Trivia: Originally planning to become a lawyer, William Powell chose instead to pursue a career as an actor, dropping out of the University of Kansas to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Edward G. Robinson and Joseph Schildkraut. He made his Broadway debut in 1912, and within a few years had attained stardom in urbane, sophisticated roles. The sleek, moustachioed young actor entered films in 1922, playing the first of many villainous roles in John Barrymore's Sherlock Holmes. He finally broke out of the bad guy mode when talkies came in; his clipped, precise speech patterns and authoritative demeanor were ideally suited to such "gentleman detective" roles as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case, the Kennel Murder Case, and others in the Vance series. In 1933 he moved from Warner Bros. to MGM, where he co-starred with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). So well-received was the Powell-Loy screen teaming that the actors were paired together in several subsequent MGM productions, most memorably the delightful Thin Man series and the 1936 blockbuster The Great Ziegfeld, in which Powell played the title character and Loy was cast as Ziegfeld's second wife, Billie Burke. Away from the screen for nearly a year due to a serious illness, Powell returned in 1944, curtailing his film activities thereafter. As he eased into his late fifties he reinvented himself as a character actor, offering superbly etched performances as a lamebrained crooked politician in The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) and the lovably autocratic Clarence Day Sr. in Life With Father (1947), which earned him his third Academy Award nomination (the others were for The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey). After playing Doc in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts, he retired to his lavish, air-conditioned home in Palm Springs, insisting that he'd return to films if the right role came along but he turned down all offers. Married three times, Powell's second wife was actress Carole Lombard, with whom he remained good friends after the divorce, and co-starred with in My Man Godfrey (1936); his third marriage to MGM starlet Diana Lewis was a happy union that lasted from 1940 until Powell's death in 1984. It has been said, however, that the great love of William Powell's life was actress Jean Harlow, to whom he was engaged at the time of her premature death in 1936.

Trivia: During the late 1930s, when Clark Gable was named the King of Hollywood, Myrna Loy was elected the Queen. The legendary actress, who started her career as a dancer, moved into silent films and was typecast for a few years as exotic women. Her film titles from those early years include Arrowsmith (1931), Love Me Tonight (1932), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and Manhattan Melodrama (1934), the film that gangster John Dillinger just had to see the night he was killed. Starting in 1934, with The Thin Man, opposite William Powell, she became Hollywood's ideal wife: bright, witty, humorous. She and Powell were often teamed throughout the '30s and '40s, and many of the characters she played were strong, independent, adventurous women. In addition to The Thin Man series, Loy's best appearances included The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Libeled Lady (1936), Wife vs. Secretary (1936), Test Pilot (1938), and Too Hot to Handle (1938). She took a break from filmmaking during WWII to work with the Red Cross, and in her later years she devoted as much time to politics as to acting (among her accomplishments, Loy became the first film star to work with the United Nations). She stands out in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and its sequel Belles on Their Toes (1952). She received an honorary Oscar in 1991, two years before her death.

Trivia: Actor Keenan Wynn was the son of legendary comedian Ed Wynn and actress Hilda Keenan, and grandson of stage luminary Frank Keenan. After attending St. John's Military Academy, Wynn obtained his few professional theatrical jobs with the Maine Stock Company. After overcoming the "Ed Wynn's Son" onus (his father arranged his first job, with the understanding that Keenan would be on his own after that), Wynn developed into a fine comic and dramatic actor on his own in several Broadway plays and on radio. He was signed to an MGM contract in 1942, scoring a personal and professional success as the sarcastic sergeant in 1944's See Here Private Hargrove (1944). Wynn's newfound popularity as a supporting actor aroused a bit of jealousy from his father, who underwent professional doldrums in the 1940s; father and son grew closer in the 1950s when Ed, launching a second career as a dramatic actor, often turned to his son for moral support and professional advice. Wynn's film career flourished into the 1960s and 1970s, during which time he frequently appeared in such Disney films as The Absent-Minded Professor (1960) and The Love Bug (1968) as apoplectic villain Alonso Hawk. Wynn also starred in such TV series as Troubleshooters and Dallas. Encroaching deafness and a drinking problem plagued Wynn in his final years, but he always delivered the goods onscreen. Wynn was the father of writer/director Tracy Keenan Wynn and writer/actor Edmund Keenan (Ned) Wynn.

Trivia: Born Gloria Grahame Hallward, American actress Gloria Grahame began performing onstage with the Pasadena Community Playhouse at age nine. She later acted in Hollywood High School plays and in stock. In 1943 Grahame debuted on Broadway (billed "Gloria Hallward)", and the following year, MGM signed her to a film contract. However, not until the early '50s did she come into her own as a sexy leading lady, often playing fallen women or cheating wives. For her portrayal of a somewhat classy tart in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Grahame won a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar. Until the mid-'50s she landed a number of excellent roles, but her career gradually diminished and she retired from the screen in the late '50s. Years later she returned to play character roles, mostly in low-budget films. She married and divorced actor Stanley Clements, director Nicholas Ray, and writer Cy Howard; later she raised eyebrows by marrying Nicholas Ray's son (her former step-son), actor-producer Tony Ray. Gloria Grahame spent her last days working on the stage in England while battling cancer.

Trivia: Fans of the science fiction television series Quantum Leap will know supporting and character actor Dean Stockwell as the scene-stealing, cigar chomping, dry-witted, and cryptic hologram Al. But to view him only in that role is to see one part of a multi-faceted career that began when Stockwell was seven years old.Actually, his ties with show business stretch back to his birth for both of his parents were noted Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Nina Olivette. His father also provided the singing voice of the prince in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1931). Stockwell was born in North Hollywood and started out on Broadway in The Innocent Voyage (1943) at age seven. Curly haired and beautiful with a natural acting style that never descended into cloying cuteness, he made his screen debut after contracting with MGM at age nine in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and continued on to play sensitive boys in such memorable outings as The Mighty McGurk (1946), The Boy With Green Hair (1948), and The Secret Garden (1949). He would continue appearing in such films through 1951 when he went into the first of several "retirements" from films. When Stockwell resurfaced five years later it was as a brooding and very handsome 20-year-old who specialized in playing introverts and sensitive souls in roles ranging from a wild, young cowboy in Gun for a Coward (1957) to a murderous homosexual in Compulsion (1958) to an aspiring artist who cannot escape the influence of his domineering mother in Sons and Lovers (1960). Stockwell topped off this phase of his career portraying Eugene O'Neill in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Stockwell would spend the next three years as a hippie and when he again renewed his career it was in such very '60s efforts as Psych-Out (1968) and the spooky and weird adaptation of a Lovecraft story, The Dunwich Horror. During this period, Stockwell also started appearing in television movies such as The Failing of Raymond (1971). In the mid-'70s, the former flower child became a real-estate broker and his acting career became sporadic until the mid-'80s when he began playing character roles. It was in this area, especially in regard to comic characters, that Stockwell has had his greatest success. Though he claims it was not intentional, Stockwell has come to be almost typecast as the king of quirk, playing a wide variety of eccentrics and outcasts. One of his most famous '80s roles was that of the effeminate and rutlhess sleaze, Ben, in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986). Stockwell had previously worked with Lynch in Dune and says that when the director gave him the script for Velvet, his character was not specifically mapped out, leaving Stockwell to portray Ben in any way he felt appropriate. The actor's intuition has proven to be one of his greatest tools and helped create one of modern Hollywood's most creepy-crawly villains. Whenever possible, Stockwell prefers working by instinct and actively avoids over-rehearsing his parts. His career really picked up after he landed the part of Al in Quantum Leap. Since the show's demise, Stockwell has continued to appear on screen, starring on series like Battlestar Galactica.

Trivia: One didn't become a stage and movie leading man with a monicker like Milton LeRoy in the early '30s, so the Brooklyn-born, Cornell-educated LeRoy was rechristened Phillip Reed. He made his earliest appearances as a utility actor in films like Penthouse (1933), then came into his own with several starring parts in the late '30s and early '40s. Mostly he was cast opposite big names like Dorothy Lamour and Bette Davis, who occasionally preferred to work with handsome but unremarkable hunks who wouldn't detract from their star performances. When not outshone by his female costars, Reed was often seen as a good-looking but mean-spirited type, who lost the girl to the hero or who found himself the principal murder suspect. Better served in his stage work, Reed still managed a few truly memorable film appearances: he was the stalwart Uncas in the 1936 version of Last of the Mohicans (1936), and was superb as a loudmouthed house guest who just won't leave in Weekend for Three (1941). Phillip Reed's final film was the Elvis Presley vehicle Harum Scarum (1965), after which the 57 year old actor launched a lucrative career in business.

Trivia: New York-born Ursula Eileen Patricia Augustus Fraser Morison was once described by the Hollywood press as a "blond brunette," that is, a brunette with the vivacity of a blonde. She also had what, at 39 inches, was considered the longest hair in Hollywood. The daughter of a playwright/actor and a theatrical agent, Patricia Morison studied at the Art Students League in New York and also trained in dance with Martha Graham. At 19, she was working as a dress designer and thinking of a career in either art or dance, but was roped into an audition by a friend, and suddenly found herself with a stage career. Morison understudied for Helen Hayes in Victoria Regina and appeared in The Two Bouquets before being offered a screen test and a contract with Paramount in 1938, at the age of 24. Her stay in Hollywood was not a happy one, as the studio tried to alter her image and generally put her into less-than-stellar films, such as Persons in Hiding, Rangers of Fortune, and Tarzan and the Huntress. Among the few major films she did were The Fallen Sparrow starring John Garfield, Song of Bernadette, the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy Without Love, and Dressed to Kill, the last of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes movies.Fortunately, she had done some singing on USO tours during the war and had taken the trouble to train her voice under the instruction of Richard Borchert. Among those who heard her sing in Hollywood was Cole Porter, who -- after being satisfied that Morison had the vivacity required for the role -- pushed her for the part of Lili Vanessi in the musical Kiss Me, Kate, over the objections of the producer and director. With further training from Constance Collier, Morison became a star in the biggest hit of Porter's career, as the shrewish actress who is tamed by Alfred Drake. Morison appeared in over 1000 performances of the show, on Broadway and later in the British production, and also reunited with Drake to do it on television on the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology series. Since the early '50s, she has also appeared in stage productions of The King And I, Kismet, The Merry Widow, and Song of Norway. She has appeared in two movies since, one in the 1970s and one in the 1980s, and done occasional television work (most visibly an episode of Cheers in which she plays the corporate wife who engages Woody to entertain as a clown at her grandchild's birthday party), and pursued her early aspirations as a painter, her work enjoying numerous showings in Los Angeles. In 1999, Morison, along with the rest of the surviving original cast, were saluted by the cast of the successful Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate.

Trivia: The daughter of Episcopal missionaries, Jayne Meadows was born in China; she spoke nothing but Chinese until her parents returned to America in the early 1930s. The sister of Honeymooners co-star Audrey Meadows, Jayne Meadows began her film career in the mid-1940s as a contract player at MGM. Her velvety voice and self-confident bearing ruled out her being cast as simpering ingénues: Meadows excelled as cold-blooded "other women," vitriolic divorcees, and neurotic murderesses. Her best screen role was the double- and triple-crossing Mildred Haveland in Lady in the Lake (1946). For nearly five decades, Jayne was harmoniously married to her second husband, TV personality Steve Allen, with whom she has co-starred on dozens of variety programs and game shows, as well as Steve Allen's memorable PBS miniseries Meeting of Minds. Both she and her husband were nominated for Emmy Awards for their joint guest appearance on the TV series LA Law. Her more regular TV work included the third-billed role of Nurse Chambers on Medical Center (1969-73) and the part of Ken Howard's mother on the 1983 "dramedy" It's Not Easy. Meadows made an indelible impression through the power of her voice alone as Billy Crystal's gushing, unseen mom in the two City Slickers film comedies of the 1990s. She continued acting and appearing on-screen until the late 2000s; she died in 2015, at age 95.

Trivia: A Pennsylvania-born actor/director, Don Taylor appeared in such movies as Father of the Bride and Stalag 17 before switching to directing in 1961 with the juvenile comedy Everything's Ducky. His second film, Ride the Wild Surf (1964), was an above average teen exploitation movie that was very successful. But Taylor hit his stride as a serious filmmaker in 1968 with a jewel of a television feature called Something for a Lonely Man, a drama starring Dan Blocker and Susan Clark that became a favorite among critics. His next movie, Five Man Army (1970), was a popular spaghetti western, and his Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) secured good reviews and assured the series' survival beyond its third installment. Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) was a solid, handsomely produced version of the H.G. Wells story, and a hit, as was Taylor's Damien: Omen II (1979). Final Countdown (1980) proved a success as well, perhaps the last non-slasher/non-fantasy related science-fiction adventure to reach audiences with low-tech special effects. Taylor's subsequent work was confined to TV movies, where he was busy throughout the '80s.

Trivia: Hollywood's favorite "dear old dad," Leon Ames began his stage career as a sleek, dreamy-eyed matinee idol in 1925. He was still billing himself under his real name, Leon Waycoff, when he entered films in 1931. His best early leading role was as the poet-hero of the stylish terror piece Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1933, Ames was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, gaining a reputation amongst producers as a political firebrand--which may have been why his roles diminished in size during the next few years (Ironically, when Ames was president of the SAG, his conservatism and willingness to meet management halfway incurred the wrath of the union's more liberal wing). Ames played many a murderer and caddish "other man" before he was felicitously cast as the kindly, slightly befuddled patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). He would play essentially this same character throughout the rest of his career, starring on such TV series as Life With Father (1952-54) and Father of the Bride (1961). When, in 1963, he replaced the late Larry Keating in the role of Alan Young's neighbor on Mr. Ed, Ames' fans were astounded: his character had no children at all! Off screen, the actor was the owner of a successful, high profile Los Angeles automobile dealership. In 1963, he was the unwilling focus of newspaper headlines when his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. In one of his last films, 1983's Testament, Leon Ames was reunited with his Life With Father co-star Lurene Tuttle.

Trivia: The older brother of actor Frank Morgan, Ralph Morgan graduated from Columbia University with a law degree, but chucked the stuffy world of jurisprudence for the more exciting (to him) vocation of journeyman actor. So successful was Morgan in stock and on Broadway that his kid brother, Frank, was encouraged to give the theater a try -- and as a result became even more famous than Ralph. The elder Morgan made his film bow in 1931, playing leading roles in such productions as Strange Interlude (1932) and Rasputin and the Empress (1933) before settling into secondary character parts. It was Morgan's distinction to play more "surprise" killers in more murder mysteries than virtually any other actor in Hollywood (to list the titles of these mysteries would give away the surprise -- if any). Among the actor's off-camera interests were politics and labor relations; he was one of the founders and charter members of the Screen Actors Guild. He was also the first President of the SAG. Ralph Morgan was the father of Claudia Morgan, an actress best known for her portrayal of Nora Charles on the "Thin Man" radio series.

Trivia: Warner Anderson claimed that he made his first film appearance as a four-year-old juvenile actor in a 1915 Charles Ray vehicle. His first stage credit, Maytime, came two years later. During his early adulthood, Anderson worked as a straight man in vaudeville and burlesque. In the 1940s, he came to prominence as announcer for radio's Bell Telephone Hour. While most of his film roles were supporting, Anderson was starred in the early special-effects-fest Destination Moon. Warner Anderson's TV credits include a four-year run as Lt. Ben Guthrie on Lineup (aka San Francisco Beat) in the mid-1950s, and a lengthy tenure as newspaper editor Matthew Swain on the 1960s nighttime serial Peyton Place.

Trivia: American leading man William Bishop studied law at the University of West Virginia before settling upon an acting career. He came to Hollywood at the tail end of the "victory casting" period, when the major studios were hiring any and all handsome young actors to fill the gap until the major male stars like Gable and Fonda came back from the war. Under contract to MGM, Bishop was seen in sizeable but non-descript supporting roles in such films as A Guy Named Joe (1943) and Song of the Thin Man (1947). In the 1950s, the muscular, jut-jawed Bishop specialized in westerns like The Texas Rangers (1952), Redhead from Wyoming (1953) and Phantom Stagecoach (1954). His best showing during this period was as Carter Doone in Columbia's Technicolor costumer Lorna Doone (1952). For 39 weeks in 1954, Bishop costarred with Michael O'Shea and James Dunn in It's a Great Life, a TV sitcom about two ex-GIs living together in a small apartment. William Bishop died of cancer in his Malibu home at the age of 42; he had just completed work on his last film, The Oregon Trail (1959), in which he was billed just below star Fred MacMurray.

Trivia: American actor Bruce Cowling appeared in numerous films during the '40s and '50s. Many of those films were actioners or westerns.

Trivia: The faces of most movie extras are unmemorable blurs in the public's memory. Not so the elegant, statuesque Bess Flowers, who was crowned by appreciative film buffs as "Queen of the Hollywood Dress Extras." After studying drama (against her father's wishes) at the Carnegie Inst of Technology, Flowers intended to head to New York, but at the last moment opted for Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922, subsequently appearing prominently in such productions as Hollywood (1922) and Chaplin's Woman of Paris (1923). Too tall for most leading men, Flowers found her true niche as a supporting actress. By the time talkies came around, Flowers was mostly playing bits in features, though her roles were more sizeable in two-reel comedies; she was a special favorite of popular short-subject star Charley Chase. Major directors like Frank Lloyd always found work for Flowers because of her elegant bearing and her luminescent gift for making the people around her look good. While generally an extra, Flowers enjoyed substantial roles in such films as Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), Gregory La Cava's Private Worlds and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937). In 1947's Song of the Thin Man, the usually unheralded Flowers was afforded screen billing. Her fans particularly cherish Flowers' bit as a well-wisher in All About Eve (1950), in which she breaks her customary screen silence to utter "I'm so happy for you, Eve." Flowers was married twice, first to Cecil B. DeMille's legendary "right hand man" Cullen Tate, then to Columbia studio manager William S. Holman. After her retirement, Bess Flowers made one last on-camera appearance in 1974 when she was interviewed by NBC's Tom Snyder.

Trivia: The daughter of actress Martha Daniels, Connie Gilchrist was herself on stage from the age of 16, touring both Europe and the U.S. Her theatrical credits include such long-runners as Mulatto and Ladies and Gentlemen, the latter featuring a contemporary of Gilchrist's named Helen Hayes. While acting in the pre-Broadway tour of Ladies and Gentlemen in 1939, Gilchrist was signed to a ten-year contract at MGM, where amidst the studio's patented gloss and glitter, the actress' brash, down-to-earth characterizations brought a welcome touch of urban reality. Usually cast as Irish maids, tenement housewives and worldly madams (though seldom designated as such), Gilchrist was given a rare chance to show off her musical talents in Presenting Lily Mars, where she sang a duet with Judy Garland. After her MGM tenure, Gilchrist free-lanced in such films as Houdini (1953), Auntie Mame (1958) (as governess Nora Muldoon) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). Devoted TV fans will recall Connie Gilchrist as the bawdy pubkeeper Purity on the 1950s Australian-filmed adventure series Long John Silver.

Trivia: American actor James Burke not only had the Irish face and brogueish voice of a New York detective, but even his name conjured up images of a big-city flatfoot. In Columbia's Ellery Queen series of the late 1930s and early 1940s, Burke was cast exquisitely to type as the thick-eared Sergeant Velie, who referred to the erudite Queen as "Maestro." Burke also showed up as a rural law enforcement officer in such films as Nightmare Alley (1947), in which he has a fine scene as a flint-hearted sheriff moved to tears by the persuasive patter of carnival barker Tyrone Power. One of the best of James Burke's non-cop performances was as westerner Charlie Ruggles' rambunctious, handlebar-mustached "pardner" in Ruggles of Red Gap (135), wherein Burke and Ruggles engage in an impromptu game of piggyback on the streets of Paris.

Trivia: A Utah girl born and bred, actress Marie Windsor attended Brigham Young University and represented her state as Miss Utah in the Miss America pageant. She studied acting under Russian stage and screen luminary Maria Ouspenskaya, supporting herself as a telephone operator between performing assignments. After several years of radio appearances and movie bits, Windsor was moved up to feature-film roles in 1947's Song of the Thin Man. She was groomed to be a leading lady, but her height precluded her co-starring with many of Hollywood's sensitive, slightly built leading men. (She later noted with amusement that at least one major male star had a mark on his dressing room door at the 5'6" level; if an actress was any taller than that, she was out.) Persevering, Windsor found steady work in second-lead roles as dance hall queens, gun molls, floozies, and exotic villainesses. She is affectionately remembered by disciples of director Stanley Kubrick for her portrayal of Elisha Cook's cold-blooded, castrating wife in The Killing (1956). Curtailing her screen work in the late '80s, Windsor, who is far more agreeable in person than onscreen, began devoting the greater portion of her time to her sizeable family. Because of her many appearances in Westerns (she was an expert horsewoman), Windsor has become a welcome and highly sought-after presence on the nostalgia convention circuit.

Trivia: Stage and vaudeville alumnus John Sheehan joined the American Film Company in 1914. After a handful of starring roles, Sheehan went back to the stage, returning to films in 1930. For the next 20 years, he played scores of minor roles, usually as raffish tuxedoed types in speakeasy and gambling-parlor scenes. As a loyal member of the Masquers' Club, a theatrical fraternity, John Sheehan starred in the Masquers' two-reel comedy Stout Hearts and Willing Hands (1931), then went on to appear in support of such short-subject stars as Charley Chase and Clark McCullough.

Trivia: American actor Lennie Bremen began his career acting in theater groups such as the Works Progress Administration; he also appeared on Broadway before signing with Warner Bros in 1942. He debuted in Pride of the Marines (1945), and went on to play character roles through the late 1960s.

Trivia: Open-faced, prominently chinned character actor Lyle Latell began surfacing in films in the late 1930s. Only occasionally did Latell rise above the status of bit player; he was most often seen as a wisecracking reporter, griping military man or cheerful cabbie. From 1945 through 1947, Latell was a regular in RKO's Dick Tracy "B"-picture series, playing Tracy's assistant Pat Patton. Lyle Latell was married to Mary Foy, one of the "Seven Little Foys" of vaudeville fame.

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Trivia: American actor James Flavin was groomed as a leading man when he first arrived in Hollywood in 1932, but he balked at the glamour treatment and was demonstrably resistant to being buried under tons of makeup. Though Flavin would occasionally enjoy a leading role--notably in the 1932 serial The Airmail Mystery, co-starring Flavin's wife Lucille Browne--the actor would devote most of his film career to bit parts. If a film featured a cop, process server, Marine sergeant, circus roustabout, deckhand or political stooge, chances are Jimmy Flavin was playing the role. His distinctive sarcastic line delivery and chiselled Irish features made him instantly recognizable, even if he missed being listed in the cast credits. Larger roles came Flavin's way in King Kong (1933) as Second Mate Briggs; Nightmare Alley (1947), as the circus owner who hires Tyrone Power; and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), as a long-suffering homicide detective. Since he worked with practically everyone, James Flavin was invaluable in later years as a source of on-set anecdotes for film historians; and because he evidently never stopped working, Flavin and his wife Lucille were able to spend their retirement years in comfort in their lavish, sprawling Hollywood homestead.

Trivia: Character actor Donald Kerr showed up whenever a gumchewing Runyonesque type (often a reporter or process server) was called for. A bit actor even in two-reelers and "B" pictures, Kerr was one of those vaguely familiar faces whom audiences would immediately recognize, ask each other "Who is that?", then return to the film, by which time Kerr had scooted the scene. The actor's first recorded film appearance was in 1933's Carnival Lady. Twenty-two years later, Donald Kerr concluded his career in the same anonymity with which he began it in 1956's Yaqui Drums.

Trivia: Actor Earle Hodgins has been characterized by more than one western-film historian as a grizzled, bucolic Bob Hope type. Usually cast as snake-oil salesmen, Hodgins would brighten up his "B"-western scenes with a snappy stream of patter, leavened by magnificently unfunny wisecracks ("This remedy will give ya a complexion like a peach, fuzz 'n' all..."). When the low-budget western market died in the 1950s, Hodgins continued unabated on such TV series as The Roy Rogers Show and Annie Oakley. He also made appearances in such "A" films as East of Eden (55), typically cast as carnival hucksters and rural sharpsters. In 1961, Earle Hodgins was cast in the recurring role of wizened handyman Lonesome on the TV sitcom Guestward Ho!

Trivia: Switching from Broadway to Hollywood in 1931, actress Esther Howard was an expert at portraying blowsy old crones, man-hungry spinsters and oversexed dowagers. Utilizing her wide, expressive eyes and versatile voice for both broad comedy and tense drama, Howard was equally at home portraying slatternly tosspot Mrs. Florian in Murder My Sweet (1944) as she was in the role of genteelly homicidal Aunt Sophie in Laurel and Hardy's The Big Noise (1944). She was a regular participant in the films of writer/director Preston Sturges, playing everything from an addled farm woman in Sullivan's Travels (1942) to the bejeweled wife of "The Wienie King" in The Palm Beach Story (1942). From 1935 to 1952, Esther Howard was a fixture of Columbia's short-subject unit, usually cast as the wife or sweetheart of comedian Andy Clyde.

Trivia: Actor Matt McHugh was born into a show business family, joining his parents, his brother Frank, and his sister Kitty in the family stock company as soon as he learned to talk. Matt came to Hollywood to repeat his stage role in the 1931 film adaptation of Elmer Rice's Broadway hit Street Scene. He continued to have sizeable film assignments for the next few years (notably the bourgeois Italian bridegroom Francesco in Laurel and Hardy's The Devil's Brother [1933]) before settling into bits and minor roles. A dead ringer for his more famous brother Frank McHugh, Matt projected an abrasive, sardonic screen image; as such, he was utilized in such rough-edged roles as cab drivers, bartenders and mechanics. Matt McHugh's best screen opportunities in the '40s came with his supporting roles in the 2-reel comedy output of Columbia Pictures; he appeared in the short comedies of Andy Clyde, Hugh Herbert, Walter Catlett, The Three Stooges and many others, most often cast as a lazy or caustic brother-in-law.

Trivia: A former teacher, American actor Clinton Sundberg realized from the moment he set foot on stage that he'd never be a romantic lead, but settled -- profitably, as it turned out -- for character work. Sundberg's prim demeanor and light, throaty voice enabled him to carve a significant Hollywood niche as desk clerks and minor bureaucrats, though he was capable of coarse villainy, as proven in Undercover Maisie (1949). The actor worked most often at MGM throughout his career, from 1946's Undercurrent to 1963's How the West Was Won. Probably the closest he got to a full lead was as corpulent private eye J. Scott Smart's "Man Friday" in the enjoyable Universal low-budget mystery The Fat Man (1951). Clinton Sundberg contributed numerous voice-overs to commercials of the '70s, and was seen to good advantage in one advertisement as an unflappable tailor outfitting a large, talking Seven-Up bottle!

Trivia: American general purpose actor Howard Negley made his screen bow as Nelson in 20th Century Fox's Smokey. Negley went on to reasonably prominent character parts in such B-pictures as Charlie Chan in the Trap (1947). For the most part, he played nameless bit parts as police captains, politicians, and reporters. Howard Negley was last seen as the Twentieth Century Limited conductor in Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959).

Trivia: European character actor George Sorel made his first American film appearance in 1936. Usually showing up unbilled as gendarmes and maître d's, Sorel was afforded rare screen billing for his one scene and one line as Walter Woolf King's valet in Laurel and Hardy's Swiss Miss (1938). He flourished during WWII thanks to his rather shifty, sinister features, which permitted him to play many a Nazi or collaborator. One of George Sorel's most extensive assignments was in the 1946 Universal serial Lost City of the Jungle; when the serial's principal heavy, Lionel Atwill, died during production, Sorel was called in to double for Atwill in several transitional scenes.

Trivia: A former boxer, Charles Sullivan turned to acting in 1925. Sullivan menaced such comedians as Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy before concentrating on feature-film work. When he wasn't playing thugs (Public Enemy, 1931), he could be seen as a sailor (King Kong, 1933). Most of the time, Charles Sullivan was cast as chauffeurs, right up to his retirement in 1958.

Trivia: American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as Robert Preston and Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were Rocketship X-M (1950), Red Planet Mars (1952), Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director Joe Dante's 1993 comedy Matinee: the military officer played by Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film Mant is named General Ankrum.