Trivia: The long-reigning king of Hollywood horror, Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt on November 23, 1887, in South London. The youngest of nine children, he was educated at London University in preparation for a career as a diplomat. However, in 1909, he emigrated to Canada to accept a job on a farm, and while living in Ontario he began pursuing acting, joining a touring company and adopting the stage name Boris Karloff. His first role was as an elderly man in a production of Molnar's The Devil, and for the next decade Karloff toiled in obscurity, traveling across North America in a variety of theatrical troupes. By 1919, he was living in Los Angeles, unemployed and considering a move into vaudeville, when instead he found regular work as an extra at Universal Studios. Karloff's first role of note was in 1919's His Majesty the American, and his first sizable part came in The Deadlier Sex a year later. Still, while he worked prolifically, his tenure in the silents was undistinguished, although it allowed him to hone his skills as a consummate screen villain.Karloff's first sound-era role was in the 1929 melodrama The Unholy Night, but he continued to languish without any kind of notice, remaining so anonymous even within the film industry itself that Picturegoer magazine credited 1931's The Criminal Code as his first film performance. The picture, a Columbia production, became his first significant hit, and soon Karloff was an in-demand character actor in projects ranging from the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Cracked Nuts to the Edward G. Robinson vehicle Five Star Final to the serial adventure King of the Wild. Meanwhile, at Universal Studios, plans were underway to adapt the Mary Shelley classic Frankenstein in the wake of the studio's massive Bela Lugosi hit Dracula. Lugosi, however, rejected the role of the monster, opting instead to attach his name to a project titled Quasimodo which ultimately went unproduced. Karloff, on the Universal lot shooting 1931's Graft, was soon tapped by director James Whale to replace Lugosi as Dr. Frankenstein's monstrous creation, and with the aid of the studio's makeup and effects unit, he entered into his definitive role, becoming an overnight superstar. Touted as the natural successor to Lon Chaney, Karloff was signed by Universal to a seven-year contract, but first he needed to fulfill his prior commitments and exited to appear in films including the Howard Hawks classic Scarface and Business or Pleasure. Upon returning to the Universal stable, he portrayed himself in 1932's The Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood before starring as a nightclub owner in Night World. However, Karloff soon reverted to type, starring in the title role in 1932's The Mummy, followed by a turn as a deaf-mute killer in Whale's superb The Old Dark House. On loan to MGM, he essayed the titular evildoer in The Mask of Fu Manchu, but on his return to Universal he demanded a bigger salary, at which point the studio dropped him. Karloff then journeyed back to Britain, where he starred in 1933's The Ghoul, before coming back to Hollywood to appear in John Ford's 1934 effort The Lost Patrol. After making amends with Universal, he co-starred with Lugosi in The Black Cat, the first of several pairings for the two actors, and in 1936 he starred in the stellar sequel The Bride of Frankenstein. Karloff spent the remainder of the 1930s continuing to work at an incredible pace, but the quality of his films, the vast majority of them B-list productions, began to taper off dramatically. Finally, in 1941, he began a three-year theatrical run in Arsenic and Old Lace before returning to Hollywood to star in the A-list production The Climax. Again, however, Karloff soon found himself consigned to Poverty Row efforts, such as 1945's The House of Frankenstein. He also found himself at RKO under Val Lewton's legendary horror unit. A few of his films were more distinguished -- he appeared in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Unconquered, and even Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer -- and in 1948 starred on Broadway in J.B. Priestley's The Linden Tree, but by and large Karloff delivered strong performances in weak projects. By the mid-'50s, he was a familiar presence on television, and from 1956 to 1958, hosted his own series. By the following decade, he was a fixture at Roger Corman's American International Pictures. In 1969, Karloff appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's Targets, a smart, sensitive tale in which he portrayed an aging horror film star; the role proved a perfect epitaph -- he died on February 2, 1969.

Trivia: Discovered by Rodgers and Hammerstein, actress/singer/dancer Betta St. John played a small role in the 1945 Broadway musical Carousel. Four years later, St. John created the character of Liat in R&H's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical hit South Pacific. She followed the production to London, where she would remain for the better part of the 1950s. In films, St. John was cast in exotically regal roles in such films as Dream Wife (1953), The Robe (1953) and The Student Prince (1954). As her film career drew to close, Betta St. John was seen as a "Jane substitute" in a pair of Tarzan features starring Gordon Scott.

Trivia: Scottish actor Finlay Currie's pre-theatrical occupations included choirmaster and organist. He entered show business at the turn of the century as a musical performer, billed as "Harry Calvo, the double-voiced vocalist." For ten years, Currie toured Australia as principal comedian in Sir Benjamin Fuller's acting troupe. He returned to the London stage in 1930, where over the next three decades he would appear in such hits as The Last Mile and Death of a Salesman. In films from 1932, Currie's most memorable screen role was as the surly convict Magwitch in Great Expectations (1946). He spent much of the early 1950s in Hollywood, playing such forceful character roles as St. Peter in Quo Vadis (1951) and the mysterious Mr. Shunderson in People Will Talk (1951). Still in harness into the mid-1960s, Finlay Currie was at one juncture the oldest working actor in Great Britain.

Trivia: After several years in secondary film roles, the skeletal, menacing Christopher Lee achieved horror-flick stardom as the Monster in 1958's The Curse of Frankenstein, the second of his 21 Hammer Studios films. Contrary to popular belief, Lee and Peter Cushing did not first appear together in The Curse of Frankenstein. In Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which Cushing plays the minor role of Osric, Lee appears as the cadaverous candle-bearer in the "frighted with false fires" scene, one of his first film roles. In 1958, Lee made his inaugural appearance as "the Count" in The Horror of Dracula, with Cushing as Van Helsing. It would remain the favorite of Lee's Dracula films; the actor later noted that he was grateful to be allowed to convey "the sadness of the character. The terrible sentence, the doom of immortality...."Three years after Curse, Lee added another legendary figure to his gallery of characters: Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes. With the release eight years later of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Lee became the first actor ever to portray both Holmes and Holmes' brother, Mycroft, onscreen. Other Lee roles of note include the title characters in 1959's The Mummy and the Fu Manchu series of the '60s, and the villainous Scaramanga in the 1974 James Bond effort The Man With the Golden Gun. In one brilliant casting coup, the actor was co-starred with fellow movie bogeymen Cushing, Vincent Price, and John Carradine in the otherwise unmemorable House of Long Shadows (1982). Established as a legend in his own right, Lee continued working steadily throughout the '80s and '90s, appearing in films ranging from Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) to Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999).In 2001, after appearing in nearly 300 film and television productions and being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the international star with the most screen credits to his name, the 79-year-old actor undertook the role of Saruman, chief of all wizards, in director Peter Jackson's eagerly anticipated screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Thought by many to be the millennial predecessor to George Lucas' Star Wars franchise, audiences thrilled to the wondrous battle between Saruman and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) atop the wizard's ominous tower, though Lee didn't play favorites between the franchises when Lucas shot back with the continuing saga of Anakin Skywalker's journey to the dark side in mid-2002. Wielding a lightsaber against one of the most powerful adversaries in the Star Wars canon, Lee proved that even at 80 he still had what it takes to be a compelling and demanding screen presence. He lent his vocal talents to Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in 2005, and appeared as the father of Willy Wonka in the same director's adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic. He appeared as Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith, and voiced the part for the animated Clone Wars. He appeared in the quirky British film Burke & Hare in 2010, and the next year he could be seen Martin Scorsese's Hugo. In 2012 he teamed with Tim Burton yet again when he appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows.Now nearly into 90s, Lee returned to Middle Earth in 2012 with Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, appearing in the first (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) and third (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) films. He also reprised the role in a number of video games based on the two series. Lee was still actively working when he died in 2015, at age 93.

Trivia: British lead actor, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: Despite the Mediterranean flavor of her name, actress Adrienne Corri was born in Scotland and made her 1948 stage debut in London. A strikingly attractive redhead, Adrienne was often cast in seductive roles. Few of her big-budget films gave her much opportunity; she seemed more at home in such science fiction and horror items as Devil Girl from Mars (1954), Corridors of Blood (1958), The Tell-Tale Heart (1960) and Vampire Circus (1971). In films until 1979, Adrienne Corri was most spectacularly featured in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), in which futuristic punk Malcolm McDowell ritualistically rapes her while dancing to the tune of "Singin' In the Rain"

Trivia: British character actor Francis de Wolff first appeared onscreen in the '30s.

Trivia: The brother of British leading man Mark Dignam, Basil Dignam spent most of his time before the cameras in small but pivotal roles. From 1952's Murder in the Cathedral onward, Dignam, a former lumberjack, popped up frequently as barristers, politicians and military officers. His aura of brusque professionalism made Dignam a valuable foil in British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s, notably several of the Carry On series. Habitues of the Shock Theatre TV programs of the early 1960s may recall Dignam as "The Admiral" in 1960's Gorgo, while Shakespeare scholars will remember the actor for his portrayal of Polonius in the 1969 Nicol Williamson version of Hamlet. Basil Dignam was the husband of actress Mona Washbourne.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: John Gabriel was 19 when he made his first brief film appearance in 1950. He went on to play nondescript secondary roles in such films as South Pacific (1958), finally attaining co-starring parts in the mid-'60s Westerns Stagecoach and El Dorado. He was far more successful on television, especially in the specialized world of the soap opera: He spent several fruitful years playing such daytime drama roles as Seneca Beaulac in Ryan's Hope and Zack Conway in Loving. John Gabriel harbors no regrets for the one plum role he didn't land: The Professor in Gilligan's Island (1964-1967), a part he essayed in the pilot episode before he was replaced by Russell Johnson.

Trivia: South Africa-born character actor Nigel Green appeared in British films from 1956. Typical Green roles of the 1950s and 1960s include Little John in The Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960) and Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts (1963); he was also more of a presence than a personality in the 1958 TV series William Tell. After an excellent showing in Zulu (1964), his film assignments improved noticeably; among his later characterizations were Nyland Smith in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) and General Wolsely in Khartoum (1966). He is also listed in many reference works as having appeared as Tom Ayerton, aka "The Green Man," in Mysterious Island (1961), but his planned scenes were never filmed (Ayerton appears in the film only as a skeleton). Nigel Green died of an accidental barbiturate overdose at the age of 47.

Trivia: In films from 1934, chubby Welsh character actor Roddy Hughes seemed like a Dickens character come to life. Accordingly, Hughes appeared as Short in The Old Curiosity Shop (1934), Tim Linkinwatter in Nicholas Nickelby (1947) and Old Fezziweg in the 1951 Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol. He also proved an eminently deflatable authority figure in low comedies of the "Old Mother Riley" variety. In his sixties, Roddy Hughes tended to play phlegmatic old-school-tie clubmen in such films as Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and The Sea Wife (1957).