Trivia: Elizabeth Taylor was the ultimate movie star: violet-eyed, luminously beautiful, and bigger than life; although never the most gifted actress, she was the most magnetic, commanding the spotlight with unparalleled power. Whether good (two Oscars, one of the first million-dollar paychecks, and charity work), bad (health and weight problems, drug battles, and other tragedies), or ugly (eight failed marriages, movie disasters, and countless scandals), no triumph or setback was too personal for media consumption. Born February 27, 1932, in London, Taylor literally grew up in public. At the beginning of World War II, her family relocated to Hollywood, and by the age of ten she was already under contract at Universal. She made her screen debut in 1942's There's One Born Every Minute, followed a year later by a prominent role in Lassie Come Home. For MGM, she co-starred in the 1944 adaptation of Jane Eyre, then appeared in The White Cliffs of Dover. With her first lead role as a teen equestrian in the 1944 family classic National Velvet, Taylor became a star. To their credit, MGM did not exploit her, despite her incredible beauty; she did not even reappear onscreen for two more years, returning with Courage of Lassie. Taylor next starred as Cynthia in 1947, followed by Life With Father. In Julia Misbehaves, she enjoyed her first grown-up role, and then portrayed Amy in the 1947 adaptation of Little Women. Taylor's first romantic lead came opposite Robert Taylor in 1949's Conspirator. Her love life was already blossoming offscreen as well; that same year she began dating millionaire Howard Hughes, but broke off the relationship to marry hotel heir Nicky Hilton when she was just 17 years old. The marriage made international headlines, and in 1950 Taylor scored a major hit as Spencer Tracy's daughter in Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride; a sequel, Father's Little Dividend, premiered a year later. Renowned as one of the world's most beautiful women, Taylor was nevertheless largely dismissed as an actress prior to an excellent performance in the George Stevens drama A Place in the Sun.In 1956, however, the actress reunited with Stevens to star in his epic adaptation of the Edna Ferber novel Giant. It was a blockbuster, as was her 1957 follow-up Raintree County, for which she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Taylor's sexy image was further elevated by an impossibly sensual performance in 1958's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; another Tennessee Williams adaptation, Suddenly Last Summer, followed a year later, and both were highly successful. To complete the terms of her MGM contract, she grudgingly agreed to star in 1960's Butterfield 8; upon completing the film Taylor traveled to Britain to begin work on the much-heralded Cleopatra, for which she received an unprecedented one-million-dollar fee. In London she became dangerously ill, and underwent a life-saving emergency tracheotomy. Hollywood sympathy proved sufficient for her to win a Best Actress Oscar for Butterfield 8, although much of the good will extended toward her again dissipated in the wake of the mounting difficulties facing Cleopatra. With five million dollars already spent, producers pulled the plug and relocated the shoot to Italy, replacing co-star Stephen Boyd with Richard Burton. The final tally placed the film at a cost of 37 million dollars, making it the most costly project in film history; scheduled for a 16-week shoot, the production actually took years, and despite mountains of pre-publicity, it was a huge disaster at the box office upon its 1963 premiere. Still, the notice paid to Cleopatra paled in comparison to the scrutiny which greeted Taylor's latest romance, with Burton, and perhaps no Hollywood relationship was ever the subject of such intense media coverage. Theirs was a passionate, stormy relationship, played out in the press and onscreen in films including 1963's The V.I.P.'s and 1965's The Sandpiper. In 1966, the couple starred in Mike Nichols' controversial directorial debut Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, arguably Taylor's best performance; overweight, verbally cutting, and defiantly unglamorous, she won a second Oscar for her work as the embittered wife of Burton's alcoholic professor. Their real-life marriage managed to survive, however, and after Taylor appeared opposite Marlon Brando in 1967's Reflections in a Golden Eye, she and Burton reunited for The Comedians. She also starred in Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew, but none were successful at the box office; 1968's Doctor Faustus was a disaster, and later that year Boom! failed to gross even one-quarter of its costs. After 1969's Secret Ceremony, Taylor starred in The Only Game in Town, a year later; when they too failed, her days of million-dollar salaries were over, and she began working on percentage.With Burton, Taylor next appeared in a small role in 1971's Under Milk Wood; next was X, Y and Zee, followed by another spousal collaboration, Hammersmith Is Out. In 1972 the Burtons also co-starred in a television feature, Divorce His, Divorce Hers; the title proved prescient, as two years later, the couple did indeed divorce after a decade together. With no film offers forthcoming, Taylor turned to the stage, and in 1981 she starred in a production of The Little Foxes. In 1983, she and Burton also reunited to co-star on Broadway in Private Lives. Television also remained an option, and in 1983 she and Carol Burnett co-starred in Between Friends. However, Taylor's primary focus during the decades to follow was charity work; following the death of her close friend, Rock Hudson, she became a leader in the battle against AIDS, and for her efforts won the 1993 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. In 1997, the actress once again became a featured tabloid topic when she underwent brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. The same year, she received attention of a more favorable variety with Happy Birthday Elizabeth: A Celebration of Life, a TV special in which she was paid tribute by a number of stars including Madonna, Shirley MacLaine, John Travolta, Dennis Hopper, and Cher. Taylor would continue to make her voice heard when it came to issues that she felt strongly about. In 2003, Taylor refused to attend the Academy Awards out of protest against the Iraq War. Taylor also worked tirelessly in the name of AIDS research, advocacy, and awareness, even appearing in a 2007 staging of the A.R. Gurney play Love Letters opposite James Earl Jones to benefit Taylor's own AIDS foundation -- a performance that earned over a million dollars for the cause. Sadly, Taylor was increasingly plagued by health problems, undergoing cardiac surgery in 2009 to replace a leaky heart valve. On March 23, 2011, she passed away from congestive heart failure. She was 79.

Trivia: American actor Rock Hudson was born Roy Scherer, adopting the last name Fitzgerald when his mother remarried in the mid-'30s. A popular but academically unspectacular student at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL, he decided at some point during his high school years to become an actor, although a wartime stint in the Navy put these plans on hold. Uninspiring postwar jobs as a moving man, postman, telephone company worker, and truck driver in his new home of California only fueled his desire to break into movies, which was accomplished after he had professional photos of himself taken and sent out to the various studios. A few dead-end interviews later, he took drama lessons; his teacher advised him to find a shorter name if he hoped to become a star, and, after rejecting Lance and Derek, he chose Rock ("Hudson" was inspired by the automobile of that name). Signed by Universal-International, Hudson was immediately loaned to Warner Bros. for his first film, Fighter Squadron (1948); despite director Raoul Walsh's predictions of stardom for the young actor, Hudson did the usual contract player bits, supporting roles, and villain parts when he returned to Universal. A good part in Winchester '73 (1950) led to better assignments, and the studio chose to concentrate its publicity on Hudson's physical attributes rather than his acting ability, which may explain why the actor spent an inordinate amount of screen time with his shirt off. A favorite of teen-oriented fan magazines, Hudson ascended to stardom, his films gradually reaching the A-list category with such important releases as Magnificent Obsession (1954) and Battle Hymn (1957). Director George Stevens cast Hudson in one of his best roles, Bick Benedict, in the epic film Giant (1956), and critics finally decided that, since Hudson not only worked well with such dramatic league leaders as Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean -- but frequently outacted them in Giant -- he deserved better, less condescending reviews. Hudson's career took a giant leap forward in 1959 when he was cast in Pillow Talk, the first of several profitable co-starring gigs with Doris Day. Once again taken for granted by the mid-'60s, Hudson turned in another first-rate performance as a middle-aged man given a newer, younger body in the mordant fantasy film Seconds (1966). A longtime television holdout, Hudson finally entered the weekly video race in 1971 with the popular detective series McMillan and Wife, co-starring Susan Saint James, and appeared on the prime time soap opera Dynasty in the early '80s. Regarded by his co-workers as a good sport, hard worker, and all-around nice guy, Hudson endured a troubled private life; though the studio flacks liked to emphasize his womanizing, Hudson was, in reality, a homosexual. This had been hinted at for years by the Hollywood underground, but it was only in the early '80s that Hudson confirmed the rumors by announcing that he had contracted the deadly AIDS virus. Staunchly defended by friends, fans, and co-workers, Rock Hudson lived out the remainder of his life with dignity, withstanding the ravages of his illness, the intrusions of the tabloid press, and the less than tasteful snickerings of the judgmental and misinformed. It was a testament to his courage -- and a tragedy in light of his better film work -- that Hudson will be principally remembered as the first star of his magnitude to go public with details of his battle with AIDS. He died in 1985.

Trivia: In little more than a year's time and after appearing in only three feature films, James Byron Dean became one of the most admired screen stars of all time, achieving cult status and becoming an icon of American culture. The son of a dental technician, Dean was born in Marion, IN, an unprepossessing Midwestern burg that has since become a shrine to Dean aficionados. At five, Dean moved to Los Angeles with his family. Four years later, his mother died, and he was returned to the Midwest, to be cared for by relatives on their Fairmount, IN, farm. Upon graduation from high school, he returned to California and attended Santa Monica Junior College and U.C.L.A., later gravitating to acting, first with James Whitmore's workshop group, then in television commercials. His earliest existing film appearance was as one of Christ's apostles in "Hill Number One," a 1951 episode of the TV religious series Family Theatre. Working as a busboy between acting engagements in New York, he was given his first Broadway break in the short-lived The Jaguar. Dean soon began receiving uncredited bit parts in Hollywood films, the most prominent of which was his tongue-twisting turn as a soda emporium customer in Universal's Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952). Then it was back to New York, where he observed classes at the Actors' Studio. While making a few scattered live-TV appearances, Dean paid the bills by working as a "test pilot" on the audience-participation series Beat the Clock, walking through the various stunts in rehearsal to see if "normal" people could perform them during the telecast. Upon being cast in the Broadway play The Immoralist, he was compelled to give up his Beat the Clock job to another aspiring actor, Warren Oates.Creating a sensation as an Arab gigolo in The Immoralist, Dean came to the attention of director Elia Kazan, who'd previously brought the "Method" to the masses by casting Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Viva Zapata! (1952). Sensing an embryonic Brando in Dean, Kazan cast the sensitive young actor as Cal Trask in the 1955 film adaptation of Steinbeck's East of Eden. Playing a hell-raising teenager who yearned openly and unashamedly to be loved and accepted by his rigid and taciturn father (Raymond Massey), Dean "spoke" to the disenfranchised youth of the Eisenhower era far more eloquently than any previous actor. Dean carried his loner persona over into his next film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Even after four decades, this Nicholas Ray-directed film remains the quintessential misunderstood-teen flick. While Rebel was in production, East of Eden hit the theaters, stirring up the first signs of Dean's staggering popularity -- what would later become the "James Dean Cult." Knowing they had a gold mine on their hands, Warner Bros. instantly upped the budget of Rebel, scrapping the black-and-white footage that had already been shot and starting the whole project over in color and Cinemascope. Now committed to a seven-year contract at Warners, Dean was afforded third billing to Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in Giant, director George Stevens' epic cinemazation of Edna Ferber's best-seller. As Jett Rink, Dean once more played the brooding outsider, this time separated from his heart's desire by his lowly station in life. Even when cast in a villainous light, however, Dean remains the most fascinating presence in the film, especially in his brilliantly choreographed climactic drunk scene. Dean plays the cast-off loner in all three of his starring features, unable to draw attention to himself until forcing the issue. Off camera, Dean unfortunately possessed a fascination with fast cars. Upon completing Giant, he piled into his new 7,000 dollar Porsche and zoomed off to a racing event in Salinas. Traveling 115 miles an hour, Dean was killed in a head-on crash just outside Paso Robles, CA. The hysterical outpouring of grief that attended his death had not been witnessed by the motion picture community since the demise of Rudolph Valentino in 1926. The cult worship of James Dean assumed a variety of shapes, sizes, and degrees. Book upon book has been written about Dean's short life; original poster art from his films has been auctioned off at astronomical prices and two full-length biopics have been produced: the hastily cobbled together The James Dean Story (1957) and the made-for-TV James Dean (1976), the latter project based on the memoirs of Dean's roommate, James Bast, and starring Stephen McHattie. After Dean's death, two of the actor's scheduled post-Giant projects, the 1955 TV musical adaptation of Our Town and the 1956 Rocky Graziano biopic Somebody Up There Likes Me, were both re-cast with Paul Newman. It is quite possible that the James Dean mystique, which persists to the present day, might not have been as intense had he lived longer, but like so many others untimely ripped from our midst -- Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon -- James Dean has transcended mere idol status and entered the hallowed halls of Legend.

Trivia: While still a college student, Mercedes McCambridge began performing on radio, and soon became one of the busiest and most respected radio actresses of her time. In the late '40s she appeared successfully in several Broadway productions, leading to an invitation from Hollywood. For her screen debut in All the King's Men (1949), she won a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar. Despite her early success, she went on to appear in films only intermittently, usually in intense, volatile roles. For her work in Giant (1956), she received a second Oscar nomination. McCambridge was never seen onscreen in what was perhaps her best-known performance: that of the demon's voice in the huge hit The Exorcist (1975). From 1950-62 she was married to writer-director Fletcher Markle. McCambridge authored two autobiographies, The Two of Us (1960) and A Quality of Mercy (1981). McCambridge died of natural caues at 87-years-old in 2004.

Trivia: The daughter of a traveling salesman, actress Carroll Baker joined a dance company after one year of college, then worked as a magician's assistant. After a brief marriage to a furrier, she went to Hollywood to act, but was unable to get anything more than a bit role (in 1953's Easy to Love) and so left for New York. At first finding work only in commercials (plus a walk-on in the Broadway play Escapade), in 1954 she enrolled at the Actors Studio; there she met director Jack Garfein, whom she married the following year (they were divorced in 1969). After her appearance in a few TV dramas and Robert Anderson's play All Summer Long (1955), she was noticed by Warner scouts and subsequently cast in James Dean's vehicle Giant (1956). Her success continued that same year when her role as the thumb-sucking wife in Baby Doll (1956) earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She also delivered an exemplary lead performance in director Irving Rapper's The Miracle (1959). With the success of Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood started looking for other Monroe "types" and producers began grooming Baker for the role, as is evident from her work in such films as The Carpetbaggers (1964); in 1965, she played the doomed title role in the film Harlow, another attempt to cast her in the Monroe mold. However, she never caught on with American audiences; in the late 60s, she moved to Italy and began appearing in Italian productions. In 1977 she made her London stage debut in W. Somerset Maugham's Rain, then made a few Hollywood and UK pictures in the late 70s and 80s, as well as putting in a "camp" appearance in Andy Warhol's Bad (1977) and a more straightlaced role as the mother of Dorothy Stratten in Star 80.

Trivia: The daughter of an aggressive (but comparatively benign) stage mother, Jane Withers was taught to sing and dance before she was three. At four, Withers was starring on her own radio program in Atlanta, doing imitations of such celebrities as Greta Garbo, ZaSu Pitts, and Maurice Chevalier. Relocating to Hollywood with her mother in 1932, Withers began her film career in bit parts, eventually winning the plum role of the obnoxious brat who bedevils sweet little Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes (1934) (throughout her career, Withers had nothing but nice things to say about Temple; for her part, Temple claimed that she was terrified of Withers, both on and off camera). This role won Withers a contract at Fox Studios (later 20th Century Fox), and for the next seven years she starred in a series of energetic, medium-budget comedies and musicals bearing such titles as Pepper (1936), The Holy Terror (1937), and Arizona Wildcat (1937). The script for her 1941 vehicle Small Town Deb was penned by Withers herself, using the nom de plume Jerrie Walters. After the end of her Fox contract in 1943, Withers attempted to establish herself as an ingenue in such films as Sam Goldwyn's The North Star, but her offbeat facial features and her inclination toward stoutness limited her choice of roles. In 1947, the newly married Withers decided to retire from films, something she was fully prepared to do thanks to her oil-rich husband and the generous trust fund set up by her parents. The collapse of her marriage and a severe attack of rheumatoid arthritis dealt potentially fatal blows to her optimistic nature, but by 1955 she was back on her feet, attending the U.S.C. film school in hopes of becoming a director. Hollywood producer/director George Stevens, a frequent U.S.C. lecturer, cast Withers in a sizeable supporting role in the 1956 epic Giant. Withers' second career as a character actress flourished into the 1970s; during this resurgence of activity she married again, only to be left a widow when her husband died in a 1968 plane crash. To TV viewers of the 1960s and 1970s, Jane Withers will be forever associated with her long-running (and extremely lucrative) stint as Josephine the Plumber in a popular series of commercials for Comet cleanser.

Trivia: He began performing in early childhood, going on to appear in tent shows, vaudeville, and stock throughout the Southwest. He formed Chill Wills and the Avalon Boys, a singing group in which he was the leader and bass vocalist, in the '30s. After appearing with the group in several Westerns, beginning with his screen debut, Bar 20 Rides Again (1935), he disbanded the group in 1938. For the next fifteen years he was busy onscreen as a character actor, but after 1953 his film work became less frequent. He provided the voice of Francis the Talking Mule in the "Francis" comedy series of films. In the '60s he starred in the TV series "Frontier Circus" and "The Rounders." For his work in The Alamo (1960) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. In 1975 he released a singing album--his first.

Trivia: Short and intense Sal Mineo was a sad-eyed juvenile and adult actor with black curls. At age eight his misbehavior caused him to be kicked out of a parochial school; he went on to attend dancing classes and two years later was cast in Broadway's The Rose Tattoo, moving from there to a prominent adolescent role in The King and I with Yul Brynner. Mineo debuted onscreen in 1955 and for the next decade he was a busy screen actor, first in juvenile roles and then in youthful leads; his characters were often troubled. For his work at age 16 in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), his third feature, he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination; he was nominated in the same category for Exodus (1960). His film work began to dry up after the mid-'60s and Mineo turned to TV and the stage. He directed the play Fortune and Men's Eyes on the West Coast and on Broadway. He was stabbed to death on the street in 1976.

Trivia: The odyssey of Dennis Hopper was one of Hollywood's longest, strangest trips. A onetime teen performer, he went through a series of career metamorphoses -- studio pariah, rebel filmmaker, drug casualty, and comeback kid -- before finally settling comfortably into the role of character actor par excellence, with a rogues' gallery of killers and freaks unmatched in psychotic intensity and demented glee. Along the way, Hopper defined a generation, documenting the shining hopes and bitter disappointments of the hippie counterculture and bringing their message to movie screens everywhere. By extension, he spearheaded a revolt in the motion picture industry, forcing the studio establishment to acknowledge a youth market they'd long done their best to deny. Born May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper began acting during his teen years, and made his professional debut on the TV series Medic. In 1955 he made a legendary collaboration with the director Nicholas Ray in the classic Rebel Without a Cause, appearing as a young tough opposite James Dean. Hopper and Dean became close friends during filming, and also worked together on 1956's Giant. After Dean's tragic death, it was often remarked that Hopper attempted to fill his friend's shoes by borrowing much of his persona, absorbing the late icon's famously defiant attitude and becoming so temperamental that his once-bright career quickly began to wane. Seeking roles far removed from the stereotypical 'troubled teens' which previously dotted his resume, Hopper began training with the Actors Studio. However, on the set of Henry Hathaway's From Hell to Texas he so incensed cast and crew with his insistence upon multiple takes for his improvisational techniques -- the reshoots sometimes numbering upwards of 100 -- that he found himself a Hollywood exile. He spent much of the next decade mired in "B"-movies, if he was lucky enough to work at all. Producers considered him such a risk that upon completing 1960's Key Witness he did not reappear on-screen for another three years. With a noteworthy role in Hathaway's 1965 John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder, Hopper made tentative steps towards a comeback. He then appeared in a number of psychedelic films, including 1967's The Trip and the following year's Monkees feature Head, and earned a new audience among anti-establishment viewers.With friends Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in front of the camera, Hopper decided to direct his own movie, and secured over $400,000 in financing to begin filming a screenplay written by novelist Terry Southern. The result was 1969's Easy Rider, a sprawling, drug-fueled journey through an America torn apart by the conflict in Vietnam. Initially rejected by producer Roger Corman, the film became a countercultural touchstone, grossing millions at the box office and proving to Hollywood executives that the ever-expanding youth market and their considerable spending capital would indeed react to films targeted to their issues and concerns, spawning a cottage industry of like-minded films. Long a pariah, Hopper was suddenly hailed as a major new filmmaker, and his success became so great that in 1971 he appeared in an autobiographical documentary, American Dreamer, exploring his life and times.The true follow-up to Easy Rider, however, was 1971's The Last Movie, an excessive, self-indulgent mess that, while acclaimed by jurors at the Venice Film Festival, was otherwise savaged by critics and snubbed by audiences. Once again Hopper was left picking up the pieces of his career; he appeared only sporadically in films throughout the 1970s, most of them made well outside of Hollywood. His personal life a shambles -- his marriage to singer/actress Michelle Phillips lasted just eight days -- Hopper spent much of the decade in a haze, earning a notorious reputation as an unhinged wild man. An appearance as a disturbed photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now did little to repair most perceptions of his sanity. Then in 1980, Hopper traveled to Canada to appear in a small film titled Out of the Blue. At the outset of the production he was also asked to take over as director, and to the surprise of many, the picture appeared on schedule and to decent reviews. Slowly he began to restake his territory in American films, accepting roles in diverse fare ranging from 1983's teen drama Rumble Fish to the 1985 comedy My Science Project. In 1986 Hopper returned to prominence with a vengeance. His role as the feral, psychopathic Frank Booth in David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet was among the most stunning supporting turns in recent memory, while his touching performance as an alcoholic assistant coach in the basketball drama Hoosiers earned an Academy Award nomination. While acclaimed turns in subsequent films like 1987's The River's Edge threatened to typecast Hopper, there was no doubting his return to Hollywood's hot list, and in 1988 he directed Colors, a charged police drama starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. While subsequent directorial efforts like 1989's Chattahoochee and 1990's film noir The Hot Spot failed to create the same kind of box office returns as Easy Rider over two decades earlier, his improbable comeback continued throughout the 1990s with roles in such acclaimed, quirky films as 1993's True Romance and 1996's Basquiat. Hopper was also the villain-du-jour in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including 1994's Speed and the following year's Waterworld, and was even a pitchman for Nike athletic wear. He also did a number of largely forgettable films such asRon Howard's EdTV (1999). In addition, he also played writer and Beat extraordinaire William S. Burroughs in a 1999 documentary called The Source with Johnny Depp as Jack Kerouac and John Turturro as Allen Ginsberg. In 1997 Hopper was awarded the distinction of appearing 87th in Empire Magazine's list of "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time."Hopper contracted prostate cancer in the early 2000s, and died of related complications in Venice, CA, in late May 2010. He was 74 years old.

Trivia: The son of a brewery owner, steely-eyed American character actor Paul Fix went the vaudeville and stock-company route before settling in Hollywood in 1926. During the 1930s and 1940s he appeared prolifically in varied fleeting roles: a transvestite jewel thief in the Our Gang two-reeler Free Eats (1932), a lascivious zookeeper (appropriately named Heinie) in Zoo in Budapest (1933), a humorless gangster who puts Bob Hope "on the spot" in The Ghost Breakers (1940), and a bespectacled ex-convict who muscles his way into Berlin in Hitler: Dead or Alive (1943), among others. During this period, Fix was most closely associated with westerns, essaying many a villainous (or at least untrustworthy) role at various "B"-picture mills. In the mid-1930s, Fix befriended young John Wayne and helped coach the star-to-be in the whys and wherefores of effective screen acting. Fix ended up appearing in 27 films with "The Duke," among them Pittsburgh (1942), The Fighting Seabees (1943), Tall in the Saddle (1944), Back to Bataan (1945), Red River (1948) and The High and the Mighty (1954). Busy in TV during the 1950s, Fix often found himself softening his bad-guy image to portray crusty old gents with golden hearts-- characters not far removed from the real Fix, who by all reports was a 100% nice guy. His most familiar role was as the honest but often ineffectual sheriff Micah Torrance on the TV series The Rifleman. In the 1960s, Fix was frequently cast as sagacious backwoods judges and attorneys, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

Trivia: A trained painter, Australian-born Rod Taylor switched to acting in his early twenties, toting up Australian stage credits before making his first Aussie film, The Stuart Exposition, in 1951. A villainous stint as Israel Hand in the 1954 Australian/U.S. production Long John Silver gave evidence that Taylor might be able to handle leading roles. However, he was still among the supporting ranks in his first American film, The Virgin Queen (1955). Signed to a nonexclusive contract by MGM in 1957, Taylor was cast in predominantly American roles, and accordingly managed to submerge his Australian accent in favor of a neutral "mid-Atlantic" cadence; even when playing an Englishman in 1960's The Time Machine, he spoke with barely a trace of a discernable accent. His film career peaked in the early to mid 1960s; during the same period he starred in the TV series Hong Kong (1961), the first of several weekly television stints (other series included Bearcats, The Oregon Trail, Masquerade and Outlaws). He was so long associated with Hollywood that, upon returning to Australia to appear in the 1977 film The Picture Show Man, Taylor was cast as an American. In his later career, Taylor thrived in character roles as ageing, but still virile, outdoorsmen, appearing in television shows like The Oregon Trail and Outlaws. He had recurring roles on Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger before mostly retiring from acting. In 2009, director Quentin Tarantino lured him out of retirement with the chance to play Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds. Taylor died in 2015, at age 84.

Trivia: While many of Earl Holliman's bucolic screen characters tended to shy away from "book learnin," Holliman himself is a graduate of UCLA. Making his film debut with a one-line bit as a bellboy in Martin and Lewis' Scared Stiff (1953), Holliman went on to featured and co-starring roles in westerns and military dramas, usually cast as a hot-headed rustic with a streak of manic unpredictability. His larger film roles include the comic-relief cook in Forbidden Planet (1956), Katharine Hepburn's girl-happy brother in The Rainmaker (1956)--a performance that earned him a Golden Globe nomination--and Matt Elder in the John Wayne starrer Sons of Katie Elder (1965). A nearly inescapable presence on television, Holliman turned in some impressive work on the many live TV anthologies of the 1950s. His portrayal of a shipwrecked marine in the 1958 Kraft Theatre production "The Sea is Boiling Hot," in which he carried on a one-sided debate with monolingual Japanese officer Sessue Hayakawa, led to his being cast in a similar solo turn in the 1959 Twilight Zone pilot episode "Where is Everybody?" His series-TV credits include the roles of gunslinger-turned-hotelier Sundance in Hotel de Paree (1959), bronco buster Mitch Guthrie in Wide Country (1962), Palm Springs private eye Matthew Durning in PS I Luv U (1991) and barkeep Darden Towe in Delta (1992). Undoubtedly his most famous TV assignment was as Angie Dickinson's superior officer Lt. Bill Crowley in the weekly Police Woman (1974-78). Most recently Earl Holliman made a most welcome guest appearance as Lea Thompson's Wisconsinite dad in the TV sitcom Caroline in the City.

Trivia: American character actor Robert Nichols appeared in numerous Hollywood and British films during the 1950s. He was particularly prolific during the 1950s. Nichols has also worked on stage and in television.

Trivia: Of Greek parentage, Alexander Scourby hid his natural Brooklynese cadence behind a "stage British" accent in his earliest stage appearance. After an apprenticeship with Eva LeGalliene's company, Scourby graduated to Broadway with a major role in Leslie Howard's 1936 production of Hamlet. In radio from 1937, Scourby became one of the busiest and most sought-after voice-over specialists in the business, functioning as narrator on innumerable TV documentaries and as commercial spokesman for a myriad of products (most notably Johnson & Johnson bandages). In his Broadway and film work, Scourby was frequently cast as a villain, such as the Italian-American gangster boss in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953). One of his last assignments was as the host of the PBS broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera. The resonant voice of Alexander Scourby can still be heard on religious radio stations by virtue of his mid-'60s syndicated series "Alexander Scourby Reads the Scriptures."

Trivia: Rotund, moon-faced character actor Charles Watts made a mini-career out of portraying glad-handing politicians, voluble businessmen and salesmen, crafty bankers, and cheerful or cynical parents, uncles, family friends, and other supporting players. He never had a starring role, or even a co-starring role, in a motion picture, but his physical presence and voice made for some memorable moments. Born in Clarksville, TN, in 1912, Watts was a high-school teacher -- handling both business law and drama -- for a time during his mid-twenties, working in Chattanooga. He worked in local theater and tent shows early in his career, and after World War II was also in demand for industrial shows. Watts didn't start doing movie or television appearances until 1950, and in that first year he played small, uncredited roles in such serious dramas as The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), as a mailman, and Storm Warning (1951), as a lunch-counter proprietor -- and somewhat larger parts, as a sheriff, in three episodes of The Lone Ranger. Over the next 16 years, he was seen in nearly 100 movies and television shows. His most prominent big-screen role was that of Judge (and later United States Senator) Oliver Whiteside in George Stevens' Giant (1956), where his rich, melodious voice and cheerful demeanor were put to extensive use. Watts was also an uncredited man in the crowd in Stuart Heisler's I Died a Thousand Times, a police sergeant in Philip Dunne's The View From Pompey's Head (both 1955), and Mr. Schultz, the salesman from the suspender company, in Billy Wilder's The Spirit of St. Louis (1957). Watts even found his way into two big-scale musicals -- Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and Jumbo (1962) -- a decade apart. When he had a role with dialogue of any length, he was often used -- or so it seemed -- for his tendency to speechify, and to make even ordinary words stand out in relief. As active on television as he was in movies, Watts was familiar to several generations of young viewers for his role as Bill Green, the skeptical anti-superstition league leader in the Adventures of Superman episode "The Lucky Cat" (1955). He also played a small but key role in the Father Knows Best episode "24 Hours in Tyrantland," done on behalf of the Treasury Department to sell U.S. Savings Bonds, as the Andersons' skeptical neighbor, whose brief, cynical talk to son Bud finally pushes Jim Anderson (Robert Young) to straighten his kids out about the importance of savings bonds. Watts remained busy into the mid-'60s, and died of cancer in 1966.

Trivia: While touring in a USO show during World War II, singing cowboy Monte Hale was discovered by Republic pictures talent scout Phil Isley (the father of actress Jennifer Jones). Given the fact that Hale was hired as a possible replacement for Roy Rogers, it is puzzling that Republic took its sweet time promoting their new contractee to "B"-western stardom. He played straight contemporary roles in such films as Steppin' in Society (1944) and the 1945 serial The Purple Monster Strikes, then worked in support of non-singing sagebrusher Sunset Carson. Hale was finally allowed to carry his own series beginning in 1947. Hale remained at Republic until 1950 (he guest-starred with the rest of the studio's western lineup in the Roy Rogers "special" Trail of Robin Hood), then concentrated on his stage appearances with country-western bandleader Ray Whitley. He also began writing and performing patriotic songs, the most popular of which was "That Statue in the Bay," before making one of his last appearances in the 1966 Marlon Brando picture The Chase.

Trivia: After some 15 years on the country & western circuit, singer/actor Sheb Wooley finally cracked popular music's Top Ten in 1958. It was Wooley who introduced the world to the "One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater," which remained the number one song for six straight weeks and stayed in the Top Ten for three weeks more. Thereafter, Wooley's recording career fluctuated between blue-ribbon country & western ballads and silly novelty songs. As an actor, Wooley was seen in such films as Little Big Horn (1951), High Noon (1952), Giant (1956), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), and several other films with a sagebrush setting and equestrian supporting cast. From 1961 through 1965, Sheb Wooley played Pete Nolan, frontier scout for the never-ending cattle drive on the weekly TV Western Rawhide.

Trivia: American actor Victor Millan played character roles on stage, television, and in feature films during the '50s and in the '70s and '80s. When not acting, associate professor Millan taught theater arts at Santa Monica College.

Trivia: Well-muscled former 1935 New York City heavyweight boxing champ Mickey Simpson was typically cast as a villain in numerous low-budget actioners, adventures, and Westerns of the '40s, '50s, and '60s. Before making his screen debut with a bit part in Stagecoach, Simpson had been Claudette Colbert's personal chauffeur. He served with the military during WWII and then returned to Hollywood to continue his busy onscreen career.

Trivia: Character actor Natividad Vacio played small roles on television and in feature films from the late '40s through the late '80s. He was, what one might call a working-class actor, those capable performers who attract little notice, but are indispensable parts of the movie industry, and he specialized in playing average types.

Trivia: Max Terhune developed his gift for mimicry at an early age, amazing parents and friends with his accurate impersonations of barnyard animals. He toured vaudeville with a musical group called the Hoosier Hotshots; after a brief career as a toolmaker, he returned to the stage with such countrified acts as the Weaver Brothers. In 1932, he became the master of ceremonies of radio's WLS Barn Dance, and in this capacity made the acquaintance of a young crooning cowboy named Gene Autry. When Autry headed to Hollywood in 1935, he asked Terhune to come along; somewhat reluctantly, Terhune finally made his movie debut in Autry's Ride, Ranger, Ride (1936). No ordinary one-note comical sidekick, Terhune was a man of many talents, including ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand. He co-starred in Republic's popular Three Mesquiteers series, then sidekicked for such cowboy heroes as Charles Starrett, Tex Ritter, and Johnny Mack Brown. In his final years, Max Terhune showed up on several TV series, and was a fixture of the movie-convention circuit.

Trivia: Born Barbara Berman, Barrie was a supporting actress onscreen from 1956, when she appeared in the James Dean vehicle Giant. She won Cannes Film Fetival Best Actress Award for her star role in One Potato, Two Potato. Barrie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in Breaking Away.

Trivia: A handsome, dark-haired silent-screen leading man with a widow's peak, Charles Meredith appeared opposite some of the era's great leading ladies, including Marguerite Clark, Blanche Sweet, Mary Miles Minter, Katherine MacDonald, and Florence Vidor. Between 1924 and 1947, Meredith concentrated on the legitimate stage, then returned to film as a distinguished character actor, playing the judge in Joan Crawford's Daisy Kenyon (1947), the High Priest in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949), and an admiral in Submarine Command (1952). Continuing well into the television era, the veteran actor had continuing roles in two short-lived series: Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954) and Erle Stanley Garner's Court of Last Resort.

Trivia: Gangly, 6'1" screen comic Eddie Baker acted in his father's stock company before obtaining a position as a prop boy with the old Biograph Company in 1913. He went in front of the camera for the first time not as a Keystone Kop, as is often reported, but in Joker comedies starring comedian Gale Henry. Baker later worked for Hal Roach, often as a sheriff (Laurel & Hardy's Bacon Grabbers from 1929, in which he sends the boys off to serve a summons on dour Edgar Kennedy is a good example) or police detective. Offscreen, Baker became the first secretary/treasurer of the Screen Actors Guild. He continued to play minor bits in talkies through the mid-'60s, often playing a motorcycle cop, a reporter, or billed simply as "man."

Trivia: Though he claimed to be a born-and-bred Californian, Julian Rivero was actually born in Texas. Rivero started out as a Shakespearean actor under the tutelage of Robert B. Mantell. He made his film debut in the New York-filmed The Bright Shawl (1923), then relocated in Hollywood, where he remained active until 1973. Most often cast in Westerns, he played opposite such horse-opera heroes as Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, and Harry Carey. His parts ranged from such bits as the barber in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947) to the major role of ruthless Mexican General Santa Anna (which he played sympathetically) in Heroes of the Alamo (1937). The addition of a well-groomed, snow-white beard enabled Rivero to play dozens of aristocratic Latin American patriarchs in the 1950s and 1960s. Julian Rivero was the husband of former Mack Sennett bathing beauty Isabelle Thomas.