Trivia: A former accountant for the Gulf Oil Company, Dana Andrews made his stage debut with the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse in 1935. Signed to a joint film contract by Sam Goldwyn and 20th Century Fox in 1940, Andrews bided his time in supporting roles until the wartime shortage of leading men promoted him to stardom. His matter-of-fact, dead pan acting style was perfectly suited to such roles as the innocent lynching victim in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and laconic city detective Mark McPherson in Laura (1944). For reasons unknown, Andrews often found himself cast as aviators: he was the downed bomber pilot in The Purple Heart (1944), the ex-flyboy who has trouble adjusting to civilian life in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and the foredoomed airliner skipper in Zero Hour (1957), The Crowded Sky (1960), and Airport 1975 (1974). His limited acting range proved a drawback in the 1950s, and by the next decade he was largely confined to character roles, albeit good ones. From 1963 to 1965, Andrews was president of the Screen Actors Guild, where among other things he bemoaned Hollywood's obsession with nudity and sordidness (little suspecting that the worst was yet to come!). An ongoing drinking problem seriously curtailed his capability to perform, and on a couple of occasions nearly cost him his life on the highway; in 1972, he went public with his alcoholism in a series of well-distributed public service announcements, designed to encourage other chronic drinkers to seek professional help. In addition to his film work, Andrews also starred or co-starred in several TV series (Bright Promise, American Girls, and Falcon Crest) and essayed such TV-movie roles as General George C. Marshall in Ike (1979). Dana Andrews made his final screen appearance in Peter Bogdanovich's Saint Jack.

Trivia: Blonde, exotically beautiful British actress Peggy Cummins was a stage performer from the age of 12. She appeared in a handful of English films in the early 1940s, which brought her to the attention of 20th Century-Fox head man Darryl F. Zanuck. Amidst a shower of publicity, Peggy was brought to Hollywood to star in Fox's film adaptation of the notorious Kathleen Windsor novel Forever Amber. In the early stages of shooting, however, Zanuck evinced disappointment in Peggy's performance, and rapidly replaced her with Linda Darnell; Ms. Cummins was "compensated" with antiseptic leading-lady roles in Fox's Green Grass of Wyoming (1947), Moss Rose (1947) and The Late George Apley (1947). Before returning to England in 1950, Peggy Cummins delivered an unforgettable performance as a psychopathic Bonnie Parker-type criminal in the film noir classic Gun Crazy (1949).

Trivia: A former engineer, British actor Maurice Denham first appeared on-stage in 1934, making his London bow two years later. During his five years' wartime service, Denham built up a "man of a thousand voices" reputation on such radio series as the ITMA Show and Much-Binding-in-the-Mash. He made his first film appearance in 1947. While garnering excellent press for his stage portrayals of Macbeth and Uncle Vanya, he was usually seen in lesser roles in films, playing dozens of clergymen, detectives, politicians, prison governors, and military officers. He was also a regular on the 1971 TV series The Lotus Eaters. Maurice Denham's crowning film achievement was one in which his face was never seen: In the 1955 animated feature Animal Farm, Denham provided the voices of all the animals.

Trivia: Burly, ruddy-faced Irish actor Niall MacGinnis looked as though he'd be well suited for an alley fight, but most of his film and stage roles were of an intellectual bent. Active on stage with the Old Vic, MacGinnis made his first film in 1935. For many film buffs, MacGinnis' fame rests on two dymamic leading roles. He portrayed the crafty black-arts practitioner (based on Alisteir Crowley) who falls victim to his own deviltry in the 1958 chiller Night of the Demon. And, as every Lutheran who ever attended a church-basement "movie night" well knows, Niall MacGinnis essayed the title role in the 1953 film Martin Luther.

Trivia: British actress Athene Seyler began her career on-stage in 1908 and made her first silent film in the 1920s. Usually cast in comedies, Seyler's characters were notorious scene stealers. Toward the end of her career, she was designated a Commander of the British Empire. In 1944, she and co-writer Stephen Haggard published the still-popular guide The Craft of Comedy. Seyler died in 1990 at the age of 101.

Trivia: Irish actor Liam Redmond spent his first twelve professional years at Dublin's Abbey Players, where he made his debut in 1935's The Silver Tassel. Redmond doubled as producer in ten of the fifty Abbey productions in which he appeared. In 1947, he made his London theatrical bow in The White Steed. Seven years later, he won the George Jean Nathan award for his portrayal of Canon McCooey in The Wayward Saint. In films since 1945's I See A Dark Stranger, Liam Redmond showed up before the cameras on both sides of the Atlantic, appearing with actors ranging from Dirk Bogarde (The Gentle Gunman) to Don Knotts (The Ghost and Mr. Chicken).

Trivia: British actor/writer Reginald Beckwith was a playwright and film critic in the years before the war. From 1941 through 1945, Beckwith was a BBC war correspondent; coincidentally, his first film as an actor was the 1940 flag-waver Freedom Radio. His best known play was the serio-comedy Boys in Brown, concerning a British borstal (boys' reformatory) and its kindhearted headmaster; apparently Beckwith had written the latter role with himself in mind, though it would be played by Jack Warner in the film version. From the late 1940s onward, Reginald Beckwith was a full-time character actor, playing variations on the fussy, nervous upper-class and executive types so popular in British films of the period.

Trivia: A former doctor, Richard Leech gave up his successful practice after a single year to try his luck as an actor. His first screen role of note was Flight Lieutenant Young in the phenomenally successful The Dam Busters (1955). Thereafter, he was typecast as military officers, police inspectors, and, inevitably, doctors. He played small but notable roles in a number of Richard Attenborough-directed films, including Young Winston (1972) and Gandhi (1982). Richard Leech is the father of actress Eliza McClelland.

Trivia: British stage actor John Salew made the transition to films in 1939. The manpower shortage during WWII enabled the stout, balding Salew to play larger and more important roles than would have been his lot in other circumstances. He usually played suspicious-looking characters, often Germanic in origin. His screen assignments include such parts as William Shakespeare (yes, that William Shakespeare) in the comedy-fantasy Time Flies (1944), Grimstone in the Gothic meller Uncle Silas (1947), and the librarian in the psychological thriller Night of the Demon (1957). John Salew was active into the TV era, playing the sort of parts that John McGiver essayed in the U.S.

Trivia: British actor Percy Herbert was launched on a stage career through the auspices of theatrical legend Dame Sybil Thorndike. In his earliest screen appearances, Herbert specialized in talkative cockneys; as he grew older, the Bow-Bells dialect lapsed and he often as not was seen as a Scotsman or American. An ideal "military" type, Herbert was well cast in such films as The Baby and the Battleship (1955), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and, best of all, Tunes of Glory (1960). He was also a perennial in British-based horror and fantasy films, notably Curse of the Demon (1957), Enemy from Space (1957) and a brace of Harryhausen pictures, Mysterious Island (1961, as a hammy Confederate soldier) and One Million Years BC (1966). In 1967, Percy Herbert was seen as deputy McGregor on the 90-minute TV western Cimmaron Strip.

Trivia: Ballard Berkeley went from a successful if somewhat undistinguished career as a theatrical leading man to a long and lucrative career in movies and television playing memorable character roles and closed it out with a part on television that made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in Margate, Kent, England, in 1904, he was the son of a theatrical manager with the family name Blascheck. He aspired to an acting career and made his London theatrical debut in 1928. Berkeley was the understudy to the lead in Counsel's Opinion (the play that became the movie The Divorce of Lady X). He also appeared with Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire in Stop Flirting and, over the next decade did a string of appearances opposite some of the top leading ladies of the day, including Dame Edith Evans and Fay Compton. His work as a theatrical leading man, however, was rather forgettable in the eyes of most critics, next to the actresses with whom he worked. But the movies beckoned after the advent of sound, and from 1930 -- with London Melody and The Chinese Bungalow -- Berkeley regularly appeared in features, often in leading or major supporting roles. His performances may have been fine, but the movies he did failed to have a major impact; the most widely seen of the early features was The Saint in London (1939), part of a series of films about the fictional Leslie Charteris-created sleuth. His career was interrupted at that point by the outbreak of the Second World War, rather ironically, considering the path of his subsequent career. Berkeley didn't serve in combat or even in the armed forces, but worked as a special constable, often in tandem with his fellow thespian Jack Hulbert. His presence was a big boost to the morale of their fellow officers, as he would organize entertainment in his off-duty hours.Berkeley sole wartime film appearance was a small but memorable part, as the HMS Torin's engineer-commander, in Noel Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve (1942). And in 1947, after the war's end, he made his New York stage debut in the musical comedy Under the Counter. But theater receded in significance as part of his career during the postwar era, as Berkeley moved into character roles in film playing army officers (and, later -- and more notably -- retired army officers), police inspectors, and the occasional villain. During the 1950s, he also increasingly began to be seen on television as that medium took root in England, especially in crime programs like Dixon of Dock Green and action-adventure series such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, and The Invisible Man. He remained busy on both the big and small screens and became a popular and familiar presence in British entertainment. Finally, in the mid-'70s, as he reached his own seventies, he was cast in the perfect role, a part that took advantage of his comically officious, Colonel Blimp-ish persona, which he cultivated in his portrayal of many a military officer, and also of his advancing age: Major Gowen on Fawlty Towers. As one of the long-standing residents at the broken-down hotel owned by Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), the Major -- who sometimes seemed comically disoriented -- was the most memorable of the guests whose presence vexed Fawlty, and Berkeley brought a great deal of humanity to the role without ever losing the opportunity for a laugh. And the series' success in America made him a familiar name to television viewers across the Atlantic for the first time. He continued working for another nine years, right up to his death in 1988, even making it into National Lampoon's European Vacation. Most of his appearances were in productions aimed at British viewers, such as The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980), alongside such long-serving acting talents as Michael Hordern and Thorley Walters, in what was the last of the "St. Trinian's" films.