Trivia: One of the all-time great rock & rollers and an unprecedented, phenomenal show-business success, Elvis Presley also starred in 31 consecutive big-screen hits. He was among the Top Ten box-office attractions in 1957 and from 1961-1966. When he was 13, he moved to Memphis with his family, going on to work as an usher in a movie theater and a truck driver. Presley toured locally as a singer (billed as "The Hillbilly Cat") and recorded several singles for a local label; he was signed by RCA in 1955 and became an instant star, racking up one hit single after another. On-stage, he gyrated his midsection seductively, leading him to acquire the nickname "Elvis the Pelvis." His concert appearances inspired hysteria among his young female fans, and he was considered by many to be a negative moral influence. However, Presley maintained his clean-cut, "mama's boy" image and soon had fans from every generation. He began appearing in films in 1956, debuting in Love Me Tender. Never successful among critics, his films were designed around his casual, good-ol'-boy characters, successful flirtations with his pretty female co-stars, and numerous songs. And each film made money, altogether grossing more than 150 million dollars. After Presley served a tour in the army, his singing career declined in the early '60s, when the Beatles and other new groups dominated the airwaves; he continued making successful films until 1969 (his last was Change of Habit with Mary Tyler Moore, who played a nun). He also appeared in two concert documentaries, That's the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972). In the early '70s, after a decade of few personal appearances, Presley began doing live entertainment again, and his drawing power was as strong as ever. However, he began neglecting his health and gained large amounts of weight. He died of a prescription-drug-induced heart attack in 1977, after which his cult of personality grew to enormous proportions. Presley is perhaps more popular in death than he was during his life.

Trivia: Born in Arizona on August 23, 1934, actress Barbara Eden was three years old when her family moved to San Francisco, where as a teenager she plunged into acting and singing classes at San Francisco State College's Conservatory of Music. After briefly working as a band singer, Eden took up residence at Hollywood's Studio Club, an inexpensive rooming house for aspiring actresses. Other Studio Club residents would note in later years that Eden would look at the club's bulletin board and apply for every show business job available, even those that she was advised would "ruin" her career. Persistence paid off, and in 1956 Eden made her film debut in Back from Eternity. She worked steadily in television, finally attaining leading-lady status on the 1958 sitcom How to Marry a Millionaire, in which she played a myopic "Marilyn Monroe"-type golddigger. Good film and TV roles followed for the lovely blonde actress, and full stardom arrived with the NBC comedy series I Dream of Jeannie. Eden played the curvaceous bottle imp from 1965-70, reviving the character in a brace of TV movies, the last one produced in 1991. Eden's post-Jeannie career has included several films, TV guest star appearances, theatrical and nightclub engagements, and still another sitcom, 1981's Harper Valley P.T.A.In 1983, Eden joined the cast of Jaws 3, and played a role in Chattanooga Choo Choo (1984) before participating in The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal in 1985. The actress would return to her Genie roots throughout her later career, including in the 1985 comedy I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later, and I Still Dream of Jeannie (1991). Eden also made her mark in other sitcom-based films, most notably A Very Brady Sequel (1996). After starring alongside Hal Linden for the play Love Letters and taking a guest-starring role on Army Wives, a drama from Lifetime, Eden joined the cast of Always and Forever, a made-for-television movie for The Hallmark Channel (2009). In 2011, Eden published a memoir titled Jeannie Out of the Bottle that spoke candidly of her personal life, including detailed accounts of her failed marriages and the tragic death of her son.

Trivia: The younger brother of actor Dana Andrews, Steve Forrest served in World War II while his brother (17 years Steve's senior) was starring in such films as The Purple Heart (1944) and Laura (1944). Upon his return to America, Steve went to Hollywood to pay a social call on Dana, decided he liked the movie colony, and opted to stick around for a while. Though he'd previously played bits in such films as Crash Dive (using his given name of William Andrews), Forrest never seriously considered acting as a profession until enrolling at UCLA. He tried regional theatre work and scriptwriting then received a brief but showy bit part in MGM's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). This led to further film work in second leads then several years' worth of villainous roles. When asked why he accepted so many bad-guy assignments, Forrest would cite the comment once made to him by Clark Gable: "The hero gets the girl but the heavy gets the attention". By 1969, however, Forrest felt as though he'd worn out his welcome as a heavy, and began regularly turning down roles, holding out for heroic parts. In 1975, he was cast as Lieutenant Dan "Hondo" Harrison on the popular TV action series S.W.A.T., which might have run for years had it not been axed under pressure from the anti-violence brigades. More recently, Steve Forrest lampooned his rugged, rough'n'ready image in the 1987 film comedy Amazon Women of the Moon.In the years to follow, Forrest would remain beloved for his man's man presence on screen, appearing occasionally on shows like Colombo and Murder, She Wrote. Forrest passed away in 2013 at the age of 87.

Trivia: A versatile, commanding, leathery character actor, he learned to raise and ride broncos on his family's ranch during his youth. He attended college for two years, became a seaman, then began his performing career as a radio announcer; he became nationally known as an announcer on the "March of Time" broadcasts. Onscreen from the late '40s, he often portrayed law officers; he was also convincing as a villain. He was well-known for his TV work; he starred in the series Naked City and Wagon Train. He was married to actress Jeanette Nolan, with whom he appeared in Saddle Tramp (1950) and Two Rode Together (1961); they also acted together on radio, and in the late '60s they joined the cast of the TV series The Virginian, portraying a married couple. Their son was actor Tim McIntire.

Trivia: Karl Swenson was one of the busiest performers in the so-called golden days of network radio. Swenson played the leading role in the seriocomic daily serial Lorenzo Jones, and was also heard on Our Gal Sunday as Lord Henry, the heroine's "wealthy and titled Englishman" husband. He carried over his daytime-drama activities into television, playing Walter Manning in the 1954 video version of radio's Portia Faces Life. From 1958 onward, Swenson was seen in many small roles in a number of big films: Judgment of Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), and The Birds (1963). One of his more sizeable movie assignments was the voice of Merlin in the 1963 Disney animated feature The Sword in the Stone. One of his last roles was the recurring part of Mr. Hansen on TV's Little House on the Prairie. Karl Swenson was married to actress Joan Tompkins.

Trivia: In films since 1949's White Heat, American actor Ford Rainey most often played judges, doctors and police officials. Rainey's weekly TV roles included small-town newspaper editor Lloyd Ramsey in Window on Main Street (1961), research director Dr. Barnett in Search (1972) James Barrett in The Manhunter (1974) and Jim in The Bionic Woman (1975). Undoubtedly his most rewarding TV-series assignment was The Richard Boone Show (1963), in which, as a member of Boone's "repertory company," he was allowed to essay a different role each week. When last we saw Ford Rainey, he was playing a big-time counterfeiter on Wiseguy (1987).

Trivia: Born R. Hanley Jaeckel (the "R" stood for nothing), young Richard Jaeckel arrived in Hollywood with his family in the early 1940s. Columnist Louella Parsons, a friend of Jaeckel's mother, got the boy a job as a mailman at the 20th Century-Fox studios. When the producers of Fox's Guadalcanal Diary found themselves in need of a baby-faced youth to play a callow marine private, Jaeckel was given a screen test. Despite his initial reluctance to play-act, Jaeckel accepted the Guadalcanal Diary assignment and remained in films for the next five decades, appearing in almost 50 movies and playing everything from wavy-haired romantic leads to crag-faced villains. Between 1944 and 1948, Jaeckel served in the U.S. Navy. Upon his discharge, he co-starred in Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne and Forrest Tucker. In 1971, Jaeckel was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar on the strength of his performance in Sometimes a Great Notion. Richard Jaeckel has also been a regular in several TV series, usually appearing in dependable, authoritative roles: he was cowboy scout Tony Gentry in Frontier Circus (1962), Lt. Pete McNeil in Banyon (1972), firefighter Hank Myers in Firehouse (1974), federal agent Hank Klinger in Salvage 1 (1979), Major Hawkins in At Ease (1983) (a rare -- and expertly played -- comedy role), and Master Chief Sam Rivers in Supercarrier (1988). From 1991-92, Jaeckel played Lieutenant Ben Edwards on the internationally popular series Baywatch. Jaeckel passed away at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital of an undisclosed illness at the age of 70.

Trivia: What do actors Gig Young, Anne Shirley, and L.Q. Jones have in common? All of them lifted their show-biz names from characters they'd portrayed on screen. In 1955, University of Texas alumnus Justice McQueen made his film debut in Battle Cry, playing a laconic lieutenant named L.Q. Jones. McQueen liked his character so much that he remained L.Q. Jones offscreen ever after (though he never made it legal, still listing himself as Justice Ellis McQueen in the 1995 edition of Who's Who). A natural for westerns both vocally and physically, Jones played supporting roles in several big-screen oaters, and was seen on TV as Smitty on Cheyenne (1955-58) and as Belden on The Virginian (1964-67). Jones gained a measure of prominence in the films of Sam Peckinpah, notably Ride the High Country (1961) and The Wild Bunch (1969). Turning to the production side of the business in the early 1970s, L. Q. Jones produced and co-starred in the 1971 film Brotherhood of Satan; he also co-produced, directed, adapted and played a cameo (as a porn-movie actor!) in the fascinating 1975 cinemazation of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, a tour de force that won Jones a Hugo Award from America's science fiction writers.

Trivia: Tough-talking American character actor Perry Lopez played "ethnic" roles from the time of his his stage debut in the early 1950s. Signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1955, Lopez lent support to such studio projects as Mister Roberts (1955), The McConnell Story (1956) and The Violent Road (1958). He is best remembered as police officer Lou Escobar in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974). Perry Lopez reprised this uniformed character (now promoted to captain) in the 1990 Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes. Lopez died of lung cancer in February 2008.

Trivia: Of Swedish-American heritage, Virginia Christine (born Virginia Kraft) grew up in largely Scandinavian communities in Iowa and Minnesota. As a high schooler, Christine won a National Forensic League award, which led to her first professional engagement on a Chicago radio station. When her family moved to Los Angeles, Christine sought out radio work while attending college. She was trained for a theatrical career by actor/director Fritz Feld, who later became her husband. In 1942, she signed a contract with Warner Bros., appearing in bits in such films as Edge of Darkness (1943) and Mission to Moscow (1944). As a free-lance actress, Christine played the female lead in The Mummy's Curse (1945), a picture she later described as "ghastly." Maturing into a much-in-demand character actress, Christine appeared in four Stanley Kramer productions: The Men (1950), Not as a Stranger (1955), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). Other movie assignments ranged from the heights of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) to the depths of Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1978). To a generation of Americans who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, Christine will forever be Mrs. Olson, the helpful Swedish neighbor in scores of Folger's Coffee commercials.

Trivia: Exotic, voluptuous, nostril-flaring British actress Barbara Steele originally aspired to be a painter. At 20, she was sidetracked into acting, and within a year she made her film bow in a one-line bit as a student in Bachelor of Hearts (1958). Most of her roles were nondescript until she moved to Italy and launched her horror-film cycle with her performance as a resuscitated witch in Black Sunday (1961). Throughout the next fifteen years, Steele thrived as an internationally popular "scream queen," undergoing the usual ordeals of being whipped, strangled, dismembered and set ablaze, but also dishing it out as well as taking it -- especially in the role of a demonic woman's prison warden in Caged Heat (1974). Steele attracted the attention of the movie cognoscenti when she answered an open call posted by director Federico Fellini, who promptly cast her in a flashy role in 8 1/2 (1963); fourteen years later, she appeared as Violet in director Louis Malle's controversial Pretty Baby (1977). For many years, Steele was the wife of screenwriter James Poe, who wrote a good part for her in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), only to see the role whittled into oblivion by director Sydney Pollack. Steele remained close to Poe even after their divorce, retiring from the screen when Poe died in 1980.

Trivia: Lanky character actor Tom Fadden first trod the boards when he joined an Omaha stock company in 1915. Fadden went on to tour in top vaudeville with his actress wife Genevieve. From 1932 to 1939, he was seen on Broadway in such productions as Nocturne and Our Town. He made his first film in 1939. Fadden's better-known screen roles include the tollhouse keeper in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)--which led to choice appearances in subsequent Frank Capra productions--and "possessed" townman Ira in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). In 1958, he was seen on a weekly basis as Silas Perry on TV's Cimarron City. Tom Fadden's cinematic swan song was 1977's Empire of the Ants.

Trivia: Born into an aristocratic Mexican family, actress Dolores Del Rio was the daughter of a prominent banker. After a convent education, she was married at age 16 to writer Jaime Del Rio, whose name she retained long after the marriage had dissolved. The second cousin of silent film star Ramon Novarro, Del Rio was a regular guest at Hollywood parties; at one of these, director Edwin Carewe, struck by her dazzling beauty, felt she'd be perfect for a role in his upcoming film Joanna (1925). Stardom followed rapidly, with Del Rio achieving top billing in several major silent productions, including What Price Glory? (1927), as the French coquette Charmaine, and The Loves of Carmen (1927), in the title role. Since Del Rio spoke fluent English, the switch-over to sound posed no problem for her, though her marked Hispanic accent limited her range of roles. Most often, she was cast on the basis of beauty first, talent second; she is at her most alluring in 1932's Bird of Paradise, in which she appears all but nude in some sequences. Del Rio looked equally fetching when fully clothed, as in the title role of Madame Du Barry (1934). Upon the breakup of her second marriage to art director Cedric Gibbons, the graceful, intelligent Del Rio became the most eligible "bachelor girl" in Hollywood; one of her most ardent suitors was Orson Welles, ten years her junior, who cast her in his 1942 RKO production Journey Into Fear. In 1943, Del Rio returned to Mexico to star in films, negotiating a "percentage of profits" deal which increased her already vast fortune. Enormously popular in her native country, Del Rio returned only occasionally to Hollywood, usually at the request of such long-standing industry friends as director John Ford. Her seemingly ageless beauty and milk-smooth complexion was the source of envy and speculation; from all accounts, she used no cosmetic surgery, maintaining her looks principally through a diligent (and self-invented) diet and exercise program. Even as late as 1960, she looked far too young to play Elvis Presley's mother in Flaming Star. Del Rio retired from filmmaking in 1978, choosing to devote her time to managing her financial and real estate holdings, and to her lifelong hobbies of writing and painting.

Trivia: Mexican actor Rodolpho Acosta first became known to North American audiences by way of his appearance in John Ford's The Fugitive (1948). Frequently typecast as a bandit or indigent peasant, Acosta held out for less stereotypical roles once he was established in Hollywood. In 1957, he was top-billed in The Tijuana Story, playing a courageous Mexican journalist who wages a one-man war against a vicious narcotics ring. Depending on the role, Rodolpho Acosta was sometimes billed as Rudy Acosta.