Trivia: Born Emmanuel Goldenberg, Edward G. Robinson was a stocky, forceful, zesty star of Hollywood films who was best known for his gangsters roles in the '30s. A "little giant" of the screen with a pug-dog face, drawling nasal voice, and a snarling expression, he was considered the quintessential tough-guy actor. Having emigrated with his family to the U.S. when he was ten, Robinson planned to be a rabbi or a lawyer, but decided on an acting career while a student at City College, where he was elected to the Elizabethan Society. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a scholarship, and, in 1913, began appearing in summer stock after changing his name to "Edward G." (for Goldenberg). Robinson debuted on Broadway in 1915, and, over the next 15 years, became a noted stage character actor, even co-writing one of his plays, The Kibitzer (1929). He appeared in one silent film, The Bright Shawl (1923), but not until the sound era did he begin working regularly in films, making his talkie debut in The Hole in the Wall (1929) with Claudette Colbert. It was a later sound film, 1930's Little Caesar, that brought him to the attention of American audiences; portraying gangster boss Rico Bandello, he established a prototype for a number of gangster roles he played in the ensuing years. After being typecast as a gangster he gradually expanded the scope of his roles, and, in the '40s, gave memorable "good guy" performances as in a number of psychological dramas; he played federal agents, scientists, Biblical characters, business men, bank clerks, among other characters. The actor experienced a number of personal problems during the '50s. He was falsely linked to communist organizations and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (eventually being cleared of all suspicion). Having owned one of the world's largest private art collections, he was forced to sell it in 1956 as part of a divorce settlement with his wife of 29 years, actress Gladys Lloyd. Robinson continued his career, however, which now included television work, and he remained a busy actor until shortly before his death from cancer in 1973. His final film was Soylent Green (1973), a science fiction shocker with Charlton Heston. Two months after his death, Robinson was awarded an honorary Oscar "for his outstanding contribution to motion pictures," having been notified of the honor before he died. He was also the author of a posthumously published autobiography, All My Yesterdays (1973).

Trivia: The daughter of a commercial artist, Jean Arthur became a model early in life, then went on to work in films. Whatever self-confidence she may have built up was dashed when she was removed from the starring role of Temple of Venus (1923) after a few days of shooting. It was the first of many disappointments for the young actress, but she persevered and, by 1928, was being given co-starring roles at Paramount Pictures. Arthur's curious voice, best described as possessing a lilting crack, ensured her work in talkies, but she was seldom used to full advantage in the early '30s. Dissatisfied with the vapid ingenue, society debutante, and damsel-in-distress parts she was getting (though she was chillingly effective as a murderess in 1930's The Greene Murder Case), Arthur left films for Broadway in 1932 to appear in Foreign Affairs. In 1934, she signed with Columbia Pictures, where, at long last, her gift for combining fast-paced verbal comedy with truly moving pathos was fully utilized. She was lucky enough to work with some of the most accomplished directors in Hollywood: Frank Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [1936], You Can't Take It With You [1938], Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939]); John Ford (The Whole Town's Talking [1935]); and Howard Hawks (Only Angels Have Wings [1937]). Mercurial in her attitudes, terribly nervous both before and after filming a scene -- she often threw up after her scene was finished -- and so painfully shy that it was sometimes difficult for her to show up, she was equally fortunate that her co-workers were patient and understanding with her . Arthur could become hysterical when besieged by fans, and aloof and nonresponsive to reporters. In 1943, she received her only Oscar nomination for The More the Merrier (1943), the second of her two great '40s films directed by George Stevens (Talk of the Town [1942] was the first). After her contract with Columbia ended, she tried and failed to become her own producer. She signed to star in the 1946 Broadway play Born Yesterday -- only to succumb to a debilitating case of stage fright, forcing the producers to replace her at virtually the last moment with Judy Holliday. After the forgettable comedy The Impatient Years in 1944, Arthur made only two more films: Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948), and George Stevens' classic Shane (1952). She also played the lead in Leonard Bernstein's 1950 musical version of Peter Pan, which co-starred Boris Karloff as Captain Hook. In the early '60s, the extremely reclusive Arthur tentatively returned to show business with a few stage appearances and as an attorney on ill-advised 1966 TV sitcom, The Jean Arthur Show, which was mercifully canceled by mid-season. Surprisingly, the ultra-introverted Arthur later decided to tackle the extroverted profession of teaching drama, first at Vassar College and then the North Carolina School of the Arts; one of her students at North Carolina remembered Arthur as "odd" and her lectures as somewhat whimsical and rambling. Retiring for good in 1972, she retreated to her ocean home in Carmel, CA, steadfastly refusing interviews until her resistance was broken down by the author of a book on her one-time director Frank Capra. She died in 1991.

Trivia: Gaunt stage actor Arthur Hohl began appearing in films in 1924. With his haunting eyes and demeanor of false servility, Hohl oiled his way through many a villainous or mildly larcenous role. When he showed up as Brutus in DeMille's Cleopatra (1934), there was no question that audience sympathy would automatically be directed to Julius Caesar (Warren William). Hohl found himself a semi-regular in Hollywood's Sherlock Holmes films, beginning with his portrayal of Moriarty's flunkey Alfie Bassick in 20th Century-Fox's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) and concluding with his performance as primary murder suspect Emile Journet in Universal's The Scarlet Claw (1944). Arthur Hohl was never creepier than as the psychotic phony butler who plans to bump off the entire Bumstead family--even Baby Dumpling and Daisy the Dog!--in Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940).

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

Trivia: Veteran Broadway actor Arthur Byron came to Hollywood at the dawn of the talkie era, when his clear, precise vocal intonations proved to be a sound recordist's dream. Generally cast as high-ranking politicos and business executives, Byron's best screen assignments included the reform-minded warden in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and the title character in The President Vanishes (1934). He could also use his veneer of respectability for dishonest purposes, as witness his Depression-era profiteer in Stand Up and Cheer (1934). Already well-on in years when he entered films, Arthur Byron retired after playing Mr. Erickson in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936).

Trivia: For nearly two decades in Hollywood, Scottish-born actor Donald Meek lived up to his name by portraying a series of tremulous, shaky-voiced sycophants and milquetoasts -- though he was equally effective (if not more so) as nail-hard businessmen, autocratic schoolmasters, stern judges, compassionate doctors, small-town Babbitts, and at least one Nazi spy! An actor since the age of eight, Meek joined an acrobatic troupe, which brought him to America in his teens. At 18 Meek joined the American military and was sent to fight in the Spanish-American War. He contracted yellow fever, which caused him to lose his hair -- and in so doing, secured his future as a character actor. Meek made his film bow in 1928; in the early talkie era, he starred with John Hamilton in a series of New York-filmed short subjects based on the works of mystery writer S. S. Van Dyne. Relocating to Hollywood in 1933, Meek immediately found steady work in supporting roles. So popular did Meek become within the next five years that director Frank Capra, who'd never worked with the actor before, insisted that the gratuitous role of Mr. Poppins be specially written for Meek in the film version of You Can't Take It With You (1938) (oddly, this first association with Capra would be the last). Meek died in 1946, while working in director William Wellman's Magic Town; his completed footage remained in the film, though he was certainly conspicuous by his absence during most of the proceedings.

Trivia: Not to be confused with the popular radio commentator of the same name, American stage actor Paul Harvey made his first film in 1917. Harvey appeared in a variety of character roles, ranging from Sheiks (Kid Millions [34]) to Gangsters (Alibi Ike [35]) before settling into his particular niche as one of Hollywood's favorite blowhard executives. Looking for all the world like one of those old comic-strip bosses who literally blew their tops (toupee and all), Harvey was a pompous target ripe for puncturing by such irreverent comics as Groucho Marx (in A Night in Casablanca [46]) and such down-to-earth types as Doris Day (April in Paris [54]). Paul Harvey's final film role was a typically imperious one in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (55); Harvey died of thrombosis shortly after finishing this assignment.

Trivia: Born in New York City and educated at the University of Virginia, comic actor Edward Brophy entered films as a small part player in 1919. After a few years, he opted for the more financially secure production end of the business, though he never abandoned acting altogether. While working as property master for the Buster Keaton unit at MGM, Brophy was lured before the cameras for a memorable sequence in The Cameraman (1928) in which he and Buster both try to undress in a tiny wardrobe closet. Keaton saw to it that Brophy was prominently cast in two of the famed comedian's talking pictures, and by 1934 Brophy was once again acting full-time. Using his popping eyes, high pitched voiced and balding head to his best advantage, Brophy scored in role after role as funny gangsters and dyspeptic fight managers (he was less effective in such serious parts as the crazed killer in the 1935 horror film Mad Love). In 1940, Brophy entered the realm of screen immortality as the voice of Timothy Mouse in Walt Disney's feature-length cartoon Dumbo (1940). Curtailing his activities in the 1950s, he did his last work for director John Ford. Brophy died during production of Ford's Two Rode Together (1961); according to some sources, the actor's few completed scenes remain in the final release version of that popular western.

Trivia: Of Anglo/French parentage, birdlike comic actor Etienne Girardot was an established theatrical favorite long before the turn of the century. One of Girardot's best-loved stage roles was Lord Fancourt Babberly in Charley's Aunt; a production photo of the actor in female drag appeared for years in the Collier's Encyclopedia entry on "Theatre." He entered films in 1912 as star of Vitagraph's The Violin of Monsieur. Then it was back to the stage, where in 1933 he scored a personal success as balmy self-styled millionaire Mr. Clark in Hecht and MacArthur's Twentieth Century. It was this role that brought Girardot back to movies on a full-time basis, where he remained until his death in 1939. Etienne Girardot's film roles included crabby coroner Dr. Doremus in two "Philo Vance" mysteries; orphanage official Wyckoff in Curly Top (1935), who endures the indignity of being imitated (quite well) by star Shirley Temple; and King Louis' senile physician in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).

Trivia: J. Farrell MacDonald was one of the most beloved and prolific character actors in Hollywood history. A former minstrel singer, MacDonald toured the U.S. in stage productions for nearly two decades before he ever set foot in Tinseltown. He made his earliest film appearances in 1911 with Carl Laemmle's IMP company (the forerunner of Universal); within two years he was a firmly established lead actor and director. While functioning in the latter capacity with L. Frank Baum's Oz Film Company, MacDonald gave much-needed work to up-and-coming extras Hal Roach and Harold Lloyd. When Roach set up his own production company in 1915 with Lloyd as his star, he signed MacDonald as director (both Roach and Lloyd would hire their one-time employer as character actor well into the sound era). In the 1920's, MacDonald had returned to acting full time, appearing extensively in westerns and Irish-flavored comedies. A particular favorite of director John Ford, he was prominently featured in such Ford silents as The Iron Horse (1924), The Bad Man (1926) and Riley the Cop (1927, as Riley). He also showed up as Kelly in some of Universal's culture-clash "Cohens and Kellys" comedies. With a voice that matched his personality perfectly, MacDonald was busier than ever in the early-talkie era, usually playing such workaday roles as cops and railroad engineers; in 1932 alone, he showed up in 18 films! Even when his footage was limited, he was always given a moment or two to shine, as witness his emotional curtain speech in Shirley Temple's Our Little Girl. He kept up his workload into the 1940s, often popping up in the films of John Ford and Preston Sturges. His later roles often went unbilled, but he gave his all no matter how fleeting the assignment. One of his choicest roles of the 1940s was as the Dodge City barkeep in Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946). J. Farrell MacDonald continued working right up to his death in 1952; one of his last assignments was a continuing character on the Gene Autry-produced TV series Range Rider.

Trivia: Lovers of '30s films enjoy pointing out their favorite obscure character actors and identifying them by name. One such actor, Philadelphia-born John Wray, is almost instantly recognizable for his grim countenance, piggish eyes, and chunky frame. He was one of the many Broadway actors to descend on Hollywood in the aftermath of the sound revolution, and as such, made an indelible impression on moviegoers. Though seldom playing anything more than a bit or minor role, Wray was lucky enough to have several indelible screen performances to his credit. In 1930, he played Himmelstoss, the meek postman who becomes a cruel Army drill instructor in the opening scenes of All Quiet on the Western Front; restored prints of this Oscar-winning classic have revealed that Wray's part was originally much larger, including a colorful "mad scene" when the sadistic Himmelstoss finds himself under enemy fire for the first time.Wray also played the Arnold Rothstein-like gangster in The Czar of Broadway (1930); and the contortionist the Frog in the remake of The Miracle Man (1932). Wray's portrayals of proletarian nastiness grew increasingly smaller as the decade progressed but he was very visible as the starving farmer threatening to kill Gary Cooper for throwing his money away in mid-Depression in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (a scene that ends with Wray breaking down sobbing apologetically, inspiring Deeds to set up a financial incentive program to put down-and-outers back on their feet). Avid cinephiles may also remember Wray's portrayal of the warden in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once (1937). This Wray is not to be confused with the American silent film director and playwright John Griffith Wray of the 1920s.

Trivia: Beefy, puffy-faced Canadian actor Joseph Sawyer spent his first years in films (the early- to mid-'30s) acting under his family name of Sauer. Before he developed his comic skills, Sawyer was often seen in roles calling for casual menace, such as the grinning gunman who introduces "Duke Mantee, the well-known killer" in The Petrified Forest (1936). While under contract to Hal Roach studios in the 1940s, Sawyer starred in several of Roach's "streamliners," films that ran approximately 45 minutes each. He co-starred with William Tracy in a series of films about a GI with a photographic memory and his bewildered topkick: Titles included Tanks a Million (1941), Fall In (1942), and Yanks Ahoy (1943) (he later reprised this role in a brace of B-pictures produced by Hal Roach Jr. for Lippert Films in 1951). A second "streamliner" series, concerning the misadventures of a pair of nouveau riche cabdrivers, teamed Sawyer with another Roach contractee, William Bendix. Baby boomers will remember Joe Sawyer for his 164-episode stint as tough but soft-hearted cavalry sergeant Biff O'Hara on the '50s TV series Rin Tin Tin.

Trivia: Rotund, ruddy-faced character actor Ferdinand Munier first showed up in films around 1923. Blessed with a rich, rolling voice that perfectly matched his portly frame, Munier flourished in the talkie era, playing scores of pompous foreign ambassadors, gouty aristocrats, and philandering businessmen. His many screen assignments included King Louis XIII in The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) and the aptly named Prince Too-Much-Belly in Diamond Horseshoe. A perfect Santa Claus type, Ferdinand Munier was frequently cast as Saint Nick, most amusingly in Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland (1934) and Hope and Crosby's Road to Utopia (1945).

Trivia: Spindly, mustachioed character actor Cornelius Keefe was active in Hollywood from 1924 to 1958. When talkies came in, Keefe was engaged as a recurring player in Educational Studio's "Torchy" 2-reel comedy series. He landed sizable parts in films like Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933) and Lady with a Past (1934), and was also busy in the "B"-western field. For the most part, his roles were bits and walk-ons; in this capacity, he showed up in a number of John Ford pictures. Though Cornelius Keefe also billed himself as Jack Hill, his credits should not be confused with those of Hal Roach stock-company player Jack Hill.

Trivia: Mainly remembered for offering younger brother John Ford his first opportunities in the movie business, Francis Ford (born Feeney) was a touring company actor before entering films with Thomas Edison in 1907. In the early 1910s, he served a tumultuous apprenticeship as a director/star for producer Thomas Ince -- who in typical Ince fashion presented many of Ford's accomplishments as his own -- before moving over to Carl Laemmle's Universal in 1913. A true auteur, Ford would direct, write, and star in his own Westerns and serials, often opposite Grace Cunard, the studio's top action heroine. Contrary to popular belief they never married, but their onscreen partnership resulted in such popular action serials as Lucille Love -- Girl of Mystery (1914), The Broken Coin (1915), and The Adventures of Peg o' the Ring (1916). Both Ford's and Cunard's careers declined in the 1920s, with Ford directing mostly poverty row productions. He kept working in films as a supporting actor through the early '50s, mainly due to the influence of John, who often made Francis Ford and Victor McLaglen supply the corny Irish humor for which he exhibited a lifelong fondness. Francis Ford's son, Philip Ford, also became a director of Westerns, and also like his father, mainly of the poverty row variety.

Trivia: Left fatherless at the age of four, American actress Lucille Ball developed a strong work ethic in childhood; among her more unusual jobs was as a "seeing eye kid" for a blind soap peddler. Ball's mother sent the girl to the Chautauqua Institution for piano lessons, but she was determined to pursue an acting career after watching the positive audience reaction given to vaudeville monologist Julius Tannen. Young Ball performed in amateur plays for the Elks club and at her high school, at one point starring, staging, and publicizing a production of Charley's Aunt. In 1926, Ball enrolled in the John Murray Anderson American Academy of Dramatic Art in Manhattan (where Bette Davis was the star pupil), but was discouraged by her teachers to continue due to her shyness. Her reticence notwithstanding, Ball kept trying until she got chorus-girl work and modeling jobs; but even then she received little encouragement from her peers, and the combination of a serious auto accident and recurring stomach ailments seemed to bode ill for her theatrical future. Still, Ball was no quitter, and, in 1933, she managed to become one of the singing/dancing Goldwyn Girls for movie producer Samuel Goldwyn; her first picture was Eddie Cantor's Roman Scandals (1933). Working her way up from bit roles at both Columbia Pictures (where one of her assignments was in a Three Stooges short) and RKO Radio, Ball finally attained featured billing in 1935, and stardom in 1938 -- albeit mostly in B-movies. Throughout the late 1930s and '40s, Ball's movie career moved steadily, if not spectacularly; even when she got a good role like the nasty-tempered nightclub star in The Big Street (1942), it was usually because the "bigger" RKO contract actresses had turned it down. By the time she finished a contract at MGM (she was dubbed "Technicolor Tessie" at the studio because of her photogenic red hair and bright smile) and returned to Columbia in 1947, she was considered washed up. Ball's home life was none too secure, either. She'd married Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940, but, despite an obvious strong affection for one another, they had separated and considered divorce numerous times during the war years. Hoping to keep her household together, Ball sought out professional work in which she could work with her husband. Offered her own TV series in 1950, she refused unless Arnaz would co-star. Television was a godsend for the couple; and Arnaz discovered he had a natural executive ability, and was soon calling all the shots for what would become I Love Lucy. From 1951 through 1957, it was the most popular sitcom on television, and Ball, after years of career stops and starts, was firmly established as a megastar in her role of zany, disaster-prone Lucy Ricardo. When her much-publicized baby was born in January 1953, the story received more press coverage than President Eisenhower's inauguration. With their new Hollywood prestige, Ball and Arnaz were able to set up the powerful Desilu Studios production complex, ultimately purchasing the facilities of RKO, where both performers had once been contract players. But professional pressures and personal problems began eroding the marriage, and Ball and Arnaz divorced in 1960, although both continued to operate Desilu. Ball gave Broadway a try in the 1960 musical Wildcat, which was successful but no hit, and, in 1962, returned to TV to solo as Lucy Carmichael on The Lucy Show. She'd already bought out Arnaz's interest in Desilu, and, before selling the studio to Gulf and Western in 1969, Ball had become a powerful executive in her own right, determinedly guiding the destinies of such fondly remembered TV series as Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. The Lucy Show ended in the spring of 1968, but Ball was back that fall with Here's Lucy, in which she played "odd job" specialist Lucy Carter and co-starred with her real-life children, Desi Jr. and Lucie. Here's Lucy lasted until 1974, at which time her career took some odd directions. She poured a lot of her own money in a film version of the Broadway musical Mame (1974), which can charitably be labeled an embarrassment. Her later attempts to resume TV production, and her benighted TV comeback in the 1986 sitcom Life With Lucy, were unsuccessful, although Ball, herself, continued to be lionized as the First Lady of Television, accumulating numerous awards and honorariums. Despite her many latter-day attempts to change her image -- in addition to her blunt, commandeering off-stage personality -- Ball would forever remain the wacky "Lucy" that Americans had loved intensely in the '50s. She died in 1989.

Trivia: Canadian stage actor Ben Taggart made a few New York-based films in the mid-teens, but for the most part concentrated on theatrical work. Taggart came to Hollywood in 1931 to play Captain Corcoran in the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business; he also portrayed a theatrical agent in the film's promotional trailer, exchanging rhymed couplets with Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo. After a bit as a traffic cop in the Marx Brothers' Horse Feathers (1932), he freelanced as a featured player. He showed up in several Charley Chase two-reelers of the 1930s, usually playing Chase's boss or prospective father-in-law. In addition, he could be seen in a handful of serials, including Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). In his last active years, Ben Taggart was often as not cast as a B-picture prison warden.

Trivia: Brutish-looking actor Walter Long entered films in 1909 after brief stage experience. He became a valued member of D.W. Griffith's stock company, excelling in roles calling for strong-arm villainy and glowering menace. In Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), Long played Gus, the renegade Negro whose lustful pursuit of virginal Mae Marsh results in the girl's suicidal leap from a precipice; while in the same director's Intolerance, Long was "the musketeer of the slums," a gangster boss whose murder motivates the climactic race to the rescue. He persisted in villainy into the 1920s, providing a formidable foe to such silent heroes as Rudolph Valentino and William Boyd. Despite his on-screen skullduggery, Long enjoyed a reputation as a prince of a fellow; his courtesy and good manners were particularly prized by the leading ladies whom Long's screen characters frequently imperiled. In talkies, Long proved to have a low, guttural voice that matched his movie image perfectly, and he continued unabated to portray thugs, pluguglies and lowlifes. Though many of his talkie roles were bit parts, he was well served in the films of Laurel and Hardy, playing a prison cell-block leader in Pardon Us (1931), a drink-sodden prizefighter in Any Old Port (1932), a vengeful gangster ("I'll break off yer legs and wrap 'em around yer neck") in Going Bye Bye (1934), a shanghaiing sea captain in The Live Ghost (1934), and a Mexican bandido in Pick a Star (1937). During World War II, the fifty-plus Walter Long served as a lieutenant colonel in the Army; upon his discharge, he returned to the stage, where he remained active until his retirement in 1950.

Trivia: Diminutive Scottish stage and screen actress Mary Gordon was seemingly placed on this earth to play care-worn mothers, charwomen and housekeepers. In films from the silent area (watch for her towards the end of the 1928 Joan Crawford feature Our Dancing Daughters), Gordon played roles ranging from silent one-scene bits to full-featured support. She frequently acted with Laurel and Hardy, most prominently as the stern Scots innkeeper Mrs. Bickerdyke in 1935's Bonnie Scotland. Gordon was also a favorite of director John Ford, portraying Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Englishwomen with equal aplomb (and sometimes with the same accent). She was the screen mother of actors as diverse as Jimmy Cagney, Leo Gorcey and Lou Costello; she parodied this grey-haired matriarch image in Olsen and Johnson's See My Lawyer (1945), wherein her tearful court testimony on behalf of her son (Ed Brophy) is accompanied by a live violinist. Mary Gordon is most fondly remembered by film buffs for her recurring role as housekeeper Mrs. Hudson in the Sherlock Holmes films of 1939-46 starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, a role she carried over to the Holmes radio series of the '40s.

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: Though never officially billed as Charles "Blackie" King, American actor Charlie King played so many "Blackies" in B-westerns that one is astounded to discover that it wasn't his middle name. Drifting into films in the '20s, the squat, stubble-chinned, mustachioed King picked up minor roles as chauffeurs, interns and bridegrooms in the two-reel comedies of such performers as Our Gang, the Three Stooges and Leon Errol. It was during the B-western boom of the early talkie era that King really came into his own, showing up in virtually every other poverty-row oater as a gang boss, lynch-mob leader or sinister henchman. Evidently King felt the day was wasted if he wasn't dynamiting a dam, setting fire to homesteaders' shacks, or engaging the hero in a fistic battle. Outtakes of these westerns have revealed that this "human monster" was actually shy and soft-spoken, never reverting to profanity when blowing his lines (more than can be said for some of the "clean-living" western heroes of the era). In fact, King's private life was governed by his formidable wife, who had spies posted at the studio to make certain that King came home right away with his paycheck without any side trips to bars or gaming tables. Gaining a beard and excess weight in the late '40s, King began appearing less frequently as villains and more often as roly-poly comedy relief. King literally died with his boots on, suffering a heart attack after shooting a 1957 episode of Gunsmoke -- in which he played a corpse! William K. Everson's 1964 coffee-table book The Bad Guys was affectionately dedicated to the scurrilously prolific Charles "Blackie" King.

Trivia: A leading man for the New York-based Excelsior company in the early 1910s, this supporting actor of many names was born Gordon de Main Wood. Later in his career, DeMain would alternately bill himself as Gordon De Maine, Gordon DeMain, Gordon Wood, G.D. Wood, or simply Bud Wood, but in the early sound era he would invariably play two of the mainstays of low-budget Westerns, either the Boss Villain or the Sheriff. Once in a while, he would emerge far down in the cast list of a Grade-A film, but then merely playing "Aide" (Mata Hari [1932]) or "Man" (The Whole Town's Talking [1935]). DeMain was always more at home on the range, either making life miserable for such stars as Bob Steele and Tom Tyler or helping them out of a scrape or two. DeMain continued in films until the mid-'40s, but in his later years he was mainly just a member of the posse.

Trivia: Boasting a colorful show-biz background as a circus and vaudeville performer, Robert Emmet O'Connor entered films in 1926. Blessed with a pudgy Irish mug that could convey both jocularity and menace, O'Connor was most often cast as cops and detectives, some of them honest and lovable, some of them corrupt and pugnacious. His roles ranged from such hefty assignments as the flustered plainclothesman Henderson in Night at the Opera (1935) to such bits as the traffic cop who is confused by Jimmy Cagney's barrage of Yiddish in Taxi! (1932). One of his most famous non-cop roles was warm-hearted bootlegger Paddy Ryan in Public Enemy. During the 1940s, O'Connor was a contract player at MGM, showing up in everything from Our Gang comedies to the live-action prologue of the Tex Avery cartoon classic Who Killed Who? (1944). Robert Emmet O'Connor's last film role was Paramount studio-guard Jonesy in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Twelve years later, he died of injuries sustained in a fire.

Trivia: Actor Robert Emmett Homans seemingly had the map of Ireland stamped on his craggy face. As a result, Homans spent the better part of his film career playing law enforcement officers of all varieties, from humble patrolmen to detective chiefs. After a lengthy stage career, Homans entered films in 1923. A break from his usual microscopic film assignments occured in Public Enemy (1931), where Homans is given an opportunity to deliver reams of exposition (with a pronounced brogue) during a funeral sequence. And in the 1942 Universal horror programmer Night Monster, Robert Emmett Homans is alotted a sizeable role as the ulcerated detective investigating the supernatural goings-on at the home of seemingly helpless invalid Ralph Morgan.

Trivia: A one-time child actor for John Ford, Robert Parrish returned as a bit player and later assistant editor and sound editor under Ford in the '30s, and worked under Ford during his time in the navy during World War II, as an editor on several documentaries. He shared an Oscar in 1947 for his editing of the drama Body and Soul, and moved into directing in 1951 with the fascinating film noir Cry Danger. Other highlights of his career include The Wonderful Country (1959), Up from the Beach (1965), a sort-of sequel to The Longest Day, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969), a fascinating and underrated science-fiction film. Since the mid '60s, he has worked largely in Europe and in the '80s turned toward the documentary field. His final film Mississippi Blues (1983), which he made in conjunction with Bertrand Tavernier, ranks among his most notable entries from this period. In Hollywood from the mid-'teens until his death in 1995, Parrish possessed a unique perspective on Hollywood history, and among his colleagues he was renowned for telling fascinating stories and anecdotes, many of which he put into two books, Growing Up in Hollywood and Hollywood Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Trivia: American actress Grace Hayle spent most of her screen time playing bejeweled dowagers, huffy department store customers and aggressive lady journalists. Hayle proved a worthy Margaret Dumont type in Wheeler and Woolsey's Diplomaniacs (1933), supplied laughs as a ruddy-faced cyclist in The Women (1939) and played a most unlikely rhumba dancer in Two-Faced Woman (1940). One of her few credited roles was the long-suffering Madame Napaloni in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). Grace Hayle remained in Hollywood long enough to appear in an early Elvis Presley film.

Trivia: Albert Hill Jr. was the son of stage actor Al Hill (not to be confused with the Hollywood character actor of the same name). The younger Hill's screen credits were limited to two variations on the same basic role. He was seen as Rod, one of the residents of Boys' Town (1938), then as Pete, an inmate of Boys' Reformatory (1939).

Trivia: Chances are when a doctor made a house call in a '40s movie, that doctor was portrayed by Sam Flint. Silver-haired, authoritative, and distinguished by an executive-style moustache, Flint entered films in the early '30s after a long stage career. Though his movie roles were usually confined to one or two scenes per picture, Flint was always instantly recognizable in his characterizations of businessmen, bankers, chairmen of the board, politicians, publishers, fathers of the bride--and, as mentioned before, doctors. In addition to his prolific feature-film work, Sam Flint was always welcome in short subjects, appearing in support of everyone from Our Gang to the Three Stooges.

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

Trivia: Evidently weaned on a diet of pickles and vinegar, wizened screen sourpuss Clarence H. Wilson grimaced and glowered his way through over 100 films from 1920 until his death in 1941. Clarence Hummel Wilson was born in Cincinnati, OH. He began his 46-year acting career in Philadelphia in 1895, in a stock company, and spent years touring the United States and Canada in various road shows. On stage in New York, he later played supporting roles to such stars as James K. Hackett, Virginia Harned, Marguerite Clark, Amelia Bingham, Charles Cherry, and Wilton Lackaye. He entered motion pictures in 1920 and ultimately moved to Hollywood. With the coming of sound, his bald, mustachioed, stoop-shouldered persona, topped by a distinctive and annoying high, whining voice, and coupled with his broad approach to acting, made him an ideal villain. Wilson, whose slightly squinty yet hovering gaze seemed to invoke bad fortune upon whomever it landed, played dozens of irascible judges, taciturn coroners, impatient landlords, flat-footed process servers, angry school superintendents, miserly businessmen, and cold-hearted orphanage officials. Whenever he smiled, which wasn't often, one could almost hear the creak of underused facial muscles. Though he generally played bits, he was occasionally afforded such larger roles as the drunken sideshow-impresario father of heroine Helen Mack in Son of Kong (1933), with his pathetic trained animal act. He was the perfect over-the-top villain, a nastier male equivalent to Margaret Hamilton, and indispensable to comedy films, in which he served brilliantly as the humorless foil of such funmakers as W.C. Fields, Wheeler & Woolsey, Charley Chase, and especially the Our Gang kids. Although he appeared in such major films as the 1931 version of The Front Page (playing the corrupt sheriff) and the aforementioned Son of Kong, Wilson's most prominent screen roles for modern audiences were in a pair of short subjects in the Our Gang series of films: first as Mr. Crutch, the greedy orphanage manager who is undone when a pair of adults get transformed into children by a magical lamp in Shrimps for a Day (1934); and, at the other end of the series' history, as nasty schoolboard chairman Alonzo K. Pratt in Come Back, Miss Pipps (1941), his penultimate film release.

Trivia: It is perhaps superfluous to note that actor Philip Morris was no relation to the cigarette-manufacturing family of the same name. In films from 1935 to 1948, Morris was generally cast as a cop, doorman, cabbie, or truck driver. He can be glimpsed near the end of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) as the traffic cop investigating George Minafer's auto accident, and in High, Wide and Handsome (1937) as one of the sweating teamsters. One of Philip Morris' few screen characters to be given a name was Howard Ross in the 1948 Western Whirlwind Raiders.