Trivia: Chicago-born Robert Young carried his inbred "never give up" work ethic into his training at the Pasadena Playhouse. After a few movie-extra roles, he was signed by MGM to play a bit part as Helen Hayes' son in 1931's Sin of Madelon Claudet. At the request of MGM head Irving Thalberg, Young's role was expanded during shooting, thus the young actor was launched on the road to stardom (his first-released film was the Charlie Chan epic Black Camel [1931], which he made while on loan to Fox Studios). Young appeared in as many as nine films per year in the 1930s, usually showing up in bon vivant roles. Alfred Hitchcock sensed a darker side to Young's ebullient nature, and accordingly cast the actor as a likeable American who turns out to be a cold-blooded spy in 1936's The Secret Agent. Some of Young's best film work was in the 1940s, with such roles as the facially disfigured war veteran in The Enchanted Cottage (1945) and the no-good philanderer in They Won't Believe Me (1947). In 1949, Young launched the radio sitcom Father Knows Best, starring as insurance salesman/paterfamilias Jim Anderson (it was his third weekly radio series). The series' title was originally ironic in that Anderson was perhaps one of the most stupidly stubborn of radio dads. By the time Father Knows Best became a TV series in 1954, Young had refined his Jim Anderson characterization into the soul of sagacity. Young became a millionaire thanks to his part-ownership of Father Knows Best, which, despite a shaky beginning, ran successfully until 1960 (less popular was his 1961 TV dramedy Window on Main Street, which barely lasted a full season). His second successful series was Marcus Welby, M.D. (1968-1973). Young's later TV work has included one-shot revivals of Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, and the well-received 1986 TV-movie Mercy or Murder, in which Young essayed the role of a real-life pensioner who killed his wife rather than allow her to endure a painful, lingering illness. Young passed away from respiratory failure at his Westlake Village, CA, home at the age of 91.

Trivia: James Stewart was the movies' quintessential Everyman, a uniquely all-American performer who parlayed his easygoing persona into one of the most successful and enduring careers in film history. On paper, he was anything but the typical Hollywood star: Gawky and tentative, with a pronounced stammer and a folksy "aw-shucks" charm, he lacked the dashing sophistication and swashbuckling heroism endemic among the other major actors of the era. Yet it's precisely the absence of affectation which made Stewart so popular; while so many other great stars seemed remote and larger than life, he never lost touch with his humanity, projecting an uncommon sense of goodness and decency which made him immensely likable and endearing to successive generations of moviegoers.Born May 20, 1908, in Indiana, PA, Stewart began performing magic as a child. While studying civil engineering at Princeton University, he befriended Joshua Logan, who then headed a summer stock company, and appeared in several of his productions. After graduation, Stewart joined Logan's University Players, a troupe whose membership also included Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. He and Fonda traveled to New York City in 1932, where they began winning small roles in Broadway productions including Carrie Nation, Yellow Jack, and Page Miss Glory. On the recommendation of Hedda Hopper, MGM scheduled a screen test, and soon Stewart was signed to a long-term contract. He first appeared onscreen in a bit role in the 1935 Spencer Tracy vehicle The Murder Man, followed by another small performance the next year in Rose Marie.Stewart's first prominent role came courtesy of Sullavan, who requested he play her husband in the 1936 melodrama Next Time We Love. Speed, one of six other films he made that same year, was his first lead role. His next major performance cast him as Eleanor Powell's paramour in the musical Born to Dance, after which he accepted a supporting turn in After the Thin Man. For 1938's classic You Can't Take It With You, Stewart teamed for the first time with Frank Capra, the director who guided him during many of his most memorable performances. They reunited a year later for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stewart's breakthrough picture; a hugely popular modern morality play set against the backdrop of the Washington political system, it cemented the all-American persona which made him so adored by fans, earning a New York Film Critics' Best Actor award as well as his first Oscar nomination.Stewart then embarked on a string of commercial and critical successes which elevated him to the status of superstar; the first was the idiosyncratic 1939 Western Destry Rides Again, followed by the 1940 Ernst Lubitsch romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner. After The Mortal Storm, he starred opposite Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in George Cukor's sublime The Philadelphia Story, a performance which earned him the Best Actor Oscar. However, Stewart soon entered duty in World War II, serving as a bomber pilot and flying 20 missions over Germany. He was highly decorated for his courage, and did not fully retire from the service until 1968, by which time he was an Air Force Brigadier General, the highest-ranking entertainer in the U.S. military. Stewart's combat experiences left him a changed man; where during the prewar era he often played shy, tentative characters, he returned to films with a new intensity. While remaining as genial and likable as ever, he began to explore new, more complex facets of his acting abilities, accepting roles in darker and more thought-provoking films. The first was Capra's 1946 perennial It's a Wonderful Life, which cast Stewart as a suicidal banker who learns the true value of life. Through years of TV reruns, the film became a staple of Christmastime viewing, and remains arguably Stewart's best-known and most-beloved performance. However, it was not a hit upon its original theatrical release, nor was the follow-up Magic Town -- audiences clearly wanted the escapist fare of Hollywood's prewar era, not the more pensive material so many other actors and filmmakers as well as Stewart wanted to explore in the wake of battle. The 1948 thriller Call Northside 777 was a concession to audience demands, and fans responded by making the film a considerable hit. Regardless, Stewart next teamed for the first time with Alfred Hitchcock in Rope, accepting a supporting role in a tale based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case. His next few pictures failed to generate much notice, but in 1950, Stewart starred in a pair of Westerns, Anthony Mann's Winchester 73 and Delmer Daves' Broken Arrow. Both were hugely successful, and after completing an Oscar-nominated turn as a drunk in the comedy Harvey and appearing in Cecil B. De Mille's Academy Award-winning The Greatest Show on Earth, he made another Western, 1952's Bend of the River, the first in a decade of many similar genre pieces.Stewart spent the 1950s primarily in the employ of Universal, cutting one of the first percentage-basis contracts in Hollywood -- a major breakthrough soon to be followed by virtually every other motion-picture star. He often worked with director Mann, who guided him to hits including The Naked Spur, Thunder Bay, The Man From Laramie, and The Far Country. For Hitchcock, Stewart starred in 1954's masterful Rear Window, appearing against type as a crippled photographer obsessively peeking in on the lives of his neighbors. More than perhaps any other director, Hitchcock challenged the very assumptions of the Stewart persona by casting him in roles which questioned his character's morality, even his sanity. They reunited twice more, in 1956's The Man Who Knew Too Much and 1958's brilliant Vertigo, and together both director and star rose to the occasion by delivering some of the best work of their respective careers. Apart from Mann and Hitchcock, Stewart also worked with the likes of Billy Wilder (1957's Charles Lindbergh biopic The Spirit of St. Louis) and Otto Preminger (1959's provocative courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder, which earned him yet another Best Actor bid). Under John Ford, Stewart starred in 1961's Two Rode Together and the following year's excellent The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The 1962 comedy Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation was also a hit, and Stewart spent the remainder of the decade alternating between Westerns and family comedies. By the early '70s, he announced his semi-retirement from movies, but still occasionally resurfaced in pictures like the 1976 John Wayne vehicle The Shootist and 1978's The Big Sleep. By the 1980s, Stewart's acting had become even more limited, and he spent much of his final years writing poetry; he died July 2, 1997.

Trivia: Tom Brown was the "boy next door" type in many films, playing ideal, clean-cut, all-Americans youths in many films of the '30s. The son of vaudevillian Harry Brown and musical comedy star Marie (Francis) Brown, he was on radio and stage from infancy, Broadway from age nine. Brown began appearing in silent movies at age ten in 1923. Pleasantly baby-faced, in the thirties he acquired his typecast image, playing students, sons, sweethearts, military cadets, brothers. His first talkie was The Lady Lies (1929), playing Walter Huston's son; he appeared in more than 100 other films. After service in World War Two (as a paratrooper), he attempted to shed his image by playing heavies, without much success; his career was further derailed when he was called up for service in Korea, from where he returned as a lieutenant colonel. After that Brown did little film work but became a familiar face on TV; now bald-headed, he had continuing roles on the TV series Gunsmoke (as rancher Ed O'Conner) and on the soap operas General Hospital (as Al Weeks) and Days of Our Lives (as Nathan Curtis).

Trivia: Like his younger brother John, American actor Lionel Barrymore wanted more than anything to be an artist. But a member of the celebrated Barrymore family was expected to enter the family trade, so Lionel reluctantly launched an acting career. Not as attractive as John or sister Ethel, he was most effectively cast in character roles - villains, military officers, fathers - even in his youth. Unable to save what he earned, Barrymore was "reduced" to appearing in films for the Biograph Company in 1911, where he was directed by the great D.W. Griffith and where he was permitted to write a few film stories himself, which to Lionel was far more satisfying than playacting. His stage career was boosted when cast in 1917 as Colonel Ibbetson in Peter Ibbetson, which led to his most celebrated role, Milt Shanks in The Copperhead; even late in life, he could always count on being asked to recite his climactic Copperhead soliloquy, which never failed to bring down the house. Moving on to film, Barrymore was signed to what would be a 25-year hitch with MGM and begged the MGM heads to be allowed to direct; he showed only moderate talent in this field, and was most often hired to guide those films in which MGM wanted to "punish" its more rebellious talent. Resigning himself to acting again in 1931, he managed to cop an Academy Award for his bravura performance as a drunken defense attorney in A Free Soul (1931), the first in an increasingly prestigious series of movie character parts. In 1937, Barrymore was crippled by arthritis, and for the rest of his career was confined to a wheelchair. The actor became more popular than ever as he reached his sixtieth birthday, principally as a result of his annual radio appearance as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and his continuing role as Dr. Gillespie in MGM's Dr. Kildare film series. Barrymore was aware that venerability and talent are not often the same thing, but he'd become somewhat lazy (if one can call a sixtyish wheelchair-bound man who showed up on time and appeared in at least three films per year "lazy") and settled into repeating his "old curmudgeon with a heart of gold" performance, save for the occasional topnotch part in such films as It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Down to the Sea in Ships (1949). Denied access to television work by his MGM contract, Barrymore nonetheless remained active in radio (he'd starred in the long-running series Mayor of the Town), and at one point conducted a talk program from his own home; additionally, the actor continued pursuing his hobbies of writing, composing music, painting and engraving until arthritis overcame him. On the day of his death, he was preparing for his weekly performance on radio's Hallmark Playhouse; that evening, the program offered a glowing tribute to Barrymore, never once alluding to the fact that he'd spent a lifetime in a profession he openly despised.

Trivia: The daughter of legendary sports journalist Grantland Rice, actress Florence Rice launched her stage career in the late '20s. In films from 1934, Rice was generally wasted in insipid "good girl" roles. The least prepossessing of these was the antiseptic heroine in the 1939 Marx Brothers comedy At the Circus; upon being introduced to the mischievous Marxes on the set, Rice was promptly locked in the lion's cage, where she quietly remained until the property man showed up. Spending her last professional years in B-productions at such studios as Columbia, Republic, and PRC, Florence Rice retired from films in 1943.

Trivia: The daughter of a circus clown, American actress Billie Burke became a musical comedy star in the early 1900s under the aegis of two powerful Broadway producers: Charles K. Frohman and Florenz Ziegfeld. Burke's career soared after her marriage to Ziegfeld, which was both a blessing and a curse in that some newspaper critics, assuming she wouldn't have reached the heights without her husband's patronage, gave her some pretty rough reviews. Actually, she had a very pleasant singing voice and ingratiating personality, not to mention natural comic gift that transferred well to the screen for her film debut in Peggy (1915). She had no qualms about adjusting to characters roles upon reaching 40, but she was devoted to the stage and didn't intend to revive her film career - until the crippling debts left behind by Ziegfeld after his death in 1932 forced her to return full-time to Hollywood. At first concentrating on drama, Burke found that her true strength lay in comedy, particularly in portraying fey, birdbrained society ladies. She worked most often at MGM during the sound era, with rewarding side trips to Hal Roach studios, where she appeared as Mrs. Topper in the three Topper fantasy films, played Oliver Hardy's wife in Zenobia (1939) and earned an academy award nomination for her performance in Merrily We Live (1938). A tireless trouper, Burke appeared in virtually every sort of film, from rugged westerns like Sgt. Rutledge (1960) to a pair of surprisingly good two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures in the late 1940s. If she had done nothing else worthwhile in her seven-decade career, Burke would forever be remembered for her lighthearted portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch in the matchless The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition to her many film portrayals, Burke was herself portrayed in two filmed biographies of Flo Ziegfeld: Myrna Loy played her in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), while Samantha Eggar took the role in the TV-movie Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women (1978).

Trivia: Raspy-voiced, distinguished-looking actor Samuel S. Hinds was born into a wealthy Brooklyn family. Well-educated at such institutions as Philips Academy and Harvard, Hinds became a New York lawyer. He moved to California in the 1920s, where he developed an interest in theatre and became one of the founders of the Pasadena Playhouse. A full-time actor by the early 1930s, Hinds entered films in 1932. Of his nearly 150 screen appearances, several stand out, notably his portrayal of Bela Lugosi's torture victim in The Raven (1935), the dying John Vincey in She (1935), the crooked political boss in Destry Rides Again (1939) and the doctor father of Lew Ayres in MGM's Dr. Kildare series. He frequently co-starred in the films of James Stewart, playing Stewart's eccentric future father-in-law in You Can't Take It With You (1938) and the actor's banker dad in the holiday perennial It's a Wonderful Life (1946). One of Samuel S. Hinds' final film roles was an uncredited supporting part in the 1948 James Stewart vehicle Call Northside 777.

Trivia: Paul Kelly was one of the few actors who not only played killers, but also had first-hand experience in this capacity! On stage from age 7, "Master" Paul Kelly entered films at 8, performing on the sunlight stages of Flatbush's Vitagraph Studios. His first important theatrical role was in Booth Tarkington's Seventeen; he later appeared in Tarkington's Penrod, opposite a young Helen Hayes. Star billing was Kelly's from 1922's Up the Ladder onwards. In films from 1926, Kelly alternated between stage and screen until his talkie debut in 1932's Broadway Through A Keyhole. The actor's career momentum was briefly halted with a two-year forced hiatus. On May 31, 1927, Kelly was found guilty of manslaughter, after killing actor Ray Raymond in a fistfight. The motivating factor of the fatal contretemps was Raymond's wife, Dorothy MacKaye, who married Kelly in 1931, after he'd served prison time for Raymond's death (MacKaye herself died in an automobile accident in 1940). This unfortunate incident had little adverse effect on Kelly's acting career, which continued up until his death in 1956. Returning to Broadway in 1947, Paul Kelly won the Donaldson and Tony awards for his performance in Command Decision; three years later, he starred in the original stage production of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl.

Trivia: Some actors can convey wide-eyed confusion, others are adept at business-like pomposity; Frank Albertson was a master of both acting styles, albeit at the extreme ends of his film career. Entering movies as a prop boy in 1922, Albertson played bit roles in several late silents, moving up the ladder to lead player with the 1929 John Ford talkie Salute. The boyish, open-faced Albertson was prominently cast in a number of Fox productions in the early 1930s, notably A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1931) and Just Imagine (1931). By the mid-1930s he had settled into such supporting roles as Katharine Hepburn's insensitive brother in Alice Adams (1935) and the green-as-grass playwright who falls into the clutches of the Marx Brothers in Room Service (1938). His best showing in the 1940s was as the wealthy hometown lad who loses Donna Reed to Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). By the 1950s, a graying, mustachioed Albertson was playing aging corporate types. Frank Albertson's more memorable roles in the twilight of his career included the obnoxious millionaire whose bank deposit is pilfered by Janet Leigh in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and his uncredited turn as the flustered mayor of Sweetapple in Bye Bye Birdie (1963).

Trivia: A busy supporting actor of the 1930s who was often cast as the quintessential English manservant, tall, dapper-looking Barnett Parker had appeared with such British stage stars as George Alexander and Fred Terry prior to making his Broadway debut opposite Billie Burke in Mind the Paint Girl. The year was 1912 and the busy Parker immediately established himself as the typical "silly ass" British comic, "silly ass" being a description favored by the actor himself. Parker, who went on to appear opposite such legendary stage stars as Lew Fields and Lou Tellegen, moonlighted in movies from 1915 to 1920, chiefly for the New Rochelle-based Thanhouser company, where he scored quite a hit playing Astorbilt, the millionaire hero of the comedy Prudence the Pirate (1916). Parker spent the next decade or so on the boards but returned to films in 1936 to play a seemingly endless series of butlers, servants, and waiters. His death was attributed to a heart attack.

Trivia: Courtly character actor Minor Watson made his stage debut in Brooklyn in 1911. After 11 years of stock experience, Watson made his Broadway bow in Why Men Leave Home. By the end of the 1920s he was a major stage star, appearing in vehicles specially written for him. Recalling his entree into films in 1931, Watson was fond of saying, "I'm a stage actor by heart and by profession. I was a movie star by necessity and a desire to eat." Though never a true "movie star" per se, he remained gainfully employed into the 1950s in choice character roles. Often called upon to play show-biz impresarios, he essayed such roles as E.F. Albee in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and John Ringling North in Trapeze (1956). One of Minor Watson's largest and most well-rounded screen assignments was the part of cagey Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey in 1950's The Jackie Robinson Story.

Trivia: Actor/writer Robert Middlemass was most closely associated with George M. Cohan during his Broadway years, appearing in such Cohan productions as Seven Keys to Baldpate and The Tavern. Before the 1920s were over, Middlemass had written or co-written several plays and one-act sketches, the most famous of which was The Valiant. Though he appeared in the 1918 feature film 5000 a Week, his screen career proper didn't begin in 1934, when he showed up as a foil for the Ritz Brothers in the New York-filmed comedy short Hotel Anchovy. For the next decade, Middlemass was based in Hollywood, essaying various authority figures in approximately two dozen films. Robert Middlemass' better screen roles include the flustered sheriff in the Marx Bros. Day at the Races (1937) and impresario Oscar Hammerstein in The Dolly Sisters (1945).

Trivia: Philip Terry labored away as an oil-rig worker until enrolling at Stanford University, where the 6'1" San Franciscan distinguished himself on the football field. After college, Terry travelled to London to study acting, assuming that a British accent would automatically assure him good roles upon his return to America (it didn't). A nominal movie leading man at RKO and Paramount in the early 1940s, Terry managed to pick up a few good notices for his star turn in the 1941 western The Parson of Panamint. The following year, Terry became the third husband of superstar Joan Crawford (he'd been a bit player in Crawford's 1937 vehicle Mannequin, but was not formally introduced to the actress until four years later). A competent but bland screen presence, Terry tended to be overshadowed by his world-famous spouse. Though all reports indicate that the marriage was a happy one, Terry eventually chafed at being Mr. Joan Crawford, and in 1946 the couple was amicably divorced. In films until 1966, Philip Terry is best remembered for his portrayal of Wick Birman, the straight-arrow brother of alcoholic Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945).

Trivia: A former professional baseball player, Pat Flaherty was seen in quite a few baseball pictures after his 1934 screen debut. Flaherty can be seen in roles both large and small in Death on the Diamond (1934), Pride of the Yankees (1942), It Happened in Flatbush (1942), The Stratton Story (1949, as the Western All-Stars coach), The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and The Winning Team (1952, as legendary umpire Bill Klem). In 1948's Babe Ruth Story, Flaherty not only essayed the role of Bill Corrigan, but also served as the film's technical advisor. Outside the realm of baseball, he was usually cast in blunt, muscle-bound roles, notably Fredric March's taciturn male nurse "Cuddles" in A Star is Born (1937). One of Pat Flaherty's most unusual assignments was Wheeler and Woolsey's Off Again, On Again (1937), in which, upon finding his wife (Patricia Wilder) in a compromising position with Bert Wheeler, he doesn't pummel the hapless Wheeler as expected, but instead meekly apologizes for his wife's flirtatiousness!

Trivia: Actor Matt McHugh was born into a show business family, joining his parents, his brother Frank, and his sister Kitty in the family stock company as soon as he learned to talk. Matt came to Hollywood to repeat his stage role in the 1931 film adaptation of Elmer Rice's Broadway hit Street Scene. He continued to have sizeable film assignments for the next few years (notably the bourgeois Italian bridegroom Francesco in Laurel and Hardy's The Devil's Brother [1933]) before settling into bits and minor roles. A dead ringer for his more famous brother Frank McHugh, Matt projected an abrasive, sardonic screen image; as such, he was utilized in such rough-edged roles as cab drivers, bartenders and mechanics. Matt McHugh's best screen opportunities in the '40s came with his supporting roles in the 2-reel comedy output of Columbia Pictures; he appeared in the short comedies of Andy Clyde, Hugh Herbert, Walter Catlett, The Three Stooges and many others, most often cast as a lazy or caustic brother-in-law.

Trivia: A football star in his high school and college days, Donald Barry forsook an advertising career in favor of a stage acting job with a stock company. This barnstorming work led to movie bit parts, the first of which was in RKO's Night Waitress (1936). Barry's short stature, athletic build and pugnacious facial features made him a natural for bad guy parts in Westerns, but he was lucky enough to star in the 1940 Republic serial The Adventures of Red Ryder; this and subsequent appearance as "Lone Ranger" clone Red Ryder earned the actor the permanent sobriquet Donald "Red" Barry. Republic promoted the actor to bigger-budget features in the 1940s, casting him in the sort of roles James Cagney might have played had the studio been able to afford Cagney. Barry produced as well as starred in a number of Westerns, but this venture ultimately failed, and the actor, whose private life was tempestuous in the best of times, was consigned to supporting roles before the 1950s were over. By the late 1960s, Barry was compelled to publicly entreat his fans to contribute one dollar apiece for a new series of Westerns. Saving the actor from further self-humiliation were such Barry aficionados as actor Burt Reynolds and director Don Siegel, who saw to it that Don was cast in prominent supporting roles during the 1970s, notably a telling role in Hustle (1976). In 1980, Don "Red" Barry killed himself -- a sad end to an erratic life and career.

Trivia: WWI-veteran Jack Pennick was working as a horse wrangler when, in 1926, he was hired as a technical advisor for the big-budget war drama What Price Glory? Turning to acting in 1927, Pennick made his screen bow in Bronco Twister. His hulking frame, craggy face, and snaggle-toothed bridgework made him instantly recognizable to film buffs for the next 35 years. Beginning with 1928's Four Sons and ending with 1962's How the West Was Won, Pennick was prominently featured in nearly three dozen John Ford films. He also served as Ford's assistant director on How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Fort Apache (1947), and as technical advisor on The Alamo (1960), directed by another longtime professional associate and boon companion, John Wayne. Though pushing 50, Jack Pennick interrupted his film career to serve in WWII, earning a Silver Star after being wounded in combat.

Trivia: Actor Donald Douglas came to Hollywood in 1934 to play the small role of "Mac" in the film version of Sidney Kingsley's Men in White (1934). Though occasionally a villain, the Scottish-born Douglas was usually cast in bland good-guy roles (e.g. his portrayal of the dull detective at odds with Dick Powell's Philip Marlowe in 1944's Murder My Sweet). One of his few leading roles in film was the title character in the Columbia serial Deadwood Dick (1940). Douglas was given more of a chance to shine on radio; in the 1943 Mutual network mystery anthology Black Castle, Douglas played all the parts, including the announcer. Donald Douglas died suddenly at the age of 40, not long after completing work on Gilda (1946), in which he played Thomas Langford.

Trivia: Walter Soderling never evinced an interest in drama while attending the University of Chicago, Northwestern, or Harvard. After graduation, however, Soderling plunged into the theater world with a vengeance, chalking up credits with Chicago's Dearborn and Hopkins stock companies before making his turn-of-the-century Broadway debut. He came to films late in life -- to be exact, he was 63 -- but made up for lost time by working steadily in Hollywood until his death in 1948. Playing characters with names like Old Muck, Abner Thriffle, and Grumpy Andrews, the balding, pickle-pussed Walter Soderling was one of filmdom's foremost grouches.

Trivia: Though Dennis Morgan would later allude to Milwaukee, Wisconsin as his hometown, he was actually born in the small burg of Prentice. After attending Carroll College in nearby Waukesha, Morgan acted in stock companies, worked as a radio announcer, and sang with travelling opera troupes. Still using his given name of Stanley Morner, he was signed to an MGM contract in 1936, then spent a frustrating year playing bit parts. What might have been his big break, as soloist in the "Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" number in MGM's mammoth The Great Ziegfeld (1936), was compromised by the fact that the studio dubbed in Allan Jones' singing voice. Morgan then moved to Paramount, where he played supporting roles under the new moniker Richard Stanley. In 1939, he landed at Warner Bros., where he became "Dennis Morgan" for good and all. His Warners roles were better than anything he'd had at MGM or Paramount, though he still was inexplicably prevented from singing. His biggest acting break came about when Warners loaned him to RKO to appear opposite Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle (1940). Finally in 1943, he was given a full-fledged singing lead in Warners' The Desert Song. This led to a series of well-received musicals which earned Morgan a faithful fan following--and, for a brief period, he was the studio's highest paid male star. In 1947, Morgan was teamed with Jack Carson for a group of musical comedies which Warners hoped would match the success of Paramount's Hope-Crosby "Road" pictures. Best of the batch was Two Guys From Milwaukee (1947), which had its premiere in that city. When the sort of musicals Morgan starred in went out of fashion in the 1950s, he shifted creative gears and appeared in westerns and adventure yarns. In 1959, he headlined a TV cop series, 21 Beacon Street. For all intents and purposes retired by the 1960s, Dennis Morgan re-emerged to play cameos in two theatrical features, Rogue's Gallery (1968) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976).

Trivia: Born Gloria Wood, the daughter of Hollywood filmmaker Sam Wood, K.T. Stevens began appearing on-stage and in films in childhood. She initially billed herself as Katharine Stevens. She played leads and supporting roles in numerous films during the '40s and '50s. Eventually she became a character actress. On television, she guest starred in numerous series and played Peggy Mercer on the soap General Hospital. She also played Helen Martin on the soap Days of Our Lives. At one time, she was married to actor Hugh Marlowe.