Scene of the Crime

Van Johnson (Actor) .. Mike Conovan

Born: August 25, 1916
Died: December 12, 2008
Birthplace: Newport, Rhode Island, United States

Trivia: The quintessential blue-eyed, blonde-haired, freckle-faced Boy Next Door, Van Johnson was the son of a Rhode Island plumbing contractor. Making his Broadway bow in The New Faces of 1936, Johnson spent several busy years as a musical-comedy chorus boy. After understudying Gene Kelly in Pal Joey, he came to Hollywood to recreate his minor role in the film version of the Broadway musical hit Too Many Girls. Proving himself an able actor in the Warner Bros. "B" picture Murder in the Big House (1942), Johnson was signed by MGM, where he was given the traditional big buildup. He served his MGM apprenticeship as Lew Ayres' replacement in the "Dr. Kildare" series, latterly known as the "Dr. Gillespie" series, in deference to top-billed Lionel Barrymore. While en route to a preview showing of an MGM film, Johnson was seriously injured in an auto accident. This proved to be a blessing in disguise to his career: the accident prevented his being drafted into the army, thus he had the young leading-man field virtually to himself at MGM during the war years. Delivering solid dramatic performances in such major productions as The Human Comedy (1943) A Guy Named Joe (1943) and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Johnson rapidly became a favorite with the public--particularly the teenaged female public. He remained a favorite into the 1950s, alternating serious characterizations with lightweight romantic fare. One of his best roles was Lt. Maryk in The Caine Mutiny (1954), for which he was loaned to Columbia. When his MGM contract came to an end, Johnson free-lanced both in Hollywood and abroad. He also made his London stage debut as Harold Hill in The Music Man, a role he'd continue to play on the summer-theater circuit well into the 1970s. His TV work included the lead in the elaborate 1957 musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (released theatrically in 1961) and his "special guest villain" turn as The Minstrel on Batman (1967). He staged a film comeback as a character actor in the late 1960s, earning excellent reviews for his work in Divorce American Style (1967). And in the mid-1980s, Van Johnson again proved that he still had the old star quality, first as one of the leads in the short-lived TVer Glitter, then in a gently self-mocking role in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and finally as Gene Barry's replacement in the hit Broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles (1985).

Arlene Dahl (Actor) .. Gloria Conovan

Born: August 11, 1924

Trivia: Redheaded leading lady Arlene Dahl was born, raised and educated in Minnesota. Supporting herself with innumerable day jobs, Dahl finally reached Broadway in 1945, the year before she was chosen New York's "Miss Rheingold." Her first film appearance in MGM's Life With Father (1947) was so fleeting as to be missable, but by 1948 Dahl was playing leads at MGM. In the tradition of such drop-dead-gorgeous redheads as Maureen O'Hara and Rhonda Fleming, Dahl often as not found herself cast in Technicolor swashbucklers, notably Caribbean (1952), Sangaree (1952) and Bengal Brigade (1953). In 1956 Dahl delivered an intimidatingly superb performance as a beautiful psycho in Allan Dwan's Slightly Scarlet. By the 1960s, Dahl was better known as a beauty-product promoter and glamour-advice columnist; her five marriages to such high-profile personalities as Fernando Lamas and Lex Barker also kept her in the public eye. Though her Arlene Dahl Enterprises cosmetics firm earned millions in its heyday, by the mid-1980s Dahl was broke, a fact which compelled her to resume her acting career. Arlene Dahl made her first film appearance in two decades in Night of the Warrior (1991); her co-star was her son, TV hearthrob Lorenzo Lamas.

Gloria De Haven (Actor) .. Lilli

Born: July 23, 1925
Died: July 30, 2016

Trivia: Gloria DeHaven was the daughter of the popular "polite comedy" stage-and-film team of Mr. and Mrs. Carter DeHaven. DeHaven made her screen debut as one of Paulette Goddard's younger sisters in Charles Chaplin's Modern Times, on which her father was assistant director. In her teen years, DeHaven secured work as a band vocalist, which led to singing parts in such film musicals as Best Foot Forward (1943), Step Lively (1944) and Summer Holiday (1948). Under contract to MGM from 1940 to 1950, the vivacious and talented DeHaven was the studio's all-purpose ingenue, acting opposite everyone from William Powell to Red Skelton. She later starred in a series of Technicolor musicals at 20th Century-Fox. When musicals fell out of public favor, DeHaven's film career waned and she turned her energies to performing in nightclubs, summer-stock and on the TV-guest-star circuit. During the 1970s and 1980s, she made cameo appearances in a few films; later she was also seen on a semi-regular basis on the TV series Ryan's Hope, Nakia and Murder She Wrote. In 1997, DeHaven returned to feature films with a co-starring role opposite Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon and Dyan Cannon in Martha Coolidge's Out to Sea. She died in 2016, at age 91.

Tom Drake (Actor) .. Det. "C.C." Gordon

Born: August 05, 1918
Died: August 11, 1982

Trivia: American actor Tom Drake inaugurated his acting career in 1938 with Clean Beds, a Broadway-bound play that closed out of town. A revived Clean Beds in 1939 brought Drake to the attention of MGM, who only half-heartedly promoted the actor, usually casting him in bits or secondary roles. His chance at stardom in White Cliffs of Dover (1944) was squelched when Drake's scenes were cut from that still-overlong wartime drama. A better opportunity came in the role of Judy Garland's "boy next door" vis-a-vis in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); this was followed by an even meatier part in The Green Years (1946), in which Drake managed to keep his head above water despite such formidable supporting acting talent as Hume Cronyn, Charles Coburn, Jessica Tandy and Gladys Cooper. Unfortunately, the good roles began diminishing shortly afterward; Drake's performance as Richard Rodgers in Words and Music (1948) was knocked out of the box by Mickey Rooney's tyro interpretation of Lorenz Hart, while in Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949) everybody in the cast - including Shirley Temple - played second fiddle to Clifton Webb. Never able to fulfill his potential, Drake continued into the '70s playing subordinate roles in 'A' pictures, the occasional lead in low-budget films, and secondary TV parts in such productions as Marcus Welby MD and The Return of Joe Forrester. A classic example of how talented people could fall between the tracks of the studio contract system, Tom Drake spent his final years supplementing his performing income with a job as a used car salesman.

Leon Ames (Actor) .. Capt. A.C. Forster

Born: January 20, 1903
Died: October 12, 1993

Trivia: Hollywood's favorite "dear old dad," Leon Ames began his stage career as a sleek, dreamy-eyed matinee idol in 1925. He was still billing himself under his real name, Leon Waycoff, when he entered films in 1931. His best early leading role was as the poet-hero of the stylish terror piece Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1933, Ames was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, gaining a reputation amongst producers as a political firebrand--which may have been why his roles diminished in size during the next few years (Ironically, when Ames was president of the SAG, his conservatism and willingness to meet management halfway incurred the wrath of the union's more liberal wing). Ames played many a murderer and caddish "other man" before he was felicitously cast as the kindly, slightly befuddled patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). He would play essentially this same character throughout the rest of his career, starring on such TV series as Life With Father (1952-54) and Father of the Bride (1961). When, in 1963, he replaced the late Larry Keating in the role of Alan Young's neighbor on Mr. Ed, Ames' fans were astounded: his character had no children at all! Off screen, the actor was the owner of a successful, high profile Los Angeles automobile dealership. In 1963, he was the unwilling focus of newspaper headlines when his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. In one of his last films, 1983's Testament, Leon Ames was reunited with his Life With Father co-star Lurene Tuttle.

John McIntire (Actor) .. Fred Piper

Born: June 27, 1907
Died: January 30, 1991

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.

Norman Lloyd (Actor) .. Sleeper

Born: November 08, 1914
Birthplace: Jersey City, New Jersey, United States

Trivia: After graduating from NYU, New Jersey-born actor Norman Lloyd worked with Eva LeGalleine's company, then joined Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. He also appeared in the WPA's progressive Living Newspaper show, and was cast in the Broadway musical Johnny Appleseed. In Hollywood in 1941, Lloyd began a long friendship and professional association with director Alfred Hitchcock. Lloyd's first film was Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), in which he played the squirrelly Nazi spy Fry, who came to a spectacular end by plummeting from the Statue of Liberty. After a few more villainous film roles, Lloyd was given his first behind-the-scenes production job by director Lewis Milestone, working as an assistant on Milestone's Arch of Triumph (1948). A peripheral victim of the Hollywood blacklist, Lloyd was rescued professionally by Hitchcock, who utilized Lloyd as an actor, director and executive producer on Hitchcock's long-running TV series. Teamed with producer Joan Harrison, Hitchcock's "right arm," Lloyd co-produced a 1968 Broadway TV anthology, Journey to the Unknown. He continued directing episodic television throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and was the first-season producer of the syndicated weekly Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. Still pursuing acting (though now as a "second career"), Norman Lloyd played the kindly Dr. Esterhaus on the 1980s TV drama St. Elsewhere.

Donald Woods (Actor) .. Herkimer

Born: December 01, 1904

Trivia: Handsome Hollywood "second lead" Donald Woods came from the stage to films in 1934. He played a few unremarkable roles before rising to prominence as Charles Darnay in the 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities. He spent the 1940s and 1950s heading the cast of B-productions and serials and essaying supporting roles in top-of-the-bill features. On television, Woods played the title role in the 1952 syndicated series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist, hosted the 1955 anthology The Damon Runyon Theatre, and played a dignified recurring role on the 1965 sitcom Tammy; he also acted as "goodwill ambassador" for the latter program, making personal appearances and taping local promos. Throughout his career, Donald Woods supplemented his acting income as a real estate broker -- which indeed would have been an excellent film role for the businesslike Woods.

Richard Benedict (Actor) .. Turk Kingby

Born: January 01, 1920
Died: April 25, 1984

Trivia: Richard Benedict came to the U.S. from his native Sicily when he was 7. Before entering the army, Benedict pursued a reasonably successful career as a prizefighter. In Hollywood from 1945, Benedict was often cast as an amiable second lead (as in Olsen and Johnson's See My Lawyer), though he also could be a persuasive heavy if that's what the part called for. His biggest A-picture role was as the entombed prospector in Billy Wilder's trenchant The Big Carnival (1951, aka Ace in the Hole). In the early 1960s, Richard Benedict turned to directing, working on such network TV series as Hawaiian Eye and Charlie's Angels.

Anthony Caruso (Actor) .. Tony Rutzo

Born: April 07, 1916
Died: April 04, 2003

Trivia: American-born Anthony Caruso decided early in his showbiz career to cash in on his last name by becoming a singer. Though he enjoyed some success in this field, Caruso had better luck securing acting roles. Typecast as a villain from his first film, Johnny Apollo (1940), onward, he remained a reliable screen menace until the 1980s. Usually cast as an Italian (he was Louis Chiavelli in 1950's The Asphalt Jungle), he has also played his share of Greeks, Spaniards, Slavs, and Indian chiefs. He was occasionally afforded an opportunity to essay sympathetic characters on the various TV religious anthologies of the 1960s and 1970s, notably This Is the Life. In 1976, Anthony Caruso enjoyed one of his biggest and most prominent screen roles in Zebra Force.On April 4, 2003 Anthony Caruso died following an extended illness in Brentwood, CA. He was 86.

Tom Powers (Actor) .. Umpire Menafoe

Born: July 07, 1890
Died: November 09, 1955

Trivia: Long before embarking on his talking picture career, Tom Powers was a firmly established Broadway star. He began as a musical comedy lead, then moved on to dynamic dramatic roles in such Theatre Guild productions as Strange Interlude, in which he created the role of Charles Marsden. Except for a brief flurry of activity at the Vitagraph studios in 1910, Powers barely gave movies a second thought until he was invited to play the murder victim in 1944's Double Indemnity. Powers spent the rest of his professional life before the cameras, usually playing coarse, blunt detectives and businessmen. In the early '50s, Powers remained on call at 20th Century Fox for unbilled minor roles in such films as Deadline U.S.A. (1952), We're Not Married (1952), and Phone Call From a Stranger (1952). He also appeared in a dozen of TV programs, among them The Lone Ranger, Fireside Theatre, Four Star Playhouse, and Climax. A prolific writer, Tom Powers published the best-selling memoir He Knew Them All, and in 1935 starred in a syndicated radio series in which he read his own poetry.

Jerome Cowan (Actor) .. Arthur Webson

Born: October 06, 1897
Died: January 24, 1972

Trivia: From vaudeville and stock companies, actor Jerome Cowan graduated to Broadway in the now-forgotten farce We've Gotta Have Money. While starring in the 1935 Broadway hit Boy Meets Girl, Cowan was spotted by movie producer Sam Goldwyn, who cast Cowan as a sensitive Irish rebel in 1936's Beloved Enemy. Most of Cowan's subsequent films found him playing glib lawyers, shifty business executives and jilted suitors. A longtime resident at Warner Bros., the pencil-mustached Cowan appeared in several substantial character parts from 1940 through 1949, notably the doomed private eye Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon. Warners gave Cowan the opportunity to be a romantic leading man in two "B" films, Crime By Night (42) and Find the Blackmailer (43). As the years rolled on, Cowan's air of slightly unscrupulous urbanity gave way to respectability, and in this vein he was ideally suited for the role of Dagwood Bumstead's new boss Mr. Radcliffe in several installments of Columbia's Blondie series; he also scored in such flustered roles as the hapless district attorney in Miracle on 34th Street. Cowan briefly left Hollywood in 1950 to pursue more worthwhile roles on stage and TV; he starred in the Broadway play My Three Angels and was top-billed on the 1951 TV series Not for Publication. In his fifties and sixties, Cowan continued essaying roles calling for easily deflated dignity (e.g. The Three Stooges' Have Rocket Will Travel [59] and Jerry Lewis' Visit to a Small Planet [60]) and made regular supporting appearances on several TV series, among them Valiant Lady, The Tab Hunter Show, Many Happy Returns and Tycoon.

Mickey Kuhn (Actor) .. Ed Monigan

Born: September 21, 1932

William Haade (Actor) .. Lafe Douque

Born: March 02, 1903
Died: December 15, 1966

Trivia: William Haade spent most of his movie career playing the very worst kind of bully--the kind that has the physical training to back up his bullying. His first feature-film assignment was as the arrogant, drunken professional boxer who is knocked out by bellhop Wayne Morris in Kid Galahad (37). In many of his western appearances, Haade was known to temper villainy with an unexpected sense of humor; in one Republic western, he spews forth hilarious one-liners while hacking his victims to death with a knife! William Haade also proved an excellent menace to timorous comedians like Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello; in fact, his last film appearance was in Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (55).

Caleb Peterson (Actor) .. Loomis

Born: November 21, 1917

Robert Gist (Actor) .. Pontiac

Born: January 01, 1924

Romo Vincent (Actor) .. Hippo

Born: January 01, 1908
Died: January 01, 1989

Trivia: Comedic character actor, onscreen from the '30s; he often played cops and cab drivers.

Tom Helmore (Actor) .. Norrie Lorfield

Born: January 01, 1904
Died: September 12, 1995

Trivia: Well-mannered, well-tailored British character actor Tom Helmore made his first film in 1928. He remained in films until the 1960s, nearly always playing men of wealth and property, and nearly never winning the heroine from the hero (e.g. losing Lauren Bacall to Gregory Peck in Designing Women [1957]). Helmore's most famous role was as Gavin Elster, the outwardly concerned husband of mental case Kim Novak, in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). A member in excellent standing of Hollywood's unofficial "British colony," Tom Helmore counted among his best friends actor Boris Karloff -- and that was even after Karloff married Helmore's ex-wife Evelyn.

Thomas E. Breen (Actor) .. Boy

Born: January 03, 1924

Mary Jane Smith (Actor) .. Girl

Bette Arlen (Actor) .. Girl

G. Pat Collins (Actor) .. Monigan

Born: December 16, 1895
Died: August 05, 1959

Trivia: After making his screen bow in 1928's The Racket, craggy-faced character actor G. Pat Collins could usually be found on the wrong side of the law. Collins may hold the record for prison-picture appearances, showing up behind bars in such efforts as I Am a Fugitive (1932) 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), Hold Em Jail (1932) and Triple Trouble (1950), among many others. James Cagney fans will recall Collins as "The Reader," whose lip-reading skills set the stage for the "bust-out" scene in Cagney's White Heat (1949). Towards the end of his life, G. Pat Collins "went straight" cinematically, playing a number of military roles in westerns and war pictures.

Ray Teal (Actor) .. Patrolman

Born: January 12, 1902
Died: April 02, 1976
Birthplace: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Trivia: Possessor of one of the meanest faces in the movies, American actor Ray Teal spent much of his film career heading lynch mobs, recruiting for hate organizations and decimating Indians. Naturally, anyone this nasty in films would have to conversely be a pleasant, affable fellow in real life, and so it was with Teal. Working his way through college as a saxophone player, Teal became a bandleader upon graduation, remaining in the musical world until 1936. In 1938, Teal was hired to act in the low-budget Western Jamboree, and though he played a variety of bit parts as cops, taxi drivers and mashers, he seemed more at home in Westerns. Teal found it hard to shake his bigoted badman image even in A-pictures; as one of the American jurists in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he is the only member of Spencer Tracy's staff that feels that sympathy should be afforded Nazi war criminals -- and the only one on the staff who openly dislikes American liberals. A more benign role came Teal's way on the '60s TV series Bonanza, where he played the sometimes ineffectual but basically decent Sheriff Coffee. Ray Teal retired from films shortly after going through his standard redneck paces in The Liberation of LB Jones (1970).

Don Haggerty (Actor) .. Detective

Born: January 01, 1913
Died: August 19, 1988

Trivia: A top athlete at Brown University, Don Haggerty performed military service and did stage work before his movie-acting debut in 1947. Free-lancing, Haggerty put in time at virtually every studio from Republic to MGM, playing roles of varying sizes in films like Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) The Asphalt Jungle (1951), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Narrow Margin (1952). Most often, he was cast as a big-city detective or rugged westerner. During the first (1955-56) season of TV's The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Haggerty showed up semi-regularly as Marsh Murdock. Don Haggerty was the father of Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty.

Allen Mathews (Actor) .. Detective

Gregg Barton (Actor) .. Detective

Mickey McCardle (Actor) .. Detective

James R. Scott (Actor) .. Detective

William Tannen (Actor) .. Detective

Born: January 01, 1911
Died: December 02, 1976

Trivia: The son of veteran vaudeville headliner Julius Tannen and the brother of actor Charles Tannen, William Tannen entered films as a Columbia contractee in 1934. Along with several other young stage-trained performers, Tannen was "discovered" by MGM in 1938's Dramatic School. During his subsequent years at MGM, he was briefly associated with three top comedy teams: He played Virginia Grey's brother in the Marx Brothers' The Big Store (1941), a Nazi flunkey in Laurel and Hardy's Air Raid Wardens (1943), and a "hard-boiled" assistant director in Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945). On TV, William Tannen was seen in the recurring role of Deputy Hal on the weekly Western Wyatt Earp (1955-1961).

Paul Fierro (Actor) .. Detective

Born: January 19, 1916

Tony Merrill (Actor) .. Detective

George Magrill (Actor) .. Detective

Born: January 05, 1900
Died: May 31, 1952

Trivia: George Magrill entered films in 1921 as a general-purpose bit player. Magrill's imposing physique and dexterity enabled him to make a good living as a stunt man throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. From time to time, he'd have speaking roles as bank guards, cops, sailors, truck drivers and chauffeurs. On those rare occasions that he'd receive screen credit, George Magrill was usually identified as "Thug," a part he played to the hilt in westerns, crime mellers and serials.

Ralph Montgomery (Actor) .. Detective

Died: January 01, 1980

Trivia: American actor, singer, and dancer Ralph Montgomery played character roles in vaudeville, radio, and television. Montgomery also appeared in numerous feature films from the '40s through the mid-'70s. In addition to performing, he also worked as a drama coach. His daughter is an actress and his son, Phil Montgomery, is an actor and producer.

Forrest Taylor (Actor) .. Captain of Detectives

Born: January 01, 1883
Died: February 19, 1965

Trivia: Veteran American character actor Forrest Taylor is reputed to have launched his film career in 1915. His screen roles in both the silent and sound era seldom had any consistency of size; he was apt to show up in a meaty character part one week, a seconds-lasting bit part the next. With his banker's moustache and brusque attitude, Taylor was most often cast as a businessman or a lawyer, sometimes on the shadier side of the law. Throughout his 40 year film career, Taylor was perhaps most active in westerns, appearing in such programmers as Headin' For the Rio Grande and Painted Trail. From 1952 through 1954, Forrest Taylor costarred as Grandpa Fisher on the religious TV series This is the Life.

Minerva Urecal (Actor) .. Woman

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: January 01, 1966

Trivia: Actress Minerva Urecal claimed that her last name was an amalgam of her family home town of Eureka, California. True or not, Urecal would spend the balance of her life in California, specifically Hollywood. Making the transition from stage to screen in 1934, Ms. Urecal appeared in innumerable bits, usually as cleaning women, shopkeepers and hatchet-faced landladies. In B-pictures and 2-reelers of the 1940s, she established herself as a less expensive Marjorie Main type; her range now encompassed society dowagers (see the East Side Kids' Mr. Muggs Steps Out) and Mrs. Danvers-like housekeepers (see Bela Lugosi's The Ape Man). With the emergence of television, Minerva Urecal entered the "guest star" phase of her career. She achieved top billing in the 1958 TV sitcom Tugboat Annie, and replaced Hope Emerson as Mother for the 1959-60 season of the weekly detective series Peter Gunn. Minerva Urecal was active up until the early '60s, when she enjoyed some of the most sizeable roles of her career, notably the easily offended Swedish cook in Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and the town harridan who is turned to stone in Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964).

Margaret Bert (Actor) .. Woman

Charles Wagenheim (Actor) .. Nervous Man

Born: January 01, 1895
Died: March 06, 1979

Trivia: Diminutive, frequently mustached character actor Charles Wagenheim made the transition from stage to screen in or around 1940. Wagenheim's most memorable role was that of "The Runt" in Meet Boston Blackie (1941), a part taken over by George E. Stone in the subsequent "Boston Blackie" B-films. Generally cast in unsavory bit parts, Wagenheim's on-screen perfidy extended from Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) to George Stevens' Diary of Anne Frank (1959), in which, uncredited, he played the sneak thief who nearly gave away the hiding place of the Frank family. Wagenheim kept his hand in the business into the 1970s in films like The Missouri Breaks (1976). In 1979, 83-year-old Charles Wagenheim was bludgeoned to death by an intruder in his Hollywood apartment, five days before another veteran actor, Victor Kilian, met the same grisly fate.

Merrill McCormack (Actor) .. Older Man

Born: February 05, 1892
Died: August 19, 1953

Trivia: Bearded and scruffy-looking, William Merrill McCormick became one of the busiest character actors in B-Western history. Beginning his screen career in the late 1910s, McCormick excelled at playing unshaven henchmen, rustlers, stage robbers, and a host of other less-than-desirable prairie varmints. Rarely the main villain, he could usually be spotted sneering in the background alongside such fellow bit part players as Jim Corey, Bill Gillis, and Al Ferguson. Taking time out to direct good friend Marin Sais in a couple of very inexpensive oaters in 1923, McCormick kept up a hectic acting schedule that lasted well into the television era. He died of a heart attack right after finishing a scene for the television series The Roy Rogers Show.

Victor Paul (Actor) .. Young Punk

Born: January 15, 1927

Guy Kingsford (Actor) .. Ballistics Man

Born: September 30, 1911
Died: November 09, 1986

Trivia: The son of British-born character actor Walter Kingsford (Dr. Carey in MGM's Dr. Kildare series), Guy Kingsford had appeared on-stage at London's West End and on Broadway (in Frederick Lonsdale's Once Is Enough (1937) with Ina Claire) but his screen career proved a disappointment. Often appearing unbilled, Kingsford played scores of typical "British" characters and was especially busy during World War II. Father and son appeared together only once, in Bomber's Moon (1943), where, once again, Kingsford Jr. performed unbilled. He later appeared on such television programs as Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and Alcoa Presents.

Ray Bennett (Actor) .. Sheriff Kiesling

Born: March 21, 1895

Jack Shea (Actor) .. Fighter

Born: January 01, 1899
Died: January 01, 1970

A. Cameron Grant (Actor) .. Fighter

Born: August 27, 1901

Jean Carter (Actor) .. Marlene

Jimmy Dundee (Actor) .. Captain of Waiters

Douglas Carter (Actor) .. Sanitation Man

Lucille Barkley (Actor) .. Corrine

Born: November 03, 1925

Mack Chandler (Actor) .. Man on Table

Fred Murray (Actor) .. Man on Table

Richard Irving (Actor) .. Doctor

Born: February 13, 1917
Died: January 01, 1990

Harris Brown (Actor) .. Doctor

John Phillips (Actor) .. Doctor

Born: July 20, 1914

Trivia: John Phillips is a British character player, active in films from 1954. He has been seen in such roles as the Duke of Norfolk in Olivier's Richard III (1954), as authority figures in the sci-fi movies Village of the Damned (1960) and Man in the Moon (1961), and as the prosecutor at the Esterhazy trial in I Accuse (1958). Phillips has also shown up in several TV miniseries (Jesus of Nazareth, Masada), and was cast as MacGown in the internationally syndicated The Forsyte Saga. This John Phillips is no relation to the American actor or the musical composer who share his name.

Wilson Wood (Actor) .. Gateman

Born: February 11, 1915

Billy Snyder (Actor) .. Gangster

Born: January 01, 1905
Died: January 01, 1987

Eddie Foster (Actor) .. Gangster

Born: August 04, 1906
Died: January 18, 1989

Trivia: A rakish-looking, often mustachioed bit-part player, Eddie Foster (born Eddie Eleck) could play any nationality -- including Mexican (Men of the Night, 1934) and Egyptian (The Mummy's Hand, 1940) -- but was almost exclusively cast as thugs. Onscreen from 1932, Foster appeared in a total of ten serials, including Queen of the Jungle (1935), Mandrake the Magician (1939), and Captain Video (1951). He continued his skullduggery well into the television era and became a regular on Commando Cody: Skymaster of the Universe (1953).

Zon Murray (Actor) .. Gangster

Born: April 13, 1910
Died: April 30, 1979

Trivia: As handsome as most of the Western stars he supported, if not more so, Zon Murray (born Emery Zon Murray) often sported a mustache and was thus obviously not up to anything good. Rarely the "Boss Villain," Murray instead played scores of so-called "Dog Heavies" in run-of-the-mill Westerns from 1945 to 1956, ending his long run in the feature film version of The Lone Ranger. There would be a few minor roles in cheap action fare to come, but Murray definitely belonged to the era of the series Western. Very prolific in television as well -- especially on such shows as Gene Autry, Wild Bill Hickock, Roy Rogers, and yes, The Lone Ranger -- Murray seems to have ended his career after a bit in Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965).

Michael Jordan (Actor) .. Gangster

Michael Barrett (Actor) .. Gangster

Billy Dix (Actor) .. Gangster

Born: January 01, 1911
Died: January 01, 1973

Jeffrey Sayre (Actor) .. Manager of the Fol De Rol

Born: January 01, 1900
Died: January 01, 1974

Erin Selwyn (Actor) .. Hat Check Girl

Sam Finn (Actor) .. Patron

Charles Regan (Actor) .. Patron

Jimmie Dunn (Actor) .. Patron

John Mckee (Actor) .. Recorder

Born: December 30, 1916

Robert Strong (Actor) .. Police Stenographer

Allan Ray (Actor) .. Wounded Officer

William Phipps (Actor) .. Young man

Born: February 04, 1922

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1947.

John R. McKee (Actor) .. Recorder

Trivia: American movie stunt man John McKee began accepting acting roles somewhere around 1945. Though his name is not listed in The Baseball Encyclopedia, we can safely assume that McKee had some pro baseball experience of some sort. He was seen as a ballplayer in such films as It Happens Every Spring (1949), Three Little Words (1950), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Pride of St. Louis (1952), The Big Leaguer (1953) and The Kid From Left Field (1953). As late as 1978 he was still in uniform, playing Ralph Houk in the made-for-TV One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story. John McKee was also on call for military-officer roles, notably in the war films The Gallant Hours (1960) and McArthur (1976).

Jimmie Dundee (Actor) .. Captain of Waiters

Born: December 19, 1900

12:15 pm - 2:15 pm, Thursday, April 2 on WNYW Movies! (5.2)