Trivia: Blonde, serene-looking film actress Gloria Stuart forsook her stage career when she was signed to two separate movie contracts in 1932. It took a court arbitrator to determine which studio would be permitted to make use of Stuart's services, Paramount or Universal. Universal won, and soon the actress was starring in such memorable films as James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933). From 1936 on, Stuart, who was born in Santa Monica, CA, on July 4, 1910, was contracted to 20th Century Fox, where among many other films she appeared in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), the Shirley Temple vehicle Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and the Ritz Brothers version of The Three Musketeers (1939). Gradually retiring from films in the early '40s to return to her stage origins, Stuart subsequently decided to devote her time to her second husband, screenwriter/wit Arthur Sheekman, whom she had married in 1934. She became an accomplished painter, staging several one-woman exhibits in New York, Austria, and Italy during the 1960s. In 1982, Stuart made a long-overdue return to the screen in the cameo role of Peter O'Toole's matronly dancing partner in My Favorite Year. Sixteen years later, she became known to a whole new generation of fans when she starred as 100-year-old Rose DeWitt, the heroine of James Cameron's Titanic. The only member of Titanic's cast and crew to have been alive at the time of the actual catastrophe, Stuart, who was 88 when the film was released, made history with her performance in the record-breaking movie. Nominated for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category, she became the oldest person in history to be nominated for an Academy Award; in addition to various other award nominations, she won a Best Supporting Actress prize from the Screen Actors Guild, an organization she had helped to found in 1933. Thanks to Titanic, Stuart enjoyed a late-life career renaissance, and was soon appearing in magazines (People dubbed her one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World"), Hanson videos, and, most importantly, in new films that ranged from the romantic comedy The Love Letter (1999) to Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000).

Trivia: A former manager for Woolworths, Michael Whalen performed as a radio and vaudeville singer before entering films in 1935. For many years, Whalen was an all-purpose leading man at 20th Century Fox; perhaps his best assignment during this period was Coppy, the nominal romantic lead in John Ford's Wee Willie Winkie (1937). By the 1940s, Whalen had settled into character parts, mostly at Columbia. He was last seen onscreen in an uncredited role as a minister in Elmer Gantry (1960). Michael Whalen was the brother of New York's official "greeter" Grover Whalen.

Trivia: Paul Kelly was one of the few actors who not only played killers, but also had first-hand experience in this capacity! On stage from age 7, "Master" Paul Kelly entered films at 8, performing on the sunlight stages of Flatbush's Vitagraph Studios. His first important theatrical role was in Booth Tarkington's Seventeen; he later appeared in Tarkington's Penrod, opposite a young Helen Hayes. Star billing was Kelly's from 1922's Up the Ladder onwards. In films from 1926, Kelly alternated between stage and screen until his talkie debut in 1932's Broadway Through A Keyhole. The actor's career momentum was briefly halted with a two-year forced hiatus. On May 31, 1927, Kelly was found guilty of manslaughter, after killing actor Ray Raymond in a fistfight. The motivating factor of the fatal contretemps was Raymond's wife, Dorothy MacKaye, who married Kelly in 1931, after he'd served prison time for Raymond's death (MacKaye herself died in an automobile accident in 1940). This unfortunate incident had little adverse effect on Kelly's acting career, which continued up until his death in 1956. Returning to Broadway in 1947, Paul Kelly won the Donaldson and Tony awards for his performance in Command Decision; three years later, he starred in the original stage production of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl.

Trivia: Blonde, dimpled, and vivacious, June Storey became the perfect leading lady for cowboy troubadour Gene Autry, opposite whom she starred in no less than ten singing Westerns. In the U.S. since the age of five, the Canadian-born starlet was awarded a screen test with Fox (soon to become 20th Century Fox) in 1934, courtesy of an uncle's friendship with production head Winfield Sheehan. Despite a highly inadequate performance, Sheehan liked her pluck and Storey was awarded a player's contract. She didn't do much actual screen work, however, but spent most of her time at Fox studying acting with Florence Enright and taking dancing lessons from Rita Hayworth's father, Eduardo Cansino. A small role as a German girl in Henry King's In Old Chicago (1938) got the attention of low-budget concern Republic Pictures, who saw in the winsome Storey the perfect foil for Gene Autry, the company's biggest draw at the time.Under term contract with Republic from April 21, 1939, through October 20, 1940, Storey managed to squeeze in ten Westerns with Autry and five additional films before the contract was terminated by mutual agreement. In many ways she was the perfect leading lady for Autry: very agreeable to look upon, competent as a performer by then, and willing to work long, hard hours on location. Often there was not even a dressing room available for the heroine; she later stated, "...and I'd have to find a secluded canyon to change into my cowgirl clothes." The films themselves -- from Home on the Range (1939) to Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride (1940) -- included some of Autry's most genial, and Storey became very popular with the genre's target audience of rural moviegoers. But like most performers, she eventually found B-Westerns too limiting, and apart from Columbia's Song of the Prairie (1945), she never did another.Returning to Fox in the late '40s, Storey appeared in non-Western programmers and retired to marry an Oregon rancher. Divorced and the survivor of a near-fatal car accident, she later took up nursing, re-married, and became active in charity work. In her final years, a much heavier but still sparkling June Storey became a treasured guest speaker at various nostalgia and B-Western fairs.

Trivia: When American actor Paul Hurst became the comedy sidekick in the Monte Hale western series at Republic in the early '50s, he came by the work naturally; he had been born and bred on California's Miller and Lux Ranch. While in his teens, Hurst attained his first theatre job as a scenery painter in San Francisco, making his on-stage debut at age 19. In 1911, Hurst ventured into western films, wearing three hats as a writer, director and actor. He worked ceaselessly in character roles throughout the '20s, '30s and '40s, most often in comedy parts as dim-witted police officers and muscle-headed athletes. He also showed up in leading roles in 2-reelers, notably as a punchdrunk trainer in Columbia's Glove Slingers series. On at least two memorable occasions, Hurst eschewed comedy for villainy: in 1943's The Ox-Bow Incident, he's the lynch-mob member who ghoulishly reminds the victims what's in store for them by grabbing his collar and making choking sounds. And in Gone with the Wind, Hurst is Hell personified as the Yankee deserter and would-be rapist whom Scarlet O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) shoots in the face at point blank range. Paul Hurst kept busy into the early '50s; at the age of 65, he ended his career and his life in suicide.

Trivia: Hollywood's favorite "dear old dad," Leon Ames began his stage career as a sleek, dreamy-eyed matinee idol in 1925. He was still billing himself under his real name, Leon Waycoff, when he entered films in 1931. His best early leading role was as the poet-hero of the stylish terror piece Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1933, Ames was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, gaining a reputation amongst producers as a political firebrand--which may have been why his roles diminished in size during the next few years (Ironically, when Ames was president of the SAG, his conservatism and willingness to meet management halfway incurred the wrath of the union's more liberal wing). Ames played many a murderer and caddish "other man" before he was felicitously cast as the kindly, slightly befuddled patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). He would play essentially this same character throughout the rest of his career, starring on such TV series as Life With Father (1952-54) and Father of the Bride (1961). When, in 1963, he replaced the late Larry Keating in the role of Alan Young's neighbor on Mr. Ed, Ames' fans were astounded: his character had no children at all! Off screen, the actor was the owner of a successful, high profile Los Angeles automobile dealership. In 1963, he was the unwilling focus of newspaper headlines when his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. In one of his last films, 1983's Testament, Leon Ames was reunited with his Life With Father co-star Lurene Tuttle.

Trivia: A New Year's baby, actor Willard Robertson grew up in Texas, where he became a successful lawyer. Reportedly he was offered an opportunity to become a federal judge, but he turned it down because of a sudden interest in acting. Since he looked the part of a prosperous attorney, however, Robertson frequently found himself playing a member of the very profession he'd left behind. The actor also showed up as sheriffs, mayors, city councilmen and stern father figures during his quarter-centry film career. While Preston Sturges buffs pinpoint Robertson's flamboyant defense attorney in Remember the Night? (1940) as his best performance, the actor is equally fondly recalled for his portrayal of Jackie Cooper's outwardly stern, inwardly loving father in Skippy (1931) and Sooky (1931). By the mid '40s, Willard Robertson's roles were usually of one scene's duration or less, but he still carried plenty of authority, notably as the sheriff in the grim The Ox-Bow Incident (1943); Robertson's icy remonstration to a lynch mob, "The Lord better have mercy on you...you won't get it from me," still chills the blood after fifty years.

Trivia: Immense, sad-eyed character actor George Humbert made his first film appearance in 1921. Humbert almost always played an Italian restaurateur, waiter, chef or street vendor. His screen characters usually answered to such names as Tony, Luigi, Mario, and Giueseppi. A rare digression from this pattern was his portrayal of "Pancho" in Fiesta (1947). George Humbert made his last appearance as Pop Mangiacavallo (his name was longer than his part!) in The Rose Tattoo (1955).

Trivia: In films from 1919, Aggie Herring was a useful comic foil for such comedians as Harold Lloyd. Aggie's dramatic assignments included the role of Miss Corney in Oliver Twist (1922). She also played Maggie Kelly in director Frank Capra's very first Columbia feature, That Certain Thing (1928), which earned her a photo in Capra's autobiography The Name Above the Title. Aggie Herring continued portraying frontier mothers, flower ladies, dowagers and charwomen until her retirement in 1938, a year before her death.

Trivia: With two solid decades of stage experience to his credit, Charles D. Brown made his talking-picture bow in 1929's The Dance of Life. At first, Brown's bland features and flat voice made him difficult to cast, but by the time he'd reached his fifties, he was very much in demand for authoritative roles. Brown was frequently cast as a detective, though his unruffled demeanor made him a valuable "surprise" killer in more than one murder mystery. Charles D. Brown died in 1948, not long after completing his role in RKO's Follow Me Quietly (1950).