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: A private school-educated everyman who could play outrageous comedy and wrenching tragedy, Jack Lemmon burst onto the movie scene as a 1950s Columbia contract player and remained a beloved star until his death in 2001. Whether through humor or pathos, he excelled at illuminating the struggles of average men against a callous world; as director Billy Wilder once noted, "There was a little bit of genius in everything he did." Born in 1925, the son of a Boston doughnut company executive, Lemmon was educated at Phillips Andover Academy and taught himself to play piano as a teen. A budding thespian by the time he entered Harvard, he was elected president of the famed Hasty Pudding Club. After his college career was briefly interrupted by a stint in the Navy at the end of World War II, Lemmon graduated from Harvard and headed to New York to pursue acting. By the early '50s, Lemmon had appeared in hundreds of live TV roles, including in the dramatic series Kraft Television Theater and Robert Montgomery Presents, as well as co-starring with first wife, Cynthia Stone, in two short-lived sitcoms. After Lemmon landed a major role in the 1953 Broadway revival of Room Service, a talent scout for Columbia Pictures convinced the actor to try Hollywood instead. Defying Columbia chief Harry Cohn's demand that he change his last name lest the critics take advantage of it in negative reviews, Lemmon quickly made a positive impression in his first film, the Judy Holliday comic hit It Should Happen to You (1954) and quickly became a reliably nimble comic presence at Columbia. A loan out to Warner Bros. for the smash Mister Roberts (1955), however, truly began to reveal his ability. Drawing on his Navy memories to play the wily Ensign Pulver, Lemmon held his own opposite heavyweights Henry Fonda and James Cagney and won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his fourth film. A free-agent star by the end of the 1950s, he began one of his two most auspicious creative collaborations when writer/director Billy Wilder tapped him to play one of the cross-dressing musicians in the gender-tweaking comic classic Some Like It Hot (1959). As enthusiastically female bull fiddler Daphne to Tony Curtis' preening Lothario sax player Josephine, Lemmon danced a sidesplitting tango with millionaire suitor Joe E. Brown and delivered a sublime speechless reaction to Brown's nonchalant acceptance of his manhood. Fresh off a Best Actor nomination for Hot, he then gave an image-defining performance in Wilder's multiple-Oscar winner The Apartment (1960). As ambitious New York office drone C.C. Baxter, who climbs the corporate ladder by loaning his small one-bedroom to his philandering bosses, Lemmon was both the likeable cynic and beleaguered romantic, perfectly embodying Wilder's sardonic view of a venal world. Lemmon's turn as the put-upon quotidian schnook pervaded the rest of his career. Determined to prove that he could play serious roles as well as comic, Lemmon campaigned to play Lee Remick's alcoholic husband in Blake Edwards' film adaptation of the teleplay Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Revealing the darker side of middle-class desperation, Lemmon earned still more critical kudos and another Oscar nomination. Despite this triumph, he returned to comedy, re-teaming with Wilder and The Apartment co-star Shirley MacLaine in Irma la Douce (1963). Though the love story between a Parisian prostitute and a cop-turned-lover in disguise was a lesser effort, Irma la Douce became a major hit for the trio. Continuing to display his skill at offsetting his characters' unseemly behavior with his innate, ordinary-guy affability, Lemmon's mid-'60s comic roles included a lascivious landlord in Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and a homicidal husband in How to Murder Your Wife (1965). Lemmon began his second legendary creative partnership when Wilder cast Walter Matthau opposite him in The Fortune Cookie (1966). The duo's popularity was cemented when they re-teamed for the hit film version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (1968). Despite his genuine pathos as suicidal, anal-retentive divorcé Felix Unger, Lemmon still managed to evoke great hilarity with Felix's technique for clearing his sinuses, becoming a superbly neurotic foil to Matthau's very casual Oscar Madison. Matthau subsequently starred in Kotch (1971), Lemmon's sole directorial effort, and Lemmon appeared in scion Charles Matthau's The Grass Harp (1995). Lemmon and Matthau also fittingly co-starred in Wilder's final film, Buddy Buddy (1981). After starring in The Out-of-Towners (1970) and Avanti! (1972), Lemmon took minimal salary in order to play a disillusioned middle-aged businessman in the drama Save the Tiger (1973). Though the film did little business, Lemmon finally won the Best Actor Oscar that had eluded him for over a decade and moved easily between comedy and drama from then on. As in The Odd Couple, he marshaled both humor and gloom for his portrayal of an unemployed, despondent gray flannel suit executive in Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972). His reunion with Wilder and Matthau for another screen version of the fast-talking newspaperman comedy The Front Page (1974), however, was strictly for laughs. Working less frequently in films in the mid-'70s, Lemmon managed to retain his status as one of the best actors in the business with his passionate turn as a conscience-stricken nuclear power plant executive in the prescient drama The China Syndrome (1979). Along with the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Lemmon also earned an Oscar nomination for Syndrome. He received another Oscar nod when he reprised his 1978 Tony-nominated performance as a dying press agent in the film version of Tribute (1980). Lemmon continued to push himself as an actor throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As an anguished father who seeks the truth about his son's disappearance in Constantin Costa-Gavras' politically charged Missing (1982), he repeated his Cannes win and Oscar nomination diptych. In 1986, Lemmon returned to Broadway in the challenging role of wretched patriarch James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. Though critics began voicing their doubts after such films as Dad (1989), Lemmon offset his affection for sentiment in the early '90s with vivid performances as a slightly seedy character in JFK (1991), a fading, high-strung real estate agent in David Mamet's harsh Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and a truant father in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). Lemmon proved that older actors could still draw crowds when he co-starred with Matthau as warring neighbors in the hit comedy Grumpy Old Men (1993) and the imaginatively titled sequel Grumpier Old Men (1995). The two concluded their decades-long, perennially appealing odd couple act with Out to Sea (1997) and The Odd Couple II (1998). Along with gathering such lifetime laurels as the Kennedy Center Honors and the Screen Actors' Guild trophy, Lemmon also continued to win nominations and awards for his work in such TV dramas as the 1997 version of 12 Angry Men (inspiring Golden Globe rival Ving Rhames to famously surrender his prize to Lemmon) and Inherit the Wind (1999). Lemmon's Emmy-worthy turn as a serenely wise dying professor in Tuesdays With Morrie proved to be his final major role and an appropriate end to his stellar career. One year after longtime friend Matthau passed away in July 2000, Lemmon succumbed to cancer on June 27, 2001. He was survived by his second wife, Felicia Farr (whom he married in 1962), and his two children.

Trivia: India-born actress Anna Kashfi had a brief Hollywood film career in the mid to late 1950s. She was usually cast as an exotic beauty. In 1957, Kashfi gained notoriety for marrying Marlon Brando. It was a tumultuous unhappy union that fell apart in 1960. Kashfi made her screen comeback in 1979 with The Violent Women. Earlier that year she had written an acidic memoir of her brief marriage titled Breakfast with Brando.

Trivia: The son of an Irish whiskey distiller, Brian Donlevy was 10 months old when his family moved to Wisconsin. At 15, Donlevy ran away from home, hoping to join General Pershing's purge against Mexico's Pancho Villa. His tenure below the border was brief, and within a few months he was enrolled in military school. While training to be a pilot at the U.S. Naval Academy, Donlevy developed an interest in amateur theatricals. He spent much of the early 1920s living by his wits in New York, scouting about for acting jobs and attempting to sell his poetry and other writings. He posed for at least one Arrow Collar ad and did bit and extra work in several New York-based films, then received his first break with a good supporting role in the 1924 Broadway hit What Price Glory?. Several more Broadway plays followed, then in 1935 Donlevy decided to try his luck in Hollywood. A frustrated Donlevy was prepared to head back to Manhattan when, at the last minute, he was cast as a villain in Sam Goldwyn's Barbary Coast. In 1936 he was signed to a 20th Century-Fox contract, alternating between "B"-picture heroes and "A"-picture heavies for the next few years. The most notable of his bad-guy roles from this period was the cruel but courageous Sgt. Markoff in Beau Geste (1939); reportedly, Donlevy deliberately behaved atrociously off-camera as well as on, so that his co-workers would come to genuinely despise his character. From 1940 through 1946, Donlevy was most closely associated with Paramount Pictures, delivering first-rate performances in such films as The Great McGinty (1940), Wake Island (1942), The Glass Key (1942) and The Virginian (1946). His own favorite role was that of the good-hearted, raffish con-artist in Universal's Nightmare (1942). In 1950, Donlevy took time off from films to star and co-produce the syndicated radio (and later TV) series Dangerous Assignment. He went on to introduce the character of Dr. Quatermass in two well-received British science fiction films, The Creeping Unknown (1955) and Enemy From Space (1957). Brian Donlevy left behind an impressive enough filmic legacy to put the lie to his own assessment of his talents: "I think I stink."

Trivia: Actor Dick York started out as a child performer on radio, playing important roles in such airwaves favorites as Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. In the early '50s, York began showing up in New York-based instructional films, including a now-infamous reel about proper dating etiquette. Establishing himself as one of Broadway's most versatile young character actors, he was seen in such major productions as Tea and Sympathy, Bus Stop, and Night of the Auk. In films from 1955, York's most famous movie role was schoolteacher Bertram Cates in Inherit the Wind, the 1960 dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Though a prolific TV guest star, he didn't settle down on a weekly series until 1962, when he co-starred with Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll in a short-lived video adaptation of Going My Way. Two years later, he landed his signature role: Darren Stephens, the eternally flustered husband of glamorous witch Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery), in Bewitched. He remained with the series until 1969, when a recurring back ailment (the legacy of an on-set injury suffered while filming the 1959 feature They Came to Cordura) forced York to relinquish the role of Darren to Dick Sargent. Though he was for all intents and purposes retired from acting, York remained active on behalf of several pro-social causes. He was the founder of Acting for Life, an organization designed to help the homeless help themselves. Living a spartan existence in Grand Rapids, MI, an increasingly infirm Dick York tirelessly continued giving of himself for the benefit of others until his death from emphysema in 1992.

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: Bookish-looking American actor King Donovan was first seen on Broadway in 1948's The Vigil and on screen in The Man From Texas (1950). Though he appeared in dozens of films, Donovan is best known for his participation in such sci-fi classics as Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Magnetic Monster (1953) and especially The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Musical comedy fans remember Donovan for his portrayal of the saturnine assistant director in Singin' in the Rain (1952). His many TV appearances include the recurring role of Harvey Helm on the Bob Cummings sitcom Love That Bob! and Herb Thornton on the 1965-66 family comedy Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Long married to comedienne Imogene Coca, King Donovan frequently co-starred with his wife in such stage productions as The Girls of 509 and his last theatrical effort, 1982's Nothing Lasts Forever.

Trivia: American actor Vaughn Taylor was trained as a certified public accountant at Northeastern University. While performing in college theatricals, Taylor entertained notions of a stage career; he won a scholarship at the Leland Powers School of Theatre, but his resources were so low that he had to sell his blood to blood banks to pay his expenses. Steady stock, tent-show, and radio work convinced Taylor that he'd made the right career move, and upon completing his Army duties in 1945, the actor took on the new challenge of live television. Taylor played so many TV roles that it is fruitless to try to list them, though the first "couch potato generation" might have affectionate memories of the actor as sharp-witted janitor Ernest P. Duckweather on the 1953 satirical puppet show Johnny Jupiter. (Taylor was replaced by Wright King when the series went from live to film). Taylor was also a prominent "summer repertory" actor on the prestigious anthology Robert Montgomery Presents from 1952 through 1954. The movies utilized Taylor's talents, often in roles as duplicitous executives or crooked business partners: he was the two-timing showman beheaded by magician Vincent Price in The Mad Magician (1954). Anyone who follows the reruns of The Twilight Zone will be more than familiar with the skill and range of Vaughn Taylor: he played bookworm Burgess Meredith's hardhearted boss in "Time Enough at Last," a crazed old conjurer in "Still Valley," an unctuous robot salesman in "I Sing the Body Electric" and a kindly wheelchair-bound gent who sells his kindness and becomes a killer in "The Self-Improvement of Salvatore Ross."

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: Amapola Del Vando appeared in many Hollywood films between the 1930s and late 1960s. A native of Spain, she immigrated to California at age nine and started out working in local theaters during the late '20s. After appearing in a few films during the early '30s, Del Vando also began working for Central Casting where she was instrumental in promoting Latino actors. Later she became a technical adviser and specialist in Latin American music for the major studios. During the 1950s Del Vando appeared in a few television shows ranging from I Love Lucy to Fiesta Kitchen.

Trivia: "A very funny guy -- funnier than most gave him credit for," as one director described him, lanky, slow-moving Guy Wilkerson is fondly remembered for playing comedy sidekick Panhandle Perkins in the 1942-1945 PRC Texas Rangers film series, a low-rent competition for Republic Pictures' popular Three Mesquiteers Westerns. As Panhandle, Wilkerson's comedy was never intrusive and often used merely as a slow-witted counterpoint to the action. In Hollywood from at least 1937 (some sources claim he appeared onscreen as early as the 1920s), Wilkerson had honed his skills in minstrel shows, burlesque, and vaudeville, but away from his sidekick duties at PRC, he was usually seen playing less humorous characters, notably ministers or undertakers. Appearing in hundreds of feature films and television series over three decades, Guy Wilkerson was last seen in the crime thriller The Todd Killings in 1971, the year of his death from cancer.

Trivia: Of Latin extraction, actor Frank DeKova possessed the indeterminate but sharply chiselled facial features that allowed him to play a wide range of ethnic types, from East Indian to American Indian. His first film appearance was as a gravel-voiced gangster in 1951's The Mob. He was busiest in westerns, closing out his film career with 1975's Johnny Firecloud. Frank DeKova has endeared himself to two generations of TV fans with his performance as peace-loving Hekawi Indian chief Wild Eagle on the 1960s TV sitcom F Troop.

Trivia: Over his 14-year film career, actor Russ Bender appeared almost exclusively in low-budget horror films: The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), It Conquered the World (1957), Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1965), etc. One of his few "mainstream" assignments was the role of Edgar Llewellyn in 20th Century-Fox's Compulsion (1959). Russ Bender is also listed as screenwriter on such pinchpenny projects as Voodoo Woman.

Trivia: Mean-looking John Lacy Cason was one of those unsung Hollywood heroes: a stuntman. A former professional prizefighter (hence his battered-looking nose), Cason was, according to his fellow stunt people, Pierce Lyden, "one of the toughest men in the business." He had arrived in Hollywood in the late '30s and began receiving billing in 1941, always playing henchmen. Nicknamed "Lefty" due to a fierce left-handed hook, Cason appeared in scores of B-Westerns in the '40s and guest starred on nearly all the television oaters of the following decade. He died in a road accident near Santa Barbara, CA, shortly after finishing an episode of Wagon Train.

Trivia: A graduate of the University of Michigan, Strother Martin was the National Junior Springboard Diving Champion when he came to Hollywood as a swimming coach in the late 1940s. He stuck around Lala-land to play a few movie bits and extra roles before finally receiving a role of substance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Lean and limber in his early day, Martin was frequently cast in parts which called upon his athletic prowess (e.g. a drawling big-league ball player in 1951's Rhubarb). As his face grew more pocked and his body more paunched with each advancing year, Martin put his reedy, whiny voice and sinister squint to excellent use as a villain, most often in westerns. It took him nearly 20 years to matriculate from character actor to character star. In 1967, Martin skyrocketed to fame as the sadistic prison-farm captain in Cool Hand Luke: his character's signature line, "What we have here is a failure t' communicate," became a national catchphrase. While he continued accepting secondary roles for the rest of his career, Martin was awarded top billing in two sleazy but likeable programmers, Brotherhood of Satan (1971) and Ssssssss (1973). A veteran of scores of television shows, Strother Martin was seen on a weekly basis as Aaron Donager in Hotel De Paree (1959) and as star Jimmy Stewart's country cousin in Hawkins (1973).