Shadow of the Thin Man

William Powell (Actor) .. Nick Charles

Born: July 29, 1892
Died: March 05, 1984
Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

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.

Myrna Loy (Actor) .. Nora Charles

Born: August 02, 1905
Died: December 14, 1993
Birthplace: Radersburg, Montana, United States

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.

Barry Nelson (Actor) .. Paul Clarke

Born: April 16, 1920
Died: April 07, 2007

Trivia: Of Scandinavian stock, Barry Nelson was no sooner graduated from the University of California-Berkeley than he was signed to an MGM contract. Most of his MGM feature-film assignments were supporting roles, though he was given leads in the 1942 "B" A Yank in Burma and the 1947 "Crime Does Not Pay" short The Luckiest Guy in the World. While serving in the Army, Nelson made his Broadway debut in the morale-boosting Moss Hart play Winged Victory, repeating his role (and his billing of Corporal Barry Nelson) in the 1944 film version. Full stardom came Nelson's way in such Broadway productions of the 1950s and 1960s as The Rat Race, The Moon is Blue and Cactus Flower. He repeated his Broadway role in the 1963 film version of Mary Mary, and both directed and acted in Frank Gilroy's two-character play The Only Game in Town (1968). Nelson starred in a trio of 1950s TV series: the 1952 espionager The Hunter, the 1953 sitcom My Favorite Husband, and the unjustly neglected Canadian-filmed 1958 adventure series Hudson's Bay (1959). Oh, and did you know that Nelson was the first actor ever to play Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond on television? Yep: Barry Nelson portrayed American spy Jimmy Bond on a 1954 TV adaptation of Fleming's Casino Royale. Nelson died of unspecified causes on April 7, 2007, while traveling through Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was 84.

Donna Reed (Actor) .. Molly Ford

Born: January 27, 1921
Died: January 14, 1986
Birthplace: Dennison, Iowa, United States

Trivia: Reed was elected beauty queen of her high school and Campus Queen of her college. The latter honor resulted in her photo making the L.A. papers, and as a result she was invited to take a screen test with MGM, which signed her in 1941. She played supporting roles in a number of minor films (at first being billed as "Donna Adams"), then in the mid '40s she began getting leads; with rare exceptions, she portrayed sincere, wholesome types and loving wives and girlfriends. She went against type playing a prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1953), for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Rarely getting rewarding roles, she retired from the screen in 1958 to star in the TV series "The Donna Reed Show," which was a great success and remained on the air through 1966. After 1960 she appeared in only one more film. In the mid '80s she emerged from retirement to star in "Dallas;" Barbara Bel Geddes returned to the show in 1985, and Reed won a $1 million settlement for a breach of contract suit against the show's producers. She died of cancer several months later.

Sam Levene (Actor) .. Lt. Abrams

Born: August 28, 1905
Died: December 28, 1980

Trivia: Adept at playing sardonic, side-of-the-mouth urban types, Sam Levene appeared in several top Broadway productions of the early 1930s. At 29 (though looking far older and worldlier), Levene was brought to Hollywood to re-create his stage role as a superstitious gambler in Three Men on a Horse (1936). Not long afterward, he made the first of two appearances as New York police lieutenant Abrams in MGM's Thin Man series. Since Levene always seemed to have just stepped out of a Damon Runyon story, it was only natural that he create the part of crapshooter deluxe Nathan Detroit in the 1950 Broadway production Guys and Dolls; his endearingly offkey renditions of the Frank Loesser tunes "Oldest Established" and "Sue Me" can still be heard on the original cast album. When he wasn't essaying dese-dem-and-dose roles, Levene was frequently cast as a soft-spoken, philosophical Jew in such films as Action in the North Atlantic (1943) and Crossfire (1947). Though he made 36 films in his 33-year Hollywood career, Sam Levene was always happiest in front of a live audience: one of his last Broadway appearances was in the original production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys.

Alan Baxter (Actor) .. Whitey Barrow

Born: November 19, 1908
Died: May 08, 1976

Trivia: An alumnus of the Yale School of Drama, Alan Baxter came to films in 1935 after three seasons' stage work. Though occasionally cast in a leading role, Baxter was more convincing as a character actor, usually playing roles with sinister undertones. Hitchcock devotees will remember Baxter as the bespectacled, implicitly homosexual Nazi spy in the Hoover Dam sequences of Saboteur (1942). Alan Baxter continued accepting supporting roles into the 1970s, often portraying big-time gangsters or disreputable politicians.

Dickie Hall (Actor) .. Nick Charles Jr.

Loring Smith (Actor) .. Link Stephens

Born: January 01, 1889
Died: January 01, 1981

Joseph Anthony (Actor) .. Fred Macy

Born: May 24, 1912

Trivia: A stage actor in the early 1930s, Anthony began writing for films, including Josef von Sternberg's Crime And Punishment. He directed several admired Broadway plays in the 1940s and '50s, among them The Rainmaker, which he adapted for his first theatrical feature in 1956. His other notable films include The Matchmaker and Tomorrow.

Henry O'Neill (Actor) .. Maj. Jason I. Sculley

Born: August 10, 1891
Died: May 18, 1961

Trivia: New Jersey-born Henry O'Neill was a year into his college education when he dropped out to join a traveling theatrical troupe. His career interrupted by WWI, O'Neill returned to the stage in 1919, where his prematurely grey hair and dignified demeanor assured him authoritative roles as lawyers, doctors, and business executives (though his first stage success was as the rough-and-tumble Paddy in Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape). In films from 1933, O'Neill spent the better part of his movie career at Warner Bros. and MGM, usually playing parts requiring kindliness and understanding, but he was equally as effective in villainous assignments. Age and illness required Henry O'Neill to cut down on his film commitments in the 1950s, though he frequently showed up on the many TV anthology series of the era.

Stella Adler (Actor) .. Claire Porter

Born: February 10, 1901
Died: December 21, 1992

Trivia: Stella Adler was one of the premiere acting coaches in the United States. Among her students were some of this country's most popular stars, including Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, and Harvey Keitel. Adler was born into a prominent Yiddish family of actors headed by her famous father, the actor Jacob Adler. Her brothers Jay and Luther Adler were also prominent actors. She began her own career working in the theater of her father. This led to appearances on Broadway; in 1931 she joined the newly created Group Theater where she became renowned for her work in Odet's Awake and Sing. Adler was one of the original method actors and studied with the technique's famous creator Stanislavsky. For a while she and Lee Strasberg, also a noted method actor and teacher, worked together, but then split up in the mid-1940s when they began arguing over his way of interpreting Stanislavsky. This led Adler to become a teacher of acting at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1949, she founded her own school of drama. During her long career, Adler only appeared in three films during the '30s and '40s.

Lou Lubin (Actor) .. `Rainbow' Benny Loomis

Born: November 09, 1895

Trivia: Diminutive character actor Lou Lubin enjoyed a career of about a dozen years in movies and early television, as well as radio work. As is the case with most character players, he usually got small roles in big pictures and more substantial roles in small-scale productions. Lubin's short stature and distinctly urban accent made him ideal for playing henchmen and other shady, disreputable characters, although he also turned up on the side of the angels from time to time -- his most memorable part was in Val Lewton's production of The Seventh Victim (1943), as a seedy private eye who loses his life trying to do something decent and then turns up as a corpse on a subway. That same year, he was also given a fair amount of screen time in William Wellman's Lady of Burlesque as Moey the candy butcher. And in 1945, he was seen in Max Nosseck's Dillinger as the luckless waiter who gets on the wrong side of Lawrence Tierney's John Dillinger and receives savage vengeance for his trouble. Lubin's had been out of pictures for 20 years at the time of his death in 1973, at age 77.

Louise Beavers (Actor) .. Stella

Born: March 08, 1902
Died: October 26, 1962
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Trivia: African American actress Louise Beavers was born in Cincinnati and raised in California, where she attended Pasadena High School. Louise's entree into Hollywood was as maid to silent film star Leatrice Joy. With Ms. Joy's encouragement, Louise began accepting small film parts in 1923, and three years later became a full-time performer when she joined the Ladies Minstrel Troupe. After co-starring in the 1927 Universal remake of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ms. Beavers worked steadily in films, usually playing maids, housekeepers and "mammies." Her most famous role was as troubled pancake entrepreneur Aunt Delilah in the 1934 filmization of Fannie Hurst's Imitation of Life. Another breakaway from stereotype was as the title character's strong-willed mother in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), On television, Louise Beavers starred on the weekly sitcom Beulah from 1952 through 1953, and played Louise the maid on the 1953 pilot episode of Make Room for Daddy.

Will Wright (Actor) .. Maguire

Born: March 26, 1891
Died: June 19, 1962

Trivia: San Franciscan Will Wright was a newspaper reporter before he hit the vaudeville, legitimate stage, and radio circuit. With his crabapple face and sour-lemon voice, Wright was almost instantly typecast as a grouch, busybody, or small-town Scrooge. Most of his film roles were minor, but Wright rose to the occasion whenever given such meaty parts as the taciturn apartment house manager in The Blue Dahlia (1946). In one of his best assignments, Wright remained unseen: He was the voice of the remonstrative Owl in the Disney cartoon feature Bambi (1942). Will Wright didn't really need the money from his long movie and TV career: His main source of income was his successful Los Angeles ice cream emporium, which was as popular with the movie people as with civilians, and which frequently provided temporary employment for many a young aspiring actor.

Edgar Dearing (Actor) .. Motor Cop

Born: May 04, 1893
Died: August 17, 1974

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

Noel Cravat (Actor) .. Baku

Born: January 01, 1910
Died: January 01, 1960

Tito Vuolo (Actor) .. Luis

Born: March 22, 1873
Died: September 14, 1962

Trivia: Very few people remember Tito Vuolo's name, but in more than 40 movies and dozens of television shows -- ranging from comedy to film noir -- the Italian-born actor graced audiences with his presence. With his thick accent, short stature, and open, honest features, Vuolo was for many years the epitome of the ethnically identifiable, usually genial Italian, at a time when such portrayals were routine and encouraged in cinema. He could play excitable or nervous in a way that stole a scene, or move through a scene so smoothly that you scarcely noticed him. Vuolo's movie career began in 1946 with an uncredited appearance as a waiter in Shadow of the Thin Man, and he quickly chalked up roles in two further crime movies, the film noir classics Michael Gordon's The Web and Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death. He was also part of the cast of Dudley Nichols' Mourning Becomes Electra, RKO's disastrous attempt to bring serious theater to the screen, but much of Vuolo's work turned up in films of a grittier nature, such as Anthony Mann's T-Men and The Enforcer, directed by Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh -- the latter film afforded Vuolo one of his most prominent roles in a plot, as the hapless cab driver whose witnessing (with his little girl) of a murder sets in motion a series of events that brings about a dozen murders and ultimately destroys an entire criminal organization. Vuolo's short, squat appearance could also be used to comical effect in a specifically non-ethnic context, as in King Vidor's The Fountainhead, when he turns up at the home of Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal), in place of the expected arrival of tall, lean Howard Roarke (Gary Cooper), in response to her calculated request for repairs to the stone-work in her home. And sometimes he just stole a scene with his finely nuanced use of his accent and an agitated manner, as in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House -- his character goes into an excruciatingly funny explanation to Cary Grant about why he has to blast part of the proposed building site ("Thas-a no rock -- thas-a ledge"). Baby boomers may also remember Vuolo from his role in the 1953 Adventures of Superman episode "My Friend Superman," in which he portrayed a well-meaning luncheonette owner whose claim that Superman is a personal friend of his sets in motion a plot to kidnap Lois Lane. Vuolo's final film appearance was in the Ray Harryhausen science fiction thriller 20 Million Miles to Earth, playing the police commissioner. The beloved character actor died of cancer in 1962. Published dates of birth on Vuolo vary by as much as 19 years (1873 or 1892), so he was either 70 years old or 89 years old at the time of his death.

Oliver Blake (Actor) .. Fenster

Born: April 04, 1905
Died: February 12, 1992

Trivia: Lanky, long-nosed supporting actor Oliver Blake acted on stage under his given name of Oliver Prickett. From the mid-1920s onward, Blake was a fixture at the Pasadena Playhouse, where his brother Charles was managing director and his sister Maudie was a resident character actress. At the Playhouse, he starred in such productions as Charley's Aunt and also taught classes for first-year students. He entered films in 1941, and for his first few years before the camera was confined to bit roles like the Blue Parrot waiter in Casablanca (1942). One of his more visible screen assignments was as dour-faced Indian neighbor Geoduck in Universal's Ma and Pa Kettle series. An apparent favorite of comedian Bob Hope, Blake showed up in a variety of roles in several Hope farces, notably as the world's most emaciated Santa Claus in The Seven Little Foys (1955). On TV, Oliver Blake played the recurring role of Carl Dorf in the 1956 sitcom The Brothers.

John Dilson (Actor) .. Coroner

Born: January 01, 1892
Died: June 01, 1944

Trivia: With his silvery hair and dignified bearing, American actor John Dilson was a natural for "executive" roles. In films from 1935, Dilson was usually seen playing doctors, lawyers and newspaper editors. Occasionally, however, he played against type as sarcastic working stiffs, as witness his bit as an unemployment-office clerk in The Monster and the Girl (1941). John Dilson's larger screen roles can be found in Republic serials like Robinson Crusoe on Clipper Island (1936), and Dick Tracy (1937) and in such two-reel efforts as MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series.

Arthur Aylesworth (Actor) .. Coroner

Born: August 12, 1884
Died: June 26, 1946

Trivia: Actor Arthur Aylesworth's first regular film employment was in a series of Paramount "newspaper" short subjects produced between 1932 and 1933. Aylesworth signed a Warner Bros. contract in 1934, appearing in nine films his first year. His roles under the Warners escutcheon included the Chief Censor in Life of Emile Zola (1937), the auto court owner in High Sierra (1941) and the sleigh driver in Christmas in Connecticut (1946). He also showed up at other studios, playing the night court judge in W.C. Fields' Man on the Flying Trapeze (Paramount 1935) and essaying minor roles in several of director John Ford's 20th Century-Fox productions. Arthur Aylesworth's last screen assignment was the part of a tenant farmer in Fox's Dragonwyck (1946).

James Flavin (Actor) .. Cop

Born: May 14, 1906
Died: April 23, 1976

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.

Edward Hearn (Actor) .. Cop

Born: September 06, 1888
Died: April 15, 1963

Trivia: Actor Edward Hearn's Hollywood career extended from 1916 to 1951. A leading man in the silent era, Hearn was seen in such roles as Philip Nolan, the title character in Man without a Country (1925). His first talkie effort was Frank Capra's The Donovan Affair (1929). Capra never forgot Hearn, securing minor roles for the actor when his star faded in the early 1930s. Edward Hearn spent his last two decades in films playing dozens of cops, jurors, and military officers, essaying bits in features and supporting roles in serials and short subjects.

Arthur Belasco (Actor) .. Cop

Born: January 01, 1887
Died: January 01, 1979

Bob Ireland (Actor) .. Cop

Robert Kellard (Actor) .. Cop

Born: January 01, 1914
Died: January 01, 1981

Cliff Danielson (Actor) .. Reporter

J. Lewis Smith (Actor) .. Reporter

Jerry Jerome (Actor) .. Reporter

Roger Moore (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: October 14, 1927

Buddy Roosevelt (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: June 25, 1898
Died: October 06, 1973

Trivia: American silent screen cowboy Buddy Roosevelt came to Hollywood in 1914 with the C.B. Irwin Wild West Show. Working primarily as a stunt man in William S. Hart Westerns at Triangle, Roosevelt was earning 22 dollars a week plus board when World War I took him overseas. Working his way back to Hollywood after the Armistice, Roosevelt doubled Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1920), as well as William Desmond. Universal starred him as Kent Sanderson in the two-reeler Down in Texas (1923), but he somehow fell between the cracks at that studio, signing instead a personal contract with independent producer Lester F. Scott Jr. Scott didn't like the name Kent Sanderson and changed it to Buddy Roosevelt, in honor of former president Theodore Roosevelt. Making 25 fast-paced Westerns for Scott's Action Pictures, the former stunt man proved to be an acceptable actor who did not look the fool even with the heavy doses of comedy that Scott seemed to favor. Unfortunately, the Roosevelt budgets deteriorated as Scott brought Buffalo Bill Jr. and Wally Wales into the fold and Roosevelt bolted in January 1928, in favor of Rayart. With the veteran J.P. McGowan at the helm, Roosevelt continued to do strong work, but sound interrupted what could have been a career on the upswing. He was tested for the lead in the Fox Western In Old Arizona (1929), but a broken leg caused him to be replaced by Warner Baxter, who, of course, went on to earn an Academy Award for his role as the Cisco Kid. A chance to star in a new series reportedly went out the window when Mrs. Roosevelt, a cousin of Clark Gable, got into an argument with the producer, ex-stunt man Paul Malvern; John Wayne earned the berth instead and the rest, as they say, is history. There would be a few Western leads to come, but only for bottom-rung producers such as Jack Irwin and Victor Adamson. Roosevelt continued playing bits in Westerns through the early '60s, however; his final role -- a mere walk-on -- came in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Retiring to his hometown in Colorado, Buddy Roosevelt kept up a correspondence with Western fans from around the world.

Hal Le Sueur (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: September 03, 1903

Jo Gilbert (Actor) .. Lana

Born: January 01, 1916
Died: February 03, 1979

Trivia: Cruelly but accurately described by one film historian as "that female mountain of flesh," actress/singer Jody Gilbert was one of moviedom's busiest "large" ladies. The major difference between Gilbert and other "sizeable" character actresses is that she could give back as good as she got in the insult department. As the surly waitress in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), Gilbert was more than a match for her troublesome customer W. C. Fields. She went on to trade quips with Shemp Howard in Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin' (1941) and to aggressively pursue the hapless Lou Costello in Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). On television, Gilbert was seen as J. Carroll Naish's plump would-be sweetheart Rosa in Life with Luigi (1952), a role she'd previously essayed on radio. One of Gilbert's last screen appearances was the belligerent railroad passenger whom holdup man Paul Newman imitates in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Jody Gilbert died at the age of 63 as the result of injuries sustained in an auto accident.

Cardiff Giant (Actor) .. Bouncing Tschekov

Richard Frankie Burke (Actor) .. Buddy Burns

Fred Graham (Actor) .. Waiters with Steaks

Born: January 01, 1918
Died: October 10, 1979

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

Tor Johnson (Actor) .. Jack the Ripper

John Berkes (Actor) .. Paleface

Born: January 01, 1896
Died: January 01, 1951

John Kelly (Actor) .. Meatballs Murphy

Born: June 29, 1901
Died: December 04, 1947

Trivia: Of many "John Kellys" in films, this John Kelly was the most prolific. Actor John Kelly was usually cast as boxers, cabbies, sailors and street cops. He made his first film in 1927, and his last in 1946. John Kelly's parts ranged from microscopic--he has one line as Captain Sidney Toler's first mate in Our Relations (1936)--to meaty; many will no doubt remember him best as dim-witted deputy sheriff Elmer in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938).

Jody Gilbert (Actor) .. Lana

Born: March 18, 1916

Dan Tobey (Actor) .. Announcer

Tommy Mack (Actor) .. Soft Drink Vendor

Lyle Latell (Actor)

Born: April 09, 1905
Died: October 24, 1967

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.

Joe Devlin (Actor) .. Mugg

Born: January 01, 1899
Died: October 01, 1973

Trivia: Bald-domed, prominently chinned American character actor Joe Devlin was seen in bits in major films, and as a less-costly Jack Oakie type in minor pictures. Devlin usually played two-bit crooks and sarcastic tradesmen in his 1940s appearances. The actor's uncanny resemblance to Benito Mussolini resulted in numerous "shock of recognition" cameos during the war years, as well as full-fledged Mussolini imitations in two Hal Roach "streamliners," The Devil With Hitler (1942) and That Nazty Nuisance (1943). In 1950, Joe Devlin was cast as Sam Catchem in a TV series based on Chester Gould's comic-strip cop Dick Tracy.

Bill Fisher (Actor) .. Watchman

Born: October 23, 1967

Aldrich Bowker (Actor) .. Watchman

Born: January 01, 1874
Died: January 01, 1947

Charles Calvert (Actor) .. Referee

Joey Ray (Actor) .. Stephen's Clerk

Born: September 05, 1904

Inez Cooper (Actor) .. Girl in Cab

Adeline De Walt Reynolds (Actor) .. Landlady

Born: January 01, 1862
Died: January 01, 1961

Trivia: Adeline Reynolds launched her acting career on-stage at age 70, two years after she graduated from college. Nine years later, in the early '40s, she debuted in films and became the oldest thespian in films during the '50s.

Duke York (Actor) .. Valentino

Born: January 01, 1902
Died: January 24, 1952

Trivia: Billed as Duke York Jr. when he entered films in 1933, this muscular actor essayed such action-oriented roles as King Kala in Flash Gordon (1936). By the 1940s, York had found his particular niche as a second-string Lon Chaney Jr. He was a mainstay at Columbia's short-subject unit in the 1940s, playing the various hunchbacks, werewolves, goons, and Frankensteins who menaced such comedians as the Three Stooges, El Brendel, and Andy Clyde. One of his rare roles out of makeup was in the Stooges' 1943 comedy Higher Than a Kite, which revealed that York wasn't quite as adept at handling dialogue as he was at grunting and growling. Though Duke York committed suicide in 1952, he kept appearing in Columbia's two-reelers and Westerns through the magic of stock footage until the mid-'50s.

Seldon Bennett (Actor) .. Mario

Sid Melton (Actor) .. Fingers

Born: May 23, 1920

Trivia: Diminutive, jug-eared comic actor Sid Melton cut his acting teeth in the touring companies of such Broadway hits as See My Lawyer and Three Men on a Horse. Though he once listed his film debut as being 1945's Model Wife, Melton showed up onscreen as early as 1942, playing one of the students in Blondie Goes to College. Mostly showing up in bits and minor roles in big-studio features, Melton enjoyed starring assignments at bargain-basement Lippert Studios, notably the 1951 "sleeper" The Steel Helmet. His film career extended into the 1970s, when he was seen in a sizeable role in the Diana Ross starrer Lady Sings the Blues (1975). Sid Melton's TV credits include the cult-favorite roles of Ichabod Mudd ("with two D's!") on Captain Midnight and nightclub owner Charley Halper on The Danny Thomas Show.

George Lloyd (Actor) .. Pipey

Born: January 01, 1897

Trivia: Australian-born actor George Lloyd spoke without a trace of accent of any kind in his hundreds of movie appearances. Lloyd's mashed-in mug and caterpillar eyebrows were put to best use in roles calling for roughneck sarcasm. He was often seen as second-string gangsters, escape-prone convicts, acerbic garage mechanics and (especially) temperamental moving men. George Lloyd's film career began in the mid-1930s and petered out by the beginning of the TV era.

Patty Moore (Actor) .. Lefty's Wife

Jerry Mandy (Actor) .. Waiter

Born: June 05, 1892
Died: May 01, 1945

Trivia: A minor comedian with Hal Roach in the 1920s, New York-born Jerry Mandy played the Limburger soldier in Behind the Front (1926) and supported the likes of Laurel and Hardy and James Finlayson. Sound film revealed his aptitude for dialects and Mandy spent the next decade and a half playing Italian or French cooks, chefs, and maîtres d'hôtel. He died of a heart attack in his Hollywood home in 1945.

H.B. Haggerty (Actor) .. Mugg

Born: April 02, 1925
Died: January 27, 2004

Eddie Simms (Actor) .. Mugg

Abe Dinovitch (Actor) .. Mugg

Wee Willie Davis (Actor) .. Mugg

Born: December 07, 1906

Sailor Vincent (Actor) .. Mugg

Born: January 01, 1901
Died: January 01, 1966

Jack Roper (Actor) .. Mugg

Born: March 25, 1904
Died: November 28, 1966

Trivia: A real-life prize fighter, mustachioed, tough-looking Jack Roper began turning up in films shortly before sound. His busiest period, however, proved to be 1938-1950, where he portrayed various thugs, mugs, and fighters and can be seen in nearly all the Joe Palooka programmers from Monogram. His final screen appearance seems to have been in John Wayne's The Quiet Man (1952), in which he once again played a prize fighter. Roper spent his declining years as a resident of the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital. He died from throat cancer.

Harry Wilson (Actor) .. Mugg

Born: January 01, 1897
Died: January 01, 1978

Ray Teal (Actor) .. Cab Driver

Born: January 12, 1902
Died: April 02, 1976
Birthplace: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Trivia: Possessor of one of the meanest faces in the movies, American actor Ray Teal spent much of his film career heading lynch mobs, recruiting for hate organizations and decimating Indians. Naturally, anyone this nasty in films would have to conversely be a pleasant, affable fellow in real life, and so it was with Teal. Working his way through college as a saxophone player, Teal became a bandleader upon graduation, remaining in the musical world until 1936. In 1938, Teal was hired to act in the low-budget Western Jamboree, and though he played a variety of bit parts as cops, taxi drivers and mashers, he seemed more at home in Westerns. Teal found it hard to shake his bigoted badman image even in A-pictures; as one of the American jurists in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he is the only member of Spencer Tracy's staff that feels that sympathy should be afforded Nazi war criminals -- and the only one on the staff who openly dislikes American liberals. A more benign role came Teal's way on the '60s TV series Bonanza, where he played the sometimes ineffectual but basically decent Sheriff Coffee. Ray Teal retired from films shortly after going through his standard redneck paces in The Liberation of LB Jones (1970).

Sam Bernard (Actor) .. Counterman

Born: January 01, 1888
Died: January 01, 1950

Ken Christy (Actor) .. Detective

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: January 01, 1962

David Dornack (Actor) .. Lefty's Kid

Harry Burns (Actor) .. Greek Janitor

Born: January 01, 1885
Died: July 09, 1948

Fred Walburn (Actor) .. Kid on Merry-go-Round

Arch Hendricks (Actor) .. Photographer

Pat R. McGee (Actor) .. Handler

2:45 pm - 4:30 pm, Thursday, January 1 on Turner Classic Movies ()