Trivia: At the peak of her career, actress Debbie Reynolds was America's sweetheart, the archetypal girl-next-door. Best remembered for her work in Hollywood musicals, she appeared in the genre's defining moment, Singin' in the Rain, as well as many other notable successes. Born Mary Frances Reynolds on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, TX, she entered the film industry by winning the Miss Burbank beauty contest in 1948, resulting in a contract with Warner Bros. However, the studio cast her in small roles in only two films -- 1948's The June Bride and 1950's The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady -- and she soon exited for the greener pastures of MGM, where she first appeared in Three Little Words. A more significant turn in 1950's Two Weeks With Love garnered Reynolds strong notices, and soon she was touted as the new Judy Garland, with a role in 1951's Mr. Imperium also on the horizon.Though star Gene Kelly initially opposed her casting in his 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain, Reynolds acquitted herself more than admirably alongside the likes of Donald O'Connor and Jean Hagen, and the film remains one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever produced. A series of less distinguished musicals followed, among them 1953's I Love Melvin, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, and Give a Girl a Break. On loan to RKO, she scored a major success in 1954's Susan Slept Here, and upon returning to MGM she was awarded with a new and improved seven-year contract. However, the studio continued to insert Reynolds into lackluster projects like the health-fad satire Athena and the musical Hit the Deck. Finally, in 1955, she appeared opposite Frank Sinatra in the hit The Tender Trap, followed by a well-regarded turn as a blushing bride in The Catered Affair a year later.Additionally, Reynolds teamed with real-life husband Eddie Fisher in the musical Bundle of Joy. The couple's children also went on to showbiz success: Daughter Carrie Fisher became a popular actress, novelist, and screenwriter, while son Todd became a director. In 1957, Reynolds starred in Tammy and the Bachelor, the first in a series of popular teen films which also included 1961's Tammy Tell Me True, 1963's Tammy and the Doctor, and 1967's Tammy and the Millionaire. Her other well-received films of the period included 1959's It Started With a Kiss, 1961's The Pleasure of His Company, and 1964's The Unsinkable Molly Brown, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1959, Reynolds' marriage to Fisher ended in divorce when he left her for Elizabeth Taylor. The effect was an outpouring of public sympathy which only further increased her growing popularity, and it was rumored that by the early '60s, she was earning millions per picture. By the middle of the decade, however, Reynolds' star was waning. While described by the actress herself as her favorite film, 1966's The Singing Nun was not the hit MGM anticipated. Its failure finally convinced the studio to offer her roles closer to her own age, but neither 1967's Divorce American Style nor the next year's How Sweet It Is performed well, and Reynolds disappeared from the screen to mount her own television series, the short-lived Debbie Reynolds Show. In 1971, she appeared against type in the campy horror picture What's the Matter with Helen?, but when it too failed, she essentially retired from movie making, accepting voice-over work as the title character in the animated children's film Charlotte's Web but otherwise remaining away from Hollywood for over a decade.Reynolds then hit the nightclub circuit, additionally appearing on Broadway in 1974's Irene. In 1977, she also starred in Annie Get Your Gun. By the 1980s, Reynolds had become a fixture in Las Vegas, where she ultimately opened her own hotel and casino, regularly performing live in the venue's nightclub and even opening her own museum of Hollywood memorabilia. In 1987, she reappeared in front of the camera for the first time in years in the TV movie Sadie and Son, followed in 1989 by Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder. In 1992, Reynolds appeared briefly as herself in the hit film The Bodyguard, and a small role in Oliver Stone's 1993 Vietnam tale Heaven and Earth marked her second tentative step toward returning to Hollywood on a regular basis. Finally, in 1996 she accepted the title role in the acclaimed Albert Brooks comedy Mother, delivering what many critics declared the best performance of her career. The comedies Wedding Bell Blues and In and Out followed in 1996 and 1997. She continued to work in animated projects, and often allowed herself to be interviewed for documentaries about movie and dance history. She made a cameo as herself in Connie and Carla, and in 2012 she had her most high-profile gig in quite some time when she was cast as Grandma Mazur in One for the Money. In 2015, Reynolds was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Reynolds died in 2016, at age 84, just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher died.

Trivia: First earning an international reputation in opera and musical comedy, Harve Presnell made his feature-film debut in the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown playing opposite Debbie Reynolds. Though he has spent the bulk of his career on the stage, Presnell periodically appeared in other films through the '70s. After taking no film roles in the '80s, Presnell re-emerged in the Coen brothers' Fargo (1996) and continued to play character roles in films such as Julian Po (1997) and Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Trivia: Born in Connecticut to an immigrant Irish couple, Ed Begley ran away from home several times before making a complete break from both his family and his formal education at the age of 13. For the next two decades, Begley knocked around in a variety of activities, from Naval service to working as bowling alley pin boy, before obtaining an announcer's job at a Hartford radio station in 1931. Ten years later, Begley moved to New York, where he became a prolific radio actor; from 1944 through 1948, he played the title role in the radio version of Charlie Chan. His belated Broadway debut at age 43 came in a short-lived play titled Land of Fame. In 1947, Begley created the role of benighted war profiteer Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons; that same year, he was assigned a solid supporting part in his first film, Boomerang (1947). He was a familiar figure in TV's "golden age" of the 1950s, co-starring in the original video productions of Twelve Angry Men and Patterns. In 1955, he made the first of 789 appearances as the William Jennings Bryan counterpart in the Broadway drama Inherit the Wind, co-starring first with Paul Muni and then with Melvyn Douglas. Despite his ever-increasing activity, Ed Begley was standing in the unemployment compensation line in 1961 when he was informed that he'd been Oscar-nominated for his performance in Sweet Bird of Youth. Justifiably proud of his Oscar statuette, Begley reportedly carried it with him everywhere he went, even on short airplane flights! Ed Begley died at 69 while attending a party at the home of Hollywood press agent Jay Bernstein; he was the father of popular movie and TV leading man Ed Begley Jr.

Trivia: A descendant of British revolutionary war officer Henry Clinton, Hermione Baddeley was an actress from the age of six; she made her London stage debut in 1918, and her first film, A Daughter in Revolt, in 1926. An ingenue for many years, Hermione began receiving more substantial roles as she approached middle age; among her best assignments were the stage and film versions of Brighton Rock. Her first Broadway play was 1960's The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More, accepting her leading role on the personal invitation of the production's playwright, Tennessee Williams. Unlike her sister Angela Baddeley, who became internationally known for her portrayal of Mrs. Bridges in the BBC TV production Upstairs Downstairs, Hermione Baddeley resisted series television--at least until she was persuaded by producer Norman Lear to tackle the role of acidulous housekeeper Mrs. Naugatuck on the 1970s American sitcom Maude.

Trivia: Husky, bushy-mustached, frequently unkempt Canadian actor Jack Kruschen appeared steadily on radio from 1938 onward. He began playing small film roles in 1949, often cast as minor villains and braying bullies. He became a cult favorite after playing one of the three earliest victims (the Hispanic one) of the Martian death ray in George Pal's War of the Worlds (1953). His larger film roles included MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer in the Carol Lynley version of Harlow (1965), and the remonstrative physician neighbor of Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960); the latter assignment copped a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination for Kruschen. A tireless TV performer, Kruschen has guested in a variety of roles on most of the top video offerings, and was a regular in the 1977 sitcom Busting Loose, playing the father of Adam Arkin. Relatively inactive after 1980, Jack Kruschen made a welcome return in PBS' 1993 adaptation of Arthur Miller's The American Clock.

Trivia: Brooklyn-born Harvey Lembeck was a nightclub and Broadway comedian at the time of his 1951 film bow in You're in the Navy Now. The roly-poly, nasal-voiced Lembeck was most often cast as the wise-guy comedy relief in war films, most notably Stalag 17 (1953), in which Lembeck and bearlike Robert Strauss repeated their stage roles as "court jesters" in a dismal POW camp (the two actors would later be reteamed in the 1961 Jack Webb picture The Last Time I Saw Archie, not to mention a series of TV commercials in the mid-1960s). Harvey remained in uniform for a four-year hitch as Corporal Barbella on the popular 1950s Phil Silvers sitcom You'll Never Get Rich. In 1963's Beach Party, Lembeck made the first of several sidesplitting appearances as leather-jacketed Brando wannabe Eric von Zipper, whose attempts to prove his toughness to his fellow bikers always came a-cropper; in Beach Blanket Bingo, for example, he was cut in twain by a buzzsaw, moaning "Why Me?" even as his two halves fell bloodlessly to the floor. During the 1970s and early 1980s, Harvey Lembeck directed several TV sitcom episodes, and also operated a training school for aspiring comedians; carrying on the "family business" after Harvey's death was his son, actor/director Michael Lembeck.

Trivia: Best remembered for playing Mrs. MacGillicuddy, Lucy's mother, on the I Love Lucy television show, prim-looking Kathryn Card had primarily been a radio actress prior to entering films in 1945. In addition to her many screen roles, Card also appeared in guest-starring roles on such television series as The Lone Ranger, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Rawhide.

Trivia: An alumnus of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Brooklyn-born Hayden Rorke became a member of the original Walter Hampden theatrical company in the early '30s (he ended up the last surviving member of that hardy troupe). While serving in WWII, Rorke appeared in both the road company and film versions of the all-serviceman musical This Is the Army. He would make 70 Broadway appearances in his career, in additional to some 50 films and nearly 400 TV shows. Though usually unbilled, Rorke was instantly recognizable in roles calling for erudition and urbanity, notably in such films as An American in Paris (1951) and The Robe (1953). Among his many TV assignments was the role of CBS radio announcer John Daly (though his character was not identified by name) in the Pearl Harbor episode of the CBS historical series You Are There; he also co-starred in the two-part pilot for an intriguing 1951 science fiction series Project Moonbase, which didn't make it as a series but was released as a theatrical feature. Still essaying small movie roles into the 1960s, Hayden Rorke finally achieved a fame (and generous screen time) in the continuing role of flustered air force psychiatrist Dr. Bellows on the fanciful TV sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970).

Trivia: American character actor Harry Holcombe was involved in radio, television and in feature films during the '60s and '70s. Films appearances include The Silencers, The Manchurian Candidate, The Graduate and Fun with Dick and Jane. During the '80s, Holcombe appeared in television commercials.

Trivia: Born to British parents in Argentina, Martita Hunt was raised on a ranch in that South American country. She first set foot in England at age 10, when her family moved back. In 1920, one year before her stage debut with the Liverpool Repertory, Hunt appeared in an obscure 2-reel comedy, A Rank Outsider. From 1923 through 1932, she was exclusively a London stage actress; she made her talking picture debut in Reserved for Ladies (1932), then spent the remainder of her career alternating between stage and screen assignments. Whether playing the regal Queen Matilda in Becket (1964) or the balmy Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, Hunt was always every inch the lady on screen (Well, nearly always; after all, she did play the blowsy "Ma" in 1941's East of Piccadilly).

Trivia: American actor Vaughn Taylor was trained as a certified public accountant at Northeastern University. While performing in college theatricals, Taylor entertained notions of a stage career; he won a scholarship at the Leland Powers School of Theatre, but his resources were so low that he had to sell his blood to blood banks to pay his expenses. Steady stock, tent-show, and radio work convinced Taylor that he'd made the right career move, and upon completing his Army duties in 1945, the actor took on the new challenge of live television. Taylor played so many TV roles that it is fruitless to try to list them, though the first "couch potato generation" might have affectionate memories of the actor as sharp-witted janitor Ernest P. Duckweather on the 1953 satirical puppet show Johnny Jupiter. (Taylor was replaced by Wright King when the series went from live to film). Taylor was also a prominent "summer repertory" actor on the prestigious anthology Robert Montgomery Presents from 1952 through 1954. The movies utilized Taylor's talents, often in roles as duplicitous executives or crooked business partners: he was the two-timing showman beheaded by magician Vincent Price in The Mad Magician (1954). Anyone who follows the reruns of The Twilight Zone will be more than familiar with the skill and range of Vaughn Taylor: he played bookworm Burgess Meredith's hardhearted boss in "Time Enough at Last," a crazed old conjurer in "Still Valley," an unctuous robot salesman in "I Sing the Body Electric" and a kindly wheelchair-bound gent who sells his kindness and becomes a killer in "The Self-Improvement of Salvatore Ross."

Trivia: On stage since 1943, American actress Audrey Christie entered films with 1952's Deadline USA. She settled into a series of brittle roles as "other women," supercilious society dragons, or blowsy older ladies whom the younger hero had unwisely taken up with. Examples of Christie's screen personae include her performance in Carousel (1956) as Mrs. Mullins, the employer and erstwhile lover of ne'er-do-well carney barker Billy Bigelow (Gordon MacRae). In 1961's Splendor in the Grass, Christie was the frustrated, authoritarian mother of mixed-up teenager Natalie Wood, whose nastiness all but forced Wood into her tryst with Warren Beatty. A more glamorous but no less unpleasant Christie appeared in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), as a pretentious Denver society leader whose snooty attitude towards nouveau riche Molly Brown (Debbie Reynolds) earns her a pie in the face. Audrey Christie also did plenty of television, including a stint on the very early live comedy Young and Gay (1950), and an (uncharacteristic) nice role as Eddie Foy Jr.'s patient wife on the 1962 sitcom Fair Exchange.

Trivia: Though never a prominent film or television actress, Maria Karnilova found her true calling as a performer with her Tony-winning performance opposite Zero Mostel in the Broadway hit Fiddler on the Roof. In addition to creating the role of Golde in Fiddler, she also appeared in such Broadway mainstays as Gypsy and earned another Tony nomination for her performance in John Kander and Fred Ebb's Zorba.The daughter of Russian immigrants, Karnivola was born in Hartford, CT, and spent the majority of her childhood studying ballet and dancing at folk festivals. Later training with the Metropolitan Opera's ballet school, Karnilova crossed over from ballet to musicals in the 1930s, though she would become a charter member of the American Ballet Theatre in 1939. Her film roles separated by more than two decades, Karnilova appeared in both the film adaptation of The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) and Married to the Mob (1988).On April 20, 2001, Maria Karnilova died of natural causes in Manhattan. She was 80.

Trivia: Formerly a Broadway and Hollywood actor/dancer--he was seen as Indio in the Oscar-winning West Side Story (1961)--Gus Trikonis switched to directing in 1968. During his first years as director, Trikonis paid his dues with such drive-in fodder as Swinging Barmaids (1975), Student Body (1976), Nashville Girl (1976) and Moonshine County Express (1978), all decidedly better than their titles. The one Trikonis film that garnered the largest amount of audience approval was his 1981 blue-collar comedy Take This Job and Shove It. As busy in television as in films (if not busier), Gus Trikonis has called the shots on such top-rated weeklies as Baywatch, and such noteworthy made-for-TV movies as Elvis and the Beauty Queen (1981), Dempsey (1983) and Malice in Wonderland (1985)

Trivia: Born Joanna Winnifrith, Anna Lee was a petite, charming, blond British actress. At age 14 she ran away from home to join a circus. After brief stage experience she began appearing in British films in 1932, playing leads and supporting roles; in 1940 she moved to Hollywood and began making films there. She is best remembered as Bronwyn Morgan, Roddy McDowall's sister-in-law, in How Green was My Valley (1941). Rarely onscreen after the late '60s, she had a regular role as Lila Quartermaine on the TV soap opera General Hospital. She married and divorced director Robert Stevenson. She was the widow of novelist/playwright/poet Robert Nathan and the mother of actors Jeffrey Byron and Venetia Stevenson.

Trivia: A real-life British military officer, the dignified-looking, often mustachioed Ramsay Hill (real name Cyril Seys Ramsay-Hill) popped up in countless Hollywood films and television shows from 1934-1966, almost always playing, well, military officers. Between acting jobs, Hill functioned as technical advisor on a number of productions dealing with the British Empire including The Sun Never Sets (1939) and the 3-D Bwana Devil (1952).

Trivia: An alumnus of the Indiana University Law School, Herbert Vigran gave up the legal world to become an actor. Making his 1935 film debut in Vagabond Lady, Vigran had a few lean months after his first flurry of Hollywood activity, but began getting stage work in New York on the basis of a portfolio of photos showing him sharing scenes with several well-known movie actors (never mentioning that most of his film roles were bit parts). After his first Broadway success in Having Wonderful Time, Vigran returned to L.A., accepting small parts in movies while keeping busy with plenty of lucrative radio work; among his hundreds of radio assignments was the title character on the wartime sitcom "The Sad Sack." In films, the harsh-voiced, heavily eyebrowed Vigran could usually be seen as brash reporters and Runyon-esque hoodlums; his favorite role was the rumpled private eye in the 1954 Dick Powell/Debbie Reynolds comedy Susan Slept Here. During the 1950s, Vigran was most active in TV, essaying half a dozen bad guy roles on the Superman series and appearing regularly as Monte the Bartender on the Dante's Inferno episodes of the anthology series Four Star Playhouse. In the early '70s, Herb Vigran found time during his hectic movie and voice-over schedule to play the recurring role of Judge Brooker on Gunsmoke.