest influence was felt when the studio system controlled Hollywood and a mere handful of moguls wielded the power of professional life and death on the stars; the studios needed a sympathetic reporter of their activities, and thus catered to Hedda's every whim. But as stars became their own producers and film production moved further outside Hollywood, Hedda's control waned; moreover, the relaxing of movie censorship made her rantings about her notions of good taste seem like something out of the Dark Ages. Also, Hedda was a strident anti-communist, which worked to her benefit in the days of the witchhunts and blacklists, but which made her sound like a reactionary harpy in the more liberal '60s. Evidence of Hedda's downfall occured in 1960 when she assembled an NBC-TV special and decreed that Hollywood's biggest stars appear gratis; but this was a year fraught with industry strikes over wages and residuals, and Hedda was only able to secure the services of the few celebrities who agreed with her politics or were wealthy enough to appear for free. By the early '60s, Hedda Hopper was an institution without foundation, "starring" as herself in occasional movies like Jerry Lewis' The Patsy (1964) which perpetuated the myth of her influence, and writing (or commissioning, since she'd stopped doing her own writing years earlier) long, antiseptic celebrity profiles for Sunday-supplement magazines.

Trivia: Born in Sweden, actress Anna Q. Nilsson was lured to the U.S. as a teenager by dreams of luxury and creature comforts. Her first job was as a nursemaid, but Anna learned English quickly and was able to advance herself professionally. Her striking Nordic beauty made her a much sought-after commercial model; one of the photographers with whom Nillson worked suggested that the girl was pretty enough for motion pictures, and recommended her for a one-reel epic titled Molly Pitcher (1913). She worked her way up to stardom, and her career might have continued unabated had not Nillson been seriously injured in 1925 when, while riding a horse, she was thrown against a stone wall. Nillson was an invalid for one whole year, working arduously with therapists and specialists in Sweden and Vienna until she was finally able to walk without aid. One of Nillson's comeback films was The Babe Comes Home (1927), in which she worked like a Spartan to give her own performance while trying to make baseball star Babe Ruth look good. When talking pictures came in, Nillson, whose career had been faltering since her accident, gave up films to concentrate on charity work. Occasionally she'd accept featured or bit roles, though few are worth mentioning except for her appearance as one of the silent-star "waxworks" - including Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner - in the 1950 film drama Sunset Boulevard. Anna Q. Nilsson retired in 1963 to Sun City, California.

Trivia: General-purpose actor Larry Blake made his screen debut playing a young Adolf Hitler in James Whale's troubled The Road Back (1937), only to see his scenes end up on the cutting room floor. A difficult actor to pigeonhole, Blake went on to play everything from cops to robbers in a long career that lasted through the late '70s and included such television shows as The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Superman, Yancy Derringer, Perry Mason, Leave It to Beaver, Gunsmoke, The Munsters, The Beverly Hillbillies, Ironside, Little House on the Prairie, and Kojak. His son is Michael F. Blake, a well-known makeup artist and the biographer of silent screen star Lon Chaney.

Trivia: A would-be B-Western star who never made the grade, Eddie Dew had been in musical comedy prior to drifting into films in 1937. After appearing in countless bit parts at (mostly) Republic Pictures, Dew was awarded a one-year contract in 1943 and a promotion to stardom with a proposed John Paul Revere series of Westerns that also featured the popular Smiley Burnette as the comedic sidekick, a job the tubby Burnette had done so admirably in the Gene Autry music Westerns. Alas, in spite of Burnette's popularity, the series in general and Dew in particular fell far short of expectations and after only two films had been produced, Republic bought back his contract for a reported 1,000 dollars. The studio tried to salvage the series by re-hiring Robert Livingston, formerly of The Three Mesqueteers, but there were few takers and the project was shelved after only two additional Westerns. Dew meanwhile, landed a berth at Universal as a second banana to Rod Cameron and even took over the lead in Trail to Gunfight (1944) when Cameron was upgraded to Grade A projects. In the end, however, singer Kirby Grant was brought in to take over the spot vacated by Cameron and Dew, who sidelined once again, went into television instead, appearing on the Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill programs and directing episodes of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. He would later add such low-budget feature films as Naked Gun (1956) and the Canada-lensed Wings of Chance (1961) to his directorial credits.

Trivia: Veteran American silent-screen actress Ruth Clifford began her career at the tender age of 16, starring for various Universal companies. Britisher Monroe Salisbury, the teenage Clifford's leading man in melodramas such as The Savage (1917), Hungry Eyes (1918), and The Millionaire Pirate (1919), was a paunchy gent no longer in the bloom of youth and sporting an ill-fitting hairpiece. According to the actress, although ever the gentleman, Mr. Salisbury's appearance made love scenes somewhat uneasy. Clifford played Ann Rutledge in Abraham Lincoln (1924), but overall her career was on the wane when she struck up a lifelong friendship with director John Ford in the late 1920s. Along with another early silent-screen actress, Mae Marsh, Clifford would turn up in about every other Ford film, usually playing pioneer women. In more glamorous surroundings, Clifford and Marsh stole the limelight for a brief moment as aging saloon belles in Three Godfathers (1948) and, away from Ford, Clifford was the studio head's secretary in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950). Her last recorded appearance was in Ford's Two Rode Together in 1961; she was billed merely as "Woman." Although not known for enjoying interviews, Clifford was keenly interested in film history and made appearances in two documentaries on the subject: the 1984 Ulster Television program A Seat in the Stars: The Cinema and Ireland and historian Anthony Slide's ground-breaking The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors. In the latter, she discussed the work of Elsie Jane Wilson, Clifford's director on both The Lure of Luxury (1918) and The Game's Up (1919). As old as the century, Ruth Clifford was one of the last remaining leading ladies of the early, silent era when she died at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills on December 1, 1998.

Trivia: Like so many other American silent film directors, E. Mason Hopper came to movies with vast accumulated experience in any number of jobs. He'd been a vaudevillian, a stock actor/director, a food manufacturer, a baseball player and a student at the University of Maryland by the time he began directing one-reelers at Chicago's Essanay studios in 1911. Few of his feature films have been spotlighted in reference books; his success rested upon productivity and longevity. In the '20s, Hopper tackled everything from historical spectacle (Janice Meredith [1924]) to bedroom farce (Getting Gertie's Garter [1927]). Hopper's talkie assignments were principally of the B-quickie variety, but he finished on a high note with the above-average independent programmer Curtain at Eight (1934). After several years in retirement, E. Mason Hopper resurfaced in the late '40s and early '50s as a bit actor in such films as Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950).

Trivia: The daughter of musicians, this sultry femme fatale of late-'50s horror flicks had been the "White Rain" girl in television commercials before entering films in James Cagney's Short Cut to Hell (1957). (Prior to that she had reportedly been an extra in Sunset Blvd. (1950) while attending U.C.L.A.) Trained as a singer, Yvette Vickers (born Van Vedder) drifted into B-movies when the Cagney film flopped and is today best remembered for the horror movies she did for Roger Corman: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), as Allison Hayes's slatternly rival, and Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). In the latter, playing Bruno Ve Sota's sluttish young wife, she is dragged into an underwater cage by the title creatures despite always professing a deep fear of drowning, her visible terror apparently quite real. Vickers, who did her fair share of television and stage appearances, was at the time better known for her extracurricular activities -- including a 15-year relationship with actor Jim Hutton and an on-again/off-again affair with Cary Grant -- and for a couple of important film roles that somehow slipped away: Lana Turner's daughter in Imitation of Life (1959) and the Carroll Baker part in The Carpetbaggers (1964). In later years, she concentrated on her singing career and made frequent personal appearances to discuss her work for Corman. On a bizarre note, Vickers was found deceased at her house in May 2011 in a condition which suggested that the body had been dead but lay undiscovered for nearly a year. No cause of death was immediately disclosed.

Trivia: Gertrude Astor did so much work in Hollywood in so many different acting capacities that it's not simple or easy to characterize her career. Born in Lakewood, OH, she joined a stock company at age 13, in the year 1900, and worked on showboats during that era. She played in vaudeville as well, and made her movie debut in 1914 as a contract player at Universal. She was an accomplished rider, which got her a lot of work as a stuntwoman, sometimes in conjunction with a young Maine-born actor named John Ford in pictures directed by the latter's brother, Francis Ford. But Astor soon moved into serious acting roles; a tall, statuesque, angular woman, she frequently towered over the leading men of the era, and was, thus, ideal as a foil in comedies of the 1910s and '20s, playing aristocrats, gold diggers, and the heroine's best friend (had the character of Brenda Starr existed that far back, she'd have been perfect playing Hank O'Hair, her crusty female editor). Astor was the vamp who plants stolen money on Harry Langdon in The Strong Man (1926), Laura La Plante's wisecracking traveling companion in The Cat and the Canary (1927), and the gold digger who got her hooks into Otis Harlan (as well as attracting the attention of fellow sailor Eddie Gribbon) in Dames Ahoy. When talkies came in, Astor's deep, throaty voice assured her steady work in character parts, still mostly in comedy. Her roles weren't huge, but she worked prolifically at Hal Roach studios with such headliners as Laurel and Hardy, in the Our Gang shorts, and especially with Charley Chase, and also worked at Columbia Pictures' short subjects unit. Astor's specialty at this time was outraged dignity; she was forever declaring, "I've never been so embarrassed in all my life!" and stalking out of a slapstick situation, usually with a comedy prop (a balloon, a folding chairs, a cream puff) affixed to her posterior. Astor worked regularly into the early '60s; she was briefly glimpsed as the first murder victim in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Scarlet Claw (1944) and was among the ranks of dress extras in Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Her longtime friend John Ford also gave her roles in his feature films right into the early '60s, culminating with her appearance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Gertrude Astor remained alert and quick-witted into her eighties, cheerfully sharing her memories of the glory days of comedy short subjects with fans and film historians. And in a town that can scarcely remember last year's studio presidents, in 1975, when she was 87 years old, Astor was given a party at Universal, where she was honored by a gathering of old friends, including the directors George Cukor, Allan Dwan, and Henry Hathaway. She passed away suddenly and peacefully on the day of her 90th birthday in 1977.

Trivia: Eva Novak played the love interest of cowboy star Tom Mix in many of his films. The sister of actress Jane Novak, she got her start in the early '20s as one of Mack Sennett's bathing beauties. At the suggestion of Mix, Novak learned to perform her own stunts. Later she appeared opposite William S. Hart and continued doing her own stuntwork until 1921 when she married director/stuntman William Reed. The couple finished the 1920s in Australia where they made a few films until returning to the States in the 1930s. Novak continued appearing in films through the late '50s.

Trivia: Enjoying one of the longest screen careers on record, Irish-born, English-reared Al Ferguson became one of the silent era's busiest Western villains, his wolf-like features instantly recognizable to action fans everywhere. According to the actor himself, Ferguson had entered films with the American company as early as 1910, and by 1912, he was appearing in Selig Westerns under the name of "Smoke" Ferguson, often opposite action heroine Myrtle Steadman. In 1920, Ferguson played Hector Dion's henchman in the partially extant The Lost City, the first of more than 40 serials, silent and sound, in which he would appear. Still reasonably good-looking by the early '20s, Ferguson even attempted to become an action star in his own right, producing, directing, and starring in a handful of low-budget Westerns filmed in Oregon and released to the States' Rights market by Poverty Row mogul J. Charles Davis. None of these potboilers, which included The Fighting Romeo (1925), with Ferguson as a ranch foreman rescuing his employer's kidnapped daughter, made him a star, however, and he returned to ply his nefarious trade in low-budget oaters featuring the likes of Bob Steele and Tom Tyler. Today, Ferguson is perhaps best remembered as the main heavy in two Tarzan serials, Tarzan the Mighty (1928) and Tarzan the Tiger (1929), both starring Frank Merrill. The later survives intact and Ferguson emerges as a melodramatic screen villain at the top of his game.Like most of his contemporaries, including Bud Osborne and the silent era James Mason, Al Ferguson saw his roles decrease in stature after the advent of sound. Not because of his Irish accent, which had become all but undetectable, but mainly due to changing acting styles. Ferguson, however, hung in there and appeared in scores of sound Westerns and serials, not exclusively portraying villains but also playing lawmen, peaceful ranchers, townsmen, and even a Native American or two. By the 1950s, he had included television shows such as Sky King to his long resumé, but B-Westerns and serials remained Ferguson's bread and butter, the now veteran actor appearing in the cast of both Perils of the Wilderness (1956) and Blazing the Overland Trail (1956), the final chapter plays to be released in America.

Trivia: American silent-film actress Julia Faye made her film bow in The Lamb (1915), which also represented the first film appearance of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Though she photographed beautifully, Faye's acting skills were limited. It's possible she would have quickly faded from the scene without the sponsorship of producer/director Cecil B. DeMille. Faye appeared in sizeable roles in most of DeMille's extravaganzas of the '20s; her assignments ranged from the supporting part of an Aztec handmaiden in The Woman God Forgot (1918) to the wife of Pharoah in The Ten Commandments (1923). Offscreen, Faye became DeMille's mistress. The actress continued to work in DeMille's films into the sound era, at least until the personal relationship dissolved. By the '40s, Faye was washed up in films and hard up financially. DeMille responded generously by putting Faye on his permanent payroll, casting her in minor roles in his films of the '40s and '50s, and seeing to it that she was regularly hired for bit parts at the director's home studio of Paramount. Julia Faye's final appearance was in 1958's The Buccaneer, which also happened to be the last film ever produced by Cecil B. DeMille (it was directed by DeMille's son-in-law, Anthony Quinn).

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: Towheaded child actor Tommy Ivo played Cousin Arne in I Remember Mama (1948) but is perhaps better remembered for his appearances opposite Charles Starrett in Columbia's long-running "Durango Kid" Western series. Ivo popped up in no less than six entries, often mistaking the masked avenger for a real bandit but always wanting to emulate him by the fadeout -- just like the front-row kids of the day. Ivo was fairly busy in television in the late '40s and early '50s as well, so busy in fact that he earned the nickname "TV Tommy Ivo." When his career slowed down in the late '50s, Ivo found a new outlet for his talents -- as a professional hot rod driver.

Trivia: Seemingly placed on this earth to play hatchet-faced busybodies and spinsters, American actress Ottola Nesmith made her first film appearance in 1915's Still Waters. After a handful of subsequent films, Nesmith returned to the stage, then came back to Hollywood in 1935, where she remained until her retirement in 1965. Her screen roles include Lady Jane in Becky Sharp (1935), Mrs. Robinson in My Name Is Julia Ross (1946), and Mrs. Tugham in Cluny Brown (1946), as well as scores of anonymous nurses, governesses, maids, matrons, and senior-citizen-home residents. Ottola Nesmith's last appearance was in the Natalie Wood starrer Inside Daisy Clover (1967).

Trivia: A handsome leading man for the pioneering Lubin company in Philadelphia (1915's The Emerald God, 1916's The Beggar King), Jay Morley later portrayed mostly villains and often in serials and low-budget Westerns. He retired from the screen soon after the changeover to sound to become sheriff of Malibu, only to return in the 1950s, much heftier than before, a comeback probably facilitated by his son, Jay Jr., a costume designer at Universal.

Trivia: American general purpose actor Howard Negley made his screen bow as Nelson in 20th Century Fox's Smokey. Negley went on to reasonably prominent character parts in such B-pictures as Charlie Chan in the Trap (1947). For the most part, he played nameless bit parts as police captains, politicians, and reporters. Howard Negley was last seen as the Twentieth Century Limited conductor in Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959).

Trivia: Silent-film leading man Creighton Hale was brought to America from his native Ireland via a theatrical touring company. While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe film company and invited to appear before the cameras. His first film was the Pearl White serial The Exploits of Elaine, after which he rose to stardom in a series of adventure films and romantic dramas. Director D.W. Griffith used Hale as comedy relief in his films Way Down East (1920) and Orphans of the Storm (1922)--possibly Hale's least effective screen appearances, in that neither he nor Griffith were comedy experts. Despite his comparative failure in these films, Hale remained a popular leading man throughout the 1920s. When talking pictures arrived, Hale's star plummeted; though he had a pleasant, well-modulated voice, he was rapidly approaching fifty, and looked it. Most of Hale's talkie roles were unbilled bits, or guest cameos in films that spotlighted other silent movie veterans (e.g. Hollywood Boulevard and The Perils of Pauline). During the 1940s, Hale showed up in such Warner Bros. productions as Larceny Inc (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1943); this was due to the largess of studio head Jack Warner, who kept such faded silent favorites as Hale, Monte Blue and Leo White on permanent call. Creighton Hale's final appearance was in Warners' Beyond the Forest (1949).

Trivia: In films from 1932, American actor/stunt man Chuck Hamilton was a handy fellow to have around in slapstick comedies, tense cop melodramas and swashbucklers. Hamilton showed up in the faintly fascistic law-and-order epic Beast of the City (1932), the picaresque Harold Lloyd comedy Professor Beware (1938), and the flamboyant Errol Flynn adventure Against All Flags (1952). When not doubling for the leading players, he could be seen in minor roles as policemen, reporters, chauffeurs, stevedores and hoodlum. From time to time, Chuck Hamilton showed up in Native American garb, as he did in DeMille's Northwest Mounted Police (1940).

Trivia: Franz Waxman was among Hollywood's most talented composers of musical scores, best known for his suspenseful scores of many Hitchcock films. He was born Franz Wachsmann in 1906 in what is now Chrozow, Poland, and began playing piano as a child. At age 17, he enrolled in the Dresden Music Academy and later in the Berlin Music Conservatory, working nights playing piano in nightclubs and cafes. After a brief stint in the UFA, Waxman began scoring German films until 1934 when he was beaten up in Berlin by an anti-Semitic street gang. This caused him to move first to Paris, and then to the U.S. where he began scoring films in Hollywood. He founded the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947. In 1950, he won his first Oscar for the music of Sunset Boulevard. He won another in 1951 for A Place in the Sun, and was nominated several times after that.

Trivia: American writer/producer Charles Brackett followed in the tradition of his father, a New York legislator, by attending Harvard University. Completing his law studies after World War One service, Brackett turned to writing magazine articles and novels; this led to a stint as drama critic for The New Yorker. Upon the arrival of talkies in 1929, many of Brackett's literary works were optioned by Hollywood. It wasn't long before he was called to Tinseltown to write directly for the screen, though it wouldn't be until 1935 (three years after arriving in California) that he'd receive his first on-screen credit. Signed with Paramount, Brackett was obliged by the studio to write in tandem with Billy Wilder. The men argued constantly (Brackett thought that Wilder was "dirty-minded"), but what flowed from their typewriters was pure gold. When Wilder became a director, he continued to collaborate with Brackett, despite the fact that their mutual animosity had only increased with success. Brackett and Wilder shared an Oscar for Sunset Boulevard (1949) -- a project Brackett had opposed from the start; their stormy relationship ended shortly afterward. Despite their differences, Brackett and Wilder respected one another's talents, and when Brackett found himself enmeshed in a nasty legal tangle with 20th Century-Fox, it was Wilder who rallied the industry to his ex-partner's defense. Brackett won a second "best screenplay" Oscar for 1953's Titanic (1953); he was also president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1949 through 1955. After working on the 1962 remake of State Fair, Charles Brackett fell seriously ill and reluctantly went into retirement.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's most consistent and enduring filmmakers, Billy Wilder was also among its most daring. In feature after feature, in a wide variety of styles and genres, he explored the taboo subjects of the day with insight, wit, and trenchant cynicism; adultery, alcoholism, prostitution -- no topic was too controversial or too racy for Wilder's films. Unlike the majority of Hollywood's other historically provocative voices, however, he was a major commercial success as well as a critical favorite, with two of his features garnering Best Picture Oscars and numerous others honored with various Academy nominations. Sophisticated and acerbic, his intricate narratives, sparkling dialogue, and painterly visuals combined to illuminate the darker impulses of modern American society with rare brilliance.He was born Samuel Wilder in Sucha, Austria. After first studying law, he began a career as a journalist with a Vienna newspaper, later relocating to Berlin as a reporter for the city's largest tabloid. By 1929, he was working as a screenwriter, often collaborating with director Robert Siodmak. He swiftly became one of the German film industry's most prolific and sought-after writers, but Adolf Hitler's 1933 rise to power effectively brought his career to a halt as Wilder, a Jew, was forced to flee for his life.His first stop was France, where in 1934 he made his debut behind the camera, co-directing Mauvaise Graine with Alexander Esway. He soon landed in the United States, settling in Hollywood to begin his work anew. After moving in with Peter Lorre, Wilder set about learning English, eventually gaining entry into the American film industry with a 1934 adaptation of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein musical Music in the Air, directed by Joe May and starring Gloria Swanson. He worked on a number of other films including 1935's The Lottery Lover and 1937's Champagne Waltz prior to forging a writing partnership with Charles Brackett on 1938's That Certain Age. The Wilder/Brackett team quickly emerged as one of Hollywood's most successful pairings, with credits including Mitchell Leisen's 1939 Midnight, the 1939 Ernst Lubitsch classic Ninotchka, and Howard Hawks' stellar 1941 effort Ball of Fire, winning widespread acclaim for their distinctively sophisticated touch. Ultimately, Wilder's success as a writer also allowed him the opportunity to direct, and he bowed in 1942 with the Ginger Rogers vehicle The Major and the Minor. The wartime thriller Five Graves to Cairo followed in 1943, and the next year Wilder helmed his first classic, the masterful film noir Double Indemnity. Even more powerful was its follow-up, 1945's The Lost Weekend, a remarkably gritty and realistic portrayal of alcoholism which won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (for Wilder and Brackett), and Best Actor (Ray Milland).Wartime duties kept Wilder out of the filmmaking arena for several years, and he did not direct another film before 1948's The Emperor Waltz. Its follow-up, A Foreign Affair, earned the wrath of reviewers over its blackly comic treatment of life in postwar Berlin, but it was later reappraised as one of his stronger efforts. The 1950 Sunset Boulevard, on the other hand, was hailed as a classic immediately upon release, and the tale of a faded movie star (Swanson) -- the final screenplay from the Wilder/Brackett team -- went on to win the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. The bitter The Big Carnival followed in 1951, with the wartime dramatic comedy Stalag 17 winning star William Holden a Best Actor Oscar two years later. Upon completing the 1954 romantic comedy Sabrina, Wilder directed 1955's The Seven Year Itch, the first of his films to star Marilyn Monroe, and after a trio of 1957 efforts -- Love in the Afternoon (the first of many projects with new writing partner I.A.L. Diamond), the Charles Lindbergh biography The Spirit of St. Louis, and Witness for the Prosecution -- he closed out a decade of sustained excellence with the classic 1959 sex farce Some Like It Hot. The Apartment (1960) was the second of Wilder's movies to garner a Best Picture Oscar, and was followed a year later by One, Two, Three, which featured the final starring role of Jimmy Cagney.In comparison to the prolific brilliance of the previous two decades, Wilder's work during the 1960s frequently failed to measure up to his finest work, as the dark edginess of his halcyon years increasingly gave way to sentimentality. In 1963, Irma La Douce took a rare beating from critics, with the next year's Kiss Me, Stupid! faring no better. His 1966 The Fortune Cookie was a considerable return to form, but apart from a writing credit on the 1967 spoof Casino Royale, Wilder's name was missing from the screen for the remainder of the decade, and only in 1970 did he return with The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. After 1972's Avanti!, Wilder's pace continued to dwindle during the 1970s, with only two more features, 1974's The Front Page and 1978's Fedora, issued during the remainder of the decade. With the release of 1981's Buddy Buddy, he announced his retirement from filmmaking. In 1986, he was honored with the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, and two years later the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed upon him its Irving G. Thalberg Award.

Trivia: A rugged and trustworthy Western hero from Boston, silent screen cowboy Franklyn Farnum's appeal was closer to William S. Hart than Tom Mix. Farnum's road to screen stardom began in vaudeville and musical comedy. While he was not related to stage and screen stars William Farnum and Dustin Farnum, two legendary brothers who also hailed from Boston, he never really dissuaded the name association, and while he never achieved the same success as the other Farnums, it was not for lack of trying. Onscreen from around 1914, Franklyn Farnum was usually found in inexpensive Westerns and reached a plateau as the star of the 1920 serial The Vanishing Trails and a series of oaters produced independently by "Colonel" William N. Selig, formerly of the company that bore his name. In 1918, Farnum received quite a bit of press for marrying screen star Alma Rubens, but the union proved extremely short-lived. As busy in the 1920s as in the previous decade, Farnum made the changeover to sound smoothly enough, but he was growing older and leading roles were no longer an option. He maintained his usual hectic schedule throughout the following three decades, more often than not playing villains and doing bit parts, working well into the television Western era. For many years, Farnum was the president of the Screen Extras Guild. In 1961, Franklyn Farnum died of cancer at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: American actor, singer, and dancer Ralph Montgomery played character roles in vaudeville, radio, and television. Montgomery also appeared in numerous feature films from the '40s through the mid-'70s. In addition to performing, he also worked as a drama coach. His daughter is an actress and his son, Phil Montgomery, is an actor and producer.

Trivia: Boasting a colorful show-biz background as a circus and vaudeville performer, Robert Emmet O'Connor entered films in 1926. Blessed with a pudgy Irish mug that could convey both jocularity and menace, O'Connor was most often cast as cops and detectives, some of them honest and lovable, some of them corrupt and pugnacious. His roles ranged from such hefty assignments as the flustered plainclothesman Henderson in Night at the Opera (1935) to such bits as the traffic cop who is confused by Jimmy Cagney's barrage of Yiddish in Taxi! (1932). One of his most famous non-cop roles was warm-hearted bootlegger Paddy Ryan in Public Enemy. During the 1940s, O'Connor was a contract player at MGM, showing up in everything from Our Gang comedies to the live-action prologue of the Tex Avery cartoon classic Who Killed Who? (1944). Robert Emmet O'Connor's last film role was Paramount studio-guard Jonesy in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Twelve years later, he died of injuries sustained in a fire.

Trivia: A former prizefighter, nightclub bouncer and lifeguard, Jack Warden took to the stage after serving as a paratrooper in World War II. Warden's first professional engagement was with the Margo Jones repertory troupe in 1947. He made both his Broadway and film debuts in 1951, spending the next few years specializing in blunt military types and short-tempered bullies. Among his most notable screen roles of the 1950s was the homicidally bigoted factory foreman in Edge of the City and the impatient Juror #7 in Twelve Angry Men (both 1957). He was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of the cuckolded Lester in Warren Beatty's Shampoo (1975) and for his work as eternally flustered sports promoter Max Corkle in another Beatty vehicle, Heaven Can Wait (1978). He has also played the brusque, bluff President in Being There (1978); senile, gun-wielding judge Ray Ford in ...And Justice For All (1979); the twin auto dealers--one good, one bad--in Used Cars (1980); Paul Newman's combination leg-man and conscience in The Verdict (1982); shifty convenience store owner Big Ben in the two Problem Child films of the early 1990s; the not-so-dearly departed in Passed Away (1992); and Broadway high-roller Julian Marx in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). Extensive though his stage and screen credits may be, Warden has been just as busy on television, winning an Emmy for his portrayal of George Halas in Brian's Song (1969) and playing such other historical personages as Cornelius Ryan (1981's A Private Battle) and Mark Twain (1984's Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues). Barely stopping for air, Jack Warden has also starred or co-starred on the weekly TV series Mister Peepers (1953-55), The Asphalt Jungle (1961), Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965), NYPD (1967-68), Jigsaw John (1975), The Bad News Bears (1979) and Crazy Like a Fox (1984-85); and, had the pilot episode sold, Jack Warden was to have been the star in a 1979 revival of Topper. Though this was not to be for Warden, the gruff actor's age and affectionately sour demeanor found him essaying frequent albiet minor feature roles through the new millennium. Remaining in the public eye withn appearances in While You Were Sleeping (1995), Ed (1996), Bullworth (1998) and The Replacements (2000), the former welterweight fighter remained as dependable as ever when it came to stepping in front of the lens.