Trivia: A versatile American screen actor and former juvenile star who made up in energy what he lacked in height, Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920, in Brooklyn, NY. The son of vaudevillians, Rooney first became a part of the family act when he was 15-months-old, and was eventually on-stage singing, dancing, mimicking, and telling jokes. He debuted onscreen at the age of six in the silent short Not to Be Trusted (1926), playing a cigar-smoking midget. His next film was the feature-length Orchids and Ermine (1927). Over the next six years, he starred in more than 50 two-reel comedies as Mickey McGuire (a name he legally adopted), a series based upon a popular comic strip, "Toonerville Folks." In 1932, he changed his name to "Mickey" Rooney when he began to appear in small roles in feature films. He was signed by MGM in 1934 and gave one of the most memorable juvenile performances in film history as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). A turning point in Rooney's career came with his 1937 appearance as Andy Hardy, the wise-cracking son of a small-town judge, in the B-movie A Family Affair. The film proved to be such a success that it led to a string of 15 more Andy Hardy pictures over the next twenty years. The films were sentimental light comedies that celebrated small-town domestic contentment and simple pleasures, and the character became the one with which the actor became most identified. Rooney went on to a memorable role in Boys Town (1938) and several high-energy musicals with Judy Garland. Added to his Andy Hardy work, these performances caused his popularity to skyrocket, and, by 1939, he was America's biggest box-office attraction. Rooney was awarded a special Oscar (along with Deanna Durbin) in 1939 for his "significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and, as a juvenile player, setting a high standard of ability and achievement." His popularity peaked in the early '40s with his appearances in such films as The Human Comedy (1943) and National Velvet (1944), the latter with a young Elizabeth Taylor. After his World War II service and subsequent military discharge, however, his drawing power as a star decreased dramatically, and was never recovered; suddenly he seemed only acceptable as a juvenile, not a grown man. In the late '40s Rooney formed his own production company, but it was a financial disaster and he went broke. To pay off his debts, he was obliged to take a number of low-quality roles. By the mid-'50s, though, he had reinvented himself as an adult character actor, starring in a number of good films, including the title role in Baby Face Nelson (1957). Rooney continued to perform in both film, television, stage, and even dinner theater productions over the next four decades, and debuted on Broadway in 1979 with Sugar Babies. Although his screen work was relatively erratic during the '90s, he managed to lend his talents to diverse fare, appearing in both Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and the independent Animals (And the Tollkeeper) (1997). In 2006 Rooney was back on the big screen in the comedy hit A Night at the Museum, with a slew of subsequent roles on low-budget fare preceding an appearance in 2011's The Muppets. That same year, Rooney made headlines when he testified before Congress on the issue of elder abuse, and revealing himself as one of many seniors who had been victimized as a result of their age. Rooney continued working until his death in 2014 at age 93.During the course of his career, Rooney received two Best Actor and two Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations, the last of which for his work in 1979's The Black Stallion. He also won a Golden Globe for the 1981 TV movie Bill. In 1983, while undergoing a well-publicized conversion to Christianity, he was awarded a special Lifetime Achievement Oscar "in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances." Rooney published his autobiography, Life Is Too Short, in 1991. His eight wives included actresses Ava Gardner and Martha Vickers.

Trivia: With the possible exception of Edward G. Robinson, no actor has so often been the target of impressionists as the inimitable, Hungarian-born Peter Lorre. Leaving his family home at the age of 17, Lorre sought out work as an actor, toiling as a bank clerk during down periods. He went the starving-artist route in Switzerland and Austria before settling in Germany, where he became a favorite of playwright Bertolt Brecht. For most of his first seven years as a professional actor, Lorre employed his familiar repertoire of wide eyes, toothy grin, and nasal voice to invoke laughs rather than shudders. In fact, he was appearing in a stage comedy at the same time that he was filming his breakthrough picture M (1931), in which he was cast as a sniveling child murderer. When Hitler ascended to power in 1933, Lorre fled to Paris, and then to London, where he appeared in his first English-language film, Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). Although the monolingual Lorre had to learn his lines phonetically for Hitchcock, he picked up English fairly rapidly, and, by 1935, was well equipped both vocally and psychologically to take on Hollywood. On the strength of M, Lorre was initially cast in roles calling for varying degrees of madness, such as the love-obsessed surgeon in Mad Love (1935) and the existentialist killer in Crime and Punishment (1935). Signed to a 20th Century Fox contract in 1936, Lorre asked for and received a chance to play a good guy for a change. He starred in eight installments of the Mr. Moto series, playing an ever-polite (albeit well versed in karate) Japanese detective. When the series folded in 1939, Lorre freelanced in villainous roles at several studios. While under contract to Warner Bros., Lorre played effeminate thief Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon (1941), launching an unofficial series of Warner films in which Lorre was teamed with his Falcon co-star Sidney Greenstreet. During this period, Lorre's co-workers either adored or reviled him for his wicked sense of humor and bizarre on-set behavior. As far as director Jean Negulesco was concerned, Lorre was the finest actor in Hollywood; Negulesco fought bitterly with the studio brass for permission to cast Lorre as the sympathetic leading man in The Mask of Dimitrios (1946), in which the diminutive actor gave one of his finest and subtlest performances. In 1951, Lorre briefly returned to Germany, where he directed and starred in the intriguing (if not wholly successful) postwar psychological drama The Lost One. The '50s were a particularly busy time for Lorre; he performed frequently on such live television anthologies as Climax; guested on comedy and variety shows; and continued to appear in character parts in films. He remained a popular commodity into the '60s, especially after co-starring with the likes of Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Basil Rathbone in a series of tongue-in-cheek Edgar Allan Poe adaptations for filmmaker Roger Corman. Lorre's last film, completed just a few months before his fatal heart attack in 1964, was Jerry Lewis' The Patsy, in which, ironically, the dourly demonic Lorre played a director of comedy films.

Trivia: The younger sister (20 years younger) of actor James Cagney, Jeanne Cagney inaugurated her own acting and modelling career in the late 1930s, making her stage bow at the Pasadena Playhouse. While all the Cagneys looked out for one another both personally and professionally, Jeanne was able to succeed on her own merits. Still, some of her most memorable film work was concentrated in brother Jimmy's films, notably Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and The Time of Your Life (1948). Perhaps her best film role was the trashy femme fatale who leads Mickey Rooney down the path to perdition in Quicksand (1950). Jeanne Cagney's television work included a lengthy stint as fashion commentator on the daytime audience-participation series Queen for a Day.

Trivia: A former Conover model and ballet dancer, Barbara Bates made her film bow as one of Yvonne DeCarlo's handmaidens in 1945's Salome Where She Danced. She spent several years as a stock ingenue at 20th Century-Fox; her best-known role was as the slyly manipulative fan of stage actress Anne Baxter in the closing scene of All About Eve (1950). She also played Ernestine Gilbreath in the popular Fox-family comedy Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes (1952). In 1954, Barbara was a regular on the TV sitcom It's a Great Life. Long absent from the screen due to poor health and dispirited by the 1967 death of her husband of 20 years, Barbara Bates committed suicide at the age of 43.

Trivia: Actor Taylor Holmes first made a theatrical name for himself on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. In the course of his subsequent five-decade Broadway career, Holmes starred in over 100 plays, usually in light comedy roles. Making his film debut in 1917, he played the title role in the 1918 adaptation of Ruggles of Red Gap, then made scattered screen appearances before settling down in Hollywood permanently in 1947. Most often employed by 20th Century-Fox, he showed up in such flashy roles as gullible millionaire Ezra Grindle in the Tyrone Power melodrama Nightmare Alley (1947). He also played more than his share of shyster lawyers (most memorable in 1947's Kiss of Death) and absent-minded professors. Holmes was the father of actors Phillips and Ralph Holmes. Outliving his wife and both his sons, Taylor Holmes died at the age of 85; his last assignment was the voice of King Steffan in Disney's animated feature Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Trivia: A well-known stage actor since his debut in 1924, Art Smith (born Arthur Gordon Smith) won the New York Critics Award for his performance in Rocket to the Moon. He made his screen debut the following year as one of the Norwegian resistance fighters in the World War II melodrama Edge of Darkness (1942). With his trademark snowy hair, Smith became a visible and welcome presence in films thereafter, usually cast as studious types. Working well into the television era, the veteran performer retired after a starring role in the 1967 television play Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night. He should not be confused with ubiquitous B-Western entrepreneur Denver Dixon (aka Art Mix), who billed himself "Colonel Art Smith" in a couple of films in the early '30s.

Trivia: In films from 1943, pugnacious American character actor Wally Cassell was afforded star billing for the first time in The Story of GI Joe (1945). As Private Dondaro, Cassell spent half of his time searching for his ethnic roots in war-torn Italy, and the other half seeking out wine, women and more wine. His other war-related filmic efforts included Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Flying Leathernecks (1951). He later appeared in westerns, then worked steadily during the late-1950s gangster-movie cycle, playing such raffish characters as Cherry Nose in I Mobster (1959). Wally Cassell was married to musical performer Marcy Maguire.

Trivia: The son of an Episcopal priest, John Gallaudet commenced his professional acting career after graduating from Williams College. He appeared on both Broadway and in stock opposite actors ranging from Fred Astaire to Helen Hayes. The slight, thinnish-haired Gallaudet spent several years in the 1930s as the resident character star of Columbia Pictures' "B" unit, playing everything from kindhearted doctors to serpentlike crooks. He owns the distinction of being one the few actors to ever "murder" Rita Hayworth, dispatching the lovely young actress with a poisoned baseball glove in the 1937 potboiler Girls Can Play. Active in films until the 1950s, John Gallaudet was well known and highly regarded throughout the film community for his off-camera vocation as a champion golfer.

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).

Trivia: A repertory actor since childhood, Wisconsin-born Richard Lane was singing and dancing in vaudeville by the time he reached his thirteenth birthday. Lane toured europe with a circus "iron jaw" act, then bluffed his way into a dance band job. After more vaudeville work, Lane began securing "legit" gigs on Broadway. He appeared with Al Jolson in the late-'20s musical Big Boy, and was a headliner with George White's Scandals when he was signed to an RKO movie contract in 1937. While at RKO, Lane developed his standard characterization of a fast-talking sharpster, which secured him a recurring role on Al Pearce's popular radio program. He played a variety of detectives, con artists and travelling salesmen throughout the '40s, most often at 20th Century-Fox, Universal and Columbia. He was featured in several Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy comedies during the decade, and costarred as Inspector Farraday in Columbia's Boston Blackie B-series; he also appeared in 11 Columbia 2-reel comedies, teamed with comic actor Gus Schilling. Though most closely associated with breezy, urban characters, Lane was also effective in slow-and-steady dramatic roles, notably the father in the 1940 sleeper The Biscuit Eater and baseball manager Clay Hopper in 1950's The Jackie Robinson Story. A television pioneer, Lane worked at Los Angeles' KTLA-TV as a newsman, sportscaster and used-car pitchman. For over twenty years, he was the mile-a-minute commentator on KTLA's nationally syndicated wrestling and roller derby matches. Significantly, Richard Lane's last screen appearances were in Raquel Welch's roller-derby epic Kansas City Bomber (1978) and Henry Winkler's pro-wrestling spoof The One and Only (1982).

Trivia: General purpose actor Lester Dorr kept himself busy in every size role there was in Hollywood, in a screen career lasting nearly 35 years. Born in Massachusetts in 1893, he was working on Broadway in the late 1920s, including the cast of Sigmund Romberg's New Moon (1928). The advent of talking pictures brought Dorr to Hollywood, where, working mostly as a day-player, he began turning up in everything from two-reel shorts (especially from Hal Roach) in the latter's heyday) to major features (including Michael Curtiz's Female and Raoul Walsh's The Bowery, both 1933), in which he usually had tiny parts, often in crowd scenes, with an occasional line or two of dialogue -- in the mid-1930s he was literally appearing in dozens of movies each year, though usually with scarcely more than a minute's screen time in any one of them. Dorr was also one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild.He was almost as busy after World War II, and starting in 1951 he also started working in television, ranging from westerns to anthology series. He slowed down significantly in the 1960s, by which time he was in his seventies. Among his rare screen credits are two of his most oft-repeated large- and small-screen appearances -- in W. Lee Wilder's Killers From Space, the public domain status of which has made it a ubiquitous presence on cable television and low-priced VHS and DVD releases, he is the gas station attendant who spots fugitive scientist Peter Graves' car; and in The Adventures of Superman episode The Mind Machine, repeated for decades as part of the ever-popular series, Dorr plays the hapless but well-intention school bus driver whose vehicle (with three kids inside) is stolen by mentally unhinged mob witness Harry Hayden. His last three appearances were in full-blown feature films: Richard Quine's Hotel (1967), Gene Kelly's Hello Dolly (1969), and Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love (1975).

Trivia: American character actor Frank Marlowe left the stage for the screen in 1934. For the next 25 years, Marlowe showed up in countless bits and minor roles, often in the films of 20th Century-Fox. He played such peripheral roles as gas station attendants, cabdrivers, reporters, photographers, servicemen and murder victims (for some reason, he made a great corpse). As anonymous as ever, Frank Marlowe made his final appearance as a barfly in 1957's Rockabilly Baby.

Trivia: American character actor Alvin Hammer performed in vaudeville, on stage, in nightclubs, on television, and in many films between the '40s and the late '80s.

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).