Trivia: When the film version of the Broadway musical Camelot was released in 1967, critics had a jolly old time lambasting director Joshua Logan for casting non-singers in the leading roles. While it's certainly true that Lynn Redgrave, Richard Harris and Franco Nero seemed to suffer from Tin-Ear Syndrome, the critics were most unfair in picking on the fellow who played Mordred: David Hemmings. The son of a cookie merchant, Hemmings was a successful touring boy soprano at age nine, performing with the English Opera Group. He briefly left the musical world when his voice changed, studying painting at the Epsom School of Art and staging his first exhibition at 15. He returned to singing in his early 20s, first in nightclubs, then on the musical stage. Easing into acting, Hemmings appeared as misunderstood youths and belligerent "Teddy Boys" in a number of British programmers before attaining international stardom as the existential fashion photographer "hero"of Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). With 1971's Running Scared, the indefatigable Hemmings began yet another new career as director; he has since helmed theatrical and made-for-TV films in England, Australia and Canada. With business partner John Daly, Hemmings formed the Hemdale Corporation for the express purpose of allowing the actor to do pretty much what he pleased both before and behind the cameras. In later years, he added novel writing to his considerable list of accomplishments. David Hemmings was the former husband of American actress Gayle Hunnicutt.

Trivia: Blonde, British-born leading lady Joanna Pettet was raised in Canada and studied acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. Along with several other promising young actresses, Pettet made her movie debut in the 1966 filmization of Mary McCarthy's The Group. While most of that film's cast went on to dramatic or character roles, Pettet gravitated to sexpot characters, notably silky secret agent Mata Bond (the illegitimate daughter of Mata Hari and James Bond!) in Casino Royale (1967). Joanna Pettet's many TV-movie credits include The Weekend Nun (1972) and The Return of Frank Cannon (1980).

Trivia: Throughout much of his screen career, actor George Sanders was the very personification of cynicism, an elegantly dissolute figure whose distinct brand of anomie distinguished dozens of films during a career spanning nearly four decades. Born in St. Petersburg on July 3, 1906, Sanders and his family fled to the U.K. during the Revolution, and he was later educated at Brighton College. After first pursuing a career in the textile industry, Sanders briefly flirted with a South American tobacco venture; when it failed, he returned to Britain with seemingly no other options outside of a stage career. After a series of small theatrical roles, in 1934 he appeared in Noel Coward's Conversation Piece; the performance led to his film debut in 1936's Find the Lady, followed by a starring role in Strange Cargo. After a series of other undistinguished projects, Sanders appeared briefly in William Cameron Menzies' influential science fiction epic Things to Come. In 1937, he traveled to Hollywood, where a small but effective role in Lloyd's of London resulted in a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. A number of lead roles in projects followed, including Love Is News and The Lady Escapes, before Fox and RKO cut a deal to allow him to star as the Leslie Charteris adventurer the Saint in a pair of back-to-back 1939 features, The Saint Strikes Back and The Saint in London. The series remained Sanders' primary focus for the next two years, and in total he starred in five Saint pictures, culminating in 1941's The Saint at Palm Springs. Sandwiched in between were a variety of other projects, including performances in a pair of 1940 Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Foreign Correspondent and the Best Picture Oscar-winner Rebecca.After co-starring with Ingrid Bergman in 1941's Rage in Heaven, Sanders began work on another adventure series, playing a suave investigator dubbed the Falcon; after debuting the character in The Gay Falcon, he starred in three more entries -- A Date With the Falcon, The Falcon Takes Over, and The Falcon's Brother -- before turning over the role to his real-life brother, Tom Conway. Through his work in Julien Duvivier's Tales of Manhattan, Sanders began to earn notice as a more serious actor, and his lead performance in a 1943 adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Moon and Sixpence established him among the Hollywood elite. He then appeared as an evil privateer in the Tyrone Power swashbuckler The Black Swan, followed by Jean Renoir's This Land Is Mine. A pair of excellent John Brahm thrillers, 1944's The Lodger and 1945's Hangover Square, helped bring Sanders' contract with Fox to its close.With his portrayal of the world-weary Lord Henry Wooten in 1945's The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Sanders essayed the first of the rakish, cynical performances which would typify the balance of his career; while occasionally playing more sympathetic roles in pictures like The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, he was primarily cast as a malcontent, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his venomous turn in 1951's All About Eve. The award brought Sanders such high-profile projects as 1951's I Can Get It for You Wholesale, 1952's Ivanhoe, and Roberto Rossellini's 1953 effort Viaggio in Italia. However, his star waned, and the musical Call Me Madam, opposite Ethel Merman, was his last major performance. A series of historical pieces followed, and late in the decade he hosted a television series, The George Sanders Mystery Theater. In 1960, he also published an autobiography, Memoirs of a Professional Cad.Sanders spent virtually all of the 1960s appearing in little-seen, low-budget foreign productions. Exceptions to the rule included the 1962 Disney adventure In Search of the Castaways, the 1964 Blake Edwards Pink Panther comedy A Shot in the Dark, and 1967's animated Disney fable The Jungle Book, in which he voiced the character of Shere Khan the Tiger. After appearing on Broadway in the title role of The Man Who Came to Dinner, Sanders appeared in John Huston's 1970 thriller The Kremlin Letter, an indication of a career upswing; however, the only offers which came his way were low-rent horror pictures like 1972's Doomwatch and 1973's Psychomania. Prior to the release of the latter, Sanders killed himself on August 25, 1972, by overdosing on sleeping pills while staying in a Costa Brava hotel; his suicide note read, "Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored." He was 66 years old.

Trivia: Trained for the ballet, French leading lady Dany Robin entered films as an actress in 1946 and became the romantic ingénue of choice for directors like Marcel Carne and Rene Clair. Her first real break was Clair's Le Silence Est D'Or (also known as Man About Town) (1947), in which she was cast opposite Maurice Chevalier. Though the greater portion of her film work has been in France, Dany was seen in the 1961 British comedy Waltz of the Toreadors and the American productions Follow the Boys (1963) and Topaz (1969, her last film). Dany Robin has been married to film actor Georges Marcha and producer Michael Sullivan.

Trivia: Warren Mitchell might be the finest actor in England of his generation, which overlaps with Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Albert Finney, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, and Alan Bates. Mitchell is certainly among the best of his profession from that era and the rival to any of those actors; the difference is that Mitchell has made his career almost exclusively in England. Born Warren Misell to an Orthodox Jewish family in London in 1926, he grew up over his grandmother's fish-and-chips shop in the East End. Misell's mother died when he was 13 and his father did his best holding the family together on his own. At around the same time, young Misell was partly alienated from his family when he chose to fulfill his obligation to the football team for which he was playing by participating in a game on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. Misell made it on his own as an actor through some lean years; after training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he married, had a family, and watched as his wife got steadier work than he did for many years while he raised the family. Misell's earliest professional credits on stage and screen date from 1954, when the 29-year-old actor, having changed his name to Warren Mitchell, appeared in a production of Can-Can at the Coliseum in London and made an appearance in the feature film Passing Stranger. He did The Threepenny Opera at the Royal Court Theatre, found some television work, and played ever larger roles in movies through the 1950s. Science fiction fans will remember him as Professor Crevett in The Crawling Eye; it was one of many avuncular and older-man roles that Mitchell played successfully in his thirties, following a pattern slightly similar to that of his colleague Lionel Jeffries. His screen work fairly exploded in the late '50s and kept Mitchell busy in character roles for the next decade. American audiences of a certain age may remember him as Abdul in the Beatles's feature film Help! (1965), and he also did some delightful work in episodes of The Avengers. In 1966, Mitchell got the role that turned him into a star when he won the lead in the television series Till Death Us Do Part. In the series, created by Johnny Speight, Mitchell played belligerent, bigoted, working-class, right-wing zealot Alf Garnett, head of a family that included his long-suffering wife, slightly bubble-headed daughter, and dedicated socialist son-in-law. Mitchell became an instant star on the series, which was an immediate hit in England and was popular enough to attract attention from America, where it was translated by producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin into All in the Family and became a star vehicle for Carroll O'Connor, in Alf's transatlantic equivalent, Archie Bunker. Mitchell ended up playing the role of Alf Garnett in numerous follow-up seasons and revivals, as well as a feature film, and the part became a defining point in his career. It also proved to be very controversial, as Mitchell brought so much humanity, and just enough gentleness, to the role of Alf Garnett that one could not be entirely repulsed by the character. Many pundits and columnists felt that he made the bigoted, racist figure too appealing, but others found him to be a compelling presence in the highly repulsive, deeply flawed character, which is the goal of any real actor. Luckily for his career, Mitchell was able to quickly move into other, better, and different roles, on stage and television, and now he had the recognition to get the offers. This culminated with a wave of recognition, highlighted by the Society of West End Theatre Award (the British equivalent of the Tony Award) for his portrayal of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in 1979. Amid essaying roles in a vast range of modern and classical works, Mitchell also portrayed Shylock in the public television production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In more recent years, Mitchell has been acclaimed for his King Lear as well, and entered the 21st century as one of the most highly regarded and popular actors in England.

Trivia: A British comedian and a much-loved satirist of the 1960s, William Rushton has worked on radio, television, stage and in a few feature films. His television work includes a membership on the team behind Ned Sherrin's That Was the Week That Was on television and he also hosted his own radio show, "I'm Sorry, I Haven't Got a Clue." Rushton made his feature-film debut in It's All Over Town (1937). Other film credits include Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Flight of the Doves (1971).

Trivia: An alumnus of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, British comic actor Bill Fraser briefly managed his own company in the late 1930s. During the war, Fraser produced several popular service shows utilizing uniformed talent. His movie career was concentrated in comedy cameos in such films as The Captain's Paradise (1951), Tonight at 8:30 (1952), Orders are Orders (1955) and The Americanization of Emily (1964). Bill Fraser's film roles increased in size after he gained fame as the title character in the British television series Smudge; he also made TV appearances on Rumpole of the Bailey, and in the Katharine Hepburn remake of The Corn is Green (1979).

Trivia: A former engineer, British actor Maurice Denham first appeared on-stage in 1934, making his London bow two years later. During his five years' wartime service, Denham built up a "man of a thousand voices" reputation on such radio series as the ITMA Show and Much-Binding-in-the-Mash. He made his first film appearance in 1947. While garnering excellent press for his stage portrayals of Macbeth and Uncle Vanya, he was usually seen in lesser roles in films, playing dozens of clergymen, detectives, politicians, prison governors, and military officers. He was also a regular on the 1971 TV series The Lotus Eaters. Maurice Denham's crowning film achievement was one in which his face was never seen: In the 1955 animated feature Animal Farm, Denham provided the voices of all the animals.

Trivia: British actor Wolfe Morris played character roles on stage, television and in feature films of the '50s, '60s and '70s. He made his film debut in Ill Met by Moonlight (1957). On television, he was famed for playing Thomas Cromwell in the mini-series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. His daughter Shona Morris became a stage actress.

Trivia: Born to British parents in Argentina, Martita Hunt was raised on a ranch in that South American country. She first set foot in England at age 10, when her family moved back. In 1920, one year before her stage debut with the Liverpool Repertory, Hunt appeared in an obscure 2-reel comedy, A Rank Outsider. From 1923 through 1932, she was exclusively a London stage actress; she made her talking picture debut in Reserved for Ladies (1932), then spent the remainder of her career alternating between stage and screen assignments. Whether playing the regal Queen Matilda in Becket (1964) or the balmy Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, Hunt was always every inch the lady on screen (Well, nearly always; after all, she did play the blowsy "Ma" in 1941's East of Piccadilly).

Trivia: With the ability to speak several different languages, British character actor Arnold Diamond was frequently cast as a foreigner or an official on many television shows and in films.

Trivia: Hugh Burden was a British playwright and actor, most prolific in the latter category in movie character parts. Born in Ceylon and educated in England, Burden made his stage debut in 1933. Nine years later he appeared in his first film, One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1941), perhaps the best showcase up to its time for male British talent. The quality of Hugh Burden's films ranged from the heights of No Love for Johnnie (1961) and Funeral in Berlin (1966) to the depths of The House in Nightmare Park (1973), but the actor never stinted in giving every role his best shot.

Trivia: The younger brother of stage and film star Leslie Howard, Arthur Howard began his own screen career in 1947. Never as big a name as his brother, Howard was generally seen in minor roles as clerks, schoolmasters, and the like. Undoubtedly his best film opportunity was as Arthur Ramsden in the droll Ealing comedy The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950). He also enjoyed a measure of fame as fussy Professor Pettigrew on the BBC radio and TV comedy series Whack-O. Arthur Howard continued popping up in fleeting cameos in films like Another Country (1984) until the early '90s.

Trivia: Though her signature song was "Two-Ton Tessie From Tennessee," Tessie O'Shea was anything but. The slim Welsh actress/singer started out in British films in the mid-'40s with The Immortal Battalion/The Way Out (1944). She made her Broadway debut in 1963 and won a Tony for her performance in The Girl Who Came to Supper. In 1964, O'Shea was a regular on the short-lived CBS variety show The Entertainers. Her work in the 1968 made-for-television version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde garnered her an Emmy nomination.

Trivia: An instigator of some of the more groundbreaking developments in twentieth-century comedy, John Cleese is one of Britain's best-known actors, writers, and comedians. Famous primarily for his comic efforts, such as the television series Fawlty Towers and the exploits of the Monty Python troupe, he has also become a well-respected actor in his own right.Born John Marwood Cleese (after his family changed their surname from "Cheese") on October 27, 1939, Cleese grew up in the middle-class seaside resort town of Weston-Super-Mare. He enrolled at Cambridge University with the intention of studying law, but soon discovered that his comic leanings held greater sway than his interest in the law. He joined the celebrated Cambridge Footlights Society--he was initially rejected because he could neither sing nor dance, but was accepted after collaborating with a friend on some comedy sketches--where he gained a reputation as a team player and met future writing partner and Python Graham Chapman.Cleese entered professional comedy with a writing stint on David Frost's The Frost Report in 1966. While working for that BBC show, he and Chapman (who was also writing for the show) met fellow Frost Report writers Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Continuing his writing collaboration with Chapman (with whom he wrote the 1969 Ringo Starr/Peter Sellers vehicle The Magic Christian), Cleese soon was working on what would become Monty Python's Flying Circus with Chapman, Idle, Jones, Palin, and Terry Gilliam. The show, which first aired in 1969, was an iconoclastic look at British society: its genius lay in its seemingly random, bizarre take on the mundane facets of everyday life, from Spam to pet shops to the simple act of walking. Cleese stayed with Monty Python for three series; after he left, he reunited with his fellow Pythons for three movies. The first, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), was a revisionist take on the Arthurian legend that featured Cleese as (among other things) the Black Knight, who refuses to end his duel with King Arthur even after losing his arms and legs. Life of Brian followed in 1979; a look at one of history's lesser-known messiahs, it featured lepers, space aliens, and condemned martyrs singing a rousing version of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" while hanging from their crucifixes. The Pythons' third outing, the 1983 Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, was a series of increasingly outrageous vignettes, including one about the explosion of a stupendously obese man and another featuring a dinner party with Death.In addition to his work with the Pythons, Cleese, along with first wife Connie Booth, created the popular television series Fawlty Towers in 1975. It ran for a number of years, during which time Cleese also continued to make movies. Throughout the 1980s, he showed up in films ranging from The Great Muppet Caper (1981) to Privates on Parade (1982) to Silverado (1985), which cast him as an Old West villain. In 1988, Cleese struck gold with A Fish Called Wanda, which he wrote, produced, and starred in. An intoxicating farce, the film won both commercial and critical success, earning Cleese a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for his screenplay, and an Oscar for co-star Kevin Kline. Cleese continued to work steadily through the 1990s, appearing in Splitting Heirs (1993) with Idle, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), The Wind in the Willows (1997) and George of the Jungle (1997). Fierce Creatures, his 1997 sequel to A Fish Called Wanda, proved a disappointment, but Cleese maintained his visibility, reuniting with the surviving Pythons on occasion and starring in The Out-of-Towners and The World is Not Enough, the nineteenth Bond outing, in 1999.As the new century got underway, Cleese wrote and hosted a documentary series about the human face, and he took a small but recurring role in the Harry Potter film series. In 2002 he appeared in the infamous Eddie Murphy turkey The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and showed up in another Bond film. In 2007 he was cast to voice the role of Fiona's father in Shrek 2, leading to a series of appearances for him in other animated films such as Igor, Planet 51, and Winnie the Pooh. He also appeared opposite Steve Martin in 2009's The Pink Panther 2.

Trivia: American actor George Reynolds played supporting roles on television and in feature films during the '70s.

Trivia: Onscreen from 1948 through the mid-late 1980s, solemn-faced Marianne Stone probably appeared in more films than any other British actress her age. Though she had a few major roles early on, Stone quickly settled into featured parts and bits, often unbilled. She was equally adept at playing lower-class housewives, harpies, officious shop clerks, and ritzy society reporters, and is particularly remembered for her portrayal of Vivian Dankbloom in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962). Stone was married to London show-business columnist Peter Noble.