Trivia: Joan Crawford was not an actress; she was a movie star. The distinction is a crucial one: She infrequently appeared in superior films, and her work was rarely distinguished regardless of the material, yet she enjoyed one of the most successful and longest-lived careers in cinema history. Glamorous and over the top, stardom was seemingly Crawford's birthright; everything about her, from her rags-to-riches story to her constant struggles to remain in the spotlight, made her ideal fodder for the Hollywood myth factory. Even in death she remained a high-profile figure thanks to the publication of her daughter's infamous tell-all book, an outrageous film biography, and numerous revelations of a sordid private life. Ultimately, Crawford was melodrama incarnate, a wide-eyed, delirious prima donna whose story endures as a definitive portrait of motion picture fame, determination, and relentless ambition.Born Lucille Fay Le Sueur on March 23, 1908, in San Antonio, TX, she first earned notice by winning a Charleston contest. She then worked as a professional dancer in Chicago, later graduating to a position in the chorus line of a Detroit-area club and finally to the Broadway revue Innocent Eyes. While in the chorus of The Passing Show of 1924, she was discovered by MGM's Harry Rapf, and made her movie debut in 1925's Lady of the Night. A series of small roles followed before the studio sponsored a magazine contest to find a name better than Le Sueur, and after a winner was chosen, she was rechristened Joan Crawford.Her first major role, in 1925's Sally, Irene and Mary, swiftly followed, and over the next few years she co-starred opposite some of the silent era's most popular stars, including Harry Langdon (1926's Tramp Tramp Tramp), Lon Chaney (1927's The Unknown), John Gilbert (1927's Twelve Miles Out), and Ramon Navarro (1928's Across to Singapore). Crawford shot to stardom on the strength of 1928's Our Dancing Daughters, starring in a jazz-baby role originally slated for Clara Bow. The film was hugely successful, and MGM soon doubled her salary and began featuring her name on marquees.Unlike so many stars of the period, she successfully made the transformation from the silents to the sound era. In fact, the 1929 silent Our Modern Maidens, in which she teamed with real-life fiancé Douglas Fairbanks Jr., was so popular -- even with audiences pining for more talkies -- that the studio did not push her into speaking parts. Finally, with Hollywood Revue of 1929 Crawford began regularly singing and dancing onscreen and scored at the box office as another flapper in 1930's Our Blushing Brides.However, she yearned to play the kinds of substantial roles associated with Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer and actively pursued the lead in the Tod Browning crime drama Paid. The picture was another hit, and soon similar projects were lined up. Dance Fools Dance (1931) paired Crawford with Clark Gable. They were to reunite many more times over in the years to come, including the hit Possessed. She was now among Hollywood's top-grossing performers, and while not all of her pictures from the early '30s found success, those that did -- like 1933's Dancing Lady -- were blockbusters.With new husband Franchot Tone, Crawford starred in several features beginning with 1934's Sadie McKee. She continued appearing opposite some of the industry's biggest male stars, but by 1937 her popularity was beginning to wane. After the failure of films including The Bride Wore Red and 1938's Mannequin, her name appeared on an infamous full-page Hollywood Reporter advertisement which listed actors deemed "glamour stars detested by the public." After the failure of The Shining Hour, even MGM -- which had just signed Crawford to a long-term contract -- was clearly worried. However, a turn as the spiteful Crystal in George Cukor's 1939 smash The Women restored some of Crawford's lustre, as did another pairing with Gable in 1940's Strange Cargo.Again directed by Cukor, 1941's A Woman's Face was another major step in Crawford's comeback, but then MGM began saddling her with such poor material that she ultimately refused to continue working, resulting in a lengthy suspension. She finally left the studio, signing on with Warners at about a third of her former salary. There Crawford only appeared briefly in 1944's Hollywood Canteen before the rumor mill was abuzz with claims that they too planned to drop her. As a result, she fought for the lead role in director Michael Curtiz's 1945 adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Mildred Pierce, delivering a bravura performance which won a Best Actress Oscar. Warners, of course, quickly had a change of heart, and after the 1946 hit Humoresque, the studio signed her to a new seven-year contract. At Warner Bros., Crawford began appearing in the kinds of pictures once offered to the studio's brightest star, Bette Davis. She next appeared in 1947's Possessed, followed by Daisy Kenyon, which cast her opposite Henry Fonda. For 1949's Flamingo Road, meanwhile, she was reunited with director Curtiz. However, by the early '50s, Crawford was again appearing in primarily B-grade pictures, and finally she bought herself out of her contract.In 1952, she produced and starred in Sudden Fear, an excellent thriller which she offered to RKO. The studio accepted, and the film emerged as a sleeper hit. Once again, Crawford was a hot property, and she triumphantly returned to MGM to star in 1953's Torch Song, her first color feature. For Republic, she next starred in Nicholas Ray's 1954 cult classic Johnny Guitar, perceived by many as a "thank you" to her large lesbian fan base. The roller-coaster ride continued apace: Between 1955 and 1957, Crawford appeared in four films -- Female on the Beach, Queen Bee, Autumn Leaves, and The Story of Esther Costello -- each less successful than the one which preceded it, and eventually the offers stopped coming in.Over the next five years, she appeared in only one picture, 1959's The Best of Everything. Then, in 1962, against all odds, Crawford made yet another comeback when director Robert Aldrich teamed her with Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, in which the actresses appeared as aging movie queens living together in exile. The film was a major hit, and thanks to its horror overtones, Crawford was offered a number of similar roles, later appearing in the William Castle productions Strait-Jacket (as an axe murderer, no less) and I Saw What You Did. Aldrich also planned a follow-up, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, but an ill Crawford was replaced by Olivia de Havilland. The final years of Crawford's screen career were among her most undistinguished. She co-starred in 1967's The Karate Killers, a spin-off of the hit television espionage series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and she subsequently headlined the slasher film Berserk! The 1970's Trog was her last feature-film appearance, and she settled into retirement, penning a 1971 memoir, My Way of Life. A few years later, she made one final public appearance on a daytime soap opera, taking over the role played by her adopted daughter, Christina, when the girl fell ill.After spending her final years in seclusion, Crawford died in New York City on May 10, 1977, but she made headlines a year later when Christina published Mommie Dearest, among the first and most famous in what became a cottage industry of tell-all books published by the children of celebrities. In it, Christina depicted her mother as vicious and unfeeling, motivated only by her desire for wealth and fame. In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred as Crawford in a feature adaptation of the book which has gone on to become a camp classic.

Trivia: Actor/director/producer. In his early career, from the late '20s to the early '40s, Montgomery was an amiable light comedian and dramatic actor, appearing in almost 40 sound films before 1935. He starred opposite Norma Shearer in Private Lives (1931), Joan Crawford in The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937), Carole Lombard in Hitchcock's comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Night Must Fall (1937) and Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). His career took a more serious turn after his stint in World War II. For his first film after returning, They Were Expendable (1945), Montgomery not only starred but assisted John Ford in the direction. He also starred in and directed the Raymond Chandler detective thriller Lady in the Lake, noted for its unique first-person point of view. His attentions then turned to politics and television. Montgomery gave "friendly" testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and by the mid '50s was a consultant to Republican President Eisenhower. As a prestigious television producer, he supervised the '50s dramatic anthology series Eye Witness (1953) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950-57), which offered his daughter Elizabeth her acting debut and which won him an early Emmy Award in 1952.

Trivia: Whimsical, expressive comic actor Charles Ruggles was the son of a Los Angeles wholesale druggist. Intending to become a doctor, Ruggles was sidetracked into theatre, making his debut in a 1905 San Francisco stock company production of Nathan Hale. Because of his medium height and flexible facial and vocal expressions, Ruggles was able to play everything from teenagers to grandpas during his formative years in stock. In 1914, the actor first set foot on a Broadway stage in Help Wanted. One year later, he appeared in his first film, a now-lost adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Though there would be a smattering of subsequent silent film appearances, Ruggles' heart remained in his stage work -- he starred in such long-running productions as The Passing Show of 1918 (1918), The Demi-Virgin (1921), Battling Butler (1923), and his biggest stage success, Queen High (1930). While appearing in the Rodgers and Hart musical Spring is Here (1929), Ruggles made his talking picture bow in Gentleman of the Press (1929), portraying the first in what would turn out to be a long line of drunken reporters. In 1932, Ruggles was teamed with Mary Boland in If I Had A Million. The two farceurs worked so well together that they would subsequently costar in such memorable film comedies as Six of a Kind (1934), Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Early to Bed (1936), and Boy Trouble (1939). By the late 1930s, Ruggles was securely established as one of Hollywood's favorite befuddled comedy-relief players, though in such films as Exclusive (1937) and The Parson of Panamint (1941) he proved equally expert at straight dramatics. In 1949, Ruggles began a 12-year movie moratorium, returning to the stage and distinguishing himself in television. He headlined two early TV series, The Ruggles and The World of Mr. Sweeney, and lent his vocal skills (sans screen credit) to the "Aesop and Son" component of the classic cartoon weeklies "Rocky and His Friends" (1959-61) and "The Bullwinkle Show" (1961-62). He returned to films in 1961, recreating his award-winning Broadway role in The Pleasure of His Company. Ruggles' best-remembered TV work of the 1960s included his recurring role as Mrs. Drysdale's rakish father in the popular sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies." With the Disney film Follow Me, Boys! (1966) and the 1967 TV staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, Ruggles quietly brought his six-decade acting career to a close. A few years before his death in December of 1970, Ruggles was asked by a reporter what his future plans were. With the wry smile, twinkling eyes, and self-effacing humor that characterized his best screen work, Charlie Ruggles answered, "Forest Lawn, I guess. After you've played everything I have, there ain't no more."

Trivia: He began acting while a college student, then became president of his school's Dramatic Club. In 1927 Tone began his professional stage career in stock, then soon made it to Broadway. He began appearing in films in 1932, going on to a busy screen career in which he was typecast as a debonair, tuxedo-wearing playboy or successful man-about-town. For his work in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. In the early '50s he gave up films to return to the stage; after appearing in an off-Broadway prouction of Uncle Vanya he returned to film in the play's screen version (1958), which he co-produced, co-directed, and starred in. He appeared in a handful of films in the '60s; meanwhile, onstage he got good reviews for his performance in the New York revival of Strange Interlude. In the mid '60s he costarred in the TV series "Ben Casey." He was married four times; his wives included actresses Joan Crawford, Jean Wallace, Barbara Payton, and Dolores Dorn-Heft.

Trivia: "Horse faced" was the usual capsule assessment given American actress Edna May Oliver - a gross disservice to her talent and accomplishments. A descendant of President John Quincy Adams, she aspired to a career in opera, and at 16 her uncle secured her a job with a light opera company. Her voice was damaged from overuse and exposure to bad weather, so Oliver turned her energies to acting. Stock company work began in 1911, and even as a teenager she lanternlike facial features assured her older character roles. Her 1916 Broadway debut led to a string of small and unsatisfying roles, until fortune smiled upon her with a supporting part as a servant in Owen Davis' Icebound. Davis' play won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, thrusting everyone involved into the spotlight. Oliver was hired to repeat her Icebound duties for the film cameras in 1924, and though not technically her film debut, she would always list Icebound as her starting point in cinema. Solid roles in the Broadway productions The Cradle Snatchers, Strike Up the Band and the immortal Show Boat kept Oliver busy during the '20s, culminating in a contract with RKO Radio Studios. RKO thrust her into anything and everything, from Wheeler and Woolsey comedies to the Oscar-winning Cimarron (1931). The best testament to her popularity in films were the Edna May Oliver caricatures (complete with "Oh, reaaallly" voice imitation) that popped up with regularity in animated cartoons of the '30s. Oliver worked for virtually all the big studios in the '30s, at one point starring briefly in the Hildegarde Withers mystery series, a role she seemed born to play. Evidently, producers loved to put her angular frame in period costumes, as witness her marvelous roles in David Copperfield (1934), Tale of Two Cities (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). By 1940, Edna May Oliver was a law unto herself (even dictating what hours she would and wouldn't work) and filmakers wisely allowed her to use all the acting tricks at her disposal, from her famous loud sniff of distaste to her low, claxonish voice. After a long intestinal illness, Edna May Oliver died in 1942 on her 59th birthday; ironically, her last screen role had been as an infuriatingly healthy hypochondriac in Lydia (1941).

Trivia: Slim, sloe-eyed, dark-haired actress Gail Patrick was once the 21-year-old Dean of women students at her alma mater of Howard College, and briefly studied law at University of Alabama. She was brought to Paramount during that studio's nationwide contest to find an actress to play "the Panther Woman" in Island of Lost Souls (1932). Patrick lost this role to Kathleen Burke, but won a Paramount contract, and co-starred in the studio's horror film follow-up to Island of Lost Souls, 1933's Murders in the Zoo. She played several leading roles -- including a lady lawyer in Disbarred (1939) -- but was more effective as a villainess or "other woman"; her elegant truculence was one of the highlights of the 1936 screwball comedy My Man Godfrey. Patrick's third husband was Thomas Cornwall Jackson, literary agent of Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. Retired from acting since 1948, Patrick and her husband co-produced the popular Perry Mason TV series, which ran from 1957 through 1966. She made a brief return to acting as a judge in the final Mason episode, which also featured Erle Stanley Gardner himself in a bit role. After her 1969 divorce from Jackson, Patrick attempted to revive Paul Mason for television in 1973, but Monte Markham proved an inadequate substitute for Raymond Burr. Gail Patrick Jackson died of leukemia in 1980.

Trivia: The last in a long line of British actors, Reginald Denny left school at 16 to enter the family trade. His first important assignment was the role of Prince Danilo in a travelling company of The Merry Widow. He first came to the U.S. in a 1912 production of Quaker Girl, then returned to England to star in musical productions. After World War I service as a Lieutenant in the 112th squadron of the British Flying Corps, Denny appeared in several Broadway productions and made his film bow at the New Jersey-based world film studios. Hired on the basis of his finely tuned physiques, Denny starred in Universal's boxing short-subject series The Leather Pushers before being promoted to features. During the 1920s, Denny was one of Universal's most popular stars, headlining a series of frothy domestic comedies, most of which co-starred Laura LaPlante and were directed by William A. Seiter. In talkies, Denny's British accent made it difficult for him to continue in the "all-American" roles he'd been playing at Universal, but he continued to flourish as a character actor, showing up in everything from Romeo and Juliet (1936) to Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1937). He also played the "silly ass" second lead of Algy in several Bulldog Drummond "B" pictures. Since his World War I experience, Denny remained active in aviation; he was a pioneer in the field of radio-controlled aircraft. In fact, the U.S. Navy prototype radio aircraft TDD was named in his honor (the initials stood for Target Drone Denny). A busy actor on films and television into the 1960s, Reginald Denny returned to Broadway in 1958 to replace Robert Coote as Col. Pickering in My Fair Lady.

Trivia: A professional dancer from the age of five, actress Vivienne Osborne was still in her ingénue stage when she made her first film in 1920. A handful of movies followed, whereupon Osborne headed for Broadway where she established herself as a versatile leading lady. Returning to films in 1931, she showed up in scores of early-talkie Warner Bros. productions, playing such supporting parts as "other women," femme fatales, and murder suspects. Her finest screen showing was in Paramount's Supernatural (1933), as the electrocuted murderess whose spirit possesses the body of innocent Carole Lombard. After busying herself with stage work for nearly five years, Vivienne Osborne made her final foray into filmmaking in 1945; her last screen appearance was as Johanna Van Ryn in 20th Century Fox's Dragonwyck (1946).

Trivia: Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, Joan Fontaine began her acting career in her late teens with various West Coast stage companies under the name Joan Burfield. She also used that name when she made her 1935 feature film debut in No More Ladies, in which she had a minor role. The daughter of '40s actress Lilian Fontaine, she returned to the screen as Joan Fontaine after two more years of stage work, although appearing primarily in B-movies. Two exceptions were A Damsel in Distress (1937) opposite Fred Astaire and Gunga Din (1939) with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Her career took off in the early '40s due largely to leads in two Alfred Hitchcock films. Fontaine received Best Actress Oscar nominations for her work in the director's Rebecca (1940) and The Constant Nymph (1943), and won an Oscar for her performance in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). She starred in many subsequent films, at first playing innocent, well-bred types, but later maturing into roles as sophisticated, worldly, often hot-headed or maliciously calculating women. Appearing in few films after 1958, Fontaine was also a licensed pilot, champion balloonist, prize-winning tuna fisherman, expert golfer, licensed interior decorator, and Cordon Bleu cook. The sister of actress Olivia de Havilland (with whom she supposedly had many feuds), the first three of Fontaine's four husbands were actor Brian Aherne, producer William Dozier, and producer/screenwriter Collier Young. She published an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978 and made two rare TV movie and miniseries appearances in 1986. Joan Fontaine's final big-screen appearance was the intelligent British horror/drama The Devil's Own; her last TV work was in the 1994 production Good King Wenceslas. She died in 2013 at age 96.

Trivia: Of the many candidates for the throne of "Hollywood's favorite butler," Brighton-born Arthur Treacher was the undisputed victor. The son of a British lawyer, the tall, hook-nosed Treacher did not settle upon an acting career until he was 25, after serving in WWI. Starting out as a chorus "boy," Treacher rose to popularity as a musical comedy performer. He came to America in 1928 while he was appearing in a revue titled Great Temptations. Entering films in 1933, Treacher quickly established himself in butler or servant roles, notably in several Shirley Temple films. He was awarded top-billing in Thank You, Jeeves (1936) and Step Lively, Jeeves (1937), both based on the gentleman's-gentleman character created by P.G. Wodehouse. Remaining active on Broadway, Treacher was prominently billed in such stage productions as Cole Porter's Panama Hattie and the 1944 revival of The Ziegfeld Follies. After several years away from Hollywood, Treacher returned in 1964 to portray a constable in Disney's Mary Poppins, which turned out to be his final film. Arthur Treacher enjoyed a latter-day popularity in the 1960s as the acerbic sidekick of TV talk show host Merv Griffin, and through the franchising of his name and image for such business concerns as Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips and the Call Arthur Treacher Service System (a household help agency).

Trivia: American actress Jean Acker acquired more notoriety for being the estranged wife of Rudolph Valentino than she did as a leading actress. According to Tinseltown legend, she married him in 1919 while he was still an unknown. She left him on their wedding night and the marriage was apparently never consummated. Still Valentino was rumored to have begged for Acker to return. She never did and in 1921 filed for a legal separation. In 1924, Acker had the gall to use the name Mrs. Rudolph Valentino as a screen credit.

Trivia: Gertrude Astor did so much work in Hollywood in so many different acting capacities that it's not simple or easy to characterize her career. Born in Lakewood, OH, she joined a stock company at age 13, in the year 1900, and worked on showboats during that era. She played in vaudeville as well, and made her movie debut in 1914 as a contract player at Universal. She was an accomplished rider, which got her a lot of work as a stuntwoman, sometimes in conjunction with a young Maine-born actor named John Ford in pictures directed by the latter's brother, Francis Ford. But Astor soon moved into serious acting roles; a tall, statuesque, angular woman, she frequently towered over the leading men of the era, and was, thus, ideal as a foil in comedies of the 1910s and '20s, playing aristocrats, gold diggers, and the heroine's best friend (had the character of Brenda Starr existed that far back, she'd have been perfect playing Hank O'Hair, her crusty female editor). Astor was the vamp who plants stolen money on Harry Langdon in The Strong Man (1926), Laura La Plante's wisecracking traveling companion in The Cat and the Canary (1927), and the gold digger who got her hooks into Otis Harlan (as well as attracting the attention of fellow sailor Eddie Gribbon) in Dames Ahoy. When talkies came in, Astor's deep, throaty voice assured her steady work in character parts, still mostly in comedy. Her roles weren't huge, but she worked prolifically at Hal Roach studios with such headliners as Laurel and Hardy, in the Our Gang shorts, and especially with Charley Chase, and also worked at Columbia Pictures' short subjects unit. Astor's specialty at this time was outraged dignity; she was forever declaring, "I've never been so embarrassed in all my life!" and stalking out of a slapstick situation, usually with a comedy prop (a balloon, a folding chairs, a cream puff) affixed to her posterior. Astor worked regularly into the early '60s; she was briefly glimpsed as the first murder victim in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Scarlet Claw (1944) and was among the ranks of dress extras in Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Her longtime friend John Ford also gave her roles in his feature films right into the early '60s, culminating with her appearance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Gertrude Astor remained alert and quick-witted into her eighties, cheerfully sharing her memories of the glory days of comedy short subjects with fans and film historians. And in a town that can scarcely remember last year's studio presidents, in 1975, when she was 87 years old, Astor was given a party at Universal, where she was honored by a gathering of old friends, including the directors George Cukor, Allan Dwan, and Henry Hathaway. She passed away suddenly and peacefully on the day of her 90th birthday in 1977.

Trivia: From a theatrical family, Iowa-born Clem Beauchamp began his long screen career as a stunt pilot and, under the name Jerry Drew, as a bit player in such films as Brunettes Prefer Gentlemen (1927), Painted Faces (1929), and The Painted Desert (1931). He was Clem Beauchamp (pronounced "Beecham") in International House (1933) and No More Ladies, but then went behind the scenes to become a busy production manager. His career lasting through the 1960s, Beauchamp functioned as production manager on the classic television show Superman. He was married to former Hal Roach comedienne Anita Garvin.

Trivia: Slick-haired utility actor Brooks Benedict held down several odd jobs in Hollywood before turning to acting in the early 1920s. Benedict's first role of note was "The Campus Cad" in Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925), one of several supporting assignments for producer/star Lloyd. In 1926, he shared a memorable scene on a bus with another legendary comedian, Harry Langdon, in The Strong Man. Except for such sizeable early-talkie roles as George Mason in 1932's Girl Crazy, Brooks Benedict was largely confined to bits and extra work until his retirement in the mid-1950s.

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."

Trivia: A handsome, white-haired supporting actor from England, in Hollywood from 1932, Frank Dawson usually played ministers and what was often termed the "gentleman's gentleman." At his most proper and deferential, Dawson was Barbara Stanwyck's butler in Secret Bride (1935) and later cared for the needs of Genevieve Tobin in Broadway Hostess (1935), as well as those of Cary Grant in Suzy (1936), George Sanders in Four Men and a Prayer (1938), Halliwell Hobbes in Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Dame May Whitty in Crash Dive (1943).

Trivia: An oily looking supporting actor who often played gangsters or blue-collar working stiffs, Wisconsin-born, Oregon-educated Lew Harvey had spent three years on the legitimate stage before entering films with the Texas Guinan company in the very early '20s. Later in the decade he was mainly seen as "half-breeds" or gangsters but did turn up as Will Rogers in MGM's behind-the-scenes look at the Follies, in Pretty Ladies (1925). Reduced to bit parts in talkies and under long-term contract to MGM, Harvey turned up in scores of mostly dramas, usually playing truck drivers, two-bit hoodlums, guards, and policemen. His final-known appearance came in The File on Thelma Jordan (1949), in which he played a court reporter.

Trivia: A longtime character actor/stuntman/leading man/director, Dave O'Brien (born David Barclay) was born in Big Springs, Texas, and entered movies in the early '30s as a stuntman and occasional character actor -- he is probably best remembered by college students of the late '60s and early '70s for his portrayal of the crazed marijuana smoker in the exploitation film Reefer Madness. During the late '30s and early '40s, O'Brien also played the title role in the serial Captain Midnight, and was the responsible adult in the East Side Kids series, but it was as the lead in MGM's Pete Smith Specialty comedy shorts -- which O'Brien also directed, under his real name David Barclay -- that he was best known to '40s moviegoers. The Pete Smith shorts, which were basically comedic looks at human foibles, took full advantage of O'Brien's background in stunt work, and hold up extremely well today. O'Brien still played occasional lead roles, especially in B-pictures such as The Man Who Walks Alone (1946), an unusual comedy with serious overtones about a veteran returning home from World War II, but by the early '50s had moved into supporting parts, such as that of the stage manager in Kiss Me Kate (1953), directed by his fellow Pete Smith alumnus George Sidney. O'Brien later became a writer for Red Skelton on television.

Trivia: Had he so chosen, Ohio-born Donald Ogden Stewart could have lived the life of a wealthy socialite instead of playing such characters on stage. Educated at Yale, Stewart was well-off enough to indulge in his hobby of writing on a professional basis; he wrote several satirical novels that were a hit amongst the "smart set" of the '20s. Fellow Yale grad Philip Barry wrote the part of Nick Potter in the 1928 play Holiday with Stewart in mind, and with but a little persuasion convinced his friend to star in the play on Broadway. Stewart continued acting on stage in the company of long-time pals Elliott Nugent and Robert Montgomery, all of them adept at playing witty young sprouts in dinner jackets. He flirted with films from 1925 onward, when he was hired to adapt his own novel Brown of Harvard to the screen. Stewart made his talkie bow in a supporting role in the Marion Davies vehicle Not So Dumb (1929); after that, his contributions to the screen were primarily focused on writing, aside from a few bit parts in his own films. Most often, Stewart was called in to provide additional dialogue in order to punch up a too-serious script; in this capacity, Stewart contributed to Smilin' Through (1932) Dinner at Eight (1933), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). In 1940 he won an Academy Award for adapting his friend Philip Barry's play The Philadelphia Story to the screen. Stewart's screenwriting career flourished until the end of the '40s, at which time he was blacklisted for being a "premature anti-fascist" in the years before World War II. Forced to resettle professionally in London, Stewart's screenwriting assignments diminished, and he returned to penning books and articles; his bitterness over his treatment during the Hollywood witchhunt severly affected his ability to be funny in his latter-day works. After recovering from a near-fatal stroke, Donald Ogden Stewart gained a new appreciation of the good things in life, which he recorded in his 1974 autobiography A Stroke of Luck.

Trivia: American actor Walter Walker had already enjoyed an extensive theatrical career by the time he made his first film appearance in 1917. From that point onward until his death in 1941, Walker played dozens of judges, wardens, governors, and college deans. In the talkie era, he was often as not cast as an old-timer, inevitably named "Pop." Among his many one-scene roles of the 1930s was Benjamin Franklin in MGM's Marie Antoinette. Walter Walker's credits should not be confused with those of bit player/extra Wally Walker (1901-1975).

Trivia: Short, stout Scottish actor David Thursby came to Hollywood at the dawn of the talkie era. Thursby was indispensable to American films with British settings like Werewolf of London and Mutiny on the Bounty (both 1935). He spent much of his career at 20th Century Fox, generally in unbilled cameos. Often as not, he was cast as a London bobby (vide the 1951 Fred Astaire musical Royal Wedding, in which he was briefly permitted to sing). David Thursby remained active until the mid-60s.