Trivia: At the peak of her career in the 1930s, Marlene Dietrich was the screen's highest-paid actress; moreover, she was also the very essence of cinematic eroticism, a beguiling creature whose almost supernatural allure established her among film's most enduring icons. While immensely sensual, Dietrich's persona was also strangely androgynous; her fondness for masculine attire -- suits, top hats, and the like -- not only spawned a fashion craze, it also created an added dimension of sexual ambiguity which served to make her even more magnetic. Born Maria Magdalena Dietrich outside of Berlin on December 27, 1901, she was the daughter of a Royal Prussian Police lieutenant. As a child, she studied the violin, and later tenured at the Deutsche Theaterschule. She made her film debut with a brief role in 1923's Der Kleine Napoleon, followed by a more substantial performance in Tragodie der Liebe; she later married the picture's casting director, Rudolf Sieber. After a series of other tiny roles, including an appearance in G.W. Pabst's 1924 effort Die Freudlose Gasse, Dietrich briefly retired; by 1926, however, she was back onscreen in Manion Lescaut, later followed by Alexander Korda's Madame Wuenscht Keine Kinder. After returning to the stage, Dietrich resumed her film career, typically cast as a coquettish socialite; still, she remained better known as a live performer, enjoying great success singing the songs of Mischa Spoliansky in a popular revue. Then, according to legend, director Josef von Sternberg claimed to have discovered her appearing in the cabaret Zwei Kravatten, and cast her in his 1930 film Der Blaue Engel; even before the picture premiered, von Sternberg offered a rough cut to his American studio Paramount, who signed her for Morocco, where she played a cabaret singer romancing both Adolph Menjou and Gary Cooper. Both films premiered in New York almost simultaneously, and overnight Dietrich was a star. Paramount signed her to a more long-term contract, at a cost of 125,000 dollars per film and with von Sternberg, who had become her lover, in the director's seat of each. The studio, in an unprecedented five-million-dollar publicity blitz, marketed her as a rival to Greta Garbo's supremacy; upon learning that Garbo was starring as Mata Hari, Paramount cast Dietrich as a spy in 1931's Dishonored in response. The follow-up, 1932's Shanghai Express, was Dietrich and von Sternberg's biggest American success. With Cary Grant, she then starred in Blonde Venus, but when the picture did not meet studio expectations, Paramount decided to separate the star from her director. Not only their working relationship was in a state of flux -- von Sternberg's wife unsuccessfully sued Dietrich (who had left her husband behind in Germany) for "alienation of affection" and libel. For Rouben Mamoulian, she starred in 1933's The Song of Songs amidst a flurry of rumors that she was on the verge of returning to Germany - no less than Adolf Hitler himself had ordered her to come back. However, Dietrich remained in the States, and her films were consequently banned in her homeland. Instead, she played Catherine the Grea in von Sternberg's 1934 epic The Scarlet Empress; it was a financial disaster, as was their follow-up, the lavish The Devil Is a Woman. In its wake, von Sternberg announced he had taken Dietrich as far as he could, and begged off of future projects. A much-relieved Paramount set about finding her projects which would be more marketable, if less opulent. The first was the 1936 romantic comedy Desire, directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It was a hit, with all indications pointing to comedy as the best direction for Dietrich's career to take. Again with Lubitsch, she began work on I Loved a Soldier, but after a few days, production was halted after she refused to continue following a number of changes to the script. Instead, Dietrich next starred in the Technicolor remake of The Garden of Allah, followed by Korda's Knight Without Armour. Reuniting with Lubitsch, she headlined 1937's Angel, but again actress and director frequently feuded. Her offscreen reputation continued to worsen when it was revealed that director Mitchell Leisen had refused to work with her on French Without Tears. Combined with diminishing box-office returns, Paramount agreed to buy Dietrich out of her remaining contract. She remained a critical favorite, but audiences clearly did not like her. A number of projects were rumored to be under consideration, but she did not appear again in films for over two years. For less than 50,000 dollars, Dietrich agreed to co-star with James Stewart in the 1939 Western satire Destry Rides Again. The picture was a surprise smash, and with her career seemingly resuscitated, Universal signed her to a contract. The follow-up, 1940's Seven Sinners, was also a hit, but Rene Clair's 1941 effort The Flame of New Orleans lacked distinction. A series of disappointments -- The Lady Is Willing, The Spoilers, and Pittsburgh -- followed in 1942, with Dietrich reportedly so disheartened with her work that she considered retirement. Instead, she mounted a series of lengthy tours entertaining wartime troops before returning to films in 1944's Follow the Boys, followed by Kismet. She and Jean Gabin were next scheduled to star in Marcel Carne's Les Portes de la Nuit, but both stars balked at their roles and exited the project; the media was incensed -- at the time, Carne was the most highly respected director in French cinema -- and when Dietrich and Gabin both agreed to appear in 1946's Martin Roumagnac, reviews were unkind. She starred in Golden Earrings, followed in 1948 by Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair. When her daughter gave birth to a child soon after, Dietrich was declared "the world's most glamorous grandmother." Although her box-office stature had long remained diminished, Dietrich was still, irrefutably, a star; for all of her notorious behavior and apparent disinterest in filmmaking, she needed Hollywood as badly as it needed her -- the studios wanted her fame, and she wanted their hefty paychecks. For Alfred Hitchcock, Dietrich starred in 1950's Stage Fright and a year later reunited with Stewart in No Highway in the Sky. Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious followed in 1952, but it was to be Dietrich's final film for over four years. A cameo in Around the World in 80 Days announced her return to movies, with starring turns in The Monte Carlo Story and Witness for the Prosecution arriving a year later. After briefly appearing in Orson Welles' masterful Touch of Evil in 1958, Dietrich again disappeared from screens for a three-year stretch, resurfacing in 1961's Judgment at Nuremberg. The 1964 feature Paris When It Sizzles was Dietrich's final movie appearance for over a decade. Instead she toured the world, even scoring a major European hit single with "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" As the years went on, however, a long-standing bout with drinking continued to accelerate, and she often appeared inebriated during performances; after falling off of the stage and suffering a compound fracture of the leg, she retired from the cabaret circuit, making one last film, 1978's Schoener Gigolo, Armer Gigolo. A brief return to music was announced, but outside of a few performances, Dietrich was largely inactive from the early '80s on. In 1984, she agreed to produce a documentary portrait, Marlene, and while submitting to recorded interviews, she demanded not to be photographed. In a final nod to Garbo, she spent the last decade of her life in almost total seclusion in her Paris apartment and was bed-ridden throughout the majority of her final years; Dietrich died on May 6, 1992. She was 90.

Trivia: Mel Ferrer dropped out of Princeton University in his sophomore year to become an actor in summer stock; meanwhile he worked as an editor for a small Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book. He debuted on Broadway in 1938 as a chorus dancer; two years later, he made his debut as an actor. A bout with polio interrupted his career and lead him to work in radio, first as a small-station disc jockey and later as a writer, producer, and director of radio shows for NBC. Having not acted in any films, Ferrer directed his first movie, The Girl of the Limberlost, in 1945; the year in which he also returned to Broadway. After assisting John Ford on the film The Fugitive (1947), he debuted onscreen in Lost Boundaries (1949). Ferrer went on to appear in numerous movies, where he was usually cast as a sensitive, quiet, somewhat stiff leading man; his best-known role was as the lame puppeteer in Lili (1953). He continued to direct films, most of which were unexceptional, then began producing in the late '60s. Since 1960 he has worked primarily in Europe, appearing infrequently in American film and TV productions. His third wife was actress Audrey Hepburn, whom he directed in Green Mansions (1959). He later produced her film Wait Until Dark (1967).

Trivia: American actor Arthur Kennedy was usually cast in western or contemporary roles in his films; on stage, it was another matter. A graduate of the Carnegie-Mellon drama department, Kennedy's first professional work was with the Globe Theatre Company touring the midwest in abbreviated versions of Shakespearian plays. From here he moved into the American company of British stage star Maurice Evans, who cast Kennedy in his Broadway production of Richard III. Kennedy continued doing Shakespeare for Evans and agit-prop social dramas for the Federal Theatre, but when time came for his first film, City for Conquest (1940), he found himself in the very ordinary role of James Cagney's musician brother. Throughout his first Warner Bros. contract, Kennedy showed promise as a young character lead, but films like Bad Men of Missouri (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1942) and Air Force (1943) did little to tap the actor's classical training. After World War II service, Kennedy returned to Broadway, creating the role of Chris Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1947). This led to an even more prestigious Miller play, the Pulitzer Prize winning Death of a Salesman (1948), in which Kennedy played Biff. Sadly, Kennedy was not permitted to repeat these plum roles in the film versions of these plays, but the close association with Miller continued on stage; Kennedy would play John Proctor in The Crucible (1957) and the doctor brother in The Price (1965). While his film work during this era resulted in several Academy Award nominations, Kennedy never won; he was honored, however, with the New York Film Critics award for his on-target portrayal of a newly blinded war veteran battling not only his handicap but also his inbred racism in Bright Victory (1951). The biggest box office success with which Kennedy was associated was Lawrence of Arabia (1962), wherein he replaced the ailing Edmund O'Brien in the role of the Lowell Thomas character. Working continually in film and TV projects of wildly varying quality, Kennedy quit the business cold in the mid-1980s, retiring to live with family members in a small eastern town. Kennedy was so far out of the Hollywood mainstream in the years before his death that, when plans were made to restore the fading Lawrence of Arabia prints and Kennedy was needed to re-record his dialogue, the restorers were unable to locate the actor through Screen Actor's Guild channels -- and finally had to trace him through his hometown telephone directory.

Trivia: American actor William Frawley had hopes of becoming a newspaperman but was sidetracked by a series of meat-and-potatoes jobs. At 21, he found himself in the chorus of a musical comedy in Chicago; his mother forced him to quit, but Frawley had already gotten greasepaint in his veins. Forming a vaudeville act with his brother Paul, Frawley hit the show-business trail; several partners later (including his wife Louise), Frawley was a headliner and in later years laid claim to having introduced the beer-hall chestnut "Melancholy Baby." Entering films in the early 1930s (he'd made a few desultory silent-movie appearances), Frawley became typecast as irascible, pugnacious Irishmen, not much of a stretch from his off-camera personality. Though he worked steadily into the late 1940s, Frawley's drinking got the better of him, and by 1951 most producers found him virtually unemployable. Not so Desi Arnaz, who cast Frawley as neighbor Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy TV series when Gale Gordon proved unavailable. Frawley promised to stay away from the booze during filming, and in turn Arnaz promised to give Frawley time off whenever the New York Yankees were in the World Series (a rabid baseball fan, Frawley not only appeared in a half dozen baseball films, but also was one of the investors of the minor-league Hollywood Stars ball team). Frawley played Fred Mertz until the last I Love Lucy episode was filmed in 1960, then moved on to a five-year assignment as Bub, chief cook and bottle-washer to son-in-law Fred MacMurray's all male household on My Three Sons.

Trivia: Red-haired character-actor Michael Gough was brought to Hollywood in 1948 after 14 years on Broadway. Gough's burgeoning film career was cut short when he was blacklisted on the basis of alleged communist ties; likewise prohibited from working in films was Gough's wife, Karen Morley. The most immediate effect of Gough's blacklisting occurred in the opening titles of RKO's Rancho Notorious (1952); though Gough was prominently cast as the film's principal villain, RKO head man Howard Hughes, a rabid commie-hater, demanded that the actor's name be removed from the credits. Gough retreated to the stage, returning before the cameras in the 1960s, by which time Hollywood's witch-hunt mentality had dissipated. One of his first "comeback" roles was as Michael Axford in the 1966 TV series The Green Hornet. In the 1976 film The Front, Lloyd Gough was reunited with several other former blacklistees, including actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi and Joshua Shelley, director Martin Ritt and screenwriter Walter Bernstein.

Trivia: Actress Gloria Henry was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1923, and joined the roster of Columbia Pictures in the mid-1940s. She generally appeared in the studio's B-movie output, such as Sport of Kings (1947) and Rusty Saves A Life (1949), in the latter playing a key role in the plot. Her most widely seen screen work was in Fritz Lang's offbeat 1952 western Rancho Notorious -- her murder at the beginning of the movie propels the plot of the noir-ish western to its grim end. In 1958, Henry was chosen to play Alice Mitchell, the mother to Jay North's Dennis Mitchell in the sitcom Dennis The Menace, a role she portrayed until 1963 -- she worked opposite the slightly older Herbert Anderson, playing her husband Henry Mitchell. Although her lines were usually limited to expressions of joy or exasperation (TV moms were usually depicted in a simple way in those days . . . ), and all of the adults in the series were essentially second fiddle to North's Dennis and Joseph Kearns' Mr. Wilson, she did at least get to wear more attractive hair-styles and clothes as the series wore on. At the start of the 1960s, Henry also suggested to her gardener, a young man named Todd Armstrong, that he might consider doing a screen test for Columbia Pictures -- he agreed and she arranged it, and Armstrong ended up playing the hero in the classic Ray Harryhausen-produced fantasy film Jason And The Argonauts. Henry's own acting career resumed at a slower pace after the cancellation of Dennis The Menace, and she had pretty much retired by the 1970s.

Trivia: A graduate of Santa Monica Junior College, Jack Elam spent the immediate post-World War II years as an accountant, numbering several important Hollywood stars among his clients. Already blind in one eye from a childhood fight, Elam was in danger of losing the sight in his other eye as a result of his demanding profession. Several of his show business friends suggested that Elam give acting a try; Elam would be a natural as a villain. A natural he was, and throughout the 1950s Elam cemented his reputation as one of the meanest-looking and most reliable "heavies" in the movies. Few of his screen roles gave him the opportunity to display his natural wit and sense of comic timing, but inklings of these skills were evident in his first regular TV series assignments: The Dakotas and Temple Houston, both 1963. In 1967, Elam was given his first all-out comedy role in Support Your Local Sheriff, after which he found his villainous assignments dwindling and his comic jobs increasing. Elam starred as the patriarch of an itinerant Southwestern family in the 1974 TV series The Texas Wheelers (his sons were played by Gary Busey and Mark Hamill), and in 1979 he played a benign Frankenstein-monster type in the weekly horror spoof Struck By Lightning. Later TV series in the Elam manifest included Detective in the House (1985) and Easy Street (1987). Of course Elam would also crack up audiences in the 1980s with his roles in Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II. Though well established as a comic actor, Elam would never completely abandon the western genre that had sustained him in the 1950s and 1960s; in 1993, a proud Elam was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Two short years later the longitme star would essay his final screen role in the made for television western Bonanza: Under Attack.

Trivia: In his youth, George Reeves aspired to become a boxer, but gave up this pursuit because his mother was worried that he'd be seriously injured. Attracted to acting, Reeves attended the Pasadena Playhouse, where he starred in several productions. In 1939, Reeves was selected to play one of the Tarleton twins in the Selznick superproduction Gone With the Wind (1939). He made an excellent impression in the role, and spent the next few years playing roles of varying sizes at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. He was praised by fans and reviewers alike for his performances in Lydia (1941) and So Proudly We Hail (1943); upon returning from WWII service, however, Reeves found it more difficult to get good roles. He starred in a few "B"'s and in the title role of the Columbia serial The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949), but for the most part was shunted away in ordinary villain roles. In 1951, he starred in the Lippert programmer Superman vs. the Mole Men, playing both the Man of Steel and his bespectacled alter ego, Clark Kent. This led to the immensely popular Superman TV series, in which Reeves starred from 1953 through 1957. While Superman saved Reeves' career, it also permanently typecast him. He made an appearance as wagon train leader James Stephen in Disney's Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956), though the producer felt it expeditious to hide Reeves behind a heavy beard. While it is now commonly believed that Reeves was unable to get work after the cancellation of Superman in 1957, he was in fact poised to embark on several lucrative projects, including directing assignments on two medium-budget adventure pictures and a worldwide personal appearance tour. On June 16, 1959, Reeves died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. The official ruling was suicide -- and, since he left no note, it was assumed that Reeves was despondent over his flagging career. Since that time, however, there has been a mounting suspicion (engendered by the actor's friends and family) that George Reeves was murdered.

Trivia: Busy character actor Frank Ferguson was able to parlay his pinched facial features, his fussy little moustache, and his bellows-like voice for a vast array of characterizations. Ferguson was equally effective as a hen-pecked husband, stern military leader, irascible neighbor, merciless employer, crooked sheriff, and barbershop hanger-on. He made his inaugural film appearance in Father is a Prince (1940) and was last seen on the big screen in The Great Sioux Massacre (1965). Ferguson proved himself an above-average actor by successfully pulling off the treacly scene in The Babe Ruth Story (1948) in which Babe (William Bendix) says "Hi, kid" to Ferguson's crippled son--whereupon the boy suddenly stands up and walks! Among Franklin Ferguson's hundreds of TV appearances were regular stints on the children's series My Friend Flicka (1956) and the nighttime soap opera Peyton Place (1964-68).

Trivia: Blessed with matinee idol looks, an athletic physique, and a generous supply of talent, Francis J. McDonald entered films in 1912 after brief stage experience. A popular leading man of the teen years, McDonald segued into villainous characterizations in the 1920s, notably as the title character in Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926). He remained busy during the talkie era, primarily as a mustachioed heavy in "B" westerns and a featured player in the films of Cecil B. DeMille. Francis J. McDonald was at one time the husband of the "ever popular" Mae Busch.

Trivia: Described bluntly as "yeccch" in a 1968 book on movie villains, porcine Dan Seymour has certainly played more than his share of slimy bad guys. Seymour started out as a nightclub comedian, then decided to give movies a try. He was almost immediately cast in heavy roles due to his girth and sinister features. Seymour's career has in many ways been inextricably linked with the 1942 classic Casablanca. He played the small role of Abdul the doorman in that film, went on to a larger part in Warners' Casablanca clone To Have and Have Not (1944), graduated to chief of police in the Marx Brothers spoof A Night in Casablanca (1946), and, coming full circle, was cast in the old Sidney Greenstreet role of Ferrari in Warners' weekly TV series version of Casablanca in 1955. Dan Seymour continued to play small roles in films like The Way We Were into the 1970s, and was frequently seen on TV comedy series of the same era, usually cast as a self-indulgent Middle Eastern potentate.

Trivia: After stock experience in New England and a starring role in a Broadway flop, American actor John Kellogg was selected to play the lead in the road company of the long-running service comedy Brother Rat. He continued working steadily on stage until interrupted by World War II service. After a smattering of movie exposure at other studios, Kellogg signed a Columbia contract in 1946. Good-looking and dependable enough for secondary roles but not quite star material, Kellogg was seen in such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1943), A Walk in the Sun (1945), Johnny O'Clock (1947) and 12 O'Clock High (1949).

Trivia: Mexican-born utility actor Joe Dominguez claimed to have entered films in 1913, and to have appeared in over 300 pictures. Primarily a bit player, Dominguez usually showed up in Westerns, serials, and historical films with South-of-the-Border settings. Among Joe Dominguez' larger roles were Gonzalez in Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious (1952) and the Grandfather in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1970), his last film.

Trivia: With his slight built, narrow face and pencil-thin mustache, I. Stanford Jolley did not exactly look trustworthy, and a great many of his screen roles (more than 500) were indeed to be found on the wrong side of the law. Isaac Stanford Jolley had toured as a child with his father's traveling circus and later worked in stock and vaudeville, prior to making his Broadway debut opposite Charles Trowbridge in Sweet Seventeen (1924). Radio work followed and he arrived in Hollywood in 1935. Pegged early on as a gangster or Western outlaw, Jolley graduated to playing lead henchman or the boss villain in the '40s, mostly appearing for such poverty-row companies as Monogram and PRC. Although Jolley is often mentioned as a regular member of the Republic Pictures' stock company, he was never under contract to that legendary studio and only appeared in 25 films for them between 1936 and 1954. From 1950 on, Jolley worked frequently on television and remained a busy performer until at least 1976. According to his widow, the actor, who died of emphysema at the Motion Picture Country Hospital, never earned more than 100 dollars on any given movie assignment. He was the father of art director Stan Jolley.

Trivia: Whenever actor Ed Platt blew one of his lines in his role of "The Chief" in the TV comedy series Get Smart, star Don Adams would cry out "Is John Doucette available?" Adams was kidding, of course, but he was not alone in his high regard for the skill and versatility of the deep-voiced, granite-featured Doucette. In films on a regular basis since 1947 (he'd made his official movie debut in 1943's Two Tickets to London), Doucette was usually cast in roles calling for bad-tempered menace, but was also adept at dispensing dignity and authority. He was equally at home with the archaic dialogue of Julius Caesar (1953) and Cleopatra (1963) as he was with the 20th-century military patois of 1970's Patton, in which he played General Truscott. John Doucette's many TV credits include a season on the syndicated MacDonald Carey vehicle Lock-Up (1959), and the role of Captain Andrews on The Partners (1971), starring Doucette's old friend and admirer Don Adams.

Trivia: Hearty character actor Ralph Sanford made his first screen appearances at the Flatbush studios of Vitaphone Pictures. From 1933 to 1937, Sanford was Vitaphone's resident Edgar Kennedy type, menacing such two-reel stars as Shemp Howard, Roscoe Ates, and even Bob Hope. He moved to Hollywood in 1937, where, after playing several bit roles, he became a semi-regular with Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit with meaty supporting roles in such films as Wildcat (1942) and The Wrecking Crew (1943). He also continued playing featured roles at other studios, usually as a dimwitted gangster or flustered desk sergeant. One of his largest assignments was in Laurel and Hardy's The Bullfighters (1945), in which he plays vengeance-seeking Richard K. Muldoon, who threatens at every opportunity to (literally) skin Stan and Ollie alive; curiously, he receives no screen credit, despite the fact that his character motivates the entire plot line. Busy throughout the 1950s, Ralph Sanford was a familiar presence on TV, playing one-shot roles on such series as Superman and Leave It to Beaver and essaying the semi-regular part of Jim "Dog" Kelly on the weekly Western Wyatt Earp (1955-1961).

Trivia: A genuine westerner, Lane Chandler, upon leaving Montana Wesleyan College, moved to LA and worked as a garage mechanic while seeking out film roles. After several years in bit parts, Chandler was signed by Paramount in 1927 as a potential western star. For a brief period, both Chandler and Gary Cooper vied for the best cowboy roles, but in the end Paramount went with Cooper. Chandler made several attempts to establish himself as a "B" western star in the 1930s, but his harsh voice and sneering demeanor made him a better candidate for villainous roles. He mostly played bits in the 1940s, often as a utility actor for director Cecil B. DeMille. The weather-beaten face and stubbly chin of Lane Chandler popped up in many a TV and movie western of the 1950s, his roles gradually increasing in size and substance towards the end of his career.

Trivia: To western fans, the nickname "Fuzzy" invokes fond memories of two first-rate comedy sidekicks: Al "Fuzzy" St. John and John Forest "Fuzzy" Knight. Knight inaugurated his career at age 15 with a tent minstrel troupe. His skill as a musician enabled him to work his way through West Virginia University, after which he headed his own band. Among Knight's theatrical credits in the '20s was the 1927 edition of Earl Carroll's Vanities and the 1928 "book" musical Here's How. Mae West caught Knight's act on the Keith vaudeville circuit and cast the bucolic entertainer in her 1933 film vehicle She Done Him Wrong; he would later show up playing West's country cousin in the actress' last important film, My Little Chickadee (1940). Usually essaying comedy roles, Knight was effective in the his dramatic scenes in Paramount's Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), wherein he tearfully sings a mountain ballad at the funeral of little Spanky McFarland. Knight's B-western comedy sidekick activity peaked in the mid '40s (he appeared most often with Johnny Mack Brown), after which his film roles diminished as his fondness for the bottle increased. Promising to behave himself (at least during filming), Fuzzy Knight signed on in 1955 for Buster Crabbe's popular TV adventure series Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion; for the next two years, Knight played a semi-serious legionnaire -- named Private Fuzzy Knight.

Trivia: In films from the early 1930s, Fred Graham was one of Hollywood's busiest stunt men and stunt coordinators. A fixture of the Republic serial unit in the 1940s and 1950s, Graham was occasionally afforded a speaking part, usually as a bearded villain. His baseball expertise landed him roles in films like Death on the Diamond (1934), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Pride of St. Louis (1952). He was also prominently featured in several John Wayne vehicles, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), The Horse Soldiers (1959) and The Alamo (1960). After retiring from films, Fred Graham served as director of the Arizona Motion Pictures Development Office.

Trivia: American actor Dick Wessel had a face like a Mack Truck bulldog and a screen personality to match. After several years on stage, Wessel began showing up in Hollywood extra roles around 1933; he is fleetingly visible in the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933), Laurel and Hardy's Bonnie Scotland (1935), and the Columbia "screwball" comedy She Couldn't Take It (1935). The size of his roles increased in the '40s; perhaps his best feature-film showing was as the eponymous bald-domed master criminal in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946). He was a valuable member of Columbia Pictures' short subject stock company, playing a variety of bank robbers, wrestlers, jealous husbands and lazy brother-in-laws. Among his more memorable 2-reel appearances were as lovestruck boxer "Chopper" in The Three Stooges' Fright Night (1947), Andy Clyde's invention-happy brother-in-law in Eight Ball Andy (1948), and Hugh Herbert's overly sensitive strongman neighbor in Hot Heir (1947). Wessel was shown to good (if unbilled) advantage as a handlebar-mustached railroad engineer in the superspectacular Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and had a regular role as Carney on the 1959 TV adventure series Riverboat. Dick Wessel's farewell screen appearance was as a harried delivery man in Disney's The Ugly Dachshund (1965).

Trivia: Short, portly, and possessed of a high-pitched laugh that cuts through the air like a buzzsaw, Massachussetts-born Dick Elliott had been on stage for nearly thirty before making his screen bow in 1933. Elliott was a frequent visitor to Broadway, enjoying a substantial run in the marathon hit Abie's Irish Rose. Physically and vocally unchanged from his first screen appearance in the '30s to his last in 1961, Elliott was most generally cast in peripheral roles designed to annoy the film's principal characters with his laughing jags or his obtrusive behavior; in this capacity, he appeared as drunken conventioneers, loud-mouthed theatre audience members, and "helpful" pedestrians. Elliott also excelled playing small-scale authority figures, such as stage managers, truant officers and rural judges. Still acting into his mid 70s, Dick Elliott appeared regularly as the mayor of Mayberry on the first season of The Andy Griffith Show, and was frequently cast as a department-store Santa in the Yuletide programs of such comics as Jack Benny and Red Skelton.

Trivia: William Haade spent most of his movie career playing the very worst kind of bully--the kind that has the physical training to back up his bullying. His first feature-film assignment was as the arrogant, drunken professional boxer who is knocked out by bellhop Wayne Morris in Kid Galahad (37). In many of his western appearances, Haade was known to temper villainy with an unexpected sense of humor; in one Republic western, he spews forth hilarious one-liners while hacking his victims to death with a knife! William Haade also proved an excellent menace to timorous comedians like Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello; in fact, his last film appearance was in Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (55).

Trivia: Wisconsonite actor Stanley Blystone was the brother of director John G. Blystone and assistant director Jasper Blystone. Entering films in 1915, the burly, muscular, mustachioed Blystone excelled in gruff, villainous roles; he was particularly menacing as a crooked ringmaster in Tom Mix's The Circus Ace (1927). In the talkie era, Blystone was busiest at the 2-reel comedy mills of RKO, Columbia and Hal Roach, often cast as brutish authority figures at odds with the comedy leads. In the Three Stooges' Half Shot Shooters (1936), he plays the sadistic Sgt. McGillicuddy, who reacts to the Stooges' ineptness by taking aim with a long-range cannon and blowing the three comedians right out of their boots! Blystone was much in demand as both "action" and "brains" heavies in Columbia's westerns and serials of the 1940s. Extending his activities to television in the 1950s, the 71-year-old Stanley Blystone was en route to Desilu Studios to play a small role on the TV series Wyatt Earp when he collapsed on the sidewalk and died of heart failure.

Trivia: Edgar Dearing was a full-time Los Angeles motorcycle cop in the '20s when he began accepting small roles in the 2-reel comedies of Hal Roach. These roles hardly constituted a stretch, since he was often cast as a motorcycle cop, principally because he supplied his own uniform and cycle; the best-remembered of these "performances" was in Laurel and Hardy's Two Tars (1928). Hal Roach cameraman George Stevens liked Dearing's work, and saw to it that the policeman-cum-actor was prominently featured in Stevens' RKO Wheeler & Woolsey features Kentucky Kernels (1934) and The Nitwits (1935). When he moved into acting full-time in the '30s, Dearing was still primarily confined to law-enforcement bit roles, though he achieved fourth billing as a tough drill sergeant in the Spencer Tracy/Franchot Tone feature They Gave Him a Gun (1937). Dearing's performing weight was most effectively felt in the Abbott and Costello features of the '40s, where he provided a formidable authority-figure foe for the simpering antics of Lou Costello (notably in the "Go Ahead and Sing" routine in 1944's In Society). Dearing also showed up in a number of '40s 2-reelers; he was particularly amusing as strong man Hercules Jones (a "Charles Atlas" takeoff) in the 1948 Sterling Holloway short Man or Mouse? Edgar Dearing's last screen assignment was a prominent role as townsman Mr. Gorman in Walt Disney's Pollyanna (1960).