Trivia: After a few desultory movie appearances in the mid-1930s, rotund American actor Stanley Adams came to films permanently in 1952, to re-create his stage role as the bartender in the movie version of Death of a Salesman. His busiest period was 1955-1965, when he appeared on virtually every major TV series in America. His video roles ranged from a pompous time-travelling scientist on Twilight Zone to a wisecracking witch doctor on Gilligan's Island. Shortly after completing his last film, 1976's Woman in the Rain, Stanley Adams committed suicide at the age of 62.

Trivia: Bald, cadaverous, hollow-eyed, doom-voiced actor Milton Parsons began appearing in films in the late 1930s. In an era wherein being typecast in Hollywood assured an actor a steady paycheck, Parsons fattened his bank account by playing dozens of undertakers and morticians. He was also an effective psychotic type, most notably as the lead in 1942's The Hidden Hand. Parsons entered the "film noir" hall of fame in the tiny role of the jury foreman in 1947's They Won't Believe Me; the film's unforgettable final image was a screen-filling close-up of Parsons, gloomily intoning an all-too-late "Not Guilty." Active into the 1970s, Parsons showed up in TV series ranging from Twilight Zone to The Dick Van Dyke Show, his morbid appearance enhanced by the addition of a satanic goatee. Even in his last roles, Milton Parsons adhered strictly to type; in the 1976 TV movie Griffin and Phoenix, for example, he portrayed a guest lecturer at a support group for terminally ill cancer victims.

Trivia: American actor James Flavin was groomed as a leading man when he first arrived in Hollywood in 1932, but he balked at the glamour treatment and was demonstrably resistant to being buried under tons of makeup. Though Flavin would occasionally enjoy a leading role--notably in the 1932 serial The Airmail Mystery, co-starring Flavin's wife Lucille Browne--the actor would devote most of his film career to bit parts. If a film featured a cop, process server, Marine sergeant, circus roustabout, deckhand or political stooge, chances are Jimmy Flavin was playing the role. His distinctive sarcastic line delivery and chiselled Irish features made him instantly recognizable, even if he missed being listed in the cast credits. Larger roles came Flavin's way in King Kong (1933) as Second Mate Briggs; Nightmare Alley (1947), as the circus owner who hires Tyrone Power; and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), as a long-suffering homicide detective. Since he worked with practically everyone, James Flavin was invaluable in later years as a source of on-set anecdotes for film historians; and because he evidently never stopped working, Flavin and his wife Lucille were able to spend their retirement years in comfort in their lavish, sprawling Hollywood homestead.

Trivia: Character actor Harry Fleer appeared in several feature films from the late '50s through the mid-'60s, as well as in many 1960s television shows. His early film career was characterized by appearances in low-budget horror outings. Fleer's television credits include guest-starring roles on shows ranging from Superman and Bat Masterson to Twilight Zone and The Green Hornet.

Trivia: While the phrase "rubber-limbed" may be overused in describing pencil-thin entertainer Gil Lamb, it's the only adjective that truly fits. Lamb gained fame in vaudeville and on Broadway in the 1930s as an eccentric dancer; he was also blessed with an astonishingly mobile face, which lent utter credibility to his most famous routine, wherein he pretended to swallow a harmonica. From 1942 through 1945, Lamb flourished as a contract player at Paramount Pictures, appearing as a supporting actor and specialty performer in such musicals as The Fleet's In (1942) and Rainbow Island (1946). In Monogram's Joe Palooka "B" series, Lamb was cast as Joe's sparring partner Humphrey Pennyworth, an incongruous piece of casting when one considers that comic-strip artist Ham Fisher originally conceived Humphrey as a bulging blimp of a man. From 1949 through 1952, Lamb starred in a series of slickly produced 2-reel comedies at RKO Radio. He then returned to the stage, making sporadic unbilled movie cameo appearances into the 1960s (a partygoer in Breakfast at Tiffany's a drunk in Good Neighbor Sam etc.), most often in the Disney Studios output. On television, Gil Lamb hosted the DuMont Network's 1949 variety series Window to the World, was a semi-regular on the 1967 sitcom Pistols and Petticoats, and was spotlighted in dozens of commercials.

Trivia: Although his career lacked the resilience of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton may well have been the most gifted comedian to emerge from the cinema's silent era. And while his skills as a gag writer and physical comic were remarkable, Keaton was one clown whose understanding of the film medium was just as great as his talent for taking a pratfall. Keaton, however, had a roller-coaster career in which he fell just as far as he rose, though he was fortunate enough to enjoy a comeback in the later years of his life. Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895, to Joseph Hallie Keaton and Myra Cutler Keaton, a pair of vaudeville performers. Spending his childhood on the road with his family, he earned the nickname Buster at the age of six months; as legend has it, after the young Keaton fell down a flight of steps at a theater, a magician on the bill, Harry Houdini, said to the lad's father, "What a buster your kid took!" The name stuck, and, by the age of three, the youngster was appearing as part of his parents act whenever they could evade child labor laws. In vaudeville, Keaton developed remarkable talents as an acrobatic comedian with a superb sense of timing, and became a rising star by his teens. His father, however, had developed a serious drinking problem, which strained his relationship with his son and caused serious problems with their very physical stage act, which, in early 1917, Buster left. He appeared in a Broadway comic revue later that year, but the key to Keaton's future came when he met a fellow vaudeville comedian. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was starring in a low-budget two-reel screen comedy, The Butcher Boy, and invited Keaton to play a small role in the picture. The two hit it off and became a successful onscreen team, starring in a long string of comic hits. Fascinated by the medium of film, Keaton soon began writing their pictures, and assisted in directing them; Keaton was soon starring in his own films, as well, though he and Arbuckle remained lifelong close friends. Keaton developed a distinctive comic style which merged slapstick with a sophisticated sense of visual absurdity, and often included gags which made the most of the film medium, involving props, sets, and visual trickery that would have been impossible on the vaudeville stage. Keaton also developed his personal visual trademark, an unsmiling deadpan demeanor which made his epic-scale gags even funnier. Beginning with his first solo short subjects in 1920, The High Sign and One Week, Keaton became a major star, and after a series of successful two-reelers, including Cops and The Balloonatic, Keaton moved up to feature-length comedies in 1923 with the farcical The Three Ages. Keaton reached the peak of his craft with the features which followed, including Sherlock Jr., Seven Chances, The Navigator, Steamboat Bill, Jr., and the Civil War comedy The General, now universally regarded as Keaton's masterpiece. Independent producer Joseph M. Schenck was the man behind Fatty Arbuckle's comedies when Keaton came aboard, and they continued to work together when Keaton struck out on his own. Schenck believed in the comic's talent and allowed him to work without interference, resulting in a string of creative and popular triumphs. Then, in 1928 -- and with Keaton's approval -- Schenck sold his contract to the biggest studio in Hollywood, Metro Goldwyn Mayer. While Keaton's first vehicle for MGM, The Cameraman, was up to his usual high standards, he chafed at the studio's interference and insistence that the filmmaker work within the same boundaries as its other employees. With outside writers and directors controlling Keaton with a strong hand, his work suffered tremendously. Coupled with a crumbling marriage (to Natalie Talmadge, whom he wed in 1920), Keaton began to drink heavily. With the advent of sound, MGM seemed to have even less of an idea of what to do with the actor/director, and starred him in a series of second-rate comedies with Jimmy Durante, whose broad style did not mesh well with Keaton. By 1934, Keaton had hit bottom -- MGM fired him, declaring him unreliable after he refused to work on scripts he felt were inferior. His marriage to Talmadge had ended, and he impulsively (and while drunk) married Mae Scriven, a union that would last only three years. The IRS sued him for 28,000 dollars in back taxes. And his alcoholism had become so destructive that he was committed to a sanitarium, where he was placed in a straight jacket. Keaton eventually got his drinking problem under control, but his career in Hollywood was in dire straits. He starred in a series of low-budget short subjects for the tiny Educational Pictures and later Columbia Pictures, none of which made much of an impression. Keaton also appeared on-stage in touring productions of such comedies as The Gorilla, and, ironically, found himself employed as a gag writer and director at MGM, albeit at a fraction of his former salary. He also appeared in a few European comedies, where audiences held him in greater regard than in the U.S. But that began to change in 1949, when a cover story in Life magazine on great clowns of the silent movies reminded audiences of his comic legacy. Keaton began making guest appearances on television shows, and the now sober star made his way back into supporting roles in major movies (most notably Around the World in 80 Days and Charlie Chaplin's Limelight). In 1957, Keaton sold the rights to his life story to Paramount Pictures, who hired him as a technical advisor for The Buster Keaton Story. While the film was a severe disappointment (and had little to do with the facts of his life), the financial windfall was enough for Keaton to buy a new house, where he and his third wife, Eleanor Norris (whom Keaton wed in 1940), lived for the rest of their lives. Keaton found himself in increasing demand in the '60s, appearing in several of American International Pictures' "Beach" musicals (in which he was allowed to work up his own gags) and a number of television ad campaigns. He also starred in a short film created by playwright Samuel Beckett, appearing in a loving tribute to his silent films, The Railrodder, and landed a memorable role in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Sadly, Keaton's second wave of success came to an end on February 1, 1966, when he lost a lengthy battle with lung cancer.

Trivia: A self-described "household face," character actor Jesse White made his first stage appearance as a teenager in his adopted hometown of Akron, OH. Supporting himself with a variety of civilian jobs, White worked the nightclub circuit in Cleveland, then moved on to what was left of vaudeville in the late '30s. White's first Broadway role was in 1942's The Moon is Down; two years later he scored his biggest success as the acerbic sanitarium attendant in Mary Chase's Harvey, a role he would repeat for the 1950 film version (though Harvey is often listed as White's film debut, he can be seen in a bit role as an elevator operator in 1947's Gentleman's Agreement). While he has appeared in some 60 films, White is best known for his TV work, which allowed him to play Runyon-esque gangsters, theatrical agents, neurotic TV talk show hosts, art connoisseurs, toy manufacturers, and whatever else suited his fancy. Two of his longest professional associations were with satirist Stan Freberg (White was featured in several of Freberg's commercials and comedy albums) and comedian/TV mogul Danny Thomas (White played agent Jesse Leeds during the first few seasons of Make Room for Daddy). In the 1970s, White became established as the "lonely" Maytag repairman in a series of well-circulated TV commercials; when he stepped down from this role in the late '80s, the event received a generous amount of press coverage. Jesse White was still in harness into the 1990s. In 1992, he was memorably cast as a sarcastic, cigar-chomping theater chain owner in Joe Dante's Matinee. He passed away at age 79 following complications from surgery on January 8, 1997.

Trivia: Probably no one came by the label "Runyon-esque" more honestly than Polish-born actor George E. Stone; a close friend of writer Damon Runyon, Stone was seemingly put on this earth to play characters named Society Max and Toothpick Charlie, and to mouth such colloquialisms as "It is known far and wide" and "More than somewhat." Starting his career as a Broadway "hoofer," the diminutive Stone made his film bow as "the Sewer Rat" in the 1927 silent Seventh Heaven. His most prolific film years were 1929 to 1936, during which period he showed up in dozens of Warner Bros. "urban" films and backstage musicals, and also appeared as the doomed Earle Williams in the 1931 version of The Front Page. He was so closely associated with gangster parts by 1936 that Warners felt obligated to commission a magazine article showing Stone being transformed, via makeup, into an un-gangsterish Spaniard for Anthony Adverse (1936). For producer Hal Roach, Stone played three of his oddest film roles: a self-pitying serial killer in The Housekeeper's Daughter (1938), an amorous Indian brave in Road Show (1940), and Japanese envoy Suki Yaki in The Devil With Hitler (1942). Stone's most popular role of the 1940s was as "the Runt" in Columbia's Boston Blackie series. In the late '40s, Stone was forced to severely curtail his acting assignments due to failing eyesight. Though he was totally blind by the mid-'50s, Stone's show business friends, aware of the actor's precarious financial state, saw to it that he got TV and film work, even if it meant that his co-stars had to literally lead him by the hand around the set. No one was kinder to George E. Stone than the cast and crew of the Perry Mason TV series, in which Stone was given prominent billing as the Court Clerk, a part that required nothing more of him than sitting silently at a desk and occasionally holding a Bible before a witness.