Trivia: He won five gold medals as a swimmer at the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, setting many free-style records. Weissmuller appeared in several sports shorts, then was hired by MGM to play Tarzan onscreen. Beginning in 1932, he starred in 12 "Tarzan" adventures, meanwhile doing almost no other film work. In the late '40s he quit "Tarzan" and began starring in a new series, "Jungle Jim," while occasionally appearing in other films through the mid '50s, after which he retired from acting. He was married six times. His stormy marriage to actress Lupe Velez (1933-38) received much coverage in scandal sheets. He authored an autobiography, Water, World and Weissmuller (1967).

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.

Trivia: Fresh out of high school, statuesque brunette actress Frances Gifford played bits and extra roles until landing the lead in the low-budget Mercy Plane (1939), in which she was cast opposite her first husband James Dunn. Two years later she was seen as Robert Benchley's guide through the Disney animation studios in The Reluctant Dragon (1941), and, more importantly, as the fetchingly unclad, endlessly resourceful Nyoka in the Republic serial Jungle Girl (1941). The popularity of the serial might have typecast her forever in such roles, but Gifford's ambition was to star in features. Through the sponsorship of an MGM executive, she landed a contract at that most prestigious of studios, playing leading roles in such films as Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) and She Went to the Races (1945). Her best showing at MGM was as the tormented heroine of Arch Oboler's The Arnelo Affair (1947). On the verge of bigger things, Gifford suffered a series of profound personal setbacks in the late '40s, not least of which was an automobile accident that nearly killed her. She made a few comeback attempts in the 1950s, but spent most of the decade in and out of mental institutions. After nearly 25 years of treatment, Frances Gifford was finally able to start her life over in 1983, devoting the rest of her days to charitable work.

Trivia: A protégé of musical comedy star Beatrice Lillie in his native England, actor Stanley Ridges made his London stage debut in O' Boy. He went on to star as a romantic lead in several Broadway plays, and was cast in a similar capacity in his first film, the New York-lensed Crime of Passion (1934). Thereafter, the grey-templed Ridges excelled in dignified, underplayed, and distinctly non-British character roles. His best film assignments included the schizophrenic professor-turned-criminal in Black Friday (1940) (it would be unfair to say that he "stole" the picture from official star Boris Karloff, but he did have the best part), and the treacherous Professor Seletzky in Ernst Lubitsch's matchless black comedy To Be or Not to Be (1942). One of Stanley Ridges' last movie performances was as the kindly mentor of young doctor Sidney Poitier in the race-relations melodrama No Way Out (1950).

Trivia: Born in Germany, actor Sig Rumann studied electro-technology in college before returning to his native Hamburg to study acting. He worked his way up from bits to full leads in such theatrical centers as Stettin and Kiel before serving in World War I. Rumann came to New York in 1924 to appear in German-language plays. He was discovered simultaneously by comedian George Jessel, playwright George S. Kaufman, and critic Alexander Woollcott. He began chalking up an impressive list of stage roles, notably Baron Preysig in the 1930 Broadway production of Grand Hotel (in the role played by Wallace Beery in the 1932 film version). Rumann launched his film career at the advent of talkies, hitting his stride in the mid 1930s. During his years in Hollywood, he whittled down his stage name from Siegfried Rumann to plain Sig Ruman. The personification of Prussian pomposity, Rumann was a memorable foil for the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937), and A Night in Casablanca (1946). He also was a favorite of director Ernst Lubitsch, appearing in Ninotchka (1939) as a bombastic Soviet emissary and in To Be or Not to Be (1942) as the unforgettable "Concentration Camp Ehrardt." With the coming of World War II, Ruman found himself much in demand as thick-headed, sometimes sadistic Nazis. Oddly, in The Hitler Gang (1944), Rumann was cast in a comparatively sympathetic role, as the ailing and senile Von Hindenburg. After the war, Rumann was "adopted" by Lubitsch admirer Billy Wilder, who cast the actor in such roles as the deceptively good-natured Sgt. Schultz in Stalag 17 (1953) and a marinet doctor in The Fortune Cookie (1966); Wilder also used Rumann's voice to dub over the guttural intonations of German actor Hubert von Meyerinck in One, Two, Three (1961). In delicate health during his last two decades, Rumann occasionally accepted unbilled roles, such as the kindly pawnbroker in O. Henry's Full House (1952). During one of his heartier periods, he had a recurring part on the 1952 TV sitcom Life with Luigi. Rumann's last film appearance was as a shoe-pounding Russian UN delegate in Jerry Lewis' Way... Way Out (1967).

Trivia: Beginning his stage career in his native Holland in 1927, Phil Van Zandt moved to America shortly afterward, continuing to make theatrical appearances into the late '30s. From his first film (Those High Gray Walls [1939]) onward, the versatile Van Zandt was typed as "everyday" characters whenever he chose not to wear his mustache; with the 'stache, however, his face took on a sinister shade, and he found himself playing such cinematic reprobates as evil caliphs, shady attorneys, and heartless Nazis. Because of deliberately shadowy photography, the audience barely saw Van Zandt's face at all in one of his best roles, as the Henry Luce-like magazine editor Rawlston in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Though many of his feature-film assignments were bits, Van Zandt was permitted generous screen time in his many appearances in two-reel comedies. Beginning with the Gus Schilling/Dick Lane vehicle Pardon My Terror (1946), Van Zandt was a fixture at the Columbia Pictures short subjects unit, usually playing crooks and mad scientists at odds with the Three Stooges. He established his own acting school in Hollywood in the 1950s, though this and other ventures ultimately failed. Philip Van Zandt died of a drug overdose at the age of 54.

Trivia: German actor Otto Reichow launched his stage and film career in Berlin in 1928. In the early talkie era, Reichow was featured in Fritz Lang's Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1932). When Hitler came to power, Reichow and his family were consigned to the führer's blacklist due to their outspoken opposition of Nazism. After his brother was killed by Hitler's minions, Reichow relocated to France in 1936, where he appeared in Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937). The actor continued to express his hatred of Hitler through his brutal portrayals of Nazis in Hollywood films of the 1940s. In addition to his mainstream film work, Otto Reichow was featured in several propaganda films for the U.S. Army Air Force motion picture unit.

Trivia: Much in demand in World War II Hollywood films -- playing both Nazi officers and Scandinavian resistance fighters -- blond Sven-Hugo Borg was a secretary with the Swedish Consulate in Los Angeles in 1925 when the newly arrived Greta Garbo hired him as her interpreter. Bitten by the acting bug, Borg played minor roles in Joan Crawford's Rose Marie (1928) and a few other films but remained with the consulate until the late 1930s. Best remembered perhaps for playing "Sven," one of the doomed crew members in Paramount's Mystery Sea Raider (1940), Borg appeared as a German soldier in Ernst Lubitsch's satire To Be or Not to Be (1942), as well as This Land Is Mine (1943) and Tarzan Triumphs (1943). Filming less frequently after the war, Borg was Dr. Mattsen in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), "Swede" in Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950), an aide to Bernadotte (Michael Rennie) in Desirée (1954), and a scientist in The Prize (1963) -- his final credited role.