Trivia: A witty and stylish lead actress of stage and screen, Russell tended to play successful career women who were skilled in repartee. She trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then began her stage career in her early '20s. She debuted onscreen in 1934 and immediately had a very busy film career. At first appearing in routine films, in the '40s she began to specialize in light, sophisticated comedies, for which she had a unique talent. In the '50s her career briefly declined and she went to Broadway, where she starred in three successful productions. One of these was Auntie Mame, later made into a film in which she reprised her stage role (1958). She went on to appear in a handful of films before she was struck by crippling arthritis. Known for her charity work, in 1972 she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a special Oscar. Russell received four Academy Award nominations during her career. She was married to producer Frederick Brisson. She authored an autobiography, Life is a Banquet.

Trivia: Forrest Tucker occupied an odd niche in movies -- though not an "A" movie lead, he was, nonetheless, a prominent "B" picture star and even a marquee name, who could pull audiences into theaters for certain kinds of pictures. From the early/mid-1950s on, he was a solid presence in westerns and other genre pictures. Born Forrest Meredith Tucker in Plainfield, Indiana in 1919, he was bitten by the performing bug early in life -- he made his debut in burlesque while he was still under-age. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1937, he enlisted in the United States Army, joining a cavalry unit. Tucker next headed for Hollywood, where his powerful build and six-foot-four frame and his enthusiasm were sufficient to get him a big-screen debut in The Westerner (1940), starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan. Signed to Columbia Pictures, he mostly played anonymous tough-guy roles over the next two years, primarily in B pictures, before entering the army in 1943. Resuming his career in 1946, he started getting bigger roles on a steady basis in better pictures, and in 1948 signed with Republic Pictures. He became a mainstay of that studio's star roster, moving up to a co-starring role in Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949), which also brought him into the professional orbit of John Wayne, the movie's star. Across the early/middle 1950s, Tucker starred in a brace of action/adventure films and westerns, alternating between heroes and villains, building up a significant fan base. By the mid-1950s, he was one of the company's top box-office draws. As it also turned out, Tucker's appeal was international, and he went to England in the second half of the decade to play starring roles in a handful of movies. At that time, British studios such as Hammer Films needed visiting American actors to boost the international appeal of their best productions, and Tucker fulfilled the role admirably in a trio of sci-fi/horror films: The Crawling Eye, The Cosmic Monsters, and The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. Part of Tucker's motivation for taking these roles, beyond the money, he later admitted, was his desire to sample the offerings of England's pubs -- Tucker was a two-fisted drinker and, in those days, was well able to handle the effects of that activity so that it never showed up on-screen. And he ran with the opportunity afforded by those three science fiction movies -- each of those films, he played a distinctly different role, in a different way, but always with a certain fundamental honesty that resonated with audiences. When he returned to Hollywood, he was cast as Beauregard Burnside in Auntie Mame (1958), which was the top-grossing movie of the year. Then stage director Morton De Costa, seeing a joyful, playful romantic huckster in Tucker (where others had mostly seen an earnest tough-guy), picked him to star as Professor Harold Hill in the touring production of The Music Man -- Tucker played that role more than 2000 times over the years that followed. He was also the star of the 1964 Broadway show Fair Game For Lovers (in a cast that included Leo Genn, Maggie Hayes, and a young Alan Alda), which closed after eight performances. The Music Man opened a new phase for Tucker's career. The wily huckster became his image, one that was picked up by Warner Bros.' television division, which cast him in the role of Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke, the charmingly larcenous post-Civil War cavalry soldier at the center of the western/spoof series F-Troop. That series only ran for two seasons, but was in syndicated reruns for decades afterward, and though Tucker kept his hand in other media -- returning to The Music Man and also starring in an unsold pilot based on the movie The Flim-Flam Man (taking over the George C. Scott part), it was the part of O'Rourke with which he would be most closely identified for the rest of his life. He did occasionally take tougher roles that moved him away from the comedy in that series -- in one of the better episodes of the series Hondo, entitled "Hondo And The Judas", he played Colonel William Clark Quantrill very effectively. At the end of the decade, he returned to straight dramatic acting, most notably in the John Wayne western Chisum, in which he played primary villain Lawrence Murphy. That same year, he appeared in a challenging episode of the series Bracken's World entitled "Love It Or Leave It, Change It Or Lose It", playing "Jim Grange," a sort of film-a-clef version of John Wayne -- a World War II-era film star known for his patriotism, Grange is determined to express his political views while working alongside a young film star (portrayed by Tony Bill) who is closely associated with the anti-war movement. Tucker continued getting television work and occasional film roles, in addition to returning to the straw-hat circuit, mostly as Professor Harold Hill. None of his subsequent series lasted very long, but he was seldom out of work, despite a drinking problem that did worsen significantly during his final decade. In his final years, he had brought that under control, and was in the process of making a comeback -- there was even talk of an F-Troop revival in film form -- when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and emphysema. He died in the fall of 1986 at age 67.

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: An established British stage comedienne, Coral Brown began making film appearances in 1936. She is best remembered for her all-stops-out portrayal of perpetually soused actress Vera Charles in Auntie Mame (1958) and of blinkered dowager Lady Claire Gurney in The Ruling Class (1972). Later assignments included the 1983 TV movie An Englishman Abroad, which dramatized the chance meeting in the 1930s between Ms. Browne and British turncoat Guy Burgess, and Dreamchild (1985), in which she played the octogenarian inspiration for Lewis Carroll's "Alice." Coral Browne's second husband was actor Vincent Price, whom she met when Price "killed" her in 1973's Theatre of Blood.

Trivia: Born in England of Irish stock, Patric Knowles had a few seasons' stage experience under his belt when he made his simultaneous British and American film debuts in 1936. Settling in Hollywood, Knowles signed with Warner Bros., where he alternated between full leads and stalwart "other man" support. He was often co-starred with Errol Flynn, presumably as "serious" ballast to Flynn's flamboyance. At Universal in the 1940s, Knowles was the studio's resident utility hero, forever providing a shoulder for the terrified heroine to cry on in such horror films as The Wolf Man (1941), The Strange Case of Dr. Rx (1942) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943); he also proved a good-humored foil to the antics of Abbott and Costello (Who Done It? [1942], Hit the Ice [1943]) and Olsen and Johnson (Crazy House [1943]). Free-lancing from 1946 until his retirement in 1973, Knowles could always be counted on for dignity and dependability, never more so than as Lindsey Woolsey, Mame Dennis' erstwhile through-the-years suitor, in Auntie Mame. In his last decades, Patric Knowles continued accepting film and TV character parts, wrote a novel (Even Steven), lectured at colleges, and even guested in a Kellogg's cereal commercial. Years after his retirement, Knowles often volunteered to work for the Motion Picture Country Home.

Trivia: American actress Peggy Cass began her career in 1945 when she went on an Australian tour with "The Doughgirls." This led to many appearances on Broadway. Cass was especially noted for her comedy roles and won a Tony for her work as Agnes Gooch in Auntie Mame. In 1958, the role earned Cass an Oscar nomination. Since then she has rarely appeared in films.

Trivia: Born in California, Roger Smith was raised in Nogales, Arizona, where his father ran a clothing manufacturing business. Not too handy around his father's shop, Smith was better suited to performing; he took singing, elocution and dancing lessons while he was still learning to walk and talk, and by age 12 he was a member of an LA-based kiddie musical troupe. While attending the University of Arizona on an athletic scholarship, Smith won several amateur-show prizes as a singer and guitarist, but did not immediately entertain thoughts of making show business his life. During his 30 months' active service in the Naval Reserve, Smith renewed his singing at various public and private functions. At one of these, he met film star James Cagney, who suggested that Smith might try for a career in Hollywood. Signed to a Columbia Pictures contract, Smith appeared in such films as No Time to Be Young (1957) and Operation Madball (1957), and played a small recurring role on the television sitcom Father Knows Best, produced by Columbia's TV subsidiary Screen Gems. The up-and-coming young actor touched bases again with Jimmy Cagney when the latter recommended that Smith be hired to play Creighton Chaney (aka Lon Chaney Jr.) in the Lon Chaney biopic Man of 1000 Faces (1957). On the strength of this film and his work in the subsequent Cagney vehicle Never Steal Anything Small, Smith was engaged by director Morton Da Costa to portray the older Patrick Dennis in Auntie Mame (1959); this, in turn, led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros., and the co-starring role of Jeff Spencer in Warners' TV detective series 77 Sunset Strip. Roger Smith went on to essay the title character in the 1965 weekly TV adaptation of Mister Roberts before retiring from acting in 1967 to manage the career of his second wife, musical star Ann-Margret. Smith died in 2017, at age 84.

Trivia: The daughter of playwright/screenwriter Allan Scott, actress Pippa Scott attended Radcliffe and UCLA before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Scott made her Broadway bow in Child of Fortune, then worked steadily in the various live TV anthologies of the 1950s. Signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1956, she made her first screen appearance as Lucy Edwards in the John Ford classic The Searchers. Alternating between TV, films and Broadway throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Scott amassed an impressive resumé, ranging from a starring assignment in the New York company of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger to recurring roles on such TV series as Mr. Lucky (1959-60) and The Virginian (1962-63 season only). Segueing gracefully into character roles in the 1970s, Scott was seen as the nursery-teacher lady friend of seasoned cop Jack Warden on the 1976 TV weekly Jigsaw John. Pippa Scott served as producer of the 1989 film Life on the Edge.

Trivia: American actress Joanna Barnes went from Southern-belle complacency to a contract with Warner Bros. studios. Joanna was generally cast as steely-eyed, truculent blondes in such films as Home Before Dark (1958) and (freelancing for director Stanley Kubrick) Spartacus (1960). She also held the dubious distinction of being the latest in a long line of "Janes" in the 1959 cheapie Tarzan of the Apes. Barnes worked a great deal on television in the 1950s and 1960s: she was detective Dennis Morgan's girl Friday on 1959's 21 Beacon Street; the ex-wife of pennyante attorney Peter Falk in the 1965 weekly drama The Trials of O'Brien; and the hostess of the 5-minute ABC gossipfest Dateline Hollywood. In 1973, Joanna gave up acting to pursue a career as a novelist, and to that end took a room in a Los Angeles office building leased exclusively to professional writers. While Joanna Barnes might not be remembered for her writings, she made an indelible impression as Vassar-educated socialite Gloria Upson, who spoke as though she had novacaine in her upper lip (the playwrights' description of the character) in the 1958 film comedy Auntie Mame.

Trivia: Wisconsin-born actor Willard Waterman moved to Chicago in 1936, where he became a busy freelance radio actor. In 1945, he played the lead in the radio sitcom Those Websters, which led to his resettling in Hollywood. Five years later, he was chosen to replace Harold Peary on the long-running comedy series The Great Gildersleeve, a character he carried over to television in 1955. He later played featured roles in a number of TV sitcoms including Dennis the Menace. Willard Waterman's film credits include the roles of pompous Claude Upson in Auntie Mame (1958) and philandering executive Vanderhoff in Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960).

Trivia: The daughter of actress Martha Daniels, Connie Gilchrist was herself on stage from the age of 16, touring both Europe and the U.S. Her theatrical credits include such long-runners as Mulatto and Ladies and Gentlemen, the latter featuring a contemporary of Gilchrist's named Helen Hayes. While acting in the pre-Broadway tour of Ladies and Gentlemen in 1939, Gilchrist was signed to a ten-year contract at MGM, where amidst the studio's patented gloss and glitter, the actress' brash, down-to-earth characterizations brought a welcome touch of urban reality. Usually cast as Irish maids, tenement housewives and worldly madams (though seldom designated as such), Gilchrist was given a rare chance to show off her musical talents in Presenting Lily Mars, where she sang a duet with Judy Garland. After her MGM tenure, Gilchrist free-lanced in such films as Houdini (1953), Auntie Mame (1958) (as governess Nora Muldoon) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). Devoted TV fans will recall Connie Gilchrist as the bawdy pubkeeper Purity on the 1950s Australian-filmed adventure series Long John Silver.

Trivia: At age 13 she debuted on Broadway and went on to do much work onstage. She appeared in one film in 1929, then went back to Broadway and was not in another film until 1937; after that she was in numerous movies, usually in character roles but occasionally playing leads. In the '50s she costarred in such TV series as Topper and Mr. Adams and Eve. After retiring from the screen in 1964 she returned once more: she portrayed Sam Spade's secretary Effie in The Black Bird (1975), a comic remake of The Maltese Falcon; she had played Effie in the 1941 Humphrey Bogart version.

Trivia: Born Henry Kleinbach, the name under which he appeared until 1936, Brandon was a tall man with black curly hair; he occasionally played the handsome lead but was more often typecast to play villains. As the latter, he appeared as white, Indian, German, and Asian men. Brandon's film career began with Babes in Toyland (1934) and went on to span fifty years. He played villains whom the audiences loved to hate in serials in the '30s and '40s, such as the Cobra in Jungle Jim, the mastermind criminal Blackstone in Secret Agent X-9, Captain Lasca in Buck Rogers Conquers the Universe (1939), and a sinister Oriental in Drums of Fu Manchu. Brandon played Indian chiefs no fewer than 26 times, notably in two John Ford westerns. He had occasional leading roles on New York stage, such as in a 1949 revival of Medea in which he played a virile Jason opposite Judith Anderson.

Trivia: Though born just across the river from Cincinnati, actress Olive Blakeney achieved stardom on the London stage. Among Blakeney's many West End credits was The Gay Divorce, in which she co-starred with Fred Astaire. She made her film bow in 1934 as the title character in Leave It to Blanche. When her American-born actor husband Bernard Nedell, likewise a fixture of British films, decided to try his luck in Hollywood in 1938, Blakeney joined him. A familiar presence in many a 1940s production, Blakeney is best known for her appearances as James Lydon's mother in Paramount's Henry Aldrich series. Their on-screen relationship spilled over into real life when Lydon married Blakeney's daughter. Olive Blakeney continued accepting featured roles in films until her death in 1959, and was also a regular on the syndicated TV series Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal (1955-56).

Trivia: Morton Da Costa, has spent most of his career associated with Broadway. The founder of the Civic Repertory Theater of Dayton, Ohio, he started out as an actor and in the '40s worked in such Broadway productions as The Skin of Our Teeth. Beginning in 1950, Da Costa became a very successful theatrical director of productions including Auntie Mame and The Music Man. He made his movie directorial debut with the film version of Auntie Mame in 1958 and produced and directed the film version of The Music Man in 1963. He also produced and directed Island of Love (1963).

Trivia: Originally an opera singer, American actress Margaret Dumont was engaged in 1925 to act in The Cocoanuts, a Broadway musical comedy starring the Marx Brothers. As wealthy widow Mrs. Potter, Dumont became the formidable stage target for the rapid-fire insults and bizarre lovemaking approach of Groucho Marx. So impressive was her "teaming" with Groucho that she was hired for their next Broadway production, Animal Crackers (1928), in which she portrayed society dowager Mrs. Rittenhouse. Though Groucho would later insist that Dumont never understood his jokes, she more than held her own against the unpredictable Marx Brothers, facing their wild ad-libs, practical jokes and roughhouse physical humor with the straight-faced aplomb of a school principal assigned a classroom of unruly children. Dumont continued appearing opposite the Marx Brothers when they began making motion pictures, co-starring in seven of the team's films, most notably as hypochondriac Emily Upjohn in A Day at the Races (1937). It was for this picture that Dumont won a Screen Actor's Guild award; upon this occasion, film critic Cecilia Ager suggested that a monument be erected in honor of Dumont's courage and steadfastness in the face of the Marx invasion. Although she appeared in many other films (sometimes in the company of other famous comedy teams such as Laurel and Hardy, Wheeler and Woolsey, and Abbott and Costello), it is for her Marx appearances that Dumont--often dubbed "the Fifth Marx Brother"--is best remembered. Dumont made her last professional appearance a week before her death, on the TV variety series Hollywood Palace; appropriately, it was in support of Groucho Marx in a re-creation of the "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" production number from Animal Crackers.

Trivia: Russian-born actor Gregory Gaye came to the U.S. after the 1917 revolution. Gaye flourished in films of the 1930s, playing a variety of ethnic types. He was Italian opera star Barelli in Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), an exiled Russian nobleman in Tovarich (1937), an indignant German banker in Casablanca (1942), a Latin named Ravez in the 1945 "Sherlock Holmes" effort Pursuit to Algiers (1946) a minor-league crook of indeterminate origin in the Republic serial Tiger Woman (1945) and the villainous interplanetary leader in the weekly TV sci-fi series Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1945). Gregory Gaye was active in films until 1979, when he showed up briefly as a Russian Premier in the disaster epic Meteor.

Trivia: A specialist in hard-boiled dame roles, Barbara Pepper made her first film appearances as a Goldwyn Girl; she was prominent among the nubile slaves who were garbed only in floor-length blonde wigs in Goldwyn's Roman Scandals (1933). Pepper's one shot at stardom came in King Vidor's Our Daily Bread, in which she played the sluttish vamp who led hero Tom Keene astray; unfortunately, the film was not successful enough, nor her performance convincing enough, to lead to larger parts. She spent the next 30 years in supporting roles and bits, most often playing brassy goodtime girls. A radical weight gain in the 1950s compelled Pepper to alter her screen image; she quickly became adept at portraying obnoxious middle-aged tourists, snoopy next-door neighbors, belligerent landladies, and the like. Pepper's best friend in Hollywood was Lucille Ball, another alumna of the Goldwyn Girl ranks. At one point in 1951,Pepper was a candidate for the role of Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy. In her last decade, Barbara Pepper gained a whole new crop of fans thanks to her recurring appearances as Doris Ziffel on the TV sitcom Green Acres.

Trivia: Actor Dub Taylor, the personification of grizzled old western characters, has been entertaining viewers for over 60 years. Prior to becoming a movie actor, Taylor played the harmonica and xylophone in vaudeville. He used his ability to make his film debut as the zany Ed Carmichael in Capra's You Can't Take it With You (1938). He next appeared in a small role in the musical Carefree(1938) and then began a long stint as a comical B-western sidekick for some of Hollywood's most enduring cowboy heroes. During the '50s he became a part of The Roy Rogers Show on television. About that time, he also began to branch out and appear in different film genres ranging from comedies, No time for Sergeants (1958) to crime dramas, Crime Wave (1954). He has also played on other TV series such as The Andy Griffith Show and Please Don't Eat the Daisies. One of his most memorable feature film roles was as the man who brought down the outlaws in Bonnie and Clyde. From the late sixties through the nineties Taylor returned to westerns.

Trivia: From 1930 to 1934, American actress Ruth Warren was a contractee at Fox Studios. A slight woman with wide eyes and pursed lips, Warren essayed sizeable character roles in such Fox films as Lightnin' (1930), Six Cylinder Love (1931), and Zoo in Budapest (1933). She played bit roles from 1935 until her retirement in 1958. Laurel and Hardy buffs will remember Ruth Warren as the gossip-dispensing Mrs. Addlequist in Our Relations (1936).

Trivia: Character actor Richard Reeves was one of the most familiar heavies in big- and small-screen crime dramas and westerns of the early/middle 1950s. In just a thin sliver of his total output, he threatened (and even tortured) friends and allies of the Man of Steel in episodes of the Adventures of Superman, murdered district attorney Robert Shayne (and got Lou Costello into terrible trouble) in the Abbott & Costello film Dance With Me, Henry, and helped scare Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz half-to-death as an assassin from Franistan in an episode of I Love Lucy. Richard Jourdan Reeves was born in New York City in 1912, and his acting career seems to have begun in tandem with his World War II military service, in the movie This Is The Army (1943). Solidly built and heavy set with dark, wavy hair, Reeves went into acting in character and bit parts after the war, almost all of them uncredited until the advent of television -- when he did receive billing, it was sometimes as Dick Richards, Richard J. Reeves, and Dick Reeves. He played an array of police officers, soldiers, prison guards, laborers, and drivers in an array of films (including Abraham Polonsky's Force Of Evil and Richard Thorpe's Carbine Williams). But mostly as the 1950s wore on he gravitated toward thugs and henchmen -- though never the "brains" of the outfit -- whether in crime dramas or westerns. He made his first appearance on the Adventures of Superman in the 1951 episode "No Holds Barred" as a tough, somewhat lunk-headed wrestler working for a crooked promoter, and over the next few seasons portrayed various strong-arm men and leg-breakers working in the service of crime, on that show and others. But Reeves' seeming lack of intellect in his portrayals, and a slightly good nature that came through, often made his criminal characters in that series seem just a little sympathetic, at least compared to the men for whom they worked, and that gave his portrayals an edge that young viewers, especially, often remembered fondly. The closest he got to a role with real dignity on television in those days was in the episode of "The Boy Who Hated Superman", one of Reeves' finest acting jobs, culminating in a beautiful scene in which his rough-hewn hood, trying to hijack $5000 intended for his employer, opens a young man's eyes about the real nature of the criminal uncle he has idolized. By the mid-1950s, Reeves was ensconsed in these sorts of character roles, whether criminals, tough military men, or police officers. He also managed to impress directors and producers sufficiently to get asked back a lot on many shows -- after appearing in as an assassin from Franistan in the I Love Lucy episode "The Publicity Agent", Reeves did seven more appearances on the series across the run of the show. And his presence on western series such as The Roy Rogers Show, 26 Men, Cheyenne, and other western series was downright ubiquitous. The television work was broken up by the occasional bit part in feature films such as Androcles And The Lion (1952) and Destry (1954). His role in Dance With Me, Henry (1956) was one of his two biggest movie parts, but not his most challenging. The latter distinction was reserved for Reeves' rare chance to play a character on the side of the angels -- in Sherman A. Rose's sci-fi thriller Target Earth (1954), Reeves was cast opposite Virginia Grey as part of a quartet of survivors of an alien invasion of an American city, hiding out and trying to survive. It was his shining moment on-screen, allowing him to show a heroic, intelligent, and sensitive side (even as he strangles a man -- deservedly so -- with his bare hands in one scene). The actor was busy in the 1960s, appearing in lots of western series, and also had a bit part in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). Reeves even managed to make an appearance in the first episode of Batman. He was still doing a mixture of television and film work at the time of his death, at age 54, in 1967.