Roughly Speaking

Rosalind Russell (Actor) .. Louise Randall Pierson

Born: June 04, 1908
Died: November 28, 1976
Birthplace: Waterbury, Connecticut, United States

Trivia: A witty and stylish lead actress of stage and screen, Russell tended to play successful career women who were skilled in repartee. She trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then began her stage career in her early '20s. She debuted onscreen in 1934 and immediately had a very busy film career. At first appearing in routine films, in the '40s she began to specialize in light, sophisticated comedies, for which she had a unique talent. In the '50s her career briefly declined and she went to Broadway, where she starred in three successful productions. One of these was Auntie Mame, later made into a film in which she reprised her stage role (1958). She went on to appear in a handful of films before she was struck by crippling arthritis. Known for her charity work, in 1972 she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a special Oscar. Russell received four Academy Award nominations during her career. She was married to producer Frederick Brisson. She authored an autobiography, Life is a Banquet.

Jack Carson (Actor) .. Harold C. Pierson

Born: October 27, 1910
Died: January 02, 1963

Trivia: Actor Jack Carson was born in Canada but raised in Milwaukee, which he always regarded as his hometown. After attending Carroll College, Carson hit the vaudeville trail in an act with his old friend Dave Willock (later a prominent Hollywood character actor in his own right). Carson's first movie contract was at RKO, where he spent an uncomfortable few years essaying bits in "A" pictures and thankless supporting parts in "B"s. His fortunes improved when he moved to Warner Bros. in 1941, where after three years' apprenticeship in sizeable secondary roles he achieved his first starring vehicle, Make Your Own Bed (44); he was cast in this film opposite Jane Wyman, as part of an effort by Warners to create a Carson-Wyman team. While the studio hoped that Carson would become a comedy lead in the manner of Bob Hope, he proved himself an able dramatic actor in films like The Hard Way (43) and Mildred Pierce. Still, he was built up as Warners' answer to Hope, especially when teamed in several films with the studio's "Bing Crosby", Dennis Morgan. Continuing to alternate comic and dramatic (sometimes villainous) roles throughout the 1950s, Carson starred in his own Jack Benny-style radio series, appeared successfully as a stand-up comedian in Las Vegas, and was one of four rotating hosts on the 1950 TV variety series All-Star Revue. Carson was married four times (once to Lola Albright) Shortly after completing his role in the Disney TV comedy Sammy the Way Out Seal, Carson died of stomach cancer on January 2, 1963 (the same day that actor/producer Dick Powell succumbed to cancer).

Robert Hutton (Actor) .. John Crane (ages 20-28)

Born: June 11, 1920
Died: August 07, 1994
Birthplace: Kingston, New York

Trivia: American actor Robert Hutton had a briefly thriving Hollywood career thanks to something called "victory casting." While many of the major stars were in uniform during World War II, the Hollywood studios scrambled to find young actors who could substitute for their departed favorites. Hutton happened to have many of the shy, self-effacing characteristics of Jimmy Stewart, which served him well in such Warner Bros. pictures as Destination Tokyo (1943), Janie (1944) and Roughly Speaking (1945). Warners allowed Hutton a major showcase in the all-star morale booster Hollywood Canteen (1945); it was Hutton's puppy-love attraction to Joan Leslie which motivated the film's plotline. When the Big Names came marching home in 1945, "victory" fill-in actors suddenly found themselves expendable. Hutton was able to hang on longer than most with supporting roles in such films as The Younger Brothers (1949), Man on the Eiffel Tower (1950), The Steel Helmet (1951), Casanova's Big Night (1954) and The Colossus of New York (1958). Still relatively boyish in middle age, Hutton was personally selected by Jerry Lewis to play one of Lewis' "wicked stepbrothers" in Cinderfella (1960). Like many '40s male leads, Hutton spent plenty of time in horror and science-fiction films of the '50s and '60s, including The Man Without a Body (1957), Invisible Invaders (1959) and The Slime People (1963), which Hutton also produced and directed and which got better bookings than it deserved thanks to a robust promotional campaign. Hutton lived in England from 1964 through 1974, popping up as a character actor in films like You Only Live Twice (1967) The Torture Garden (1968) and Tales from the Crypt (1971). Before Robert Hutton returned to the States, he wrote the screenplay for the British-produced Persecution (1974), a turgid thriller distinguished by the astonishing presence of Trevor Howard and Lana Turner.

Ray Collins (Actor) .. Mr. Randall

Born: December 10, 1889
Died: July 11, 1965

Trivia: A descendant of one of California's pioneer families, American actor Ray Collins' interest in the theatre came naturally. His father was drama critic of the Sacramento Bee. Taking to the stage at age 14, Collins moved to British Columbia, where he briefly headed his own stock company, then went on to Broadway. An established theatre and radio performer by the mid-1930s, Collins began a rewarding association with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. He played the "world's last living radio announcer" in Welles' legendary War of the Worlds broadcast of 1938, then moved to Hollywood with the Mercury troupe in 1939. Collins made his film debut as Boss Jim Gettys in Welles' film classic Citizen Kane (1940). After the Mercury disbanded in the early 1940s, Collins kept busy as a film and stage character actor, usually playing gruff business executives. Collins is most fondly remembered by TV fans of the mid-1950s for his continuing role as the intrepid Lt. Tragg on the weekly series Perry Mason.

Kathleen Lockhart (Actor) .. Mrs. Randall

Born: August 09, 1894
Died: February 18, 1978

Trivia: British stage actress Kathleen Lockhart made infrequent American film appearances between 1936 and 1954. She was occasionally cast opposite her more famous husband, character actor Gene Lockhart; in 1938 the Lockharts portrayed Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cratchit in MGM's A Christmas Carol (1938). One of her better-known film roles was as the wife of magazine editor Albert Dekker in the Oscar-winning Gentleman's Agreement. After the death of her husband in 1957, Lockhart made no further acting appearances. Kathleen Lockhart was the mother of actress June Lockhart and the grandmother of actress Anne Lockhart.

Cora Sue Collins (Actor) .. Elinor Randall

Born: April 19, 1927

Trivia: Dewey-eyed, pudgy-cheeked child actress Cora Sue Collins made her screen debut at the age of 6. Collins' more intense film roles included young Christina in Greta Garbo's Queen Christina (1933), the out-of-wedlock Pearl in The Scarlet Letter (1934), potential voodoo-sacrifice victim Nancy in Black Moon (1934), and Linda Darnell's character as a child in Blood and Sand (1940). On rare occasions, she was permitted to exhibit her considerable skills as a tap dancer. Collins retired from films at 17, when she married a wealthy Nevada rancher. Though usually comfortably sequestered in her lavish Mexican estate, Cora Sue Collins has occasionally touched base with her film fans at various nostalgia conventions throughout America.

Ann Todd (Actor) .. Louise Randall

Born: January 24, 1909
Died: May 06, 1993

Trivia: Ann Todd began her stage career in England in 1928 and broke into the movies three years later. After numerous (if somewhat intermittent) screen roles, she became internationally popular for her performance as a vulnerable pianist in The Seventh Veil (1945). From 1949-1957, she was married to director David Lean, who directed several of her films. Todd joined the London's Old Vic theater company in the '50s and appeared in a number of Shakespeare plays. In the mid-'60s, she began a second career as a maker of documentaries, which she wrote, produced, and directed. She published her autobiography, The Eighth Veil, 1980 and died in 1993.

Andy Clyde (Actor) .. Matt

Born: March 25, 1892
Died: May 18, 1967

Trivia: The son of a Scottish theatrical producer/manager, Andy Clyde joined his siblings David and Jean on stage in childhood. At the invitation of his close friend James Finlayson, Clyde came to the U.S. in the early 1920s to join producer Mack Sennett's roster of comedians. An expert at makeup, Clyde played a variety of supporting roles, from city slickers to unshaven bums; he was also co-starred with Billy Bevan for such classic Sennett 2-reelers as Wandering Willies (1926) and Ice Cold Cocos (1927). His best-known characterization was as a grizzled, paintbrush-mustached old codger. In this guise, Andy was Sennett's most popular star in the early talkie era, appearing in as many as 18 comedies per year. After parting company with Sennett in 1932, Clyde worked briefly at Educational Studios, then in 1934 signed on with Columbia's short subject unit, where he remained the next 22 years. With 79 shorts to his credit, Andy was second only to the Three Stooges as Columbia's premiere comedy attraction. He also appeared as "California," comic sidekick to western star William Boyd, in the popular Hopalong Cassidy westerns of the 1940s. Clyde filled out his busy schedule with character roles in such films as Million Dollar Legs (1932), Annie Oakley (1936) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). Barely pausing for breath, Clyde kept up his hectic pace on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing regularly on the weekly series The Real McCoys, Lassie and No Time for Sergeants. A real trouper, Andy Clyde was one of Hollywood's best-liked actors, never giving less than 100% to any role of any size.

Arthur Shields (Actor) .. Minister

Born: February 15, 1896
Died: April 27, 1970

Trivia: The younger brother of Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields joined Fitzgerald at Dublin's famed Abbey as a Player in 1914, where he directed as well as acted. Though in films fitfully since 1910, Shield's formal movie career didn't begin until he joined several other Abbey veterans in the cast of John Ford's Plough and the Stars (1936). He went on to appear in several other Ford films, generally cast in more introverted roles than those offered his brother. Unlike his sibling, Shields was not confined to Irish parts; he often as not played Americans, and in 1943's Dr. Renault's Secret, he was seen as a French police inspector. Never as prominent a film personality as his brother, Arthur Shields nonetheless remained a dependable second-echelon character player into the 1960s.

Helene Thimig (Actor) .. Olga the Maid

Born: June 05, 1889
Died: November 07, 1974

Greta Granstedt (Actor) .. Anna the Maid

Born: July 13, 1907
Died: October 07, 1987

Trivia: Born Irene Granstedt, this Swedish starlet changed her first name for obvious reasons when entering films in 1928. No one, however, mistook Granstedt for Garbo and she went on to play a series of hardboiled roles seemingly deemed too small for the likes of Veda Ann Borg. Growing up in Mountain View, CA, Granstedt first made headlines when at 14 she shot and critically wounded a boyfriend who had committed the sin of accompanying another girl to a church social. According to newspaper reports, Greta Granstedt was sentenced "to leave Mountain View and never return." By the mid-'20s, she had recovered enough from the ordeal to appear opposite Joseph Schildkraut in a Los Angeles production of From Hell Came a Lady and had taken the second of her seven husbands. She made her screen debut in a small role in Buck Privates (1928), with European idol Lya de Putti, and her talkie debut in The Last Performance (1929). Again the role was miniscule and Granstedt would make her biggest impact in low-budget action films, including two serials. Her unfortunate past was dredged up again when she married musician Ramon Ramos but her reputation as the "Tragedy Girl" failed to open any new doors in Hollywood and she continued to play mainly bit parts. Some of these, however, were quite good and she is memorable as Beulah Bondi's daughter in the crime drama Street Scene (1931) and as Margo's hardboiled friend in the New York-lensed Crime Without Passion (1934). While in New York, Granstedt appeared in a couple of Broadway plays before returning to Hollywood for perhaps her best remembered role, that of Anna, one of the resistance workers in Beasts of Berlin (1939), the exploitation drama that put ramshackle PRC on the map. Her other 1940s roles were minor and she had to wait until 1958 and The Return of Dracula to make any kind of impact. In this not-as-bad-as-it-sounds horror pastiche she played a stout California housewife welcoming Francis Lederer's count to her suburban home -- with the expected results. Retiring permanently from the screen in 1970, Granstedt relocated to Canada and raised Appaloosa horses.

Ann Doran (Actor) .. Alice Abbott

Born: July 28, 1911
Died: September 19, 2000
Birthplace: Amarillo, Texas

Trivia: A sadly neglected supporting actress, Ann Doran played everything from Charley Chase's foil in Columbia two-reelers of the late '30s to James Dean's mother in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and also guest starred in such television shows as Superman, Petticoat Junction, Bewitched, and The A Team. A former child model and the daughter of silent screen actress Rose Allen (1885-1977), Doran made her screen bow in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922) but then spent the next 12 years or so getting herself an education. She returned to films in 1934 and joined the Columbia short subject department two years later. While with Columbia, Doran worked on all of Frank Capra's films save Lost Horizon (1937) and she later toiled for both Paramount and Warner Bros., often receiving fine reviews but always missing out on the one role that may have made her a star. Appearing in more than 500 films and television shows (her own count), Doran worked well into the 1980s, often unbilled but always a noticeable presence.

Hobart Cavanaugh (Actor) .. The Teacher

Born: September 22, 1886
Died: April 27, 1950

Trivia: The son of a Nevada railroading engineer, Hobart Cavanaugh was educated in San Francisco and at the University of California. His friendships with such California-based actors as Charlie Ruggles and Walter Catlett gave Cavanaugh the impetus to enter the theatrical world. After several years on stage, Cavanaugh began his screen career with 1928's San Francisco Nights. Slight, balding and virtually chinless, Cavanaugh was ideally cast as a henpecked husband, a clerk, or a process server. He was signed to a Warners' contract in 1932, and appeared in several Busby Berkeley and Jimmy Cagney pictures. Thanks to his next-door-neighbor demeanor, Cavanaugh frequently appeared as humorist Robert Benchley's friend or co-worker in Benchley's one-reel MGM shorts of the 1930s. Occasionally, Cavanaugh played against his established image by popping up as the "hidden killer" in mystery films of the 1940s (e.g. Universal's Horror Island). Hobart Cavanaugh's final appearance, filmed just before his death, was as an unctuous undertaker in 20th Century-Fox's Stella (1950).

Eily Malyon (Actor) .. The Dean

Born: October 30, 1878
Died: September 26, 1961

Trivia: British actress Eily Malyon enjoyed a lucrative Hollywood screen career playing scores of no-nonsense schoolteachers, maids, governesses and maiden aunts. Ideally suited for costume pieces, she was seen in two major Dickens adaptations of the 1930s, playing Sarah Pocket in Great Expectations (1934) and Mrs. Cruncher in Tale of Two Cities (1935). She was also appropriately sinister as Mrs. Barryman in Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and Mrs. Sketcher in Jane Eyre (1943). Eily Malyon's most hissable screen role was maiden Aunt Demetria Riffle in 1939's On Borrowed Time; Aunt Demetria's onerous Victorianism proved so distasteful to Julian Northrup(Lionel Barrymore) and his grandson Pud (Bob Watson) that they literally chose to die rather than submit to her whims.

Donald Woods (Actor) .. Rodney Crane

Born: December 01, 1904

Trivia: Handsome Hollywood "second lead" Donald Woods came from the stage to films in 1934. He played a few unremarkable roles before rising to prominence as Charles Darnay in the 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities. He spent the 1940s and 1950s heading the cast of B-productions and serials and essaying supporting roles in top-of-the-bill features. On television, Woods played the title role in the 1952 syndicated series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist, hosted the 1955 anthology The Damon Runyon Theatre, and played a dignified recurring role on the 1965 sitcom Tammy; he also acted as "goodwill ambassador" for the latter program, making personal appearances and taping local promos. Throughout his career, Donald Woods supplemented his acting income as a real estate broker -- which indeed would have been an excellent film role for the businesslike Woods.

Craig Stevens (Actor) .. Jack Leslie

Born: July 08, 1918
Died: May 10, 2000
Birthplace: Liberty, Missouri

Trivia: Craig Stevens abandoned all plans for a career in dentistry when he became involved in student productions at the University of Kansas. Trained at Pasadena Playhouse and Paramount's acting school, Stevens was signed to a stock Warner Bros. contract in 1941. He was well showcased as a soft-hearted gangster in At the Stroke of Twelve, a 1941 two-reel adaptation of Damon Runyon's The Old Doll's House, but his feature film roles were merely adequate at best. By 1950, Stevens was reduced to playing a standard mustachioed villain in the Bowery Boys epic Blues Busters. His saving turnaround came about when Stevens was cast in the title role of the 1958 Blake Edwards-produced TV private eye series Peter Gunn. Though obviously imitating Cary Grant in the early episodes of this three-season hit, Stevens eventually developed a hard-edged acting style all his own. He later re-created his TV role in the 1967 theatrical feature Gunn. Subsequent TV-series assignments for Stevens included the British-filmed weekly Man of the World (1962) and CBS' Mr. Broadway (1964). Craig Stevens was married to actress Alexis Smith (with whom he toured in such stage productions as Critic's Choice) from 1944 until her death in 1993.

John Alvin (Actor) .. Lawton Meckall

Born: October 24, 1917

Mary Servoss (Actor) .. Rose

Born: January 01, 1887
Died: January 01, 1968

Francis Pierlot (Actor) .. Dr. Lewis

Born: January 01, 1876
Died: May 11, 1955

Trivia: Slight, owlish American actor Francis Pierlot made his film debut in 1914, but it wasn't until 1931 that he abandoned the stage to settle permanently in Hollywood. Pierlot generally essayed minor roles, showing up briefly but memorably as scores of judges, professors, priests, and orchestra leaders. Film buffs have a special place in their hearts for the actor's sly portrayal of lovable pyromaniac Nero Smith in 1942's Henry Aldrich, Editor. Francis Pierlot made his final screen appearance in a surprisingly sizeable role as Jean Simmons' manservant in the 1953 biblical epic The Robe.

Manart Kippen (Actor) .. Dr. Bowditch

Born: March 20, 1892
Died: October 12, 1947

Trivia: A distinguished stage and radio actor and a former programming director of radio station WMCA in New York City, Manart Kippen played Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in the later vilified Mission to Moscow (1943). Specializing in playing medical doctors, as in Three Russian Girls (1944) and Mildred Pierce (1945), Kippen's career was cut short by a fatal car accident outside Claremont, OK .

George Carleton (Actor) .. The Judge

Born: October 28, 1885
Died: September 23, 1950

Trivia: Scratch a banker, businessman, or state senator, and in 1940s Hollywood you would more than likely find George Carleton. Bespectacled, balding, and self-important despite his small stature, Carleton was all over the place during World War II and beyond, from portraying Dr. Paul Meredith, the inventor of a new oxygen respirator, in the Republic serial The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) to playing General Finney in Billy Wilder's witty A Foreign Affair (1948). Coming to films rather late in life, Carleton was a well-known Broadway and stock company actor who had originated the role of the Coroner in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1934). He had come to Hollywood in the early '30s as a dialogue director and coach. The veteran actor died in from a heart attack in 1950.

Frank Puglia (Actor) .. Tony

Born: January 01, 1892
Died: October 25, 1975

Trivia: Sicilian actor Frank Puglia started his career with a travelling operetta company at age 13. He and his family moved to the US in 1907, where he worked in a laundry until he hooked up with an Italian-language theatrical troupe based in New York. In 1921, Puglia was appearing as Pierre Frochard in a revival of the old theatrical warhorse The Two Orphans when he was spotted by film director D.W. Griffith. Puglia was hired to repeat his role for Griffith's film version of the play, retitled Orphans of the Storm; while Pierre Frochard was slated to die at the end of the film, preview-audience reaction to the death was so negative that Griffith called Puglia back to reshoot his final scenes, allowing him to survive for the fade-out. For the rest of his long film career, Puglia essayed a wide variety of ethnic supporting parts, portraying priests, musicians, diplomats and street peddlers. In 1942's Casablanca, Puglia has a memorable bit as a Morroccan rug merchant who automatically marks down his prices to any friends of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart). Frank Puglia played a larger and less likable role as a treacherous minion to sultan Kurt Katch in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944); when the film was remade as Sword of Ali Baba in 1965, so much stock footage from the 1944 film was utilized that Puglia was hired to replay his original part.

John Qualen (Actor) .. Ole Olsen

Born: December 08, 1899
Died: September 12, 1987

Trivia: The son of a Norwegian pastor, John Qualen was born in British Columbia. After his family moved to Illinois, Qualen won a high school forensic contest, which led to a scholarship at Northwestern University. A veteran of the tent-show and vaudeville circuits by the late '20s, Qualen won the important role of the Swedish janitor in the Broadway play Street Scene by marching into the producer's office and demonstrating his letter-perfect Scandinavian accent. His first film assignment was the 1931 movie version of Street Scene. Slight of stature, and possessed of woebegone, near-tragic facial features, Qualen was most often cast in "victim" roles, notably the union-activist miner who is beaten to death by hired hooligans in Black Fury (1935) and the pathetic, half-mad Muley in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Qualen was able to harness his trodden-upon demeanor for comedy as well, as witness his performance as the bewildered father of the Dionne quintuplets in The Country Doctor (1936). He was also effectively cast as small men with large reserves of courage, vide his portrayal of Norwegian underground operative Berger in Casablanca (1942). From Grapes of Wrath onward, Qualen was a member in good standing of the John Ford "stock company," appearing in such Ford-directed classics as The Long Voyage Home (1940), The Searchers (1955), Two Rode Together (1961), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). John Qualen was acting into the 1970s, often appearing in TV dramatic series as pugnacious senior citizens.

Chester Clute (Actor) .. The Proprietor

Born: January 01, 1891
Died: April 05, 1956

Trivia: For two decades, the diminutive American actor ChesterClute played a seemingly endless series of harassed clerks, testy druggists, milquetoast husbands, easily distracted laboratory assistants and dishevelled streetcar passengers. A New York-based stage actor, Clute began his movie career at the Astoria studios in Long Island, appearing in several early-talkie short subjects. He moved to the West Coast in the mid '30s, remaining there until his final film appearance in Colorado Territory (1952). While Chester Clute seldom had more than two or three lines of dialogue in feature films, he continued throughout his career to be well-served in short subjects, most notably as Vera Vague's wimpish suitor in the 1947 Columbia 2-reeler Cupid Goes Nuts.

Irving Bacon (Actor) .. Customer in Music Shop

Born: September 06, 1893
Died: February 05, 1965

Trivia: Irving Bacon entered films at the Keystone Studios in 1913, where his athletic prowess and Ichabod Crane-like features came in handy for the Keystone brand of broad slapstick. He appeared in over 200 films during the silent and sound era, often playing mailmen, soda jerks and rustics. In The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) it is Irving, as a flustered jury foreman, who delivers the film's punchline. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Irving played the recurring role of Mr. Crumb in Columbia's Blondie series; he's the poor postman who is forever being knocked down by the late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead, each collision accompanied by a cascade of mail flying through the air. Irving Bacon kept his hand in throughout the 1950s, appearing in a sizeable number of TV situation comedies.

Barbara Brown (Actor) .. Relief Worker

Born: January 01, 1906
Died: July 07, 1975

Trivia: Though only 35 when she launched her movie career in 1941, American actress Barbara Brown was almost immediately typed in maternal roles. Brown went on to play Joan Leslie's strict mother in Hollywood Canteen (1944), Ann Blyth's snooty mother-in-law in Mildred Pierce (1945), reproving Mrs. Latham in Monogram's Henry series (with Walter Catlett and Raymond Walburn) and haughty Mrs. Elizabeth Parker in Universal's Ma and Pa Kettle films. She broke away from her standard characterization as girl's-school dean (and second-reel murder victim) Miss Keyes in The Falcon and the Co-Eds (1943). Barbara Brown was still essaying movie moms at the time of her retirement in 1955.

Sig Arno (Actor) .. George

Born: January 01, 1895
Died: August 17, 1975

Trivia: With the possible exceptions of fellow character players Fritz Feld and Gino Corrado, German-born actor Sig Arno played more waiters and maitre d's than any other film actor. A prominent stage comedian in his native Germany, Arno made his first film, Pandora's Box, in 1925. The rise of Hitler and the Nazis precipitated Arno's exit from Germany in 1933, but he had no trouble establishing himself professionally in the rest of Europe. In 1939, Arno settled in the United States, becoming one of Hollywood's favorite "funny Europeans." Sig Arno devoted what little time off he had from his motion picture activity to his second-favorite activity as a successful portrait painter.

Ann Lawrence (Actor) .. Barbara (ages 9-11)

Mona Freeman (Actor) .. Barbara (ages 15-20)

Born: June 09, 1926
Died: May 23, 2014

Trivia: Born Monica Freeman, Mona Freeman was a tiny (5' 1"), spunky, blond actress with an ever-youthful face. While still in high school she became a professional model and soon was signed to a movie contract by Howard Hughes, who then sold her contract to Paramount. She began appearing in films in 1944, becoming one of movie's most popular teenage stars; as the years passed, she slowly matured on the screen from teens and ingenues to leading-lady roles. In adult roles she had less success, appearing mostly in "B"-movies. Her screen career came to an end in the late '50s, but she went on to act in over 80 TV shows. Her daughter, Monie Ellis, had a brief career as a TV actress in the mid '70s. She died in 2014 at age 97.

Andrea King (Actor) .. Barbara (ages 21-29)

Born: February 01, 1919
Died: April 22, 2003

Trivia: Born in France, blonde leading lady Andrea King was educated in the United States. In 1944, King was signed to a Warner Bros. film contract. She spent much of her time in femme fatale assignments, with the occasional sympathetic lead in films like The Beast With Five Fingers (1946). The best of her Warners efforts was Hotel Berlin (1945), in which King plays a Nazi sympathizer who pays for her treachery when she is shot to death by underground operative Helmut Dantine. After her many tough, vitriolic 1940s assignments, it was a little depressing to watch King play a humorless Christian zealot in the 1952 sci-fier Red Planet Mars. Ostensibly retired by 1973, Andrea King made an unexpected but welcome return appearance in the off-the-wall comedy The Linguini Incident (1992).

Mickey Kuhn (Actor) .. John (ages 7-10)

Born: September 21, 1932

John Treul (Actor) .. John (ages 14-19)

Johnny Calkins (Actor) .. Rodney (ages 6-9)

Born: August 06, 1916
Died: January 01, 1963

Richard Winer (Actor) .. Rodney (ages 13-18)

John Sheridan (Actor) .. Rodney (ages 19-27)

Jo Ann Marlowe (Actor) .. Louise Jr. (ages 5-6)

Born: January 01, 1938
Died: January 01, 1991

Patsy Lee Parsons (Actor) .. Louise Jr. (ages 12-17)

Jean Sullivan (Actor) .. Louise Jr. (ages 18-26)

Born: May 26, 1923
Died: February 27, 2003

Trivia: A versatile actress of stage and screen whose graceful demeanor also found her landing the position as principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, Jean Sullivan's main passion in life may have been the theater, though her remarkable work in numerous other realms of the entertainment industry truly bear the mark of a genuinely gifted woman. Born in Logan, UT, in 1923, Sullivan was immediately hired by a Warner Bros. scout who spotted her on-stage while performing in a play during her stint at U.C.L.A. Sullivan was quickly ushered into an onscreen career with roles in Uncertain Glory (1944), Roughly Speaking (1945), and Escape in the Desert (also 1945). She would soon relocate to New York in order to delve more deeply into acting studies. It was while rehearsing the Flamenco at Carnegie Hall that Sullivan was discovered by choreographer Anthony Tudor, and after being the American Ballet Theater's principal dancer, Sullivan would appear as the lead in Agnes de Mille's Tally Ho. She was also adept at the flamenco guitar (as well as cello and piano), and she would often moonlight in the Latin nightclubs of Manhattan. Her performances as a dancer later lead to roles on the Steve Allen Show, and numerous roles on daytime television were soon to follow. Her passion for theater propelled Sullivan back to the stage in the '70s, serving as both director of New York's South Street Seaport Museum and co-artistic director and performer at the museum's Theater-on-the-Pier. A constant contributor to the stage, Sullivan would return to the screen in 1976's Squirm. In late February of 2003, Jean Sullivan died of cardiac arrest in Woodland Hills, CA. She was 79.

Gregory Muradian (Actor) .. Frankie (ages 3-4)

John Sheffield (Actor) .. Frankie (age 9)

Robert Arthur (Actor) .. Frankie (age 17)

Born: June 18, 1925
Died: October 01, 2008

Joyce Compton (Actor) .. Prissy Girl

Born: January 27, 1907
Died: October 13, 1997

Trivia: American actress Joyce Compton was born into a traveling family; she received her schooling bit by bit in classrooms from Texas to Toronto. In the company of her parents, Compton made the Hollywood casting-office rounds in the mid-1920s, finally landing a role in What Fools Men (1925). In 1926 she was designated a Wampas Baby Star (a publicity ploy created by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers), in the company of such future luminaries as Mary Astor, Joan Crawford, Dolores Del Rio, Janet Gaynor and Fay Wray. Compton's career never quite reached the heights of these contemporaries; small and delicate, she was advised by her parents not to go out for large roles for fear of endangering her health. When talkies came in, she cornered the market in squeaky-voiced dumb blondes, often applying her natural Southern accent for full comic effect. She worked frequently in two-reel comedies with such funsters as Clark and McCullough, Walter Catlett and Charley Chase. Compton's feature appearances were confined to supporting roles as waitresses, good-time girls and ditzy Southern belles. Occasionally a big part would come her way, and she'd make the most of it; her best role of the 1930s was nightclub singer Dixie Belle Lee in The Awful Truth, whose striptease number "Gone with the Wind" is later hilariously imitated by the film's star, Irene Dunne. Among Compton's favorite films was Sky Murder (1939) an MGM "Nick Carter" mystery in which she played a deceptively dim-witted female private eye. She married once, very briefly, in 1956; she lived in her well-appointed California home with her parents until their deaths. Retiring from the screen in 1961, Compton worked from time to time as a private nurse, preferring to spend her spare hours painting and designing clothes.

Marie Blake (Actor) .. Nurse

Born: August 21, 1896
Died: January 14, 1978

Trivia: Born Edith Blossom MacDonald, Marie Blake started out as a child performer in vaudeville, singing with her younger sisters Jeanette and Elsie. In 1926, Marie married song-and-dance man Clarence Rock, forming an act that endured into the 1930s. When vaudeville died, Marie and Clarence went "legit" in straight drama. While playing a consumptive prostitute in the Los Angeles company of Dead End, Marie was spotted by an MGM talent agent. Since sister Jeanette was already an established MGM star, the studio decided to avoid accusations of nepotism by changing Marie's last name to Blake. Never a leading lady, Marie remained a reliable member of MGM's featured-player stable for nearly ten years. She played hospital receptionist Sally in 13 of the studio's Dr. Kildare entries, and also showed up in such short subjects as Our Gang's Alfalfa's Aunt (1940). Loaned out to RKO in 1944, she enjoyed one of her meatiest roles as Harold Peary's vis-a-vis in Gildersleeve's Ghost. From 1957 onward, Blake acted under her married name, Blossom Rock (her husband, who'd retired from show business to work as night manager of the Beverly Hilton, died in 1960). Marie Blake/Blossom Rock's last major assignment was as Grandmama in the TV series The Addams Family (1965-66).

Claire Meade (Actor) .. Nurse

Born: January 01, 1883
Died: January 01, 1968

Harry Harvey Jr. (Actor) .. Billy Winters

Born: January 10, 1901
Died: January 01, 1978

Emmett Vogan (Actor) .. Auctioneer

Born: September 27, 1893
Died: October 06, 1964

Trivia: Character actor Emmett Vogan appeared in films from 1934 through 1956. A peppery gentleman with steel-rimmed glasses and an executive air, Vogan appeared in hundreds of films in a variety of small "take charge" roles. Evidently he had a few friends in the casting department of Universal Pictures, inasmuch as he showed up with regularity in that studio's comedies, serials and B-westerns. Comedy fans will recognize Emmett Vogan as the engineer partner of nominal leading man Charles Lang in W.C. Fields' Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), and as the prosecuting attorney in the flashback sequences of Laurel and Hardy's The Bullfighters (1945).

Pierre Watkin (Actor) .. Financier

Born: December 29, 1889
Died: February 03, 1960

Trivia: Actor Pierre Watkin looked as though he was born to a family of Chase Manhattan executives. Tall, imposing, imbued with a corporate demeanor and adorned with well-trimmed white mustache, Watkin appeared to be a walking Brooks Brothers ad as he strolled through his many film assignments as bankers, lawyers, judges, generals and doctors. When director Frank Capra cast the actors playing US senators in Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939) using as criteria the average weight, height and age of genuine senators, Watkin fit the physical bill perfectly. Occasionally Watkin could utilize his established screen character for satirical comedy: in W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick, he portrayed Lompoc banker Mr. Skinner, who extended to Fields the coldest and least congenial "hearty handclasp" in movie history. Serial fans know Pierre Watkin as the actor who originated the role of bombastic Daily Planet editor Perry White in Columbia's two Superman chapter plays of the late '40s.

Charles Anthony Hughes (Actor) .. Financier

Born: March 21, 1890

Jody Gilbert (Actor) .. Woman in Store

Born: March 18, 1916

Bill Moss (Actor) .. Sergeant

George Meader (Actor) .. The Professor

Born: January 01, 1887
Died: January 01, 1963

Ann E. Todd (Actor) .. Louise Randall as a child

Born: August 26, 1931

Trivia: A busy child and juvenile actress of the 1930s and 1940s, Ann E. Todd (née Mayfield) added the initial "E" in order not to be confused with British leading lady Ann Todd. It didn't work and the British Miss Todd is often still listed as having appeared in such incongruous fare as Homesteaders of Paradise Valley (1947), an Allan Lane "Red Ryder" Western, and The Lion Hunters (1951), a "Bomba the Jungle Boy" series entry. These credits of course belong to the American Ann Todd who earlier had played Linda Darnell as a child in Blood and Sand (1940), Ceinwen in How Green Was My Valley (1941), Dorothy Lamour as a young girl in Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942), and Margie's daughter Joyce in Margie (1946). She retired after the Bomba film.

Alan Hale (Actor) .. Mr. Morton

Born: March 08, 1921
Died: January 02, 1990
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, United States

Trivia: The son of a patent medicine manufacturer, American actor Alan Hale chose a theatrical career at a time when, according to his son Alan Hale Jr., boarding houses would post signs reading "No Dogs or Actors Allowed." Undaunted, Hale spent several years on stage after graduating from Philadelphia University, entering films as a slapstick comedian for Philly's Lubin Co. in 1911. Bolstering his acting income with odd jobs as a newspaperman and itinerant inventor (at one point he considered becoming an osteopath!), Hale finally enjoyed a measure of security as a much-in-demand character actor in the 1920s, usually as hard-hearted villains. One of his more benign roles was as Little John in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922), a role he would repeat opposite Errol Flynn in 1938 and John Derek in 1950. Talkies made Hale more popular than ever, especially in his many roles as Irishmen, blusterers and "best pals" for Warner Bros. Throughout his career, Hale never lost his love for inventing things, and reportedly patented or financed items as commonplace as auto brakes and as esoteric as greaseless potato chips. Alan Hale contracted pneumonia and died while working on the Warner Bros. western Montana (1950), which starred Hale's perennial screen cohort Errol Flynn.

Johnny Sheffield (Actor) .. Frankie Age 9

Born: April 11, 1931
Died: October 15, 2010

Trivia: Child star Johnny Sheffield was the son of British actor Reginald Sheffield, himself a former juvenile performer (he played the title role in the 1913 cinemazation of David Copperfield). A wan, sickly infant, Johnny's health and physical stamina was beefed up by a strict exercise regimen supervised by his father. At age 7, Johnny co-starred in the original Broadway production of On Borrowed Time. This brought the young actor to the attention of the MGM casting department, which was looking for a suitably athletic child to play Boy in the studio's Tarzan pictures. Beginning with 1939's Tarzan Finds a Son, Sheffield played Boy in eight "Tarzan" programmers, remaining with the series when it shifted its base of operations from MGM to RKO. After a brief period of unemployment, the 17-year-old Sheffield was cast as the lead in Monogram's Bomba the Jungle Boy series, which endured for three years and twelve low-budget pictures. Sheffield decided to retire from acting in 1955. He sank his film earnings into real estate -- growing quite wealthy in the process -- and enrolled as a pre-med student at UCLA. When last heard from, Sheffield was living in happy retirement, overseeing his numerous real estate holdings. Johnny Sheffield's film credits should not be confused with those of British character actor John Sheffield.

Jo Gilbert (Actor) .. Woman in Store

Born: January 01, 1916
Died: February 03, 1979

Trivia: Cruelly but accurately described by one film historian as "that female mountain of flesh," actress/singer Jody Gilbert was one of moviedom's busiest "large" ladies. The major difference between Gilbert and other "sizeable" character actresses is that she could give back as good as she got in the insult department. As the surly waitress in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), Gilbert was more than a match for her troublesome customer W. C. Fields. She went on to trade quips with Shemp Howard in Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin' (1941) and to aggressively pursue the hapless Lou Costello in Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). On television, Gilbert was seen as J. Carroll Naish's plump would-be sweetheart Rosa in Life with Luigi (1952), a role she'd previously essayed on radio. One of Gilbert's last screen appearances was the belligerent railroad passenger whom holdup man Paul Newman imitates in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Jody Gilbert died at the age of 63 as the result of injuries sustained in an auto accident.

Charles Coleman (Actor)

Born: December 22, 1885
Died: March 08, 1951

Trivia: Together with Arthur Treacher, Olaf Hytten and Wilson Benge, Charles Coleman was one of Hollywood's "perfect butlers." On stage, he was Pauline Frederick's leading man for many years. After touring the U.S. and Australia, he settled in Hollywood in 1923. Coleman was virtually always cast as a gentleman's gentleman, often with a streak of effeminacy; representative Charles Coleman assignments include Bachelor Apartment (1931), Diplomaniacs (1933), Three Smart Girls (1937) and Cluny Brown (1946). Charles Coleman is best remembered by film buffs for two classic lines of dialogue. Explaining why he falsely informed his master Charlie Ruggles that he was to dress for a costume ball in Love Me Tonight (1932), Coleman "I did so want to see you in tights!" And when asked by Deanna Durbin in First Love (1939) why butlers are always so dour, Coleman moans "Gay butlers are extremely rare."

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