Trivia: One of the all-time great rock & rollers and an unprecedented, phenomenal show-business success, Elvis Presley also starred in 31 consecutive big-screen hits. He was among the Top Ten box-office attractions in 1957 and from 1961-1966. When he was 13, he moved to Memphis with his family, going on to work as an usher in a movie theater and a truck driver. Presley toured locally as a singer (billed as "The Hillbilly Cat") and recorded several singles for a local label; he was signed by RCA in 1955 and became an instant star, racking up one hit single after another. On-stage, he gyrated his midsection seductively, leading him to acquire the nickname "Elvis the Pelvis." His concert appearances inspired hysteria among his young female fans, and he was considered by many to be a negative moral influence. However, Presley maintained his clean-cut, "mama's boy" image and soon had fans from every generation. He began appearing in films in 1956, debuting in Love Me Tender. Never successful among critics, his films were designed around his casual, good-ol'-boy characters, successful flirtations with his pretty female co-stars, and numerous songs. And each film made money, altogether grossing more than 150 million dollars. After Presley served a tour in the army, his singing career declined in the early '60s, when the Beatles and other new groups dominated the airwaves; he continued making successful films until 1969 (his last was Change of Habit with Mary Tyler Moore, who played a nun). He also appeared in two concert documentaries, That's the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972). In the early '70s, after a decade of few personal appearances, Presley began doing live entertainment again, and his drawing power was as strong as ever. However, he began neglecting his health and gained large amounts of weight. He died of a prescription-drug-induced heart attack in 1977, after which his cult of personality grew to enormous proportions. Presley is perhaps more popular in death than he was during his life.

Trivia: The daughter of show folk, Hope Lange was 12 when she appeared in her first Broadway play, Sidney Kingsley's The Patriots. Fourteen years later, with dozens of plays and TV programs to her credit, Lange made her screen debut in Bus Stop (1956), managing to garner critical and audience attention despite her omnipresent co-star Marilyn Monroe (Lange's first husband was Bus Stop leading man Don Murray). Signed to a 20th Century Fox contract, Lange was Oscar nominated for her performance in Peyton Place (1957) and was equally impressive in such films as The Young Lions (1957) and The Best of Everything (1959). In the early 1960s, Lange was briefly linked romantically with Glenn Ford, who insisted that she co-star with him in Pocketful of Miracles, a fact that inspired a stream of published invective from the film's director, Frank Capra, who'd wanted Shirley Jones for the part. Despite Capra's reservations in regards to her acting ability, Lange continued to prosper as a film actress until turning to TV in 1968 as star of the weekly The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a project that would earn her two Emmys. She then spent three years in a thankless "supportive housewife" part in The New Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1974, Lange received some of her best reviews in years for her work in Death Wish -- in which she spent most of her time in a coma before expiring in Reel Two! Subsequent projects in which Lange was involved included the 1977 play Same Time Next Year and the first of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Hope Lange was first married to Don Murray, then producer/director Alan J. Pakula.

Trivia: A leading teen ingénue of the 1950s and 1960s, Tuesday Weld later emerged as one of the more intriguing actresses in Hollywood, delivering a string of well-received performances in the kinds of offbeat and idiosyncratic projects rarely visited by performers of her beauty and glamour. Born Susan Weld August 27, 1943, in New York City, the name "Tuesday" was an extension of a girlhood nickname, "Tu-Tu." She began working as a child model at age four to help support her family after the death of her father, quickly moving from mail-order catalogues to television commercials. She made her film debut in 1963's Rock, Rock, Rock before understudying in Broadway's 1957 production of The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Upon signing a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox, Weld was labeled by the press as "Fox's answer to Sandra Dee," but after just one film, 1959's Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!, the studio dropped her.Weld shot to prominence through her work in the television comedy The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which premiered in 1959. That same year she appeared on the silver screen opposite Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies, followed in 1960 by the campus drama Because They're Young. Also in 1960, Weld began appearing under schlockmeister Albert Zugsmith, first in Sex Kittens Go to College and later in the following year's The Private Lives of Adam and Eve. Successive roles in Return to Peyton Place and the Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country further crippled her attempts to mount a serious acting career, although her turn in the 1962 Frank Tashlin comedy Bachelor Flat showed signs of life. Weld then turned down the seemingly tailor-made title role in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita in order to study her craft at the Actors' Studio, and after holding her own opposite Steve McQueen and Jackie Gleason in 1963's Soldier in the Rain, she announced she would no longer accept teenage roles.However, teen roles were all that continued to come Weld's way, and after a two-year absence from the screen she resurfaced in 1965's I'll Take Sweden as the young daughter of star Bob Hope. She followed with an appearance in the McQueen gambling drama The Cincinnati Kid, and in 1966 delivered her strongest performance to date in George Axelrod's little-seen satiric gem Lord Love a Duck. That same year Weld married, later giving birth to her first child. Motherhood brought a temporary halt to her career, forcing her to turn down plum assignments including Bonnie and Clyde, Cactus Flower, True Grit, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. She returned to work in 1968's Pretty Poison, again earning strong critical notices, but after 1970's I Walk the Line, it was reported that she had moved to Britain and retired from film.The move was not permanent, for in 1971 Weld appeared in her friend Henry Jaglom's A Safe Place. After 1972's Play It As It Lays, she returned to television work, starring in the TV films Reflections of Murder and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood. In 1977, Weld appeared in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a year later she starred in Who'll Stop the Rain? From 1980 to 1985, Weld was married to Dudley Moore, a period during which she appeared in Michael Mann's 1981 thriller Thief and Sergio Leone's 1984 classic Once Upon a Time in America. In the latter half of the decade, however, she appeared more infrequently before the camera, with only a pair of TV-movie credits, 1986's Something in Common and Circle of Violence: A Family Drama, and a lead role in the 1988 feature Heartbreak Hotel. In the 1990s, Tuesday Weld sightings were even more rare, including only 1991's Mistress, 1993's Falling Down, and 1996's Feeling Minnesota.

Trivia: Teenaged model Millie Perkins was brought to Hollywood in a torrent of publicity when she was selected over hundreds of other applicants to play the starring role in George Stevens' 1959 filmization of Diary of Anne Frank. A 20th Century Fox contract resulted from this auspicious debut, but Diary remained her career high point. Periodically retiring from films in the 1960s, Perkins was briefly brought back before the cameras for 1968's Wild in the Streets, which was scripted by her second husband, Robert Thom, (her first was Dean Stockwell). Millie Perkins continued to make sporadic film appearances into the 1990s, notably as Charlie Sheen's mother in Wall Street (1987); she also played the mother of Elvis Presley (with whom she co-starred in 1961's Wild in the Country) on the 1990 TV series Elvis.

Trivia: African American athlete Rafer Johnson was but a few years out of UCLA when he distinguished himself at the 1960 Olympics, scoring 8,392 points in the Olympic Decathalon. A film career followed posthaste, first in flicks like Elvis' Wild in the Country (1961), then in outdoor adventures like Pirates of Tortuga (1961) and None But the Brave (1965). Because truly good roles for black performers were still hard to come by in the mid-1960s, Rafer occasionally had to accept demeaning "fierce native" assignments in films like Tarzan and the Great River (1967). He was also a semi-regular on the "blaxploitation" film scene of the 1970s, acting as producer of 1974's Buck Six. In 1979, Rafer Johnson enjoyed a more dignified role in the TV miniseries Roots: The Next Generation.

Trivia: Born in Canada, he was brought up in New York City. For a while he was a professional swimmer in a water carnival. He became a stage actor, appearing in many productions in stock and on Broadway; he often appeared in Shakespeare. In the mid '40s he began working in films, at first in lead roles that tended to be introspective; as time went by, he was cast in secondary roles, often as a pessimistic bad guy. For his work in All the King's Men (1949) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. In the '60s his career began to dry up, and he appeared in many low-budget Italian films; however, he stayed busy as a screen actor into the '80s, often appearing in action or horror films. He co-directed and co-produced the film Outlaw Territory (1953). From 1949-56 he was married to actress Joanne Dru.

Trivia: Gary Lockwood was the astronaut who didn't make it to Jupiter in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). A former stunt performer, Lockwood's first film work was as stand-in for Anthony Perkins, with whom he appeared on camera in 1960's Tall Story. Before his unfortunate space ride in 2001, Lockwood starred on the network TV series Follow the Sun (1961) and The Lieutenant (1963); afterward, he was seen in such theatrical films as R.P.M (1970) and Project Kill (1976). Gary Lockwood was for several years married to actress Stefanie Powers with whom he co-starred in a memorable 1969 episode of TV's Love, American Style, wherein Lockwood got his mouth stuck on a doorknob!

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: Supporting actress, former lead, onscreen from 1941.

Trivia: Indiana native Charles Arnt attended Princeton University, where he was president of the Triangle Club and where he earned a geological engineering degree. Short, balding and with an air of perpetual suspicion concerning his fellow man, Arnt seemed far older than his 30 years when he was featured in the original Broadway production of Knickerbocker Holiday. In the movies, Arnt was often cast as snoopy clerks, inquisitive next-door neighbors or curious bystanders. Charles Arnt was seen in such films as The Falcon's Brother (1942), The Great Gildersleeve (1943) and That Wonderful Urge (1948); he also played one top-billed lead, as an obsessive art dealer in PRC's Dangerous Intruder (1946).

Trivia: Though no one in his family had ever pursued a theatrical career (one of his more illustrious relatives was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain), Alan Napier was stagestruck from childhood. After graduating from Clifton College, the tall, booming-voiced Napier studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with such raw young talent as John Gielgud and Robert Morley. He continued working with the cream of Britain's acting crop during his ten years (1929-1939) on the West End stages. Napier came to New York in 1940 to co-star with Gladys George in Lady in Waiting. Though his film career had begun in England in the 1930s, Napier had very little success before the cameras until he arrived in Hollywood in 1941. He essayed dignified, sometimes waspish roles of all sizes in such films as Cat People (1942), The Uninvited (1943), and House of Horror (1946); among his off-the-beaten-track assignments were the bizarre High Priest in Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948) and a most elegant Captain Kidd in the 1950 Donald O'Connor vehicle Double Crossbones. In 1966, Alan Napier was cast as Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, on the smash-hit TV series Batman, a role he played until the series' cancellation in 1968. Alan Napier's career extended into the 1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as QB VII and such weeklies as The Paper Chase.

Trivia: He studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After establishing himself prominently on the American stage, he began appearing in silents beginning with The Gilded Lily (1921). He appeared in more than 100 films, the last of which was the Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country (1961). He starred in a number of silents, often as a clean-living rural hero; in the sound era he began playing character roles, almost always as an arch villain. Due to a serious eye infection, he was absent from the big screen in the '50s. He was the father of actor Jason Robards, with whom he appeared on Broadway in 1958 in The Disenchanted.

Trivia: Not to be confused with the later 20th Century-Fox contract player of the same name, silent screen actor Harry Carter had appeared in repertory with Mrs. Fiske and directed The Red Mill for Broadway impresario Charles Frohman prior to entering films with Universal in 1914. Often cast as a smooth villain, the dark-haired Carter made serials something of a specialty, menacing future director Robert Z. Leonard in The Master Key (1914); playing the title menace in The Gray Ghost (1917); and acting supercilious towards Big Top performers Eddie Polo and Eileen Sedgwick in Lure of the Circus (1918). In addition to his serial work, Carter played General Von Kluck in the infamous propaganda piece The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin (1918). It was back to chapterplays in the 1920s, where he menaced Claire Anderson and Grace Darmond in two very low-budget examples of the genre: The Fatal Sign (1920) and The Hope Diamond Mystery (1921).

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).