Trivia: The British actress, comedienne, singer and dancer Julie Andrews stakes a claim to fame for having one of the single most astonishing voices (four octaves!) of any entertainer alive. Yet the breadth of this raw ability is often hugely obscured by Andrews's milquetoast image and onscreen persona. Thus, in the late '60s, Andrews - who began her film career rooted firmly in family-oriented material - traveled far out of her way to expand her dramatic repertoire, with decidedly mixed results. A music-hall favorite since childhood, Andrews spent the war years dodging Nazi bombs and bowing to the plaudits of her fans. Thanks to her own talents and the persistence of her vaudevillian parents, Andrews maintained her career momentum with appearances in such extravaganzas as 1947's Starlight Roof Revue. It was in the role of a 1920s flapper in Sandy Wilson's satire The Boy Friend (1953) that brought Andrews to Broadway; and few could resist the attractively angular young miss warbling such deliberately sappy lyrics as "I Could Be Happy With You/If You Could Be Happy With Me." Following a live-TV performance of High Tor, Andrews regaled American audiences in the star-making role of cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the 1956 Broadway blockbuster My Fair Lady. The oft-told backstage story of this musical classic was enough to dissuade anyone from thinking that Andrews was an overnight success, as producer Moss Hart mercilessly drilled her for 48 hours to help her get her lines, songs and dialect in proper working order. In 1957, Andrews again enchanted TV audiences in the title role of Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical adaptation of Cinderella. Later, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe -- also the composers of My Fair Lady -- developed the role of Guinevere in their 1960 musical Camelot with Andrews in mind, and the result was another Broadway triumph, albeit not as profitable as Fair Lady. Although a proven favorite with American audiences thanks to her frequent TV variety show appearances (notably a memorable 1962 teaming with Carol Burnett), Andrews did not make a motion picture until 1964. As Mary Poppins, Andrews not only headlined one of Walt Disney's all-time biggest moneymakers, but also won an Oscar -- sweet compensation for having lost the Eliza role to Audrey Hepburn for the adaptation of My Fair Lady. Andrews hoped that Mary Poppins would not type her in "goody-goody" parts, and, to that end, accepted a decidedly mature role as James Garner's love interest in The Americanization of Emily (1964). However, Andrews' next film, The Sound of Music (1965) effectively locked her into sweetness and light parts in the minds of moviegoers. On the strength of the success of Music, Andrews was signed to numerous Hollywood projects, but her stardom had peaked.Perhaps recognizing this, Andrews started to branch out fairly aggressively by the late '60s, with such "adult-oriented" pictures as Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller Torn Curtain. That film, and others (Hawaii, Star!) all flopped. In the late '60s, Andrews fell in love with and married the then white-hot American director Blake Edwards; her decision to collaborate with Edwards on a professional level, to boot, waxed incredibly strategic. Today, many view Edwards in a negative light for cranking out moronic studio fodder such as A Fine Mess and Sunset). In 1969, however, he sat among Hollywood's creme-de-la-creme, notorious for crafting mature genre pictures for adult audiences (The Days of Wine and Roses, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Experiment in Fear and sophisticated slapstick comedies unafraid to take chances (the Pink Panther series, The Party). By marrying Edwards and aligning herself with him creatively, then, Andrews was also consciously or unconsciously bucking to change her image. Unfortunately, the two began at a low ebb to end all low ebbs. The WWI musical farce Darling Lili (1970) featured Rock Hudson, electric musical numbers, stunning dogfight sequences, and - significantly - a semi-erotic striptease number by Andrews. Apparently audiences didn't buy this sort of behavior coming from Mary Poppins: the film tanked at the box office, as did the spy thriller The Tamarind Seed, also starring Andrews.Aside from a couple of televised musical specials, Andrews stuck with her husband for each successive film - for better or worse, as they say. Their next collaborations arrived in the late '70s and early '80s, first with the smash Dudley Moore sex farce '10' (1979) and then with the Hollywood satire S.O.B. (1981). In the former, Andrews took a backseat to sexy bombshell Bo Derek, who catches the infatuation of Moore but delivered a finely-modulated comic performance nonetheless; the latter - an unapologetically 'R' rated comedy about a nutty director who attempts to turn a family-friendly stinker into a porno musical -- exposed a topless Andrews to the world for the first time. This rank, cynical and angry "satire" represented the couple's creative nadir; one critic rightly pointed out that Andrews could have used it as grounds for divorce. The 1982 transvestite musical Victor/Victoria (with Andrews in the lead) fared better; it was followed by Edwards's 1983 Truffaut remake, The Man Who Loved Women (with Andrews as the lover of sculptor Burt Reynolds). Andrews's attempts at image-extending here are obvious in each case; the individual films have various strengths and weaknesses, but - love 'em or hate 'em -- they broadened the appeal of Andrews only slightly - with many perceiving her as either an onscreen accessory to her husband or as an okay straight man in mediocre romantic comedies. The couple fared a thousand times better with the excellent mid-life crisis comedy-drama That's Life! (1986), starring Andrews and Jack Lemmon. Two esteemed dramatic roles sans Edwards - that of a frustrated multiple sclerosis victim in Duet for One (1986), and that of a grieving mother of an AIDS victim in Our Sons (1991) - did what the prior films were supposed to have done: they secured Andrews's reputation as an actress of astonishing versatility. Yet, as Andrews aged, she ironically began to segue back into the types of roles that originally brought her infamy, with a series of sugar-coated, grandmotherly parts in family-friendly pictures. Notably, she co-starred in the first two installments of The Princess Diaries as Queen Clarisse Rinaldi, a European monarch of a tiny duchy, who tutors her "hip" teen granddaughter (Anne Hathaway) in the ways of regality. Andrews also used her polished and cultured British diction to great advantage by voicing Queen Lillian in the second and third and fourth installments of Dreamworks's popular, CG-animated Shrek series: Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and Shrek Forever After. She also maintained her status as a family-film icon by narrating Enchanted, voicing Gru's mother in the animated Despicable Me, and playing opposite The Rock in Tooth Fairy.

Trivia: Over the course of a career that spanned seven decades, Omar Sharif played every ethnic type imaginable: Spanish, Mongolian, Yugoslavian, Turkish, Russian, Jewish, Argentinian, Mexican, and -- most improbably -- a German serving as a Nazi officer (in 1967's Night of the Generals). That was the nature of his smoldering, swarthy good looks: Every race wanted to claim him as their own. The first Arab actor to achieve worldwide fame, Sharif nonetheless could never match the splash he made with two of his earliest English-language features, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.Omar Sharif was born Michel Demetri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932, to a well-to-do Lebanese Christian family in Alexandria, Egypt. His father was a lumber merchant, while his mother was a socialite whose guests included King Farouk (and who sent her pudgy son to a British-style boarding school so he would lose weight eating the blander food.) He had a natural intelligence for numbers and language, and by the time he graduated from Cairo University with a degree in mathematics and physics, he could speak five languages (including Arabic, English, and French). After graduation, he worked alongside his father in the family lumber business, but his unused talents made him restless for bigger success.Egypt was known as "the Hollywood of the Middle East" in the 1950s, producing more than 100 Arabic-language films a year. Hoping to break into the movies, Shalhoub chose the new moniker "Omar Sharif"; he reasoned Westerners would be familiar with Gen. Omar Bradley, and "Sharif" was similar to "sheriff." In 1954, director Youssef Chahine offered his friend a part in Shaytan Al-Sahra ("Devil of the Desert"), followed by a leading role in Siraa Fil-Wadi ("Struggle to the Valley") opposite Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, a pretty girl-next-door type who had been beloved by Cairo audiences ever since her debut as a child star. A romance soon blossomed between the co-stars; Sharif eventually converted to Islam in order to marry her, and Hamama allowed him to kiss her onscreen, which she had not agreed to do with any other co-star. The duo made seven more movies together, and had a son named Tarek in 1957.Sharif's smoldering yet dignified box-office appeal spread from Egypt to European art-house cinemas, and eventually caught the attention of British director David Lean, who was casting Arabic actors for his biopic of T.E. Lawrence. Sharif's fluency in English put him ahead of the rest of the contenders, and he won the role of Sherif Ali Ibn El Karish in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Even though the 100-day shoot in the desert -- "without women," the actor later lamented -- tried the entire cast's patience, Sharif enjoyed working under Lean and earned the respect of the notoriously actor-hating director through his dedication. Similarly, Sharif became great friends with Peter O'Toole, declaring that he and his co-star were "like brothers" who, after shooting wrapped, vowed to work together again should any occasion arise.Sharif's role in Lawrence of Arabia made him an international star and won him Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor and Most Promising Newcomer, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Doctor Zhivago (1965), his next film for Lean (which included a cameo by his son Tarek as the younger version of his character), cemented his position as a superstar. Doctor Zhivago was an unprecedented smash, making more than 100 million dollars at the box office (over 750 million today, when adjusted for inflation), and earning ten Academy Award nominations and five wins.These two blockbusters made Sharif a star, but he considered it a devil's bargain. Without an agent to act on his behalf, he signed a seven-year contract with Columbia that put his fee at what some sources say was as low as 15,000 dollars per film -- even for hits like Funny Girl (1968). Long sojourns in Europe and the U.S. took him away from Hamama and their son, and a combination of political difficulties reentering Egypt and temptations while away from home weakened their marriage. Acknowledging that Hamama was the love of his life, but paradoxically rationalizing that it would be better to leave her while she was relatively young and could remarry, the pair divorced in 1974.As Sharif's career began a slow downward slide in the mid-'70s, with roles in stinkers like Oh, Heavenly Dog! (1980) and Inchon (1981), his personal life also became cluttered with flings, including one with Italian journalist Paola De Luca that led to a son named Ruben. Rather than concentrate on acting, Sharif instead devoted more and more time to his passion for the card game bridge, writing several books and a syndicated newspaper column about the strategy of the game, as well as lending his name to video-game simulations. He eventually became one of the highest-ranked bridge players in the world, and his love for the game was so great that sometimes he would refuse film roles because the shooting schedule conflicted with bridge tournaments.While Sharif's last decades were mostly devoted to a laissez-faire lifestyle as an intercontinental playboy, living in hotels and frequenting casinos, he did make some onscreen appearances. He played a supporting role in 2004's Hidalgo (in which he demanded -- and received -- rewrites for dialogue he found insulting toward Muslims) and narrated the epic-fantasy film 10,000 B.C. (2008). But his final cinematic triumph was in Monsieur Ibrahim (2003), a heartfelt coming-of-age drama set in 1950s Paris about the unlikely friendship between a kindly Muslim shopkeeper and a Jewish teen. The movie earned praise from critics and won Sharif a Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and a Best Actor César (the French equivalent of the Oscars).His last years were, regrettably, marred by colorful public incidents, including headbutting a policeman in a casino in suburban Paris and punching a parking-lot attendant in Beverly Hills. But this churlish behavior might have been a harbinger of Alzheimer's disease, which blackened his final days. After completing a swan-song cameo in The Secret Scripture with his grandson Omar Sharif Jr., and only six months following the death of Faten Hamama, the woman he still regarded as "the love of my life," Sharif succumbed to a fatal heart attack in Cairo on July 10, 2015.

Trivia: When Anthony Quayle appeared in films about war and espionage, he performed brilliantly, earning critical acclaim. And no wonder. Quayle had served as a spy in Albania during World War II, snooping around corners into Nazi business and rising to the rank of major for his contributions to the allied effort. His war experience primed him well for roles in such productions as The Battle of the River Plate (1956), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Operation Crossbow (1965), and 21 Hours at Munich (1976). In time, he gained a reputation as one of the 20th century's best-trained character actors, performing in productions in virtually every genre and in every medium -- stage, film, television, and audiocassette. But being well prepared for acting roles was nothing new for Quayle. As a young man, he had trained long and hard to hone his thespian skills, attending the best schools and apprenticing with the best acting companies. Quayle was born on September 7, 1913, in Ainsdale, Sefton, England, where his father was a lawyer. After attending the Rugby secondary school, he received further training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, then performed in minor roles in stage and film productions before his military service. After the war, he appeared on-stage in Dostoyevksy's Crime and Punishment with John Gielgud and Edith Evans, then joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1948, he played Marcellus in Laurence Olivier's Academy award-winning film production of Hamlet. Between 1948 and 1956, Quayle served as director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, laying the groundwork for the founding of the famed Royal Shakespeare Company. Quayle went on to perform in some of the best-known films of all time, many of them historical epics, including Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), in which he earned an Academy award nomination for his portrayal of Cardinal Wolsey, lord chancellor of England under Henry VIII. He also played major roles in important TV miniseries such as Great Expectations (1974), Moses the Lawgiver (1975), The Story of David (1976), and Masada (1981). In addition, Quayle narrated films, wrote two books (Eight Hours From England and On Such a Night), made audiocassettes, and continued to perform in stage productions in London and New York. What made Quayle special was his discipline and intensity. Watch him in any of his films and you will see a man consumed by his role, a man who abandons his own identity to assume another's. In performance, he is always busy, preoccupied, his brow furrowed by the concerns of his character. Fittingly, he was pronounced a knight of the realm in 1985 for his acting achievements. Four years later, on October 20, 1989, he died of cancer in London. He had been married to Dorothy Hysen (1947-1989) and Hermione Hannen (1934-1941).

Trivia: Dan O'Herlihy studied architecture at the National University of Ireland, but his heart was in the acting highlands. After racking up stage credits with the Gate Theater and the Abbey Players, O'Herlihy turned to films in 1946, impressing critics and filmgoers alike with his breakthrough role in Odd Man Out. He made his American movie bow in Orson Welles' MacBeth (1948), playing the not inconsiderable role of MacDuff; shortly thereafter, he appeared with his MacBeth co-star Roddy MacDowall in an economically budgeted adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. In 1952, he earned an Academy Award nomination for his near-solo starring turn in Luis Bunuel's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Maturing into a versatile character player, he could also be seen as FDR in MacArthur (1977), the frothing-at-the-mouth villain in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1983), a benign lizardlike alien in The Last Starfighter (1984), and the dark-purposed cyborg-firm exec in the RoboCop films. His TV credits include blarney-spouting Doc McPheeters in The Travels of Jamie McPheeters (1963), town boss Will Varner in The Long Hot Summer (1965), "The Director" in A Man Called Sloane (1979), intelligence agent Carson Marsh in Whiz Kids (1984), and Andrew Packard in Twin Peaks (1990). Dan O'Herlihy was the brother of director Michael O'Herlihy.

Trivia: Educated in convent schools, British leading lady Sylvia Syms trained for her craft at RADA. Syms made her film debut in 1956's My Teenaged Daughter. Though few of her films were memorable (exceptions include The Quare Fellow, Run Wild, Run Free), her popularity seldom faltered. Easing gracefully into character parts in the 1970s, Syms was frequently seen as bejeweled society matrons, often with hyphenated last names. She also starred as Isabelde Gines in British TV series Peak Practice. Sylvia Syms stage and screen credits should not be confused with those of Brooklyn-born nightclub entertainer Sylvia Syms, who died in 1992 at the age of 79.

Trivia: Beetle-browed, heavily-accented Viennese character actor Oscar Homolka graduated from the Royal Dramatic Academy in Vienna before going on to work on the Austrian and German stage, which led him to appear in many German silent and sound films. After Hitler came to power, he moved first to England, then to the U.S. in 1936. In Hollywood films and on Broadway he played imposing character roles, usually scheming or villainous but sometimes humorous or sympathetic. For his portrayal of gruff Uncle Chris in I Remember Mama (1948) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Because of his coarse, Slavic features, he was frequently cast as heavies in films about foreign intrigue. He returned to England in the mid-'60s, intending to retire; instead, he continued appearing in films, and in 1975 came back to Hollywood to make two made-for-TV movies, One of Our Own and The Legendary Curse of the Hope Diamond, co-starring his wife, actress Joan Tetzel.

Trivia: British lead and supporting actor, onscreen from the '60s.