Trivia: In step with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers was one half of the most legendary dancing team in film history; she was also a successful dramatic actress, even winning a Best Actress Oscar. Born Virginia McMath on July 16, 1911, in Independence, MO, as a toddler, she relocated to Hollywood with her newly divorced mother, herself a screenwriter. At the age of six, Rogers was offered a movie contract, but her mother turned it down. The family later moved to Fort Worth, where she first began appearing in area plays and musical revues. Upon winning a Charleston contest in 1926, Rogers' mother declared her ready for a professional career, and she began working the vaudeville circuit, fronting an act dubbed "Ginger and the Redheads." After marrying husband Jack Pepper in 1928, the act became "Ginger and Pepper." She soon traveled to New York as a singer with Paul Ash & His Orchestra, and upon filming the Rudy Vallee short Campus Sweethearts, she won a role in the 1929 Broadway production Top Speed.On Broadway, Rogers earned strong critical notice as well as the attention of Paramount, who cast her in 1930's Young Man of Manhattan, becoming typecast as a quick-witted flapper. Back on Broadway, she and Ethel Merman starred in Girl Crazy. Upon signing a contract with Paramount, she worked at their Astoria studio by day and returned to the stage in the evenings; under these hectic conditions she appeared in a number of films, including The Sap From Syracuse, Queen High, and Honor Among Lovers. Rogers subsequently asked to be freed of her contract, but soon signed with RKO. When her Broadway run ended, she went back to Hollywood, starring in 1931's The Tip-Off and The Suicide Fleet. When 1932's Carnival Boat failed to attract any interest, RKO dropped her and she freelanced around town, co-starring with Joe E. Brown in the comedy The Tenderfoot, followed by a thriller, The Thirteenth Guest, for Monogram. Finally, the classic 1933 musical 42nd Street poised her on the brink of stardom, and she next appeared in Warner Bros.' Gold Diggers of 1933.Rogers then returned to RKO, where she starred in Professional Sweetheart; the picture performed well enough to land her a long-term contract, and features like A Shriek in the Night and Sitting Pretty followed. RKO then cast her in the musical Flying Down to Rio, starring Delores Del Rio; however, the film was stolen by movie newcomer Astaire, fresh from Broadway. He and Rogers did not reunite until 1934's The Gay Divorcee, a major hit. Rogers resisted typecasting as strictly a musical star, and she followed with the drama Romance in Manhattan. Still, the returns from 1935's Roberta, another musical venture with Astaire, made it perfectly clear what kinds of films audiences expected Rogers to make, and although she continued tackling dramatic roles when the opportunity existed, she rose to major stardom alongside Astaire in classics like Top Hat, 1936's Follow the Fleet, Swing Time, and Shall We Dance? Even without Astaire, Rogers found success in musical vehicles, and in 1937 she and Katharine Hepburn teamed brilliantly in Stage Door.After 1938's Carefree, Rogers and Astaire combined for one final film, the following year's The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, before splitting. She still harbored the desire to pursue a dramatic career, but first starred in an excellent comedy, Bachelor Mother. In 1940, Rogers starred as the titular Kitty Foyle, winning an Academy Award for her performance. She next appeared in the 1941 Garson Kanin comedy Tom, Dick and Harry. After starring opposite Henry Fonda in an episode of Tales of Manhattan, she signed a three-picture deal with Paramount expressly to star in the 1944 musical hit Lady in the Dark. There she also appeared in Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor and Leo McCarey's Once Upon a Honeymoon. Rogers then made a series of films of little distinction, including 1945's Weekend at the Waldorf (for which she earned close to 300,000 dollars, making her one of the highest-paid women in America), the following year's Magnificent Doll, and the 1947 screwball comedy It Had to Be You. Rogers then signed with the short-lived production company Enterprise, but did not find a project which suited her. Instead, for MGM she and Astaire reunited for 1949's The Barkleys of Broadway, their first color collaboration. The film proved highly successful, and rekindled her sagging career. She then starred in a pair of Warner Bros. pictures, the 1950 romance Perfect Strangers and the social drama Storm Warning. After 1951's The Groom Wore Spurs, Rogers starred in a trio of 1952 Fox comedies -- We're Not Married, Monkey Business, and Dreamboat -- which effectively halted whatever momentum her reunion with Astaire had generated, a situation remedied by neither the 1953 comedy Forever Female nor by the next year's murder mystery Black Widow. In Britain, she filmed Beautiful Stranger, followed by 1955's lively Tight Spot. With 1957's farcical Oh, Men! Oh, Women!, Rogers' Hollywood career was essentially finished, and she subsequently appeared in stock productions of Bell, Book and Candle, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Annie Get Your Gun.In 1959, Rogers traveled to Britain to star in a television musical, Carissima. A few years later, she starred in a triumphant TV special, and also garnered good notices, taking over for Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly! She also starred in Mame in London's West End, earning over 250,000 pounds for her work -- the highest sum ever paid a performer by the London theatrical community. In 1965, Rogers entered an agreement with the Jamaican government to produce films in the Caribbean; however, shooting there was a disaster, and the only completed film to emerge from the debacle was released as Quick, Let's Get Married. That same year, she also starred as Harlow, her final screen performance. By the 1970s, Rogers was regularly touring with a nightclub act, and in 1980 headlined Radio City Music Hall. A tour of Anything Goes was among her last major performances. In 1991, she published an autobiography, Ginger: My Story. Rogers died April 25, 1995.

Trivia: Like W.C. Fields before him, American comedian Fred Allen hoped to headline in vaudeville as a comic juggler. It was in the early 1920s that Allen found his true forte as a monologist and master of ceremonies, and in this capacity he starred on Broadway with his partner/wife Portland Hoffa in such revues as The Passing Show. In 1932, he hosted his first weekly radio show, but by strictly adhering to the script he came across as stiff and stilted. Allen's true radio personality began coming across in his long-running Town Hall Tonight (1934-41), in which he enjoyed deviating from the script for a wry adlib or satiric barb. So often did Allen "wing it" that he frequently ran overtime, compelling the NBC network to cut him off in mid-sentence to make room for the next program. NBC also had a habit of pulling the plug whenever Allen's wit became too biting--usually at the expense of the sponsor, a special-interest group, or the network itself. It was during this period that Allen launched a desultory film career (he'd already appeared in a handful of short subjects in the early 1930s). In 1935's Thanks a Million, Allen was in his element as the cynical manager of a broken-down theatrical troupe; he was less well served in Sally, Irene and Mary (1938). As a film actor, Allen was rather limited: unlike fellow radio star Bob Hope, Allen's basset-hound face and baggy eyes precluded romantic leads, while his sing-song nasal voice undercut any possibility for serious roles. When Allen returned to films in 1941 it was as "himself" in Love Thy Neighbor, in which he costarred with Jack Benny. The film capitalized on the celebrated Benny-Allen "feud" of the 1936-37 season, which both comedians (actually longtime friends who admired each other's work) would occasionally revive into the 1950s as a means of getting quick laughs. After Love Thy Neighbor, Allen forsook films again to concentrate on his radio work. He left the air due to illness in 1944, then returned with the half-hour "Fred Allen Show" in 1945. One of this series' most popular features was "Allen's Alley," a weekly jokefest in which the star traded witticisms with such regulars as Senator Claghorn(Kenny Delmar), Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious), and Titus Moody (Parker Fennelly). In 1945, Fred Allen appeared in his fourth feature film It's in the Bag. While the film started out as a traditional comedy (its basic plot was reworked into Mel Brooks' The Twelve Chairs [1969]), the story was abandoned at midpoint for a series of nonsequitir sketches involving a large lineup of guest stars--including Jack Benny. Allen continued his radio program until it was knocked out of the ratings race by CBS' "Stop the Music" in 1949. During the 1950s, Allen worked primarily as a guest star on other comedians' radio and TV series, and from 1955 through 1956 he appeared as a regular "quizzer" on "What's My Line?" He also revitalized his sporadic movie career in 1952 with a brace of 20th Century-Fox all-star films, We're Not Married and O. Henry's Full House. A prolific writer (he penned most of his own radio material), Allen turned out two best-selling memoirs in his last decade, Much Ado About Me and Treadmill to Oblivion. On March 17, 1956, Fred Allen left the New York apartment of a friend, then suddenly collapsed on the sidewalk, the victim of a fatal stroke.

Trivia: The illustrious stage career of character comedian Victor Moore began when he was hired as a supernumerary in 1893. He rose to prominence in the first decade of the 20th century as the lead comic in several vaudeville and musical shows. Moore made his film debut in 1915, starring in three films that year, two of which (Chimmie Fadden and Chimmie Fadden Out West) were directed by up-and-coming Cecil B. DeMille. During the 1920s, Moore perfected his standard stage characterization of a short, chubby, balding milquetoast who responded to every question with a soft, tremulous whine. His best-known stage role was that of nebbishy Vice President Alexander Throttlebottom in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing. Most of Moore's film assignments were in this same bumbling vein, with the notable exception of his superb, heartrending straight portrayal of an elderly "cast-off" in Leo McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (1937). His last movie appearance was a cameo as a double-taking plumber in Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955). Victor Moore's oddest film appearance was as an animated cartoon character in the 1945 Daffy Duck "vehicle" Ain't That Ducky; Moore was delighted with the caricature and offered to supply his own voice free of charge, provided that the animators drew him with just a little more hair.

Trivia: The most endlessly talked-about and mythologized figure in Hollywood history, Marilyn Monroe remains the ultimate superstar, her rise and fall the stuff that both dreams and nightmares are made of. Innocent, vulnerable, and impossibly alluring, she defined the very essence of screen sexuality. Rising from pin-up girl to international superstar, she was a gifted comedienne whom the camera adored, a luminous and incomparably magnetic screen presence. In short, she had it all, yet her career and life came crashing to a tragic halt, a Cinderella story gone horribly wrong; dead before her time -- her fragile beauty trapped in amber, impervious to the ravages of age -- Monroe endures as the movies' greatest and most beloved icon, a legend eclipsing all others. Born Norma Jean Mortensen (later Baker) on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, she was seemingly destined for a life of tragedy: Her mother spent the majority of her life institutionalized, she was raised in an endless succession of orphanages and foster homes, and she was raped at the age of eight. By 1942, she was married to one Jim Dougherty, subsequently dropping out of school to work in an aircraft production plant; within a year she attempted suicide. When Dougherty entered the military, Baker bleached her hair and began modeling. By 1946, the year of the couple's divorce, she was accredited to a top agency, and her image regularly appeared in national publications. Her photos piqued the interest of the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, who scheduled her for a screen test at RKO; however, 20th Century Fox beat him to the punch, and soon she was on their payroll at 125 dollars a week.Rechristened Marilyn Monroe, she began studying at the Actors' Lab in Hollywood; however, when virtually nothing but a bit role in the juvenile delinquent picture The Dangerous Years came of her Fox contract, she signed to Columbia in 1948, where she was tutored by drama coach Natasha Lytess. There she starred in Ladies of the Chorus before they too dropped her. After briefly appearing in the 1949 Marx Brothers comedy Love Happy, she earned her first real recognition for her turn as a crooked lawyer's mistress in the 1950 John Huston thriller The Asphalt Jungle. Good notices helped Monroe win a small role in the classic All About Eve, but she otherwise continued to languish relatively unnoticed in bit parts. While she was now back in the Fox stable, studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck failed to recognize her potential, and simply mandated that she appear in any picture in need of a sexy, dumb blonde. In 1952, RKO borrowed Monroe for a lead role in the Barbara Stanwyck picture Clash by Night. The performance brought her significant exposure, which was followed by the publication of a series of nude photos she had posed for two years prior. The resulting scandal made her a celebrity, and seemingly overnight she was the talk of Hollywood. Zanuck quickly cast her as a psychotic babysitter in a quickie project titled Don't Bother to Knock, and after a series of minor roles in other similarly ill-suited vehicles, Monroe starred in 1953's Niagara, which took full advantage of her sexuality to portray her as a sultry femme fatale. However, lighter, more comedic fare was Monroe's strong suit, as evidenced by her breakout performance in the Howard Hawks musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Like its follow-up How to Marry a Millionaire (just the second film shot in the new CinemaScope process), the picture was among the year's top-grossing ventures, and her newfound stardom was cemented. After starring in the 1954 Western River of No Return, Monroe continued to make headlines by marrying New York Yankees baseball great Joe DiMaggio. She also made a much-publicized appearance singing for American troops in Korea, and -- in a telling sign of things to come -- created a flap by failing to show up on the set of the movie The Girl in Pink Tights. As far back as 1952, Monroe had earned a reputation for her late on-set arrivals, but The Girl in Pink Tights was the first project she boycotted outright on the weakness of the material. The studio suspended her, and only after agreeing to instead star in the musical There's No Business Like Show Business did she return to work. After starring in the 1955 Billy Wilder comedy The Seven Year Itch, Monroe again caused a stir, this time for refusing the lead in How to Be Very, Very Popular. In response, she fled to New York to study under Lee Strasburg at the Actors' Studio in an attempt to forever rid herself of the dumb blonde stereotype. In New York, Monroe met playwright Arthur Miller, whom she wed following the disintegration of her marriage to DiMaggio. In the meantime, her relationship with Fox executives continued to sour, but after pressure from stockholders -- and in light of her own financial difficulties -- she was signed to a new, non-exclusive seven-year deal which not only bumped her salary to 100,000 dollars per film, but also allowed her approval of directors. For her first film under the new contract, Monroe delivered her most accomplished performance to date in Joshua Logan's 1956 adaptation of the William Inge Broadway hit Bus Stop. She then starred opposite Laurence Olivier in 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl. Two years later, she co-starred in Wilder's classic Some Like It Hot, her most popular film yet. However, despite her success, Monroe's life was in disarray -- her marriage to Miller was crumbling, and her long-standing reliance on alcohol and drugs continued to grow more and more serious. After starring in George Cukor's Let's Make Love with Yves Montand, Monroe began work on the Miller-penned The Misfits; the film was her final completed project, as she frequently clashed with director John Huston and co-stars Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift, often failed to appear on-set, and was hospitalized several times for depression. In light of her erratic behavior on the set of the follow-up, the ironically titled Something's Got to Give, she was fired 32 days into production and slapped with a lawsuit. Just two months later, on August 5, 1962, Monroe was dead. The official cause was an overdose of barbiturates, although the truth will likely never be revealed. Her alleged affairs with President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert, have been the focus of much speculation regarding the events leading to her demise, but many decades later fact and fantasy are virtually impossible to separate. In death, as in life, the legend of Marilyn Monroe continues to grow beyond all expectation.

Trivia: The son of an insurance salesman, David Wayne attended Western Michigan University. While working as a statistician in Cleveland, Wayne became attracted to the local theatrical activity. Auditioning for a Shakespearean repertory company, he won the role of Touchstone in As You Like It, which he performed before an audience for the first time at the 1935 Cleveland Exposition. In 1938, he made his first New York stage appearance in Escape This Night. Classified 4F at the outbreak of World War II, Wayne volunteered for the ambulance corps, subsequently serving as a Red Cross driver in North Africa. His theatrical career really began to pick up steam after the war: cast as Og the Leprechaun in the 1947 musical hit Finian's Rainbow, he became the first actor ever to win a Tony Award. The following year, he created the role of Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts, and in 1955 he was seen as Okinawan interpreter Sakini in Teahouse of the August Moon. While all of his major stage roles went to other actors in the film versions, Wayne enjoyed a substantial movie career of his own. Though he made his screen debut in 1947's Portrait of Jennie, Wayne was given "and introducing" billing in the Tracy/Hepburn comedy Adam's Rib (1949), in which he played capricious composer Kip Lurie. After playing Joe, cartoonist Bill Mauldin's mud-caked infantryman, in Universal's Up Front (1951), Wayne spent most of his screen time at 20th Century-Fox, where, among other things, he did two co-starring stints with Marilyn Monroe (1952's We're Not Married, 1953's How to Marry a Millionaire), played theatrical impresario Sol Hurok in Tonight We Sing (1953), starred as a tragedy-plagued small-town barber in the underrated Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie (1953) and portrayed schizophrenic Joanne Woodward's long-suffering husband in Three Faces of Eve (1957). One of Wayne's co-stars during his Fox years was Una Merkel, who once remarked "I loved David Wayne. I think he's one of the finest actors we have. He's so good they don't know what to do with him."One place where they evidently did know what to do with Wayne was television, where he worked steadily from 1948 onward. Besides playing such prominent personages as Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain and even "Old Scratch" (in a 1961 telecast of The Devil and Daniel Webster), he appeared in classic individual episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone, played "special guest villain" The Mad Hatter on Batman, and was a regular on the weekly series Norby (1955), The Good Life (1973), Ellery Queen (1975, as Inspector Queen), Dallas (1978), and House Calls (1980). In addition, Wayne appeared with New York's Lincoln Center Repertory, and was one of the hosts of the NBC weekend radio potpourri Monitor. Curtailing his activities in the late 1980s, David Wayne retired altogether in 1993, after the death of his wife of 51 years.

Trivia: Little Eunice Quedens' first brush with the performing arts came at age seven, when she won a WCTU medal for her recital of the pro-temperance poem "No Kicka My Dog." After graduating from high school, she became a professional actress on the California stock company circuit. Still using her given name, she played a blonde seductress in the 1929 Columbia talkie Song of Love then joined a touring repertory theater. After another brief film appearance in 1933's Dancing Lady, she was urged by a producer to change her name for professional purposes. Allegedly inspired by a container of Elizabeth Arden cold cream, Eunice Quedens reinvented herself as Eve Arden. Several successful appearances in the annual Ziegfeld Follies followed, and in 1937 Arden returned to films as a young character actress. From Stage Door (1937) onward, she was effectively typecast as the all-knowing witheringly sarcastic "best friend" who seldom got the leading man but always got the best lines. Her film roles in the 1940s ranged from such typical assignments as sophisticated magazine editor "Stonewall" Jackson in Cover Girl (1944) to such hilariously atypical performances as athletic Russian sniper Natalia Moskoroff in The Doughgirls (1944). In 1945, she earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Joan Crawford's sardonic but sympathetic business partner in Mildred Pierce. In July of 1948, she launched the popular radio situation comedy Our Miss Brooks, earning a place in the hearts of schoolteachers (and sitcom fans) everywhere with her award-winning portrayal of long-suffering but ebullient high school teacher Connie Brooks. Our Miss Brooks was transferred to television in 1952, running five successful seasons. Less successful was the 1957 TVer The Eve Arden Show, in which the star played authoress Liza Hammond. This failure was neutralized by her subsequent stage tours in such plays as Auntie Mame and Hello, Dolly! and her well-received film appearances in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960). In 1967, she returned to TV to co-star with Kaye Ballard on the chucklesome The Mothers-in-Law which lasted two years. And in 1978, she became a favorite of a new generation with her performance as Principal McGee in the phenomenally successful film version of Broadway's Grease. In 1985, Eve Arden came out with her autobiography, The Three Phases of Eve.

Trivia: Yale graduate Paul Douglas played professional football with the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets before turning to regional theatre. He parlayed his love of athletics into a prosperous career as a sports announcer in the 1930s; in the next decade he became a radio actor and master of ceremonies (he was the announcer for bandleader Glenn Miller's final program in 1944). A frequent visitor to the Broadway stages, Douglas became a star in the tailor-made role of vulgar junk tycoon Harry Brock in Garson Kanin's play Born Yesterday, in which he was co-starred with Judy Holliday. After 1,024 appearances as Harry Brock, Douglas made his first film, 1949's A Letter to Three Wives. An unlikely prospect for movie stardom with his burly build and longshoreman's voice, Douglas nonetheless remained popular throughout the 1950s. He is best remembered for his brace of baseball pictures, It Happens Every Spring (1949) and Angels in the Outfield (1951), and for his reteaming with Judy Holliday in 1956's The Solid Gold Cadillac. Among Douglas' five wives were actresses Virginia Field and Jan Sterling. Though the newspaper obituaries insisted that Paul Douglas had not been ill before his fatal heart attack in 1959, he looked so drawn and haggard in his last appearance on the TV series The Twilight Zone that the episode ("The Mighty Casey") had to be reshot with Jack Warden in Douglas' part.

Trivia: Character actor Eddie Bracken is best known for his roles as lovable, befuddled losers and nervous hayseeds. As a child, he acted and sang on stage and in vaudeville and nightclubs; he also appeared in four "Our Gang" comedy shorts and in six episodes of the "New York Kiddie Troopers" series. As a juvenile, he worked on Broadway and with touring shows, then made his film debut with Too Many Girls (1940). Bracken is best known for his work as a shy bumbler in two light Preston Sturges comedies, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero (both 1944); in the latter he appeared as Norval Jones, the character that established his "type" and which (he would later complain) ruined his film career by restricting the sorts of roles he was offered. In the early '50s his career ground to a halt and he quit making movies in 1953, going on to do much touring stage work with his wife, the former Connie Nickerson. During the early 70s he lost $2 million in a failed scheme to create a chain of stock theaters. He returned briefly to Hollywood in 1983 to appear as a Walt Disney send-up in National Lampoon's Vacation.

Trivia: When so inclined, entertainer Mitzi Gaynor has claimed to be descended from Hungarian nobility; on these occasions, she has stated that her real name is Francesca Mitzi von Gerber, rather than merely Gerber. The daughter of a ballerina, Gaynor made her own terpsichorean debut when she was barely a toddler; by age 12, she had joined the dancing chorus of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. In 1950, Gaynor was signed by 20th Century Fox as yet another potential Betty Grable replacement. She sang and danced her way quite prettily through such Technicolor confections as Golden Girl (1951, as Lotta Crabtree), Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), and There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). Unfortunately, her films were not sufficiently successful to warrant renewal of her contract after 1954. After being dropped by Fox, Gaynor married talent agent Jack Bean, who wisely perceived that his new bride was a far more effective performer on a live stage rather than a cold movie set. Gaynor co-starred with Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor in Anything Goes (1956), with George Gobel and David Niven in The Birds and the Bees (1956), and with Frank Sinatra in The Joker Is Wild (1957). Her best work during this period was while on loan to MGM for George Cukor's Les Girls (1957), in which she shared star billing with Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg. In 1957, Gaynor was tapped for the plum role of Nellie Forbush in Joshua Logan's film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1958). Except for a few scattered appearances in such modest comedies as Happy Anniversary (1959) and Surprise Package (1960), Gaynor's film career was over. Happily, Mitzi Gaynor continued to be a major draw on the nightclub and summer-musical circuit, and for several years in the 1960s and 1970s she headlined a top-rated annual TV special.

Trivia: Born in New York City, Louis Calhern moved to St. Louis with his family as a child. There he played high-school football, and while engaged in gridiron activity he was spotted by a theatrical manager and hired as a supernumerary in a local stage troupe. Borrowing money from his father, Calhern headed to New York to pursue acting. Because World War I was going on at the time, the young actor thought it expedient to change his Teutonic given name of Carl Henry Vogt ("Calhern" was a rearrangement of the letters in his first and second names). After his first Broadway break in the 1923 George M. Cohan production Song and Dance Man, the tall, velvet-voiced Calhern became a matinee idol by virtue of a play titled The Cobra. In films from 1921, Calhern thrived in the early talkie era as a cultured, saturnine villain. For a time, Calhern battled alcoholism and lost several important stage and screen assignments because of his personal problems, but by the late 1940s, Calhern had gone cold turkey and completely cleaned up his act. He was brilliant as Oliver Wendell Holmes in both the Broadway and film versions of The Magnificent Yankee, and from 1950 onward made several well-reviewed appearances as Shakespeare's King Lear (his favorite role). An MGM contract player throughout the 1950s, Calhern was seen as Buffalo Bill in Annie Get Your Gun (1950), the above-suspicion criminal mastermind (and "uncle" of kept woman Marilyn Monroe) in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), and the title character in Julius Caesar (1953). Louis Calhern died of a sudden heart attack while filming The Teahouse of the August Moon in Japan; he was replaced by character actor Paul Ford.

Trivia: Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is the prototypical "professional celebrity": famous merely for being famous. She started her stage career in 1933 and three years later won the title of Miss Hungary. She followed her sister Eva to America in 1941, but unlike Eva, did not devote herself to acting. Rather, she inaugurated her lifelong career of collecting jewelry, husbands, and front-page publicity. Among her many spouses were actor George Sanders (who much later in life would marry her sister Magda) and hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. Gabor also made a few movies. She actually came close to a performance in Moulin Rouge (1952), but the bulk of her cinematic achievements were along the lines of The Girl in the Kremlin (1957) -- in which her head was shaved -- and the imperishable Queen of Outer Space (1958). Operating on the theory that any publicity is good publicity, Gabor mostly kept herself in the public eye through a series of contretemps with the law. She was once arrested and fined for using profanity in public; she was sued by a "fantasy" theme park thanks to her cavalier attitude toward written contracts; and, in 1990, she provided a cornucopia of material for innumerable nightclub comics by slapping a traffic cop who had given her a speeding ticket (an act which she herself capitalized upon with cameo roles in The Naked Gun 2 1/2 [1991] and The Beverly Hillbillies [1993]). Gabor also joined the ranks of the politically incorrect for flaunting her many animal-fur coats and for refusing to appear in a nightclub when wheelchair-bound patrons threatened to impede her performance. In 2005, she filed a lawsuit against her daughter Francesca, claiming that she forged her signature to get a loan based on the value of her mother's home, but the case was thrown out of court. In the following years, Gabor experienced health problems, including a stroke, and a number of surgeries related to the incident. Gabor died in 2016, at age 99.

Trivia: Character actor James Gleason usually played tough-talking, world-weary guys with a secret heart-of-gold. He is easily recognized for his tendency to talk out of the side of his mouth. Gleason's parents were actors, and after serving in the Spanish-American War, Gleason joined their stock company in Oakland, California. His career was interrupted by service in World War I, following which he began to appear on Broadway. He debuted onscreen in 1922, but didn't begin to appear regularly in films until 1928. Meanwhile, during the '20s he also wrote a number of plays and musicals, several of which were later made into films. In the early sound era, Gleason collaborated on numerous scripts as a screenwriter or dialogue specialist; he also directed one film, Hot Tip (1935). As an actor, he appeared in character roles in over 150 films, playing a wide range of hard-boiled (and often semi-comic) urban characters, including detectives, reporters, marine sergeants, gamblers, fight managers, and heroes' pals. In a series of films in the '30s, he had a recurring lead role as slow-witted police inspector Oscar Piper. James Gleason was married to actress Lucille Webster Gleason; their son was actor Russell Gleason.

Trivia: He began acting in plays in his early teens, and was already a veteran by the time he joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theater in 1938; among his Mercury credits was a role in the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Like many Mercury performers, he followed Welles to Hollywood and debuted onscreen in Citizen Kane (1941). In a sporadically busy film career, he went on to play many character roles over the next four decades; he was often cast as insensitive, no-nonsense types, and sometimes played gangsters. He began a second career in the mid '50s as a TV director.

Trivia: American actress Jane Darwell was the daughter of a Missouri railroad executive. Despite her father's disapproval, she spent most of her youth acting in circuses, opera troupes and stock companies, making her film debut in 1912. Even in her early thirties, Darwell specialized in formidable "grande dame" roles, usually society matrons or strict maiden aunts. Making an easy transition to talking pictures, Darwell worked primarily in small character parts (notably as governesses and housekeepers in the films of Shirley Temple) until 1939, when her role as the James Brothers' mother in Jesse James began a new career direction--now she was most often cast as indomitable frontierswomen, unbending in the face of hardship and adversity. It was this quality that led Darwell to be cast in her favorite role as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), for which she won an Oscar. Darwell continued to work until illness crept upon her in the late 1950s. Even so, Darwell managed to essay a handful of memorable parts on TV and in movies into the 1960s; her last film role was as the "Bird Woman" in Disney's Mary Poppins (1964).

Trivia: Long before embarking on his talking picture career, Tom Powers was a firmly established Broadway star. He began as a musical comedy lead, then moved on to dynamic dramatic roles in such Theatre Guild productions as Strange Interlude, in which he created the role of Charles Marsden. Except for a brief flurry of activity at the Vitagraph studios in 1910, Powers barely gave movies a second thought until he was invited to play the murder victim in 1944's Double Indemnity. Powers spent the rest of his professional life before the cameras, usually playing coarse, blunt detectives and businessmen. In the early '50s, Powers remained on call at 20th Century Fox for unbilled minor roles in such films as Deadline U.S.A. (1952), We're Not Married (1952), and Phone Call From a Stranger (1952). He also appeared in a dozen of TV programs, among them The Lone Ranger, Fireside Theatre, Four Star Playhouse, and Climax. A prolific writer, Tom Powers published the best-selling memoir He Knew Them All, and in 1935 starred in a syndicated radio series in which he read his own poetry.

Trivia: Much like Humphrey Bogart before him, Lee Marvin rose through the ranks of movie stardom as a character actor, delivering expertly nasty and villainous turns in a series of B-movies before finally graduating to more heroic performances. Regardless of which side of the law he traveled, however, he projected a tough-as-nails intensity and a two-fisted integrity which elevated even the slightest material. Born February 19, 1924, in New York City, Marvin quit high school to enter the Marine Corps and while serving in the South Pacific was wounded in battle. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the U.S. to begin working as a plumber's apprentice. After filling in for an ailing summer-stock actor, his growing interest in performing inspired him to study at the New York-based American Theater Wing. Upon making his debut in summer stock, Marvin began working steadily in television and off-Broadway. He made his Broadway bow in a 1951 production of Billy Budd and also made his first film appearance in Henry Hathaway's You're in the Navy Now. The following year, Hathaway again hired him for The Diplomatic Courier, and was so impressed that he convinced a top agent to recruit him. Soon Marvin began appearing regularly onscreen, with credits including a lead role in Stanley Kramer's 1952 war drama Eight Iron Men. A riveting turn as a vicious criminal in Fritz Lang's 1953 film noir classic The Big Heat brought Marvin considerable notice and subsequent performances opposite Marlon Brando in the 1954 perennial The Wild One and in John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock cemented his reputation as a leading screen villain. He remained a heavy in B-movies like 1955's I Died a Thousand Times and Violent Saturday, but despite starring roles in the 1956 Western Seven Men From Now and the smash Raintree County, he grew unhappy with studio typecasting and moved to television in 1957 to star as a heroic police lieutenant in the series M Squad. As a result, Marvin was rarely seen in films during the late '50s, with only a performance in 1958's The Missouri Traveler squeezed into his busy TV schedule. He returned to cinema in 1961 opposite John Wayne in The Comancheros, and starred again with the Duke in the John Ford classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance a year later. Marvin, Wayne, and Ford reunited in 1963 for Donovan's Reef. A role in Don Siegel's 1964 crime drama The Killers followed and proved to be Marvin's final performance on the wrong side of the law.Under Stanley Kramer, Marvin delivered a warm, comic turn in 1965's Ship of Fools then appeared in a dual role as fraternal gunfighters in the charming Western spoof Cat Ballou, a performance which won him an Academy Award. His next performance, as the leader of The Dirty Dozen, made him a superstar as the film went on to become one of the year's biggest hits. Marvin's box-office stature had grown so significantly that his next picture, 1968's Sergeant Ryker, was originally a TV-movie re-released for theaters. His next regular feature, the John Boorman thriller Point Blank, was another major hit. In 1969, Marvin starred with Clint Eastwood in the musical comedy Paint Your Wagon, one of the most expensive films made to date. It too was a success, as was 1970's Monte Walsh. Considering retirement, he did not reappear onscreen for two years, but finally returned in 1972 with Paul Newman in the caper film Pocket Money. After turning down the lead in Deliverance, Marvin then starred in Prime Cut, followed in 1973 by Emperor of the North Pole and The Iceman Cometh.Poor reviews killed the majority of Marvin's films during the mid-'70s. When The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday -- the last of three pictures he released during 1976 -- failed to connect with critics or audiences, he went into semi-retirement, and did not resurface prior to 1979's Avalanche Express. However, his return to films was overshadowed by a high-profile court case filed against him by Michelle Triola, his girlfriend for the last six years; when they separated, she sued him for "palimony" -- 1,800,000 dollars, one half of his earnings during the span of their relationship. The landmark trial, much watched and discussed by Marvin's fellow celebrities, ended with Triola awarded only 104,000 dollars. In its wake he starred in Samuel Fuller's 1980 war drama The Big Red One, which was drastically edited prior to its U.S. release. After 1981's Death Hunt, Marvin did not make another film before 1983's Gorky Park. The French thriller Canicule followed, and in 1985 he returned to television to reprise his role as Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission. The 1986 action tale The Delta Force was Marvin's final film; he died of a heart attack on August 29, 1987, in Tucson, AZ, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to the remains of fellow veteran (and boxing legend) Joe Louis.

Trivia: Supporting actor O.Z. Whitehead made his professional acting debut on the New York stage, where he appeared opposite starlets Katharine Hepburn and the Gish sisters. He made his film debut in the 1935 drama The Scoundrel and subsequently appeared in close to 30 films, notably John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

Trivia: Educated at the University of Kentucky and the University of Indiana, Marjorie Weaver was a band singer, model, and stock-company actress before making her first film appearance in Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round. From 1936 to 1942, Weaver was under contract to 20th Century-Fox, where she played any number of nice but no-nonsense leading ladies. Her co-stars during this period ranged from Henry Fonda to the Ritz Brothers. Her most notable assignment was the role of Mary Todd in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). After serving as Lloyd Nolan's vis-a-vis in the first two "Michael Shayne" B mysteries, Marjorie Weaver free-lanced; she made her last starring appearance at Republic in 1945, re-emerging seven years later to play an unbilled supporting role in Fox's We're Not Married.

Trivia: In films from 1937, silver-haired American actor Forbes Murray could be described as a less-costly Claude Rains. Murray lent his middle-aged dignity to such serials as The Spider's Web (1938), Mandrake the Magician (1940), Lone Ranger (1938), Perils of Nyoka (1942), Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945), and Radar Patrol vs. Spy King (1950). He also showed up in quite a few comedies, notably as the bank president who finances the college education of Laurel and Hardy ("Diamonds in the rough," as he describes them) in A Chump at Oxford (1940). Forbes Murray was active at least until 1955.

Trivia: With his shock of snow-white hair and his inevitable pince-nez, Lithuanian-born character actor Maurice Cass was destined to play stage managers, theatrical impresarios, school principals and absent-minded professors. Cass's theatrical voice provided an amusing contrast to his tiny, birdlike frame. Cass's film characters were always well along in years, at least seventy or thereabouts; thus, he was able to keep working until he was really approaching seventy (an age which, alas, he missed by some four months). In his last year on earth, Maurice Cass could be seen on a weekly basis as Professor Newton on the TV serial Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.

Trivia: As a dialogue coach and script supervisor, Alvin Greenman has worked on such successful television series as Hearts Afire and in movies ranging from Dead and Buried to The Longest Yard. As an actor, however, he carved out a memorable place for himself in American cinema in the 1940s with his portrayal of Alfred, the innocent, idealistic, good-natured department store employee in George Seaton's Miracle on 34th Street. Greenman made his screen debut in that movie, which has proved to be one of the most perennially popular Christmas movies of the 1940s -- he is remembered by generations of filmgoers for his innocent, curly haired visage and for his honest reading of lines like, "There is a lot of bad ism's floating around this world and one of the worst is commercialism. Make a buck, make a buck. Even in Brooklyn it's the same -- don't care what Chistmas stands for, just make a buck, make a buck." Greenman appeared in a handful of subsequent films during the late '40s and early '50s (including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and the Korean War drama One Minute to Zero), but Miracle on 34th Street was his most memorable work. He gave up acting later in the decade and next surfaced as a crew member, serving as script supervisor on Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard (1974). He has confined his work exclusively to the production end of the business since, including the movies Twilight's Last Gleaming, Ice Castles, and House of Cards. In Richard J. Baskin's Canadian-made feature Sing (a cross between Rocky and Fame), he served as dialogue coach, teaching the largely Canadian cast how to speak with Brooklyn accents. He was busy in the early '90s on television in the series Hearts Afire, on which he also worked onscreen in small roles as well as behind the scenes as script supervisor. In 1994, Greenman returned to feature films in the latest remake of Miracle on 34th Street, playing a small role in the big-budget color film. In 2001, he also participated, along with Maureen O'Hara and other surviving cast members, in an American Movie Classics cable documentary about the making of the original 1947 film.

Trivia: American actor James Burke not only had the Irish face and brogueish voice of a New York detective, but even his name conjured up images of a big-city flatfoot. In Columbia's Ellery Queen series of the late 1930s and early 1940s, Burke was cast exquisitely to type as the thick-eared Sergeant Velie, who referred to the erudite Queen as "Maestro." Burke also showed up as a rural law enforcement officer in such films as Nightmare Alley (1947), in which he has a fine scene as a flint-hearted sheriff moved to tears by the persuasive patter of carnival barker Tyrone Power. One of the best of James Burke's non-cop performances was as westerner Charlie Ruggles' rambunctious, handlebar-mustached "pardner" in Ruggles of Red Gap (135), wherein Burke and Ruggles engage in an impromptu game of piggyback on the streets of Paris.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from the '40s; aka Edwin Miller.

Trivia: Character actor Richard Reeves was one of the most familiar heavies in big- and small-screen crime dramas and westerns of the early/middle 1950s. In just a thin sliver of his total output, he threatened (and even tortured) friends and allies of the Man of Steel in episodes of the Adventures of Superman, murdered district attorney Robert Shayne (and got Lou Costello into terrible trouble) in the Abbott & Costello film Dance With Me, Henry, and helped scare Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz half-to-death as an assassin from Franistan in an episode of I Love Lucy. Richard Jourdan Reeves was born in New York City in 1912, and his acting career seems to have begun in tandem with his World War II military service, in the movie This Is The Army (1943). Solidly built and heavy set with dark, wavy hair, Reeves went into acting in character and bit parts after the war, almost all of them uncredited until the advent of television -- when he did receive billing, it was sometimes as Dick Richards, Richard J. Reeves, and Dick Reeves. He played an array of police officers, soldiers, prison guards, laborers, and drivers in an array of films (including Abraham Polonsky's Force Of Evil and Richard Thorpe's Carbine Williams). But mostly as the 1950s wore on he gravitated toward thugs and henchmen -- though never the "brains" of the outfit -- whether in crime dramas or westerns. He made his first appearance on the Adventures of Superman in the 1951 episode "No Holds Barred" as a tough, somewhat lunk-headed wrestler working for a crooked promoter, and over the next few seasons portrayed various strong-arm men and leg-breakers working in the service of crime, on that show and others. But Reeves' seeming lack of intellect in his portrayals, and a slightly good nature that came through, often made his criminal characters in that series seem just a little sympathetic, at least compared to the men for whom they worked, and that gave his portrayals an edge that young viewers, especially, often remembered fondly. The closest he got to a role with real dignity on television in those days was in the episode of "The Boy Who Hated Superman", one of Reeves' finest acting jobs, culminating in a beautiful scene in which his rough-hewn hood, trying to hijack $5000 intended for his employer, opens a young man's eyes about the real nature of the criminal uncle he has idolized. By the mid-1950s, Reeves was ensconsed in these sorts of character roles, whether criminals, tough military men, or police officers. He also managed to impress directors and producers sufficiently to get asked back a lot on many shows -- after appearing in as an assassin from Franistan in the I Love Lucy episode "The Publicity Agent", Reeves did seven more appearances on the series across the run of the show. And his presence on western series such as The Roy Rogers Show, 26 Men, Cheyenne, and other western series was downright ubiquitous. The television work was broken up by the occasional bit part in feature films such as Androcles And The Lion (1952) and Destry (1954). His role in Dance With Me, Henry (1956) was one of his two biggest movie parts, but not his most challenging. The latter distinction was reserved for Reeves' rare chance to play a character on the side of the angels -- in Sherman A. Rose's sci-fi thriller Target Earth (1954), Reeves was cast opposite Virginia Grey as part of a quartet of survivors of an alien invasion of an American city, hiding out and trying to survive. It was his shining moment on-screen, allowing him to show a heroic, intelligent, and sensitive side (even as he strangles a man -- deservedly so -- with his bare hands in one scene). The actor was busy in the 1960s, appearing in lots of western series, and also had a bit part in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). Reeves even managed to make an appearance in the first episode of Batman. He was still doing a mixture of television and film work at the time of his death, at age 54, in 1967.

Trivia: American character actor Harry Antrim is noted for his versatility. He primarily appeared in films of the '40s and '50s following extensive theatrical and opera experience.

Trivia: In the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance," Gig Young comments that he thinks he's seen drugstore counterman Byron Foulger before. "I've got that kind of face" was the counterman's reply. Indeed, Foulger's mustachioed, bespectacled, tremble-chinned, moon-shaped countenance was one of the most familiar faces ever to grace the screen. A graduate of the University of Utah, Foulger developed a taste for performing in community theatre, making his Broadway debut in the '20s. Foulger then toured with Moroni Olsen's stock company, which led him to the famed Pasadena Playhouse as both actor and director. In films from 1936, Foulger usually played whining milksops, weak-willed sycophants, sanctimonious sales clerks, shifty political appointees, and the occasional unsuspected murderer. In real life, the seemingly timorous actor was not very easily cowed; according to his friend Victor Jory, Foulger once threatened to punch out Errol Flynn at a party because he thought that Flynn was flirting with his wife (Mrs. Foulger was Dorothy Adams, a prolific movie and stage character actress). Usually unbilled in "A" productions, Foulger could count on meatier roles in such "B" pictures as The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and The Panther's Claw (1943). In the Bowery Boys' Up in Smoke (1957), Foulger is superb as a gleeful, twinkly-eyed Satan. In addition to his film work, Byron Foulger built up quite a gallery of portrayals on television; one of his final stints was the recurring role of engineer Wendell Gibbs on the popular sitcom Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: Actor Harry Harvey Sr. started out in minstrel shows and burlesque. His prolific work in Midwestern stock companies led to film assignments, beginning at RKO in 1934. Harvey's avuncular appearance (he looked like every stage doorman named Pop who ever existed) won him featured roles in mainstream films and comic-relief and sheriff parts in B-westerns. His best known "prestige" film assignment was the role of New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy in the 1942 Lou Gehrig biopic Pride of the Yankees. Remaining active into the TV era, Harry Harvey Sr. had continuing roles on two series, The Roy Rogers Show and It's a Man's World, and showed up with regularity on such video sagebrushers as Cheyenne and Bonanza.

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: One of the most prolific of the "Who IS that?"school of character actors, Dabbs Greer has been playing small-town doctors, bankers, merchants, druggists, mayors and ministers since at least 1950. His purse-lipped countenance and Midwestern twang was equally effective in taciturn villainous roles. Essentially a bit player in films of the 1950s (Diplomatic Courier, Deadline USA, Living It Up), Greer was given more screen time than usual as a New York detective in House of Wax (1953), while his surface normality served as excellent contrast to the extraterrestrial goings-on in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and It! The Terror from Beyond Space. A television actor since the dawn of the cathode-tube era, Greer has shown up in hundreds of TV supporting roles, including the "origin" episode of the original Superman series, in which he played the dangling dirigible worker rescued in mid-air by the Man of Steel. Greer also played the recurring roles of storekeeper Mr. Jones on Gunsmoke (1955-60) and Reverend Robert Alden on Little House on the Prairie (1974-83). Showing no signs of slowing down, Dabbs Greer continued accepting roles in such films as Two Moon Junction (1988) and Pacific Heights (1990) into the '90s. He died following a battle with kidney and heart disease, on April 28, 2007, not quite a month after his 90th birthday.

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Trivia: Known to fans of the Three Stooges and television's I Love Lucy show, plain-speaking Margie Liszt hailed from radio where she had briefly starred as Miss Duffy on the popular variety show Duffy's Tavern. When the program was turned into a musical by Paramount in 1945, the role was played by Broadway actress, Ann Thomas and Lizst instead began her association with the Stooges. She later also appeared on such diverse television programs as Rawhide and The Donna Reed Show.

Trivia: American actor Selmer Jackson first stepped before the cameras in the 1921 silent film Supreme Passion. Silver-haired and silver-tongued, Jackson so closely resembled such dignified character players as Samuel S. Hinds and Henry O'Neill that at times it was hard to tell which actor was which -- especially when (as often happened at Warner Bros. in the 1930s) all three showed up in the same picture. During World War II, Jackson spent most of his time in uniform as naval and military officers, usually spouting declarations like "Well, men...this is it!" Selmer Jackson's final film appearance was still another uniformed role in 1960's The Gallant Hours.

Trivia: American actor Emile G. Meyer had the squat, sinister features that consigned him nearly exclusively to western villains. Still, he was a good enough actor to transcend the stereotype, and audiences often found themselves understanding if not approving of his perfidy. The Meyer performance that most quickly comes to mind is in the movie Shane (1953), in which he played Ryker, the wealthy landowner who hires gunman Jack Palance to force the homesteaders off his turf. At first glance a two-dimensional baddie, Meyer delivers a heartfelt speech in which he bemoans the fact that pioneers like himself had to fight and die for their land, only to watch as outsiders rode in to stake claims on territory they hadn't truly earned. By the time Meyer is finished, half the audience is inclined towards his side, villain or no! In addition to his acting work, Emile G. Meyer also wrote TV and movie scripts. On that subject, Meyer was given to complaining in public as to how the old-boy network of Hollywood producers tended to freeze out any writer without a long list of screenplay credits -- and he complained as eloquently and persuasively as he had as Ryker in Shane (1953).