Trivia: Fresh from Broadway, Elizabeth Hartman made a stunningly brilliant screen debut as the blind, embittered young heroine of A Patch of Blue (1965). This maiden movie effort won Hartman an Oscar nomination -- and at the same time typed her in high-strung, sensitive roles. She continued impressing the critics with choice assignments in The Group (1966) and You're a Big Boy Now (1968), but by 1971 her once-promising career was in the doldrums. There was a chance for a comeback in the box-office smash Walking Tall (1973), but Hartman's character, the wife of sheriff Buford Pusser (Joe Don Baker), was little more than a plot gimmick; she is killed off before the film is two-thirds over, prompting Pusser's final, violent vengeance spree. Hartman also provided a voice for the Don Bluth cartoon feature The Secret of Nimh (1982), Elizabeth Hartman was killed in a fall from her apartment window in 1987.

Trivia: Sidney Poitier was to Hollywood what Jackie Robinson was to major league baseball: simply put, the man who broke the color barrier. An actor, director, and producer, he forever altered the racial perceptions long held by both motion picture audiences and executives, rising to superstar status in an industry forever dominated on both sides of the camera by whites while becoming the first African-American ever to take home an Oscar for Best Actor. Born February 20, 1927, in Miami, FL, Poitier grew up in poverty in the British West Indies. After quitting school at the age of 13, he later joined the U.S. Army, serving in World War II as a medical assistant. Upon his release from duty he relocated to New York City, where he auditioned for the American Negro Theater. When his heavy Bahamian accent prompted laughter from producers, Poitier spent the next six months honing his elocution skills, practicing his enunciation by repeating radio routines, and finally gaining admission to the theatrical troupe's ranks after his second audition.Handsome and athletic, Poitier made his Broadway debut in 1946 in an all-black production of Lysistrata, and moved into films four years later with No Way Out. His impressive turn in 1955's gritty The Blackboard Jungle brought him closer to stardom, and in 1958 he earned his first Academy Award nomination opposite Tony Curtis in Stanley Kramer's social drama The Defiant Ones. The film's focus on racial politics, as well as his increasing popularity with audiences of all racial backgrounds, solidified Poitier's standing as a key figure in the burgeoning civil rights movement, as roles in features including 1959's Porgy and Bess and 1961's Raisin in the Sun established him as the premier black actor of his generation. For 1963's The Lilies of the Field, he made history as the first African-American actor to win an Oscar in a leading role, and with the mainstream success of 1965's A Patch of Blue and 1967's To Sir, With Love, his ascent to superstardom was complete. Much to his credit, Poitier continued to make racially provocative films; in 1967 he appeared in Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner as the black fiancé of a white woman, while in the same year's Best Picture-winning In the Heat of the Night, he starred as a Philadelphia police detective facing prejudice while investigating a murder in the Deep South. In 1969, Poitier founded the First Artists Production Company, and in 1972 -- at the peak of the blaxploitation era which his earlier success made commercially viable -- announced his directorial debut with Buck and the Preacher. He directed and starred in his next three films (1973's Warm December, 1974's Uptown Saturday Night, and 1975's Let's Do It Again) before starring in Ralph Nelson's 1975 South African political thriller The Wilby Conspiracy, after which he returned to the director's chair with 1977's A Piece of the Action.After directing the 1980 comedy Stir Crazy, Poitier began to decrease his workload; he helmed two more features, 1982's Hanky Panky and 1984's Fast Forward, but then disappeared from filmmaking for the next several years. In 1988, Poitier appeared onscreen for the first time in over a decade in Roger Spottiswoode's thriller Shoot to Kill, followed by a supporting turn in the espionage drama Little Nikita. Upon directing 1990's disastrous Bill Cosby comedy Ghost Dad, he starred as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the television feature Separate But Equal, and in 1992 appeared in the star-studded Sneakers. After another extended absence, Poitier returned in 1995 in the TV movie Children of the Dust, and in 1996 he starred in the long-awaited follow-up to his '67 success To Sir With Love, TV's To Sir With Love 2.A frequent author in addition to his acting, Poitier's book Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter was published in 2008, and the following year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Trivia: American actress Shelley Winters was the daughter of a tailor's cutter; her mother was a former opera singer. Winters evinced her mom's influence at age four, when she made an impromptu singing appearance at a St. Louis amateur night. When her father moved to Long Island to be closer to the New York garment district, Winters took acting lessons at the New School for Social Research and the Actors Studio. Short stints as a model and a chorus girl led to her Broadway debut in the S.J. Perelman comedy The Night Before Christmas in 1940. Winters signed a Columbia Pictures contract in 1943, mostly playing bits, except when loaned to United Artists for an important role in Knickerbocker Holiday (1944). Realizing she was getting nowhere, she took additional acting instructions and performed in nightclubs.The breakthrough came with her role as a "good time girl" murdered by insane stage star Ronald Colman in A Double Life (1947). Her roles became increasingly more prominent during her years at Universal-International, as did her offstage abrasive attitude; the normally mild-mannered James Stewart, Winters' co-star in Winchester '73 (1950), said after filming that the actress should have been spanked. Winters' performance as the pathetic factory girl impregnated and then killed by Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951) won her an Oscar nomination; unfortunately, for every Place in the Sun, her career was blighted by disasters like Behave Yourself (1951).Disheartened by bad films and a turbulent marriage, Winters returned to Broadway in A Hatful of Rain, in which she received excellent reviews and during which she fell for her future third husband, Anthony Franciosa. Always battling a weight problem, Winters was plump enough to be convincing as middle-aged Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), for which Winters finally got her Oscar. In the 1960s, Winters portrayed a brothel madam in two films, The Balcony (1963) and A House Is Not a Home (1964), roles that would have killed her career ten years earlier, but which now established her in the press as an actress willing to take any professional risk for the sake of her art. Unfortunately, many of her performances in subsequent films like Wild in the Streets (1968) and Bloody Mama (1970) became more shrill than compelling, somewhat lessening her standing as a performer of stature.During this period, Winters made some fairly outrageous appearances on talk shows, where she came off as the censor's nightmare; she also made certain her point-of-view wouldn't be ignored, as in the moment when she poured her drink over Oliver Reed's head after Reed made a sexist remark on The Tonight Show. Appearances in popular films like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and well-received theater appearances, like her 1974 tour in Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, helped counteract such disappointments as the musical comedy Minnie's Boys (as the Marx Brothers' mother) and the movie loser Flap (1970). Treated generously by director Paul Mazursky in above-average films like Blume in Love (1974) and Next Stop Greenwich Village (1977), Winters managed some excellent performances, though she still leaned toward hamminess when the script was weak. Shelley Winters added writing to her many achievements, penning a pair of tell-all autobiographies which delineate a private life every bit as rambunctious as some of Winters' screen performances.The '90s found a resurgence in Winters' career, as she was embraced by indie filmmakers (for movies like Heavy and The Portrait of a Lady), although she found greater fame in a recurring role on the sitcom Roseanne. She died of heart failure at age 85 in Beverly Hills, CA, in early 2006.

Trivia: Forceful African American leading man Ivan Dixon first commanded notice from theatergoers for his performance in the 1957 Broadway play The Cave Dwellers. He entered films as Sidney Poiter's double and stand-in with Something of Value (1957) and The Defiant Ones (1958), ultimately sharing scenes with Poitier in Porgy and Bess (1959) and Raisin in the Sun (1961). In 1964's Nothing But a Man, Dixon starred as Duff Anderson, an irresponsible Alabama railroad worker whose late-blooming maturity forms the nucleus of the film. Dixon's TV work includes the role of Kinchloe on the POW sitcom Hogan's Heroes and his Emmy-nominated starring role on the 1967 dramatic special The Private War of Olly Winter. In his later years, Ivan Dixon remained active as a director and a performer: he helmed the theatrical features Trouble Man (1972) and The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1992), such TV movies as Love is Not Enough and Percy and Thunder, and several episodes of the TV adventure series Hawaiian Heat (1984). Dixon died at age 76 in March 2008.

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

Trivia: Character actress Elizabeth Fraser first appeared onscreen in One Foot in Heaven (1941).

Trivia: The son of a Norwegian pastor, John Qualen was born in British Columbia. After his family moved to Illinois, Qualen won a high school forensic contest, which led to a scholarship at Northwestern University. A veteran of the tent-show and vaudeville circuits by the late '20s, Qualen won the important role of the Swedish janitor in the Broadway play Street Scene by marching into the producer's office and demonstrating his letter-perfect Scandinavian accent. His first film assignment was the 1931 movie version of Street Scene. Slight of stature, and possessed of woebegone, near-tragic facial features, Qualen was most often cast in "victim" roles, notably the union-activist miner who is beaten to death by hired hooligans in Black Fury (1935) and the pathetic, half-mad Muley in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Qualen was able to harness his trodden-upon demeanor for comedy as well, as witness his performance as the bewildered father of the Dionne quintuplets in The Country Doctor (1936). He was also effectively cast as small men with large reserves of courage, vide his portrayal of Norwegian underground operative Berger in Casablanca (1942). From Grapes of Wrath onward, Qualen was a member in good standing of the John Ford "stock company," appearing in such Ford-directed classics as The Long Voyage Home (1940), The Searchers (1955), Two Rode Together (1961), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). John Qualen was acting into the 1970s, often appearing in TV dramatic series as pugnacious senior citizens.