Trivia: Smirking, wiry-nosed British character actor Ron Moody matriculated from standup comic to one of the most delightfully despicable "professional villains" in show business. The son of a plasterer, Moody didn't embark on his acting career until he was 29; before that, he'd planned to become either an economist or sociologist. After plenty of stage and TV work as an improvisational humorist, Moody made his film debut in 1957; he attained stardom in 1959 when he was selected to head the cast of the London company of Leonard Bernstein's Candide. He was best known to American audiences of the 1960s through his tongue-in-cheek villainous portrayals on such British TV series as The Avengers. Moody went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for his bravura performance as Fagin (a character that he'd played for years on the London stage) in Oliver! (1968); two years later, he gave an equally good showing as Uriah Heep in the all-star British TV production of David Copperfield. In 1980, Moody starred in the American TV series Nobody's Perfect as bumbling Clouseau-like detective Roger Hart. He continued to act well into older age, appearing in films like A Kid in King Arthur's Court and had a run on the British soap Eastenders. Despite his frequent on-screen perfidy, Ron Moody remained a comedian at heart -- as well as a staunch advocate of lessening the violence quotient in action films. Moody also continued to associate with the role that earned him his most acclaim, appearing at reunions and in documentaries for Oliver!, including 2004 appearance for a British series, where, at age 80, he performed a dance from the film. Moody died in 2015, at age 91.

Trivia: Burly British actor Oliver Reed juggled over 60 film roles in 40 years and a full-blooded social life of women, booze, and bar fights, both of which became fodder for stories about one of England's darker leading men and villainous character actors. After getting his start in cult monster movies from Hammer Studios, Reed forged a body of work most associated with acclaimed directors Ken Russell, Richard Lester, and Michael Winner, in which he was able to sidestep his typecasting as a brooding heavy. Reed remains one of the only prominent British thespians never to amass any stage work, making him a pure film actor. Reed was born on February 13, 1938, in Wimbledon, England, a nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed (The Third Man). An antsy type given to partying with friends, Reed did not complete high school. He ended up taking on a variety of blue-collar jobs, including nightclub bouncer and hospital porter, and even a short career in pugilism. In 1960, he suddenly burst into films, showing up in the background of the Hammer films The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll and Sword of Sherwood Forest, and as a gay ballet dancer in The League of Gentlemen. His first starring role came with Hammer in 1961, as the title character in Curse of the Werewolf. Years later, he would serve as narrator on a full Hammer retrospective, putting his sonorous speaking voice to good use and paying homage to his roots. Such early work paved the way for a steady flow of bad-guy roles in horrors, costume dramas, and suspense thrillers. Reed's intense, glowering features could also be manipulated for believable ethnic characterizations. Titles such as These Are the Damned and Pirates of Blood River (both 1962) followed. His first of six collaborations with Michael Winner came with The Girl Getters in 1966. In 1968, he won his first leading role in a universally well-received film, the Oscar-winner Oliver!, directed by his uncle, in which he played murderous thief Bill Sikes. Despite complaints of nepotism, Reed insisted he had to persuade his uncle to cast him, even though his credentials closely matched the needs of the part. Another watershed moment came in 1969, when Ken Russell cast him as one of the leads in his adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love. While the film was a well-received treatise on sexuality and marriage, it achieved some notoriety for featuring the first-ever full-frontal male nudity in an English-language commercial film. Reed and Alan Bates engage in a memorable nude wrestling match that audaciously fleshes out the film's themes. Reportedly, Russell had planned to scrap the scene, worried about censor backlash, until Reed wrestled him into including it, literally pinning him down, in Russell's kitchen. Still, Reed told the Los Angeles Times he had to drink a bottle of vodka before he could relax enough to film the scene. The actor and director would work together five more times, including The Devils (1971) and Tommy (1975), in which Reed played Frank Hobbs. Reed was also known for portraying musketeer Athos in three of Richard Lester's film versions of Alexandre Dumas' famous tale. Reed appeared in The Three Musketeers (1973) and its sequel, The Four Musketeers (1975), which originally had been planned as one long movie. He revived the role in 1989 for The Return of the Musketeers. During filming of the windmill scene in the first film, Reed was nearly killed when he received an accidental stab wound in the neck. Add in 36 facial stitches following a bar fight in 1963, and the actor had more than his share of scrapes. Reed peaked in many ways in the mid-'70s, and had to settle on genre work for much of his career. Films such as Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hipe (1980), Venom (1982), Gor (1987), and Dragonard (1987) became his regular source of paychecks for many years. For every respite, such as Nicolas Roeg's Castaway (1987) or Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989), there was a return to familiar territory with garbage like House IV: Home Deadly Home (1991). Reed's most familiar role for modern audiences was also his last. The actor appeared in Oscar-winner Gladiator (2000) as Proximo, the amoral merchant who trains the enslaved fighters to kill and be killed. When he died midway through production, Reed unwittingly became part of a groundbreaking three-million-dollar endeavor by director Ridley Scott to digitally re-create his likeness in order to film Proximo's death scene. A three-dimensional image of Reed's face was scanned into computers so it could smile and talk, then digitally grafted onto a body double. Reed died in Malta, where Gladiator was being filmed, on May 2, 1999, the result of a heart attack brought on by one last night of hard drinking, which included three bottles of downed rum and arm wrestling victories over five sailors. He was survived by his third wife, Josephine Burge, as well as a son (Mark) and a daughter (Sarah), one each from his previous two marriages.

Trivia: Hearty Welsh character actor Harry Secombe spent most of his formative years on stage as a singer. His acute comic knowhow was thoroughly exploited on the BBC's nonsensical comedy series The Goon Show, where Secombe worked with such seasoned laughcatchers as Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. Secombe's film work, beginning in 1957, has been all too limited so far as his fans are concerned. International audiences are most familiar with Secombe's performance as Mr. Bumble the beadle in the 1968 Oscar-winning film musical Oliver!. Harry Secombe was honored with the Order of the British Empire in 1981.

Trivia: British actor Jack Wild enjoyed a unique career in film and television, but -- like many child stars who peak at an early age -- found it resolutely difficult to extend his success beyond his initial decade and traveled a hard road thereafter. A native of Roynton, England (near Oldham), Wild debuted on television at age 13 and landed a series of roles on British television, including Danny the Dragon (a recurring part as Gavin), One of the Unknown, and Z Cars. His breakthrough arrived at the hands of famed director Carol Reed (The Third Man), who tapped the diminutive performer (with a highly unique, elfin look) to portray The Artful Dodger opposite Mark Lester and Ron Moody in the blockbuster musical Oliver!, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1968. Unsurprisingly, the popularity of that role turned into a triumph for Wild, and in fact prompted another, equally successful turn in the trippy children's series H.R. Pufnstuf as Jimmy, a flutist who lives on a psychedelic island. Sadly, Wild spent the following decades struggling to find steady work, and his roles grew less frequent and substantial. His problems were exacerbated by constant cigarette smoking and heavy drinking. Though the actor managed to completely sober up by the early '90s and landed a supporting turn as Morin in the Kevin Reynolds-directed Kevin Costner vehicle Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), the smoking continued unabated, and contributed to Wild's contraction of oral cancer in 2000. As a result of complications from this, he had his voice box and tongue completely removed, and thus spent the end of his life mute. Following extensive chemotherapy, surgery, and radiotherapy, Wild died from the cancer at age 53 in 2006.

Trivia: Megs Jenkins began alternating between the British stage and the British screen in 1933. A pleasant-faced lady of motherly demeanor, Jenkins made a good living playing characters well beyond her real age throughout the 1940s. One of her best, and least typical, roles during this period was as the luckless Nurse Woods in the classic murder mystery Green for Danger (1946). Megs Jenkins was just as impressive 20 years later in the role of Mrs. Bedwin in the mammoth musical Oliver (1968).

Trivia: Storklike British comic actor Leonard Rossiter came to films by way of the revue stage. His most prolific film years were 1965 through 1980, during which time his earthy humor brightened such overblown features as Hotel Paradiso (1966), Oliver (1968) and Barry Lyndon (1974). His best-remembered appearance during this period was as Quinlan in the Peter Sellers/Blake Edwards comedy The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976). Leonard Rossiter died in harness, collapsing during a London stage appearance in 1984.

Trivia: Cherubic India-born actor James Hayter looked like a Dickens character come to life. Accordingly, his best-loved role was as Mr. Pickwick in the 1954 movie version of The Pickwick Papers. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hayter made his earliest stage appearances in the late 1920s; his first film was the 1936 British effort Sensation. Hayter was one of the busiest character actors in the English film industry -- a result, perhaps, of the fact that he had seven children to support. In addition to his perfect Mr. Pickwick, James Hayter was a memorable Friar Tuck in the 1952 Disney production The Story of Robin Hood.

Trivia: Supporting actor Cranham first appeared on screen in 1968.

Trivia: A burly, exuberant British character star, Hugh Griffith worked as a bank clerk before debuting onstage in 1939; he appeared in one film in 1940, but his film career didn't begin in earnest until the late '40s. He played forceful character roles in dozens of plays and films in both the U.S. and Britain. For his portrayal of Sheik Ilderim in Ben-Hur (1959) Griffith won a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar; he was nominated for the same award for his portrayal of lusty Squire Western in Tom Jones (1963), perhaps his best known performance. Hugh Griffith was last onscreen in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978).

Trivia: South African actor Wensley Pithey played character roles on stage, radio, television, and in many feature films in his native country and in Great Britain. He is especially noted for his convincing impersonations of Winston Churchill.

Trivia: British comic and character actor Fred Emney mostly appeared in the music hall and in circuses, but he also occasionally appeared in films.

Trivia: British character actor Roy Evans appeared in films, on stage and on television. He got his show business start as a professional ballet dancer.

Trivia: Lanky, cleft-chinned William Smith was regularly employed on television in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, never quite a star but always in there pitching. At first billing himself as Bill Smith to avoid confusion with another actor, Smith was a regular in such TV series as The Asphalt Jungle (1961), Laredo (1966), and Hawaii Five-O (from the 1979 season onward). He also became a familiar presence in the many motorcycle pictures being ground out by American International and other such concerns. In 1976, Smith was cast as the unspeakable Falconetti in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, an assignment that would assure him larger roles and better billing in all future endeavors. He even began showing up in top-of-the-bill pictures like Any Which Way You Can (1980), in which Smith and star Clint Eastwood participated in a display of friendly-enemy fisticuffs straight out of The Quiet Man. William Smith was finally awarded top billing on a TV series when he headlined the 1985 Western Wildside, playing veteran "shootist" Brodie Hollister.