Trivia: With spouse Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward comprised one of the most successful husband-and-wife tandems in Hollywood history; not only among the most acclaimed film actresses of her era, she was also highly visible as a television and theatrical performer, as well as a prominent social activist. Woodward was born February 27, 1930, in Thomasville, GA, and later acted in campus productions while attending Louisiana State University. After relocating to New York she studied at both the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors' Studio, and in 1953 signed on as an understudy in the Broadway production of William Inge's Picnic; there she met Newman, and they soon fell in love. After starring in 1954's The Lovers, Woodward turned to television, appearing in dozens of programs. A performance in an episode of Four Star Playhouse caught the attention of Fox production chief Buddy Adler, who quickly snapped her up with a long-term contract.Woodward made her film debut in the 1955 Western Count Three and Pray. Her next project, the 1956 thriller A Kiss Before Dying, ran into controversy over its advertising campaign, and as a result appeared in theaters only briefly. Director Nunnally Johnson then requested Woodward's services for the starring role in his schizophrenia drama The Three Faces of Eve; Fox initially refused, but after everyone from Judy Garland to Susan Hayward rejected the role, the studio finally relented. The performance won Woodward a Best Actress Academy Award in 1957, but Fox remained unsure how best to utilize her skills; they next cast her in the Martin Ritt drama No Down Payment, appearing with a number of the studio's other aspiring talents. In 1958, Woodward and Newman co-starred in The Long Hot Summer; the couple married that same year, and then reunited for Leo McCarey's Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! After starring in the 1959 adaptation of the William Faulkner classic The Sound and the Fury, Woodward co-starred with Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind before teaming with Newman in the 1960 hit From the Terrace; they were again together in 1961's Paris Blues. By now a mother as well as a wife, Woodward retreated from film for two years to focus on domestic duties. Upon returning to Hollywood in 1963, her career took a nosedive: Her comeback vehicle The Stripper performed poorly at the box office, and A New Kind of Love -- another project with Newman -- did not fare much better. When 1964's Signpost to Murder also failed, she again went on a two-year hiatus. Upon resurfacing, she starred in A Fine Madness with Sean Connery and in A Big Hand for the Little Lady with Henry Fonda. Despite good critical notice, neither was a hit, and Woodward spent the next year absent from moviemaking. The 1968 Rachel, Rachel was the outcome of Woodward's exile; she and Newman admitted it was carefully designed as a vehicle to resuscitate her career, and the ploy worked brilliantly -- he directed, she starred, and together they led the film to four Oscar nominations, including Best Actress and Best Picture.The following year Woodward and Newman reunited onscreen for the auto-racing drama Winning, and again starred together in 1970s politically charged W.U.S.A., a reflection of the couple's high-profile support of liberal causes; when 1971's They Might Be Giants proved unsuccessful, Newman directed Woodward to Best Actress honors at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival for The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. The follow-up Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams earned Woodward another Academy Award nomination. The Drowning Pool (1975) was Woodward's last feature film for three years; she instead turned to television, co-starring with Sally Field in the award-winning Sybil and appearing in a remake of Come Back, Little Sheba in 1977. After winning an Emmy for 1978's See How She Runs, Woodward returned to feature films with the Burt Reynolds farce The End; it was her final big-screen appearance for six years; instead, she focused solely on TV, delivering a cameo in A Christmas to Remember before starring in 1979's The Streets of L.A. After Newman directed her in 1980's The Shadow Box, Woodward earned an Emmy nomination for her work in Crisis at Central High and then spent the next four years exclusively on-stage, appearing in productions of The Glass Menagerie, Candida, and Hay Fever. In 1984, she finally returned to films in Newman's Harry and Son and that same year made her own directorial debut with the PBS feature Come Along With Me. As a professor stricken with Alzheimer's disease, she won a third Emmy for 1985's Do You Remember Love? In 1987, Newman directed her in a film adaptation of The Glass Menagerie. Woodward did not reappear for four more years, when she and Newman starred as the titular Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, a performance which earned her an Oscar nomination. In 1993, she suddenly enjoyed a major resurgence, appearing in two major theatrical releases, Philadelphia and The Age of Innocence (which she narrated) as well as a pair of TV movies, Blind Spot and Foreign Affairs. A small-screen adaptation of the Anne Tyler Pulitzer-winner Breathing Lessons earned Woodward an Emmy nomination in 1994. In 1996, she continued her television work playing herself in James Dean: A Portrait, and two years later she narrated My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports, a documentary about children who had been rescued from Nazi concentration camps. She continued to participate in documentaries, and lend her voice to various projects as a narrator, but she returned to acting in 2005's made-for-HBO adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Empire Falls.

Trivia: Stuart Whitman, with a rugged build and sensitive face, rose from bit player to competent lead actor, but never did make it as a popular star in film. The San Francisco-born Whitman served three years with the Army Corps of Engineers where he was a light heavyweight boxer in his spare time. He next went on to study drama at the Los Angeles City College where he joined a Chekhov stage group. He began his film career in the early '50s as a bit player. Although never a star, he did manage to quietly accumulate $100 million dollars through shrewd investments in securities, real estate, cattle, and Thoroughbreds. For his role as a sex offender attempting to change in the 1961 British film The Mark, Whitman was nominated for an Oscar. In addition to features, Whitman has also appeared extensively on television.

Trivia: Born in Ireland, actor Edward Mulhare built up his stage and film reputation in all corners of the world. Mulhare happened to be in Israel when he made his first film in 1955. His subsequent screen roles ranged from the benign priest in Von Ryan's Express (1965) to the megalomaniac villain in Our Man Flint (1966). In 1957, Mulhare made his Broadway debut, replacing Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins in the long-running musical My Fair Lady; before long the actor was globetrotting again, touring with the My Fair Lady company in the Soviet Union. In 1968, Mulhare again replaced Harrison after a fashion, starring in the American TV sitcom The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as the ghostly Captain Gregg--a role originated by "sexy Rexy" in the 1947 film version of the same property. TV action aficionados are most familiar with Edward Mulhare for his work as the erudite, impeccably dressed Devon Miles in the 1982-86 weekly series Knight Rider, a role he recreated in a 1991 "reunion" TV-movie.

Trivia: Following an apprenticeship in regional theater in his native Australia, Murray Matheson first appeared on the London stage in 1935's And on We Go. His first film was 1945's The Way to the Stars. Matheson's brittle acting style was somewhat reminiscent of Noel Coward and Cyril Ritchard (whom Matheson closely resembled); accordingly, most of his film and TV roles were cut from the Coward/Ritchard waspish, epigrammatic cloth. His many roles included an amusing turn as business executive Benjamin Barton David Ovington (BBDO) in the 1967 film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the recurring role of bookstore proprietor Felix Mulholland on the 1972 TV series Banacek. Murray Matheson also played The Clown in the memorable 1961 Twilight Zone episode "Six Characters in Search of an Exit"; ironically, Matheson's last appearance was in the "Kick the Can" segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1985).

Trivia: Though no one in his family had ever pursued a theatrical career (one of his more illustrious relatives was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain), Alan Napier was stagestruck from childhood. After graduating from Clifton College, the tall, booming-voiced Napier studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with such raw young talent as John Gielgud and Robert Morley. He continued working with the cream of Britain's acting crop during his ten years (1929-1939) on the West End stages. Napier came to New York in 1940 to co-star with Gladys George in Lady in Waiting. Though his film career had begun in England in the 1930s, Napier had very little success before the cameras until he arrived in Hollywood in 1941. He essayed dignified, sometimes waspish roles of all sizes in such films as Cat People (1942), The Uninvited (1943), and House of Horror (1946); among his off-the-beaten-track assignments were the bizarre High Priest in Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948) and a most elegant Captain Kidd in the 1950 Donald O'Connor vehicle Double Crossbones. In 1966, Alan Napier was cast as Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, on the smash-hit TV series Batman, a role he played until the series' cancellation in 1968. Alan Napier's career extended into the 1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as QB VII and such weeklies as The Paper Chase.

Trivia: In Hollywood from 1941, British actor Leslie Dennison played scores of military officers, secret service agents, and Scotland Yard detectives, often merely as part of the wartime ambience but well remembered for playing the detective tracking down Bela Lugosi's ghoul in The Return of the Vampire and as Alan-a-Dale in Bandits of Sherwood Forest (1946). Denison, who also did voice-over work, retired in the '60s.

Trivia: British actor Hedley Mattingly primarily played character roles on television and only occasionally appeared in feature films of the 1960s. The London-born Mattingly launched his career as a Shakespearean actor. Following service in the Royal Air Force during WWII, he worked as the Front of House manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Mattingly and his wife, costume designer Barbara Mattingly, emigrated to Canada in the early '50s. He became an actor for CBC Television and appeared in several dramas. The couple became Hollywood residents in the 1960s. Mattingly made his feature film debut in 1963, playing a chauffeur in Norman Jewison'sThe Thrill of It All. His subsequent film credits include King Rat (1965), Lost Horizon (1973), and All of Me (1984).