Trivia: Though often overshadowed by some of her female contemporaries as the years passed, Jennifer Jones came to embody one of the preeminent examples of a Hollywood star. With qualities that transcended preternatural beauty, she projected the sort of charisma that cannot be feigned, courting legions of fans in the process, as she graced one film after another with her presence. And then, just as suddenly as she had risen to greatness, Jones dropped out of the limelight and withdrew into anonymity, spending the last several decades of her life well outside of the public eye. Jennifer Jones began life in Tulsa, OK, as Phyllis Isley, the daughter of vaudeville performers. Ensconced in show business from the beginning, she dreamed of establishing herself as an actress from early childhood. As a young woman, Isley studied at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts and revealed incredible promise; during that tenure, she also met and grew enchanted with a young actor named Robert Walker; they did summer stock together, fell deeply in love, married, and parented two children, Robert Walker, Jr., and Michael Ross Walker. Then Hollywood beckoned to Isley, first with a supporting role in a Republic western, and then in the form of a talent agent from megaproducer David O. Selznick, the giant responsible for Gone With the Wind. Though the agent sensed greatness from the ingenue's initial reading and arranged a meeting between Isley and Selznick without hesitation, Isley reportedly felt ashamed by the Republic B picture and attempted to obscure its presence. She needn't have worried; the initial meeting between Selznick and Isley (whom he renamed Jennifer Jones) permanently changed both of their lives and made Jones a household name. For years, film historians have speculated (and fans have gossiped) about the initial exchanges that materialized between Jones and Selznick, the history of their relationship, and some of the tragedies surrounding it. Many of the exact details will never be known, but readily apparent were Selznick's vision of Jones as his next great star, Jones's decision to leave and then divorce Walker and marry Selznick, and Walker's understandable difficulty in handling these events. By all accounts an emotionally fragile individual (though an incredibly kind and sensitive one), Walker himself moved to Hollywood and experienced a brief period of stardom that peaked with a lead role in Hitchcock's 1951 Strangers on a Train, but he could never quite emotionally adjust to the end of his marriage, or the fact that Jones had left him and married the single most powerful and wealthy person in Hollywood. On a note of sad irony, the two appeared opposite one another as former lovers in a blockbuster produced by Selznick, the 1944 Since You Went Away. Tragically, Walker struggled for years to cope with the divorce, and his life ended at the age of 32, when, following a nervous breakdown and an institutionalization, he received a fatal dose of sodium amatol from a psychiatrist.Jones did the bulk of her early work under new husband Selznick's aegis, and for 15-20 years her career thrived. Selznick preferred casting her in romantic material (often with a tragic undercurrent), and his instincts struck a chord with the public. After receiving an Oscar for her turn as the scorned and martyred Catholic saint Bernadette in the 1943 religious drama The Song of Bernadette, she starred opposite Joseph Cotten in the 1948 fantasy romance Portrait of Jennie (also a huge hit), played Emma Bovary in Vincente Minnelli's 1949 Madame Bovary, and the tragic title character in William Wyler's Theodore Dreiser adaptation Carrie (1952). Yet Jones also unveiled a wicked flair for comedy on a number of occasions, notably as an English cockney plumber in Ernst Lubitsch's magnificent 1946 farce Cluny Brown, and as an English lord's wife plagued by pathological lying in the unfairly maligned John Huston comedy Beat the Devil (1953). Jones continued her acting work into the late '60s, and she racked up a series of four additional Oscar nods for various performances, yet her screen appearances grew less and less frequent. Her private life and marriage to Selznick reportedly brought its share of complications, and the couple's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage; following Selznick's death in June 1965, Jones endured a lengthy period of severe depression. The actress remarried philanthropist Norton Simon in the early '70s, and co-ran a foundation that he chaired, with the assistance of various celebrity friends. The second marriage lasted until Simon's death in the summer of 1993. Jones accepted one of her final screen roles in the 1974 disaster opus The Towering Inferno, a part for which she drew a substantial amount of acclaim. The actress died in December 2009 at the age of 90.

Trivia: The son of a chemical analyst, American actor William Holden plunged into high school and junior college sports activities as a means of "proving himself" to his demanding father. Nonetheless, Holden's forte would be in what he'd always consider a "sissy" profession: acting. Spotted by a talent scout during a stage production at Pasadena Junior College, Holden was signed by both Paramount and Columbia, who would share his contract for the next two decades. After one bit role, Holden was thrust into the demanding leading part of boxer Joe Bonaparte in Golden Boy (1939). He was so green and nervous that Columbia considered replacing him, but co-star Barbara Stanwyck took it upon herself to coach the young actor and build up his confidence -- a selfless act for which Holden would be grateful until the day he died. After serving as a lieutenant in the Army's special services unit, Holden returned to films, mostly in light, inconsequential roles. Director Billy Wilder changed all that by casting him as Joe Gillis, an embittered failed screenwriter and "kept man" of Gloria Swanson in the Hollywood-bashing classic Sunset Boulevard (1950). Wilder also directed Holden in the role of the cynical, conniving, but ultimately heroic American POW Sefton in Stalag 17 (1953), for which the actor won an Oscar. Holden became a man of the world, as it were, when he moved to Switzerland to avoid heavy taxation on his earnings; while traversing the globe, he developed an interest in African wildlife preservation, spending much of his off-camera time campaigning and raising funds for the humane treatment of animals. Free to be selective in his film roles in the '60s and '70s, Holden evinced an erratic sensibility: For every Counterfeit Traitor (1962) and Network (1976), there would be a walk-through part in The Towering Inferno (1974) or Ashanti (1978). His final film role was in S.O.B. (1981), which, like Sunset Boulevard, was a searing and satirical indictment of Hollywood. But times had changed, and one of the comic highlights of S.O.B. was of a drunken film executive urinating on the floor of an undertaker's parlor. Holden's death in 1981 was the result of blood loss from a fall he suffered while alone.

Trivia: A stage actress of long standing in her native England, aristocratic leading lady Isobel Elsom made her first Broadway appearance in 1926. Her biggest stage hit was in the role of the wealthy murder victim in 1939's Ladies in Retirement, a role she repeated (after a two-year, nonstop theatrical run) in the 1941 film version. Nearly always cast as a stately lady of fine breeding, Elsom played everything from Gary Cooper's soon-to-be mother-in-law in Casanova Brown (1946) to a movie studio executive in Jerry Lewis' The Errand Boy (1962). She was also seen as Mrs. Eynesford-Hill in the 1964 movie adaptation of My Fair Lady. At one time married to director Maurice Elvey, Isobel Elsom was sometimes billed under the last name of another husband, appearing as Isobel Harbold.

Trivia: Torin Thatcher came out of a military family in India to become a top stage actor in England and a well-known character actor in international films and television. Born Torin Herbert Erskine Thatcher in Bombay, India, in 1905, he was the great-grandson and grandson of generals -- one of whom had fought with Clive -- but he planned for a quieter life; educated at Bedford School, he originally intended to become a teacher before being bitten by the acting bug. Instead, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and later worked in every kind of theatrical production there was, from Greek tragedy to burlesque. Thatcher made his London debut in 1927 as Tranio in a production of The Taming of the Shrew with the Old Vic Company, and he subsequently portrayed both the Ghost and Claudius in Hamlet with the same company. In the years that followed, Thatcher was in more than 50 Shakespearean productions and 20 plays by George Bernard Shaw. The outbreak of the Second World War took Thatcher into uniform, and he served for six years in the army, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel before he returned to civilian life in 1946. In 1944, Thatcher had made his first acquaintance of the theater world in New York when he found himself on leave in the city with only ten shillings in his pocket -- he spent it sparingly and discovered that Allied servicemen, even officers, were accorded a great many perks in those days; he was also amazed and delighted when he was recognized while on his way into a play in New York by a theatergoer who was able to name virtually every movie that he'd done in England over the preceding decade. He got a firsthand look at the city's generosity and also made sure to meet a number of people associated with the New York theater scene, contacts that served him in good stead when he returned to New York in 1946, as a civilian eager to pick up his career. He starred in two plays opposite Katharine Cornell, First Born and That Lady, and portrayed Claggart in a stage adaptation of Billy Budd, but his big success was in Noel Langley and Robert Morley's Edward My Son. Thatcher had been in movies in England since 1933, in small roles, occasionally in major and important films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937) and Michael Powell's The Spy in Black (1939); his British career had peaked with a superb performance in a small but important role in Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol (1948). After moving to the United States, however, Thatcher quickly moved up to starring and major supporting roles in Hollywood movies, beginning with Affair in Trinidad (1952). He was busy at 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. over the next decade, moving between their American and British units, and stood out in such hit movies as The Crimson Pirate (1952) (as the pirate Humble Bellows) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Although Thatcher could play benevolent characters, his intense expression and presence and imposing physique made him more natural as a villain, and he spent his later career in an array of screen malefactors, of whom the best known was the sorcerer Sokurah in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), directed by Nathan Juran. Thatcher and Juran were close friends and the director loved to use him -- the two became a kind of double act together for a time, turning up in "The Space Trader" episode of Lost in Space, guest-starring Thatcher and directed by Juran.

Trivia: Following an apprenticeship in regional theater in his native Australia, Murray Matheson first appeared on the London stage in 1935's And on We Go. His first film was 1945's The Way to the Stars. Matheson's brittle acting style was somewhat reminiscent of Noel Coward and Cyril Ritchard (whom Matheson closely resembled); accordingly, most of his film and TV roles were cut from the Coward/Ritchard waspish, epigrammatic cloth. His many roles included an amusing turn as business executive Benjamin Barton David Ovington (BBDO) in the 1967 film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the recurring role of bookstore proprietor Felix Mulholland on the 1972 TV series Banacek. Murray Matheson also played The Clown in the memorable 1961 Twilight Zone episode "Six Characters in Search of an Exit"; ironically, Matheson's last appearance was in the "Kick the Can" segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1985).

Trivia: Trained as a musician, Virginia Gregg drew her first professional paychecks with the Pasadena Symphony. Gregg was sidetracked into radio in the 1940s, playing acting roles in an abundance of important California-based network programs. Her extensive radio credits include Gunsmoke, Suspense, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, and Richard Diamond. Her first film was 1946's Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who last cast Gregg as the voice of "Mother" in his classic chiller Psycho (1960). Virginia Gregg was most closely associated with the output of actor/producer/director Jack Webb: she co-starred in both of Webb's film versions of his popular radio and TV series Dragnet, and guest-starred in virtually every other episode of the 1967-70 Dragnet TV revival.

Trivia: Though he was the personification of the cruel, calculating Japanese military officer in many a wartime propaganda film, Richard Loo was actually born in Hawaii of Chinese parents. The holder of a Business Studies degree from the University of California, Loo ran a successful importing firm until his assets were wiped out in the 1929 stock market crash. He launched his acting career in 1931, first in California-based stock companies, then in films, beginning with Frank Capra's Dirigible (1931). His movie career picked up momentum after the attack on Pearl Harbor, with villainous roles in such films as Wake Island (1942) and The Purple Heart (1944). In all, Richard Loo toted up some 200 film appearances in his five-decade career.

Trivia: Though often cast as a Japanese or Chinese character, LA-born actor Philip Ahn was of Korean extraction. In films from 1936, Ahn spent the war years portraying dozens of heartless Japanese spies and military officers; ironically, the actor's father was a Korean diplomat who died in a Japanese concentration camp. After the war, Ahn was occasionally permitted to play a sympathetic role, minus stereotypical accent and mannerisms; cast as a lab technician in 1950's The Big Hangover, he has almost as much screen time as nominal star Van Johnson. One of his most substantial roles was as Chinese businessman Po Chang, foster father of young Caucasian tycoon Frank Garlund (Charles Quinlivan) on the brief 1960 TV weekly The Garlund Touch. At the time of his death from lung cancer at age 66, Philip Ahn was best known to American TV addicts as Master Kan on the TV series Kung Fu.

Trivia: Actor James Hong was working as a nightclub comic in San Francisco and Hawaii when he was tapped for his first regular TV role: "Number One Son" Barry Chan in the Anglo-American co-production The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957). Hong would later appear as Frank Chen in Jigsaw John (1976) and Wang in Switch (1977-78). In theatrical features, he played characters bearing such flavorful monikers as Chew, Lo Pan and Bing Wong. He was seen as Faye Dunaway's butler in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), repeating the role (minus Faye) in the 1990 sequel The Two Jakes. One of his most sizeable screen roles was Lamont Cranston's brainy assistant Li Peng in The Shadow (1994). James Hong has also directed a brace of feature films, including 1979's The Girls Next Door and 1989's The Vineyard.

Trivia: Herbert Heyes was somewhere between the ages of 10 and 13 when he first trod the boards as a member of the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon. By 1910, Heyes was playing leads in the touring company run by actor/manager James K. Hackett. He was firmly established on Broadway when, in 1916, he was hired by Fox Films to play opposite Theda Bara in a series of steamy romances (Under Two Flags, Salome, etc.). Returning to New York, Heyes remained a busy stage and radio actor into the 1940s. He resumed his film career in the early 1940s, playing such character parts as department store magnate Mr. Gimbel in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Ronald Reagan's prospective father-in-law in Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), and his favorite screen role, manufacturer Charles Eastman in George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951). Heyes' dignified demeanor kept him in demand throughout the 1950s for minor but pivotal roles like President Thomas Jefferson in The Far Horizons (1955) and General Pershing in The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). Herbert Heyes was the father of writer/director Douglas Heyes, of Maverick and Twilight Zone fame.

Trivia: Born in Utah, actor Leonard Strong specialized in Asian roles. From Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942) to the end of WWII, Strong trafficked in villainous "Jap" stereotypes, never speaking when hissing would do. One of his best-remembered postwar film roles was the obsequious Siamese interpreter in both Anna and the King of Siam (1946) and its musical remake The King and I (1956). A busy TV performer, Leonard Strong was seen from time to time as the Dr. No-like enemy agent the Claw ("No, not 'Craw!'") on the satirical sitcom Get Smart (1965-1970).

Trivia: Beulah Quo is the founder of one of America's first Asian-American repertory groups, the East West Players. The Emmy-nominated actress embarked on a lucrative film and television career following her film debut in 1955's Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. Born Beulah Kwoh in Stockton, CA, the future dialog coach-cum-actress earned a bachelor's degree in social welfare at the University of California, later obtaining a master's in sociology from the University of Chicago. Subsequently, Quo and her family relocated to China so she could find work as a teacher, but she and her family fled the country on a U.S. destroyer, just as the Communists took over shortly after World War II. It was while working as a sociology teacher at a small community college that Quo received news that director Henry King was searching for an Asian dialect coach for his film Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, and after meeting with the director, King cast Quo in a small role in the film. Her career took off shortly thereafter. Quo appeared in such films as Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) and Chinatown (1974) before receiving an Emmy nomination for her role as a dowager empress in 1978's Meeting of Minds. Joining the cast of television's General Hospital in 1985, Quo would remain on the soap opera for six years. She also appeared in such films as Bad Girls (1994) and Brokedown Palace (1999). In her later years, Quo's final feature role was in the 2001 film Forbidden City. In late October of 2002, Beulah Quo died of heart failure in La Mesa, CA. She was 79.