Trivia: The son and grandson of actors, Tyrone Power made his stage debut at age seven, appearing with his father in a stage production at San Gabriel Mission. After turning professional, Power supported himself between engagements working as a theater usher and other such odd jobs. Though in films as a bit actor since 1932, Power was not regarded as having star potential until appearing in Katherine Cornell's theatrical company in 1935. Signed by 20th Century Fox in 1936, Power was cast in a supporting role in the Simone Simon vehicle Girl's Dormitory; reaction from preview audiences to Fox's new contractee was so enthusiastic that Darryl F. Zanuck ordered that Power's part be expanded for the final release version. As Fox's biggest male star, Power was cast in practically every major production turned out by the studio from 1936 through 1940; though his acting skills were secondary to his drop-dead good looks, Power was a much better actor than he was given credit for at the time. He also handled his celebrity like an old pro; he was well liked by his co-stars and crew, and from all reports was an able and respected leader of men while serving as a Marine Corps officer during World War II. After the war, Power despaired at the thought of returning to pretty-boy roles, endeavoring to toughen his screen image with unsympathetic portrayals in such films as Nightmare Alley (1947) and Witness for the Prosecution. Though Power's popularity waned in the 1950s, he remained in demand for both stage and screen assignments. Like his father before him, Tyrone Power died "in harness," succumbing to a heart attack on the set of Solomon and Sheba (1958).

Trivia: At the peak of her career in the 1930s, Marlene Dietrich was the screen's highest-paid actress; moreover, she was also the very essence of cinematic eroticism, a beguiling creature whose almost supernatural allure established her among film's most enduring icons. While immensely sensual, Dietrich's persona was also strangely androgynous; her fondness for masculine attire -- suits, top hats, and the like -- not only spawned a fashion craze, it also created an added dimension of sexual ambiguity which served to make her even more magnetic. Born Maria Magdalena Dietrich outside of Berlin on December 27, 1901, she was the daughter of a Royal Prussian Police lieutenant. As a child, she studied the violin, and later tenured at the Deutsche Theaterschule. She made her film debut with a brief role in 1923's Der Kleine Napoleon, followed by a more substantial performance in Tragodie der Liebe; she later married the picture's casting director, Rudolf Sieber. After a series of other tiny roles, including an appearance in G.W. Pabst's 1924 effort Die Freudlose Gasse, Dietrich briefly retired; by 1926, however, she was back onscreen in Manion Lescaut, later followed by Alexander Korda's Madame Wuenscht Keine Kinder. After returning to the stage, Dietrich resumed her film career, typically cast as a coquettish socialite; still, she remained better known as a live performer, enjoying great success singing the songs of Mischa Spoliansky in a popular revue. Then, according to legend, director Josef von Sternberg claimed to have discovered her appearing in the cabaret Zwei Kravatten, and cast her in his 1930 film Der Blaue Engel; even before the picture premiered, von Sternberg offered a rough cut to his American studio Paramount, who signed her for Morocco, where she played a cabaret singer romancing both Adolph Menjou and Gary Cooper. Both films premiered in New York almost simultaneously, and overnight Dietrich was a star. Paramount signed her to a more long-term contract, at a cost of 125,000 dollars per film and with von Sternberg, who had become her lover, in the director's seat of each. The studio, in an unprecedented five-million-dollar publicity blitz, marketed her as a rival to Greta Garbo's supremacy; upon learning that Garbo was starring as Mata Hari, Paramount cast Dietrich as a spy in 1931's Dishonored in response. The follow-up, 1932's Shanghai Express, was Dietrich and von Sternberg's biggest American success. With Cary Grant, she then starred in Blonde Venus, but when the picture did not meet studio expectations, Paramount decided to separate the star from her director. Not only their working relationship was in a state of flux -- von Sternberg's wife unsuccessfully sued Dietrich (who had left her husband behind in Germany) for "alienation of affection" and libel. For Rouben Mamoulian, she starred in 1933's The Song of Songs amidst a flurry of rumors that she was on the verge of returning to Germany - no less than Adolf Hitler himself had ordered her to come back. However, Dietrich remained in the States, and her films were consequently banned in her homeland. Instead, she played Catherine the Grea in von Sternberg's 1934 epic The Scarlet Empress; it was a financial disaster, as was their follow-up, the lavish The Devil Is a Woman. In its wake, von Sternberg announced he had taken Dietrich as far as he could, and begged off of future projects. A much-relieved Paramount set about finding her projects which would be more marketable, if less opulent. The first was the 1936 romantic comedy Desire, directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It was a hit, with all indications pointing to comedy as the best direction for Dietrich's career to take. Again with Lubitsch, she began work on I Loved a Soldier, but after a few days, production was halted after she refused to continue following a number of changes to the script. Instead, Dietrich next starred in the Technicolor remake of The Garden of Allah, followed by Korda's Knight Without Armour. Reuniting with Lubitsch, she headlined 1937's Angel, but again actress and director frequently feuded. Her offscreen reputation continued to worsen when it was revealed that director Mitchell Leisen had refused to work with her on French Without Tears. Combined with diminishing box-office returns, Paramount agreed to buy Dietrich out of her remaining contract. She remained a critical favorite, but audiences clearly did not like her. A number of projects were rumored to be under consideration, but she did not appear again in films for over two years. For less than 50,000 dollars, Dietrich agreed to co-star with James Stewart in the 1939 Western satire Destry Rides Again. The picture was a surprise smash, and with her career seemingly resuscitated, Universal signed her to a contract. The follow-up, 1940's Seven Sinners, was also a hit, but Rene Clair's 1941 effort The Flame of New Orleans lacked distinction. A series of disappointments -- The Lady Is Willing, The Spoilers, and Pittsburgh -- followed in 1942, with Dietrich reportedly so disheartened with her work that she considered retirement. Instead, she mounted a series of lengthy tours entertaining wartime troops before returning to films in 1944's Follow the Boys, followed by Kismet. She and Jean Gabin were next scheduled to star in Marcel Carne's Les Portes de la Nuit, but both stars balked at their roles and exited the project; the media was incensed -- at the time, Carne was the most highly respected director in French cinema -- and when Dietrich and Gabin both agreed to appear in 1946's Martin Roumagnac, reviews were unkind. She starred in Golden Earrings, followed in 1948 by Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair. When her daughter gave birth to a child soon after, Dietrich was declared "the world's most glamorous grandmother." Although her box-office stature had long remained diminished, Dietrich was still, irrefutably, a star; for all of her notorious behavior and apparent disinterest in filmmaking, she needed Hollywood as badly as it needed her -- the studios wanted her fame, and she wanted their hefty paychecks. For Alfred Hitchcock, Dietrich starred in 1950's Stage Fright and a year later reunited with Stewart in No Highway in the Sky. Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious followed in 1952, but it was to be Dietrich's final film for over four years. A cameo in Around the World in 80 Days announced her return to movies, with starring turns in The Monte Carlo Story and Witness for the Prosecution arriving a year later. After briefly appearing in Orson Welles' masterful Touch of Evil in 1958, Dietrich again disappeared from screens for a three-year stretch, resurfacing in 1961's Judgment at Nuremberg. The 1964 feature Paris When It Sizzles was Dietrich's final movie appearance for over a decade. Instead she toured the world, even scoring a major European hit single with "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" As the years went on, however, a long-standing bout with drinking continued to accelerate, and she often appeared inebriated during performances; after falling off of the stage and suffering a compound fracture of the leg, she retired from the cabaret circuit, making one last film, 1978's Schoener Gigolo, Armer Gigolo. A brief return to music was announced, but outside of a few performances, Dietrich was largely inactive from the early '80s on. In 1984, she agreed to produce a documentary portrait, Marlene, and while submitting to recorded interviews, she demanded not to be photographed. In a final nod to Garbo, she spent the last decade of her life in almost total seclusion in her Paris apartment and was bed-ridden throughout the majority of her final years; Dietrich died on May 6, 1992. She was 90.

Trivia: Tortured but brilliant British actor Charles Laughton's unique performances made him a compelling performer both on stage and in film. After starting his career as an hotel manager, Laughton switched to acting. His performances in London's West End plays brought him early acclaim, which eventually led him to the Old Vic, Broadway and Hollywood. When he repeated his stage success in The Private Life of Henry VIII for Alexander Korda on film in 1933, he won a "Best Actor" Oscar. Known both for his fascination with the darker side of human behavior and for his comic touch, Laughton should be watched as a frightening Nero in Sign of the Cross (1932), the triumphant employee in If I Had a Million (1932), the evil doctor in Island of Lost Souls (1932), the incestuous father in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), the irrepressible Ruggles in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), the overbearing Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), which garnered him another Oscar nomination, and the haunted hunchback in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), with a very young Maureen O'Hara. During the war years, he played some light roles in Tales of Manhattan (1942), Forever and a Day (1943) and The Canterville Ghost (1944), among others. By the late '40s, Laughton sought greater challenges and returned to the stage in The Life of Galileo, which he translated from Bertolt Brecht's original and co-directed. As stage director and/or performer, he made Don Juan in Hell in 1951, John Brown's Body in 1953, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial in 1954, and Shaw's Major Barbara in 1956, all in New York. When he returned to England in 1959, he appeared in Stratford-upon-Avon productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and King Lear. Later film appearances include O. Henry's Full House (1952), Hobson's Choice (1954), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) (which gave him another Oscar nomination), Spartacus (1960) and Advise and Consent (1962). Laughton was married from 1929 to his death to actress Elsa Lanchester, with whom he occasionally appeared. His direction of the film The Night of the Hunter (1955) is critically acclaimed.

Trivia: Eccentric, high-voiced British comedienne/actress Elsa Lanchester started her career as a modern dancer, appearing with Isadora Duncan. Lanchester can be seen bringing unique and usually humorous interpretations to roles in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), opposite husband Charles Laughton; The Bride of Frankenstein (1934), where she appears both as a subdued Mary Shelley and a hissing bride; David Copperfield and Naughty Marietta (both 1935); Tales of Manhattan (1942) and Forever and a Day (1943), both with Laughton; Lassie Come Home (1943), in which she is unusually subdued as the mother; The Bishop's Wife (1947); The Inspector General and The Secret Garden (1949); and Come to the Stable (1949), for which she was nominated for an Oscar. She and Laughton are riotous together in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), for which she was also Oscar-nominated, and she also appeared in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and the Disney films Mary Poppins (1964), as the departing nanny Katie Nanna, and in That Darn Cat (1965). One of her best late performances was in Murder by Death (1976). Lanchester was also an actress at London's Old Vic, an outlandish singer, and a nightclub performer; she co-starred on The John Forsythe Show (1965-66), and was a regular on Nanny and the Professor in 1971.

Trivia: British actor John Williams is noted for his suave, perfectly-mannered characters. He is best remembered for his portrayal as Inspector Hubbard on the stage, screen and television versions of Dial M for Murder. Born in Chalfon St. Giles, England, Williams began his career on the stage at 13. By the age of 21, he was playing leads and sophisticated characters in Broadway plays. Beginning in the mid '30s, he began appearing in British films. By the '40s he was playing in Hollywood productions; he continued in film until the late '70s.

Trivia: With his haughty demeanor and near-satanic features, British actor Henry Daniell was the perfect screen "gentleman villain" in such major films of the 1930s and 1940s as Camille (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). An actor since the age of 18, Daniell worked in London until coming to America in an Ethel Barrymore play. He co-starred with Ruth Gordon in the 1929 Broadway production Serena Blandish, in which he won critical plaudits in the role of Lord Iver Cream. Making his movie debut in Jealousy (1929)--which co-starred another stage legend, Jeanne Eagels--Daniell stayed in Hollywood for the remainder of his career, most often playing cold-blooded aristocrats in period costume. He was less at home in action roles; he flat-out refused to participate in the climactic dueling scene in The Sea Hawk (1940), compelling star Errol Flynn to cross swords with a none too convincing stunt double. Daniell became something of a regular in the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films made at Universal in the 1940s--he was in three entries, playing Professor Moriarty in The Woman in Green (1945). Though seldom in pure horror films, Daniell nonetheless excelled in the leading role of The Body Snatcher (1945). When the sort of larger-than-life film fare in which Daniell specialized began disappearing in the 1950s, the actor nonetheless continued to prosper in both films (Man in the Grey Flannel Suit [1956], Witness for the Prosecution [1957]) and television (Thriller, The Hour of St. Francis, and many other programs). While portraying Prince Gregor of Transylvania in My Fair Lady (1964), under the direction of his old friend George Cukor, Daniell died suddenly; his few completed scenes remained in the film, though his name was removed from the cast credits.

Trivia: Ian Wolfe was determined to become an actor even as a youth in his hometown of Canton, IL. His Broadway debut was in the warhorse Lionel Barrymore vehicle The Claw. While acting with Katherine Cornell in The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1934, Wolfe was spotted by MGM producer Irving Thalberg, who brought the actor to Hollywood to re-create his Barretts role. Though not yet 40, Wolfe had the receding hairline and lined features necessary for aged character roles. By his own count, Wolfe appeared in over 200 films, often uncredited assignments in the roles of judges, attorneys, butlers, and shopkeepers. Some of his best screen moments occurred in producer Val Lewton's Bedlam (1946), wherein Wolfe played an 18th century scientist confined to a mental asylum for proposing the invention of motion pictures. Because his actual age was difficult to pinpoint, Wolfe kept working into the 1990s (and his nineties); he was a particular favorite of TV's MTM productions, appearing on such sitcoms as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and Rhoda. Co-workers during this period noted affectionately that, despite his many years as a professional, Wolfe was always seized with "stage fright" just before walking on the set. Though often cast in timid roles, Ian Wolfe was quite outspoken and fiercely defensive of his craft; when asked what he thought of certain method actors who insist upon playing extensions of "themselves," Wolfe snapped that he became an actor to pretend to be other people.

Trivia: With the body of a scarecrow, the contemptuous stare of a house detective, and the voice of an air-raid siren, Irish-born Una O'Connor was one of filmdom's most unforgettable character actresses. Beginning her career with Dublin's Abbey Players and extending her activities to the London's West End and Broadway, O'Connor was cast as the socially conscious housekeeper in Noel Coward's 1932 London production Cavalcade; it was this role which brought her to Hollywood in 1933. She rapidly became a favorite of two prominent directors, James Whale and John Ford, neither of whom were inclined to ask her to tone down her film performances. For Whale, O'Connor screeched her way through two major 1930s horror films, The Invisible Man (1933) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935); for Ford, O'Connor played the grieving mother of martyred IRA activist Wallace Ford in The Informer (1935) and Mrs. Grogan in The Plough and the Stars (1936). For those detractors who believe that O'Connor never gave a subtle, controlled performance in her life, refer to Lubitsch's Cluny Brown (1946), wherein Ms. O'Connor spoke not a single word as the glowering mother of upper-class twit Richard Haydn. Fourteen years after portraying Charles Laughton's overprotective mother in This Land Is Mine (1943), Una O'Connor once more appeared opposite Laughton in 1957's Witness for the Prosecution, playing a hard-of-hearing housekeeper; it was her last screen performance.

Trivia: Torin Thatcher came out of a military family in India to become a top stage actor in England and a well-known character actor in international films and television. Born Torin Herbert Erskine Thatcher in Bombay, India, in 1905, he was the great-grandson and grandson of generals -- one of whom had fought with Clive -- but he planned for a quieter life; educated at Bedford School, he originally intended to become a teacher before being bitten by the acting bug. Instead, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and later worked in every kind of theatrical production there was, from Greek tragedy to burlesque. Thatcher made his London debut in 1927 as Tranio in a production of The Taming of the Shrew with the Old Vic Company, and he subsequently portrayed both the Ghost and Claudius in Hamlet with the same company. In the years that followed, Thatcher was in more than 50 Shakespearean productions and 20 plays by George Bernard Shaw. The outbreak of the Second World War took Thatcher into uniform, and he served for six years in the army, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel before he returned to civilian life in 1946. In 1944, Thatcher had made his first acquaintance of the theater world in New York when he found himself on leave in the city with only ten shillings in his pocket -- he spent it sparingly and discovered that Allied servicemen, even officers, were accorded a great many perks in those days; he was also amazed and delighted when he was recognized while on his way into a play in New York by a theatergoer who was able to name virtually every movie that he'd done in England over the preceding decade. He got a firsthand look at the city's generosity and also made sure to meet a number of people associated with the New York theater scene, contacts that served him in good stead when he returned to New York in 1946, as a civilian eager to pick up his career. He starred in two plays opposite Katharine Cornell, First Born and That Lady, and portrayed Claggart in a stage adaptation of Billy Budd, but his big success was in Noel Langley and Robert Morley's Edward My Son. Thatcher had been in movies in England since 1933, in small roles, occasionally in major and important films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937) and Michael Powell's The Spy in Black (1939); his British career had peaked with a superb performance in a small but important role in Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol (1948). After moving to the United States, however, Thatcher quickly moved up to starring and major supporting roles in Hollywood movies, beginning with Affair in Trinidad (1952). He was busy at 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. over the next decade, moving between their American and British units, and stood out in such hit movies as The Crimson Pirate (1952) (as the pirate Humble Bellows) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Although Thatcher could play benevolent characters, his intense expression and presence and imposing physique made him more natural as a villain, and he spent his later career in an array of screen malefactors, of whom the best known was the sorcerer Sokurah in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), directed by Nathan Juran. Thatcher and Juran were close friends and the director loved to use him -- the two became a kind of double act together for a time, turning up in "The Space Trader" episode of Lost in Space, guest-starring Thatcher and directed by Juran.

Trivia: The daughter of a retired sea captain, British actress Norma Varden was a piano prodigy. After study in Paris, she played concerts into her teens, but at last decided that this was be an uncertain method of making a living--so she went to the "security" of acting. In her first stage appearance in Peter Pan, Varden, not yet twenty, portrayed the adult role of Mrs. Darling, setting the standard for her subsequent stage and film work; too tall and mature-looking for ingenues, she would enjoy a long career in character roles. Bored with dramatic assignments, Varden gave comedy a try at the famous Aldwych Theatre, where from 1929 through 1933 she was resident character comedienne in the theatre's well-received marital farces. After her talkie debut in the Aldwych comedy A Night Like This (1930), she remained busy on the British film scene for over a decade. Moving to Hollywood in 1941, she found that the typecasting system frequently precluded large roles: Though she was well served as Robert Benchley's wife in The Major and the Minor (1942), for example, her next assignment was the unbilled role of a pickpocket victim's wife in Casablanca (1942). Her work encompassed radio as well as films for the rest of the decade; in nearly all her assignments Norma played a haughty British or New York aristocrat who looked down with disdain at the "commoners." By the '50s, she was enjoying such sizeable parts as the society lady who is nearly strangled by Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951), the bejeweled wife of "sugar daddy" Charles Coburn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and George Sanders' dragonlike mother in Jupiter's Darling (1955). Norma Varden's greatest film role might have been as the mother superior in The Sound of Music (1965), but the producers decided to go with Peggy Wood, consigning Varden to the small but showy part of Frau Schmidt, the Von Trapps' housekeeper. After countless television and film assignments, Norma Varden retired in 1972, spending most of her time thereafter as a spokesperson for the Screen Actors Guild, battling for better medical benefits for older actors.

Trivia: "Maybe he's only a little crazy, like painters or artists, or those men in Washington," Philip Tonge's apprehensive toy-department head, Mr. Shellhammer, pleaded in defense of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) in the holiday perennial Miracle on 34th St. (1947), perhaps the veteran stage actor's most memorable screen assignment. Tonge was a former child performer and lifelong friend and associate of Noël Coward (who publicly claimed to have had his initial sexual encounter with him at the age of 13). The British-born actor had originated the part of Dr. Bradman in the initial Broadway production of Blithe Spirit in 1941, a role he would re-create for an early television presentation five years later. Noticeable by his prominent proboscis and a receding chin, Tonge also added memorable moments to such diverse films as Witness for the Prosecution (1957) as the inspector, and the sci-fi thriller Invisible Invaders (1959). He ended his long career playing the recurring role of General Amherst on television's Northwest Passage (1958-1959).

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: Character actress Marjorie Eaton came to films in middle age. From 1946 on, she appeared onscreen in such films as Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Time of Their Lives (1946), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Mary Poppins (1964), usually cast as domestics. She also did some voiceover work in the Disney feature-length cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s. Marjorie Eaton died shortly after appearing in her last film, 1986's Crackers.

Trivia: The background of Irish-born comic actor J. Pat O'Malley has frequently been misreported in source books because his credits have been confused with those of silent film star Pat O'Malley. J. Pat started out in the British musical halls, then came to the U.S. at the outbreak of WWII. Achieving radio fame for his versatile voicework, O'Malley carried over this talent into the world of animated cartoons, providing a multitude of vocal characterizations in such Disney cartoon features as Alice in Wonderland (1951) and 101 Dalmatians (1961), among others. The portly, leprechaunish O'Malley essayed on-camera character parts in films like Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Mary Poppins (1965). He was a near-habitual TV guest star, with appearances in several fondly remembered Twilight Zone episodes; he also worked extensively on Broadway. J. Pat O'Malley had regular roles on the TV sitcoms Wendy and Me (1964) and A Touch of Grace (1973).

Trivia: Irish actor Colin Kenny was in films from 1917. Kenny was seen as Cecil Greystoke, Tarzan's romantic rival, in Tarzan of the Apes (1918) and its sequel The Romance of Tarzan (1918). In talkies, Kenny was consigned to such single-scene roles as the Talking Clock in Alice in Wonderland (1933) and Sir Baldwin in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938); he also showed up as British-India military officers and Scotland Yard operatives. Colin Kenny kept working until 1964, when he and dozens of his fellow British expatriates appeared in My Fair Lady (1964).

Trivia: The faces of most movie extras are unmemorable blurs in the public's memory. Not so the elegant, statuesque Bess Flowers, who was crowned by appreciative film buffs as "Queen of the Hollywood Dress Extras." After studying drama (against her father's wishes) at the Carnegie Inst of Technology, Flowers intended to head to New York, but at the last moment opted for Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922, subsequently appearing prominently in such productions as Hollywood (1922) and Chaplin's Woman of Paris (1923). Too tall for most leading men, Flowers found her true niche as a supporting actress. By the time talkies came around, Flowers was mostly playing bits in features, though her roles were more sizeable in two-reel comedies; she was a special favorite of popular short-subject star Charley Chase. Major directors like Frank Lloyd always found work for Flowers because of her elegant bearing and her luminescent gift for making the people around her look good. While generally an extra, Flowers enjoyed substantial roles in such films as Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), Gregory La Cava's Private Worlds and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937). In 1947's Song of the Thin Man, the usually unheralded Flowers was afforded screen billing. Her fans particularly cherish Flowers' bit as a well-wisher in All About Eve (1950), in which she breaks her customary screen silence to utter "I'm so happy for you, Eve." Flowers was married twice, first to Cecil B. DeMille's legendary "right hand man" Cullen Tate, then to Columbia studio manager William S. Holman. After her retirement, Bess Flowers made one last on-camera appearance in 1974 when she was interviewed by NBC's Tom Snyder.

Trivia: Stout, hearty character actor Jack Raine specialized in light comedy and dramatic roles throughout most of his career. He made his first film in 1930 and his last in 1971, seldom rising above the supporting players' ranks but always remaining busy. His better-known screen assignments included Trebonius in Joseph Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar; his Broadway credits included the short-lived 1952 production Sherlock Holmes, in which he played Dr. Watson opposite Basil Rathbone's Holmes. Married three times, Jack Raine's wives included actresses Binnie Hale and Sonia Somers.

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: Before joining the film industry, American author Harry Kurnitz was a reporter. He came to Hollywood in 1938 to help adapt his story Fast Company. Kurnitz then stayed to collaborate on dozens of screenplays. In addition to film writing, he published novels; for his detective thrillers, and some of his scripts, he used the pen-name Marco Page.

Trivia: California-born Russell Harlan broke into movies as a bit player and stuntman in western movies. But he had a hankering to enter the technical end of the business, so he was given his first opportunities as a cinematographer on Paramount's Hopalong Cassidy series. Harry "Pop" Sherman, producer of the Cassidy pictures, liked what he saw and retained Harlan for his bigger-budgeted productions of the '40s, including Silver Queen (1942) and American Empire (1943). Harlan began his fruitful association with director Howard Hawks on Red River (1948). Hawks again utilized Harlan's talents on The Thing (1951), The Big Sky (1952), Land of the Pharoahs (1955), Rio Bravo (1959) and Hatari (1962). Facing up to any and all challenges in his five-decade career (including conveying the rich colors of Van Gogh's canvases in Lust for Life [1955] using only the muddy hues of Eastmancolor) Russell Harlan retired in 1970 after finishing work on Blake Edwards' Darling Lili.