Trivia: At age 16, Jeanne Crain won a beauty contest as "Miss Long Beach" and became a model; the next year she was named "Camera Girl of 1942," leading to contacts in Hollywood. She debuted on screen in 1943 in The Gang's All Here, beginning a starring career that lasted through the '50s. She rose to prominence through her performance in Henry Hathaway's Home in Indiana (1944). Crain was frequently cast as the "girl next door," and was generally employed to be a "pretty face" in the midst of light films, but occasionally she got more serious roles, as in Pinky (1949) in which she played a black girl passing for white; for that performance she was nominated for a "Best Actress Oscar," repeating a nomination she got for her role in Margie (1946). Her career waned in the '60s, but she continued to appear in films through the '70s.

Trivia: Born Harriet Lake, the name under which she was billed until 1933, Sothern debuted onscreen in 1929 in a bit part, and went on to play small roles in several other films before leaving Hollywood for Broadway. She soon began landing leads, bringing another invitation from Hollywood. She signed a screen contract and changed her name, then began a very busy film career as the light-hearted heroine of B-movies. In 1939, Sothern switched studios and achieved greater popularity as the star of the "Maisie" comedy-adventure series; she appeared as the energetic, scatterbrained Maisie in ten films during the next eight years. She also appeared in musicals, in which her good voice and comedic talents were displayed. Never a major screen star, she became most popular after switching to TV; she starred in the TV series Private Secretary and The Ann Sothern Show. She went on to tour with stage musicals, then returned to the screen in occasional character roles after 1964. For her work in The Whales of August (1987), her most recent film to date, she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. From 1936-42 she was married to actor Roger Pryor and from 1943-49 she was married to actor Robert Sterling. Her daughter is actress Tisha Sterling, with whom she appeared in Crazy Mama (1975) and The Whales of August (1987); in the latter, Sterling played Sothern's character as a young woman.

Trivia: Daughter of a Texas postal clerk, actress Linda Darnell trained to be a dancer, and came to Hollywood's attention as a photographer's model. Though only 15, Darnell looked quite mature and seductive in her first motion picture, Hotel For Women (1937), and before she was twenty she found herself the leading lady of such 20th Century-Fox male heartthrobs as Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda. Weary of thankless good-girl roles, Darnell scored a personal triumph when loaned out to United Artists for September Storm (1944), in which she played a "Scarlett O'Hara" type Russian vixen. Thereafter, 20th Century-Fox assigned the actress meatier, more substantial parts, culminating in the much-sought-after leading role in 1947's Forever Amber. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz followed up this triumph by giving Darnell two of her best parts--Paul Douglas' "wrong side of the tracks" wife in A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and Richard Widmark's racist girlfriend in No Way Out (1950) (though befitting her star status, Darnell "reformed" at the end of both films). When her Fox contract ended in 1952, Darnell found herself cast adrift in Hollywood, the good roles fewer and farther between; by the mid-1960s, she was appearing as a nightclub singer, touring in summer theatre, and accepting supporting roles on television. Tragically, Darnell died in 1965 of severe burns suffered in a house fire. Ironically, Darnell had a lifelong fear of dying in flames, speaking publicly of her phobia after appearing in a "burned at the stake" sequence in the 1946 film Anna and the King of Siam.

Trivia: Once quoted as saying "I've made a career of playing sons of bitches," Kirk Douglas is considered by many to be the epitome of the Hollywood hard man. In addition to acting in countless films over the course of his long career, Douglas has served as a director and producer, and will forever be associated with his role in helping to put an end to the infamous Hollywood black list.Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch) was the son Russian Jewish immigrant parents in Amsterdam, NY, on December 9, 1916. He waited tables to finance his education at St. Lawrence University, where he was a top-notch wrestler. While there, he also did a little work in the theater, something that soon gave way to his desire to pursue acting as a career. After some work as a professional wrestler, Douglas held various odd jobs, including a stint as a bellhop, to put himself through the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1941, he debuted on Broadway, but had only two small roles before he enlisting in the Navy and serving in World War II. Following his discharge, Douglas returned to Broadway in 1945, where he began getting more substantial roles; he also did some work on radio. After being spotted and invited to Hollywood by producer Hal Wallis, Douglas debuted onscreen in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), but he did not emerge as a full-fledged star until he portrayed an unscrupulously ambitious boxer in Champion (1949); with this role (for which he earned his first Oscar nomination), he defined one of his principle character types: a cocky, selfish, intense, and powerful man. Douglas fully established his screen persona during the '50s thanks to strong roles in such classics as Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951), William Wyler's Detective Story (1951), and John Sturges' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). He earned Oscar nominations for his work in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956), both of which were directed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1955, the actor formed his own company, Bryna Productions, through which he produced both his own films and those of others, including Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960); both of these movies would prove to be two of the most popular and acclaimed of Douglas' career. In 1963, he appeared on Broadway in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, but was never able to interest Hollywood in a film version of the work; he passed it along to his son Michael Douglas (a popular actor/filmmaker in his own right), who eventually brought it to the screen to great success.During the '60s, Douglas continued to star in such films as John Huston's The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) and John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964), both of which he also produced. He began directing some of his films in the early '70s, scoring his greatest success as the director, star, and producer for Posse (1975), a Western in which he played a U.S. marshal eager for political gain. Though he continued to appear in films, by the '80s Douglas began volunteering much of his time to civic duties. Since 1963, he had worked as a Goodwill Ambassador for the State Department and the USIA, and, in 1981, his many contributions earned him the highest civilian award given in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For his public service, Douglas was also given the Jefferson Award in 1983. Two years later, the French government dubbed him Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for his artistic contributions. Other awards included the American Cinema Award (1987), the German Golden Kamera Award (1988), and the National Board of Review's Career Achievement Award (1989). In 1995, the same year he suffered a debilitating stroke, Douglas was presented with an honorary Oscar by the Academy; four years later, he was the recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor that was accompanied by a screening of 16 of his films. In addition to his film work, Douglas has also written two novels: Dance with the Devil (1990) and The Secret (1992). He published his autobiography, The Ragman's Son, in 1988.In March of 2009, Douglas starred Before I Forget, a one man show that took place at the Center Theater Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, California. All four performances of the show were filmed and later made into a documentary that eventually screened in 2010. The following year, Douglas presented the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at the 83rd Academy Awards.

Trivia: Yale graduate Paul Douglas played professional football with the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets before turning to regional theatre. He parlayed his love of athletics into a prosperous career as a sports announcer in the 1930s; in the next decade he became a radio actor and master of ceremonies (he was the announcer for bandleader Glenn Miller's final program in 1944). A frequent visitor to the Broadway stages, Douglas became a star in the tailor-made role of vulgar junk tycoon Harry Brock in Garson Kanin's play Born Yesterday, in which he was co-starred with Judy Holliday. After 1,024 appearances as Harry Brock, Douglas made his first film, 1949's A Letter to Three Wives. An unlikely prospect for movie stardom with his burly build and longshoreman's voice, Douglas nonetheless remained popular throughout the 1950s. He is best remembered for his brace of baseball pictures, It Happens Every Spring (1949) and Angels in the Outfield (1951), and for his reteaming with Judy Holliday in 1956's The Solid Gold Cadillac. Among Douglas' five wives were actresses Virginia Field and Jan Sterling. Though the newspaper obituaries insisted that Paul Douglas had not been ill before his fatal heart attack in 1959, he looked so drawn and haggard in his last appearance on the TV series The Twilight Zone that the episode ("The Mighty Casey") had to be reshot with Jack Warden in Douglas' part.

Trivia: At the tender age of eight, Thelma Ritter was regaling the students and faculty of Brooklyn's Public School 77 with her recitals of such monologues as "Mr. Brown Gets His Haircut" and "The Story of Cremona". After appearing in high school plays and stock companies, Ritter was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Throughout the Depression years, she and her actor husband Joe Moran did everything short of robbing banks to support themselves; when vaudeville and stage assignments dried up, they entered slogan and jingle contests. Moran forsook performing to become an actor's agent in the mid-1930s, while Ritter also briefly gave up acting to raise a family. She started working professionally again in 1940 as a radio performer. In 1946, director George Seaton, an old friend of Ritter, offered her a bit role in the upcoming New York-lensed Miracle on 34th Street. Ritter's single scene as a weary Yuletide shopper went over so well that 20th Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that the actress' role be expanded. After Ritter garnered good notices for her unbilled Miracle role, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote a part specifically for her in his 1948 film A Letter to Three Wives (1949). She was afforded screen billing for the first time in 1949's City Across the River. During the first few years of her 20th Century-Fox contract, Ritter was Oscar-nominated for her performance as Bette Davis' acerbic maid in All About Eve, and for her portrayal of upwardly mobile John Lund's just-folks mother in The Mating Season (1951). In all, the actress would receive five nominations -- the other three were for With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953) and Pillow Talk (1959) -- though she never won the gold statuette. Ritter finally received star billing in the comedy/drama The Model and the Marriage Broker (1952), in which she assuages her own loneliness by finding suitable mates for others. After a showcase part as James Stewart's nurse in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Ritter made do with standard film supporting parts and starring roles on TV. In 1957, Ritter appeared as waterfront barfly Marthy in the Broadway musical New Girl in Town, a bowdlerization of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Ritter interrupted her still-thriving screen career in 1965 for another Broadway appearance in James Kirkwood's UTBU. Shortly after a 1968 guest appearance on TV's The Jerry Lewis Show, Ritter suffered a heart attack which would ultimately prove fatal; the actress' last screen appearance, like her first, was a cameo role in a George Seaton-directed comedy, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968). Ritter's daughter, Monica Moran, also pursued an acting career from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Trivia: Barbara Lawrence already had 10 years' experience as a photographer's model when, at age 17, she appeared in her first film, Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe (1945). She completed her studies at UCLA while co-starring in such 20th Century-Fox productions as Margie (1946) and Unfaithfully Yours (1948). Only occasionally a leading lady, Lawrence was generally cast as the heroine's best friend -- or, if there was a man involved, worst enemy. Lawrence's best-known screen role was the giggling Gertie Cummings in Oklahoma (1955), a part she had previously played on stage. In 1977, an unexpected biography appeared, Jim Connor's Hollywood Starlet: The Career of Barbara Lawrence.

Trivia: After his graduation from Bates College, Jeffrey Lynn worked as a high school English and speech teacher. He turned to acting in the mid-'30s and in 1937 was signed to a stock Warner Bros. contract. A bit too lightweight for important roles, he was a fine second-echelon leading man, and before leaving Warners he'd compiled several impressive credits, including such roles as poet Joyce Kilmer in The Fighting 69th (1940) and Henry Mortyn Field in All This and Heaven Too (1940). He also "starred" as Ashley Wilkes in the screen tests of Selznick's Gone With the Wind (1939), feeding lines to such aspiring Scarlett O'Haras as Paulette Goddard and Frances Dee. During WWII, he served as an army intelligence officer, earning a Bronze Star. He returned to films in 1948 in hopes of revitalizing his career, but found more success as a stage and television actor. His TV credits included two series, My Son Jeep (1953) and Star Stage (1955). Jeffrey Lynn retired from acting in 1968 to devote his time to his family and "civilian" business pursuits.

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: American actress Florence Bates had been a moderately successful lawyer for two decades when, as a lark, she started acting at California's Pasadena Playhouse in the mid 1930s. After playing a small role in the 1937 film Man In Blue (1937), Bates was "officially" discovered by Hollywood when she was cast as vainglorious dowager Mrs. Van Hopper in Alfred Hitchcock's Oscar-winning Rebecca (1940). From that point onward, Bates became one of Hollywood's favorite "society dragons," most effectively cast in comedies like Heaven Can Wait (1943), as one of Don Ameche's hell-bound old flames, and in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1948), as Danny Kaye's terrifying future mother-in-law. Her most significant "straight" part was in I Remember Mama (1948), as the forbiddingly famous author Florence Dana Morehead, whom Irene Dunne, as Mama, timidly approaches on behalf of Dunne's aspiring-writer daughter. Though in fragile health, Florence Bates entered television with the same forcefulness as she'd invaded movies, providing a welcome touch of professionalism to the otherwise atrocious early 1950s situation comedy The Hank McCune Show.

Trivia: The son of a Nevada railroading engineer, Hobart Cavanaugh was educated in San Francisco and at the University of California. His friendships with such California-based actors as Charlie Ruggles and Walter Catlett gave Cavanaugh the impetus to enter the theatrical world. After several years on stage, Cavanaugh began his screen career with 1928's San Francisco Nights. Slight, balding and virtually chinless, Cavanaugh was ideally cast as a henpecked husband, a clerk, or a process server. He was signed to a Warners' contract in 1932, and appeared in several Busby Berkeley and Jimmy Cagney pictures. Thanks to his next-door-neighbor demeanor, Cavanaugh frequently appeared as humorist Robert Benchley's friend or co-worker in Benchley's one-reel MGM shorts of the 1930s. Occasionally, Cavanaugh played against his established image by popping up as the "hidden killer" in mystery films of the 1940s (e.g. Universal's Horror Island). Hobart Cavanaugh's final appearance, filmed just before his death, was as an unctuous undertaker in 20th Century-Fox's Stella (1950).

Trivia: It is probably correct to assume that American actor Stuart Holmes never turned down work. In films since 1914's Life's Shop Window, Holmes showed up in roles both large and microscopic until 1962. In his early days (he entered the movie business in 1911), Holmes cut quite a villainous swath with his oily moustache and cold, baleful glare. He played Black Michael in the 1922 version of The Prisoner of Zenda and Alec D'Uberville in Tess of the D'Ubervilles (1923), and also could be seen as wicked land barons in the many westerns of the period. While firmly established in feature films, Holmes had no qualms about accepting bad-guy parts in comedy shorts, notably Stan Laurel's Should Tall Men Marry? (1926) In talkies, Holmes' non-descript voice tended to work against his demonic bearing. Had Tom Mix's My Pal the King (1932) been a silent picture, Holmes would have been ideal as one of the corrupt noblemen plotting the death of boy king Mickey Rooney; instead, Holmes was cast as Rooney's bumbling but honest chamberlain. By the mid '30s, Holmes' hair had turned white, giving him the veneer of a shopkeeper or courtroom bailiff. He signed a contract for bits and extra roles at Warner Bros, spending the next two decades popping up at odd moments in such features as Confession (1937), Each Dawn I Die (1939) and The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and in such short subjects as At the Stroke of Twelve (1941). Stuart Holmes remained on call at Central Casting for major films like Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) until his retirement; he died of an abdominal aortic aneurism at the age of 83.

Trivia: Character actor John Davidson entered films in 1914. Though a native New Yorker, Davidson seemed most at home playing sinister Middle Easterners or Europeans; he was, for example, cast as the sheik in Priscilla Dean's 1922 version of Under Two Flags and as Cardinal Richelieu in the 1924 Rudolph Valentino vehicle Monsieur Beaucaire. In talkies, he was seen in roles ranging from bit-part concierges to criminal masterminds. Busiest in serials, Davidson menaced his way through such chapter plays as The Perils of Pauline (1934), Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. (1941), The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1942), The Perils of Nyoka (1942), and The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). Even in his fleeting A-picture appearances, he remained an unsavory presence (e.g., Benedict Arnold in Where Do We Go From Here?). Once in a while, he'd spoof his established screen image, notably as the capricious sidewalk hypnotist in the 1939 Our Gang one-reeler Duel Personalities. He retired from films sometime in the early '50s. John Davidson is no relation to the singer of the same name.

Trivia: Juvenile performer Carl Switzer and his brother, Harold, began singing at local functions in their Illinois hometown. While visiting an aunt in California, the Switzer boys accompanied their mother to Hal Roach Studios, then proceeded to warble a hillbilly ditty in the Roach cafeteria. This performance won them both contracts at Roach, though only Carl achieved any sort of stardom. Nicknamed "Alfalfa," Carl became a popular member of the Our Gang kids, his performances distinguished by his cowlicked hair, vacuous grin, and off-key singing. Few who have seen The Our Gang Follies of 1938 can ever forget the sight of Alfalfa being pelted with tomatoes as he bravely vocalizes the immortal aria "I'm the Bar-ber of Sevilllllle!" The boy remained with Our Gang when Roach sold the property to MGM in 1938; his last Gang short was 1940's Kiddie Kure. Switzer found it hard to get film roles after his Our Gang tenure, especially when he began to mature. By the early '50s, his movie appearances had dwindled to bits. Switzer's handful of worthwhile adult film roles include a 100-year-old Indian in director William Wellman's Track of the Cat (1954); he was also a semi-regular on Roy Rogers' TV series. Throughout most of the 1950s, he supported himself as a hunting guide and bartender. Miles removed from the lovable Alfalfa, 32-year-old Carl Switzer was killed in a boozy brawl over a 50-dollar debt.