Trivia: The son of a Canadian railroad executive, Glenn Ford first toddled on-stage at age four in a community production of Tom Thumb's Wedding. In 1924, Ford's family moved to California, where he was active in high-school theatricals. He landed his first professional theater job as a stage manager in 1934, and, within a year, he was acting in the West Coast company of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. Although he made his film debut in 20th Century Fox's Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence (1939), Ford was signed by Columbia, which remained his home base for the next 14 years. After an apprenticeship in such B-movies as Blondie Plays Cupid (1940), Ford was promoted to Columbia's A-list. Outwardly a most ordinary and unprepossessing personality, Ford possessed that intangible "something" that connected with audiences. The first phase of his stardom was interrupted by World War II service in the Marines (he retained his officer's commission long after the war, enabling him to make goodwill visits to Korea and Vietnam). Upon his return, Ford had some difficulty jump-starting his career, but, in 1946, he was back on top as Rita Hayworth's co-star in Gilda. While he insisted that he "never played anyone but [himself] onscreen," Ford's range was quite extensive. He was equally effective as a tormented film noir hero (The Big Heat [1953], Human Desire [1954]) as he was in light comedy (Teahouse of the August Moon [1956], The Gazebo[1959]). Nearly half of his films were Westerns, many of which -- The Desperadoes (1943), The Fastest Gun Alive (1956), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Cowboy (1958) -- were among the best and most successful examples of that highly specialized genre. He was also quite effective at conveying courage under pressure: While it was clear that his characters in such films as The Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Ransom (1956) were terrified by the circumstances surrounding them, it was also obvious that they weren't about to let that terror get the better of them. In 1958, Ford was voted the number one male box-office attraction. Through sagacious career choices, the actor was able to extend his popularity long after the studio system that "created" him had collapsed. In 1971, he joined such film stars as Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Quinn, and Jimmy Stewart in the weekly television grind. While his series Cade's County ended after a single season, in the long run it was more successful than the vintage-like programs of MacLaine, Quinn, et al., and enjoyed a healthy life in syndication. Ford went on to star in another series, The Family Holvak (1975), and hosted a weekly documentary, When Havoc Struck (1978). He also headlined such miniseries as Once an Eagle (1976) and Evening in Byzantium (1978), and delivered a particularly strong performance as an Irish-American patriarch in the made-for-TV feature The Gift (1979). He continued showing up in choice movie supporting roles into the early '90s; one of the best of these was as Clark Kent's foster father in Superman: The Movie (1978).Although illness sharply curtailed his performing activities after that, Ford was still seemingly on call during the 1980s and '90s whenever a cable TV documentary on Hollywood's Golden Era required an eyewitness interview subject. In 1970, Ford published an autobiography, Glenn Ford, RFD Beverly Hills. His first wife was actress Eleanor Powell; He was also married to Kathryn Hays and Cynthia Hayward. His last film appearance was a cameo in 1993's Tombstone; after a series of strokes later that decade, he died in 2006 at the age of 90.

Trivia: In an industry of prima donnas, actress Barbara Stanwyck was universally recognized as a consummate professional; a supremely versatile performer, her strong screen presence established her as a favorite of directors, including Cecil B. De Mille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra. Born Ruby Stevens July 16, 1907, in Brooklyn, NY, she was left orphaned at the age of four and raised by her showgirl sister. Upon quitting school a decade later, she began dancing in local speakeasies and at the age of 15 became a Ziegfeld chorus girl. In 1926, Stanwyck made her Broadway debut in The Noose, becoming a major stage star in her next production, Burlesque. MGM requested a screen test, but she rejected the offer. She did, however, agree to a supporting role in 1927's Broadway Nights, and after completing her stage run in 1929 appeared in the drama The Locked Door. With her husband, comedian Frank Fay, Stanwyck traveled to Hollywood. After unsuccessfully testing at Warner Bros., she appeared in Columbia's low-budget Mexicali Rose, followed in 1930 by Capra's Ladies of Leisure, the picture which shot her to stardom. A long-term Columbia contract was the result, and the studio soon loaned Stanwyck to Warners for 1931's Illicit. It was a hit, as was the follow-up Ten Cents a Dance. Reviewers were quite taken with her, and with a series of successful pictures under her belt, she sued Columbia for a bigger salary; a deal was struck to share her with Warners, and she split her time between the two studios for pictures including Miracle Woman, Night Nurse, and Forbidden, a major hit which established her among the most popular actresses in Hollywood. Over the course of films like 1932's Shopworn, Ladies They Talk About, and Baby Face, Stanwyck developed an image as a working girl, tough-minded and often amoral, rarely meeting a happy ending; melodramas including 1934's Gambling Lady and the following year's The Woman in Red further established the persona, and in Red Salute she even appeared as a student flirting with communism. Signing with RKO, Stanwyck starred as Annie Oakley; however, her contract with the studio was non-exclusive, and she also entered into a series of multi-picture deals with the likes of Fox (1936's A Message to Garcia) and MGM (His Brother's Wife, co-starring Robert Taylor, whom she later married).For 1937's Stella Dallas, Stanwyck scored the first of four Academy Award nominations. Refusing to be typecast, she then starred in a screwball comedy, Breakfast for Two, followed respectively by the downcast 1938 drama Always Goodbye and the caper comedy The Mad Miss Manton. After the 1939 De Mille Western Union Pacific, she co-starred with William Holden in Golden Boy, and with Henry Fonda she starred in Preston Sturges' outstanding The Lady Eve. For the 1941 Howard Hawks comedy Ball of Fire, Stanwyck earned her second Oscar nomination. Another superior film, Capra's Meet John Doe, completed a very successful year. Drama was the order of the day for the next few years, as she starred in pictures like The Gay Sisters and The Great Man's Lady. In 1944, she delivered perhaps her most stunning performance in Billy Wilder's classic noir Double Indemnity. Stanwyck's stunning turn as a femme fatale secured her a third Oscar bid and helped make her, according to the IRS, the highest-paid woman in America. It also won her roles in several of the decade's other great film noirs, including 1946's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and 1949's The File on Thelma Jordon. In between, Stanwyck also starred in the 1948 thriller Sorry, Wrong Number, her final Academy Award-nominated performance. The 1950s, however, were far less kind, and strong roles came her way with increasing rarity. With Anthony Mann she made The Furies and with Lang she appeared opposite Marilyn Monroe in 1952's Clash by Night, but much of her material found her typecast -- in 1953's All I Desire, she portrayed a heartbroken mother not far removed from the far superior Stella Dallas, while in 1954's Blowing Wild she was yet another tough-as-nails, independent woman. Outside of the all-star Executive Suite, Stanwyck did not appear in another major hit; she let her hair go gray, further reducing her chances of winning plum parts, and found herself cast in a series of low-budget Westerns. Only Samuel Fuller's 1957 picture Forty Guns, a film much revered by the Cahiers du Cinema staff, was of any particular notice. It was also her last film for five years. In 1960, she turned to television to host The Barbara Stanwyck Show, winning an Emmy for her work.Stanwyck returned to cinemas in 1962, portraying a lesbian madam in the controversial Walk on the Wild Side. Two years later, she co-starred with Elvis Presley in Roustabout. That same year, she appeared in the thriller The Night Walker, and with that, her feature career was over. After rejecting a role in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, she returned to television to star in the long-running Western series The Big Valley, earning another Emmy for her performance as the matriarch of a frontier family. Upon the show's conclusion, Stanwyck made a TV movie, The House That Would Not Die. She then appeared in two more, 1971's A Taste of Evil and 1973's The Letters, before vanishing from the public eye for the remainder of the decade. In 1981, she was awarded an honorary Oscar; two years later, she was also the recipient of a Lincoln Center Life Achievement Award. Also in 1983, Stanwyck returned to television to co-star in the popular miniseries The Thorn Birds. Two years later, she headlined The Colbys, a spin-off of the hugely successful nighttime soap opera Dynasty. It was her last project before retiring. Stanwyck died January 20, 1990.

Trivia: Born Emmanuel Goldenberg, Edward G. Robinson was a stocky, forceful, zesty star of Hollywood films who was best known for his gangsters roles in the '30s. A "little giant" of the screen with a pug-dog face, drawling nasal voice, and a snarling expression, he was considered the quintessential tough-guy actor. Having emigrated with his family to the U.S. when he was ten, Robinson planned to be a rabbi or a lawyer, but decided on an acting career while a student at City College, where he was elected to the Elizabethan Society. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a scholarship, and, in 1913, began appearing in summer stock after changing his name to "Edward G." (for Goldenberg). Robinson debuted on Broadway in 1915, and, over the next 15 years, became a noted stage character actor, even co-writing one of his plays, The Kibitzer (1929). He appeared in one silent film, The Bright Shawl (1923), but not until the sound era did he begin working regularly in films, making his talkie debut in The Hole in the Wall (1929) with Claudette Colbert. It was a later sound film, 1930's Little Caesar, that brought him to the attention of American audiences; portraying gangster boss Rico Bandello, he established a prototype for a number of gangster roles he played in the ensuing years. After being typecast as a gangster he gradually expanded the scope of his roles, and, in the '40s, gave memorable "good guy" performances as in a number of psychological dramas; he played federal agents, scientists, Biblical characters, business men, bank clerks, among other characters. The actor experienced a number of personal problems during the '50s. He was falsely linked to communist organizations and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (eventually being cleared of all suspicion). Having owned one of the world's largest private art collections, he was forced to sell it in 1956 as part of a divorce settlement with his wife of 29 years, actress Gladys Lloyd. Robinson continued his career, however, which now included television work, and he remained a busy actor until shortly before his death from cancer in 1973. His final film was Soylent Green (1973), a science fiction shocker with Charlton Heston. Two months after his death, Robinson was awarded an honorary Oscar "for his outstanding contribution to motion pictures," having been notified of the honor before he died. He was also the author of a posthumously published autobiography, All My Yesterdays (1973).

Trivia: Edmonton-born Dianne Foster relocated to England at an early age. By age 13, Foster was an established model and film actress (The Quiet Woman, Isn't Life Wonderful?) She moved to the U.S. in 1954, where she was signed by Columbia Pictures. Her best-remembered credits under the Columbia banner include John Ford's The Last Hurrah (1958) and Gideon's Day (1959). On loan to Kirk Douglas' Bryna Productions, she co-starred with Douglas in The Kentuckian (1955). Dianne Foster retired from show business in the early 1960s, after wrapping up her Columbia obligations with Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963).

Trivia: The son of actor Robert Keith (1896-1966), Brian Keith made his first film appearance in 1924's Pied Piper Malone, when he was well-below the age of consent. During the war years, Keith served in the Marines, winning a Navy Air Medal; after cessation of hostilities, he began his acting career in earnest. At first billing himself as Robert Keith Jr., he made his 1946 Broadway debut in Heyday, then enjoyed a longer run as Mannion in Mister Roberts (1948), which featured his father as "Doc." His film career proper began in 1952; for the rest of the decade, Keith played good guys, irascible sidekicks and cold-blooded heavies with equal aplomb. Beginning with Ten Who Dared (1959), Keith became an unofficial "regular" in Disney Films, his performances alternately subtle (The Parent Trap) and bombastic. Of his 1970s film efforts, Keith was seen to best advantage as Teddy Roosevelt in The Wind and the Lion (1975). In television since the medium was born, Keith has starred in several weekly series, including The Crusader (1955-56), The Little People (aka The Brian Keith Show, 1972-74) and Lew Archer (1975). His longest-running and perhaps best-known TV endeavors were Family Affair (1966-71), in which he played the uncharacteristically subdued "Uncle Bill" and the detective series Hardcastle & McCormick (1983-86). His most fascinating TV project was the 13-week The Westerner (1960), created by Sam Peckinpah, in which he played an illiterate cowpoke with an itchy trigger finger. Keith's personal favorite of all his roles is not to be found in his film or TV output; it is the title character in Hugh Leonard's stage play Da. Plagued by emphysema and lung cancer while apparently still reeling emotionally from the suicide of his daughter Daisy, 75-year-old Brian Keith was found dead of a gunshot wound by family members in his Malibu home. Police ruled the death a suicide. Just prior to his death, Keith had completed a supporting role in the TNT miniseries Rough Riders.

Trivia: Brunette Donna Lee Hickey danced at New York's Copacabana nightclub at the age of 17 and played bit parts at 20th Century Fox (1952-1953). She tested for the role of Alma in From Here to Eternity (1953) but lost out to the more established Donna Reed. Instead she played May Wynn, Robert Francis' love interest in The Caine Mutiny (1954), and adopted the character's name as her own. Subsequent film roles were uninteresting, however, and a stint as the secretary on Jack Webb's veterinarian series Noah's Ark (1956) proved short-lived when the television show was canceled after one season on NBC. May Wynn was at one point married to Jack Kelly, her co-star in They Rode West (1954) and four other films.

Trivia: Warner Anderson claimed that he made his first film appearance as a four-year-old juvenile actor in a 1915 Charles Ray vehicle. His first stage credit, Maytime, came two years later. During his early adulthood, Anderson worked as a straight man in vaudeville and burlesque. In the 1940s, he came to prominence as announcer for radio's Bell Telephone Hour. While most of his film roles were supporting, Anderson was starred in the early special-effects-fest Destination Moon. Warner Anderson's TV credits include a four-year run as Lt. Ben Guthrie on Lineup (aka San Francisco Beat) in the mid-1950s, and a lengthy tenure as newspaper editor Matthew Swain on the 1960s nighttime serial Peyton Place.

Trivia: Of Russian descent, American actor Basil Ruysdael was a successful opera singer in the 'teens and twenties. Firmly based in New York, Ruysdael made his first screen appearance in the Marx Brothers Astoria-filmed The Cocoanuts (1929). His portrayal of Detective Hennessy in this film was ordinary enough, save for his hilarious vocal rendition of "Tale of a Shirt," an elaborate parody of "The Toreador Song" from Bizet's Carmen. Ruysdael remained in Manhattan for nearly two decades after Cocoanuts, working on the stage, in radio, and in the occasional film short. He moved to California in 1949, showing up in no fewer than six films during his first year in Hollywood. Active until his death in 1960, Ruysdael was invariably cast as orotund authority figures: military officers, judges, governors, college deans. During the early 1950s, Basil Ruysdael was the radio and TV spokesperson for Lucky Strike cigarettes, imparting in pear-shaped tones the vital message "L.S.M.F.T....Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco."

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: Character actor James Westerfield made comparatively few films, as his first love was the stage; he produced, directed and acted in a number of Broadway productions, and was the recipient of two New York Drama Critics awards. In films from 1941 (he's easily recognizable as a traffic cop in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons), he was generally cast as villains, notably as a recurring rapscallion on the 1963 TV series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters. Disney fans will remember Westerfield as the flustered small-town police officer (variously named Hanson and Morrison) in such fanciful farces as The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent Minded Professor (1960) and Son of Flubber (1963). James Westerfield was married to actress Fay Tracy.

Trivia: The son of actress Nan Kelly Yorke, Jack Kelly was the younger brother of stage and film star Nancy Kelly. Like Nancy, Jack was a professional from an early age, acting in radio and on stage before the age of 10, and in films from 1937 (he is quite prominent in a brace of 1939 20th Century-Fox films, Young Mr. Lincoln and The Story of Alexander Graham Bell). He reemerged as a leading man in the early 1950s, appearing in such films as Forbidden Planet (1956, as the ill-fated Lieutenant Farnam). Signed by Warner Bros. in 1955, Kelly starred as Dr. Paris Mitchell in the weekly TV version of the 1942 film King's Row. He went on to play gamblin' man Bart Maverick on the longer-running Warners western series Maverick. Though his popularity never matched that of his co-star James Garner, Kelly still developed a fan following as Bart; he remained with the series from 1957 until its cancellation in 1962, appearing opposite such Garner successors as Roger Moore and Robert Colbert. Kelly dabbled in a little bit of everything after that: hosting the anthology series NBC Comedy Playhouse (1973), emceeing the game show Sale of the Century (1969-71), and playing hard-nosed Lt. Ryan on the Teresa Graves series Get Christie Love (1974) and Harry Hammond on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-79). He revived the Bart Maverick character on 1978's The New Maverick and the 1990 TV movie The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw. Chances are that, had he lived, Jack Kelly would have been invited to co-star again with Garner in the 1994 Mel Gibson theatrical-feature version of Maverick.

Trivia: Authoritative, sandy-haired character actor Willis Bouchey abandoned a busy Broadway career in 1951 to try his luck in films. Bouchey's striking resemblance to Dwight D. Eisenhower enabled him to play roles calling for quick decisiveness and unquestioned leadership; he even showed up as the President of the United States in 1952's Red Planet Mars, one year before the "real" Ike ascended to that office. The actor's many judge, executive, military, and town-marshal characterizations could also convey weakness and vacillation, but for the most part there was no question who was in charge when Bouchey was on the scene. A loyal and steadfast member of the John Ford stock company, Willis Bouchey was seen in such Ford productions as The Long Gray Line (1955), The Last Hurrah (1958), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1962).

Trivia: A stagestruck 15-year-old Michigan farm boy, Harry Shannon succumbed to the lure of greasepaint upon joining a traveling repertory troupe. Developing into a first-rate musical comedy performer, Shannon went on to work in virtually all branches of live entertainment, including tent shows, vaudeville, and Broadway. By the 1930s, Shannon was a member of Joseph Schildkraut's Hollywood Theater Guild, which led to film assignments. Though he was busiest playing Irish cops and Western sheriffs, Harry Shannon is best remembered as Charles Foster Kane's alcoholic father ("What that kid needs is a good thrashin'!") in Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941).

Trivia: Don C. Harvey's screen acting career was launched when he signed a Columbia contract in 1949. An all-purpose villain, Harvey showed up in most of Columbia's serials of the era, including Atom Man vs. Superman (1949), Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949), Batman and Robin (1949), Captain Video (1950), and the studio's final chapter play, Blazing the Overland Trail (1956). He also appeared in Columbia's "A" product (Picnic), "B" pictures (Women's Prison) and two-reel comedies (the Three Stooges' Merry Mavericks). Fans of 1950s horror films may recall Harvey as Mac in Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Lester Banning in Creature with the Atom Brain (1955). Don C. Harvey was married to actress June Harvey.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from the '50s.

Trivia: The grandson of a governor of New Mexico, pioneering screen cowboy Edmund Cobb began his long career toiling in Colorado-produced potboilers such as Hands Across the Border (1914), the filming of which turned tragic when Cobb's leading lady, Grace McHugh, drowned in the Arkansas River. Despite this harrowing experience, Cobb continued to star in scores of cheap Westerns and was making two-reelers at Universal in Hollywood by the 1920s. But unlike other studio cowboys, Cobb didn't do his own stunts -- despite the fact that he later claimed to have invented the infamous "running w" horse stunt -- and that may actually have shortened his starring career. By the late '20s, he was mainly playing villains. The Edmund Cobb remembered today, always a welcome sign whether playing the main henchman or merely a member of the posse, would pop up in about every other B-Western made during the 1930s and 1940s, invariably unsmiling and with a characteristic monotone delivery. When series Westerns bit the dust in the mid-'50s, Cobb simply continued on television. In every sense of the word a true screen pioneer and reportedly one of the kindest members of the Hollywood chuck-wagon fraternity, Edmund Cobb died at the age of 82 at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: Busy character actor Frank Ferguson was able to parlay his pinched facial features, his fussy little moustache, and his bellows-like voice for a vast array of characterizations. Ferguson was equally effective as a hen-pecked husband, stern military leader, irascible neighbor, merciless employer, crooked sheriff, and barbershop hanger-on. He made his inaugural film appearance in Father is a Prince (1940) and was last seen on the big screen in The Great Sioux Massacre (1965). Ferguson proved himself an above-average actor by successfully pulling off the treacly scene in The Babe Ruth Story (1948) in which Babe (William Bendix) says "Hi, kid" to Ferguson's crippled son--whereupon the boy suddenly stands up and walks! Among Franklin Ferguson's hundreds of TV appearances were regular stints on the children's series My Friend Flicka (1956) and the nighttime soap opera Peyton Place (1964-68).

Trivia: After making his film debut in Naked City (1948), Raymond Greenleaf was nearly always cast as a judge, most memorably as conscience-stricken, suicide-prone Judge Stanton in the 1949 Oscar-winner All the King's Men. Usually a supporting player, he was afforded top billing as a dedicated county prosecutor in Republic's When Gangland Strikes (1956). Raymond Greenleaf once more donned judicial robes for his final screen appearance in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961).

Trivia: An outdoorsman from an early age, gangling Montana-born actor Ethan Laidlaw began showing up in westerns during the silent era. Too menacing for lead roles, Laidlaw was best suited for villains, usually as the crooked ranch hand in the employ of the rival cattle baron, sent to spy on the hero or heroine. During the talkie era, Laidlaw began alternating his western work with roles as sailors and stevedores; he is quite visible chasing the Marx Brothers around in Monkey Business (1931). Though usually toiling in anonymity, Ethan Laidlaw was given prominent billing for his "heavy" role in the 1936 Wheeler and Woolsey sagebrush spoof Silly Billies.

Trivia: John Halloran seldom played roles with extensive dialogue during his 24-year screen career, but filmgoers found him a memorable figure from his mere physical presence. A martial arts expert and judo champion, he came to films in middle age after a career in law enforcement that was interrupted over his devotion to those very skills that made him so valuable to the police in the first place. In his larger screen roles, starting with the sinister Captain Oshima in Frank Lloyd's Blood on the Sun (1945), he often made use of his specialized fighting skills, while in smaller parts his size and imposing presence were sufficient. The actor's birth name was John R. Sergel -- he was an American citizen born in Argentina in 1902 to Edwin J. Sergel and the former Belle Russell. His interest in martial arts dated at least from the 1920s. According to various sources, Sergel was part of the San Fernando Dojo in 1932, and set several records in judo competitions at the end of the 1930s. He was a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, holding the rank of sergeant in the early '40s, one of several martial arts experts in the employ of the LAPD at the time. But Sergel was singled out for attention by federal authorities after he took several students, including women, to the notorious Manzanar internment camp -- where many of the Japanese-Americans in the Los Angeles area were being held -- to get them graded in judo. This led to investigations by both the federal government and the local police; Sergel's loyalty to the United States was beyond question, and his police credentials were impeccable, but his admiration and respect for Japanese culture proved to be too controversial in 1944. He resigned from the police force in October of that year. Almost immediately, Sergel was tapped by actor James Cagney, who was then in the process of starring in and producing the movie Blood on the Sun, to serve as a technical advisor as well as the hero's greatest physical nemesis, Captain Oshima. With this commencement of Sergel's movie career, the martial artist and actor took on the stage name John Halloran. The movie got mixed reviews and was not a huge box-office success, but everyone who has ever seen it remembers the climactic judo fight between Cagney and Halloran that destroys just about everything in the room in which it takes place, as well as savaging the two characters. After that, Halloran went on to appear in more than 60 movies and television shows, sometimes cast as sinister heavies in Westerns, and other times making use of his special skills in more exotic and modern settings. Indeed, for a time he became the judo equivalent of Mushy Callahan, the prize fighter who trained countless screen actors and served as technical advisor on a generation's worth of movies about boxing. Halloran worked with Cagney again on pictures, and in movies as different as the Anthony Mann Western The Far Country (1955) and the Kurt Neumann sci-fi thriller Kronos (1957). He also appeared as himself, referred to as "Jack Halloran," in the Abbott & Costello Show episode "Police Rookies," as a martial arts expert demonstrating various judo holds and moves (udenage, kata guruma, etc.). He worked steadily in pictures almost right up until his death in 1968, and his last screen appearance was in the movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1947.