Trivia: Former All-American halfback Johnny Mack Brown was a popular screen cowboy during the 1930s. Already in the public eye for his athletic prowess, Brown was persuaded by a friend to give Hollywood a try after graduating from the University of Alabama. In 1927, the muscular macho man was signed by MGM where he played in a number of leading roles opposite popular actresses such as Garbo, Pickford, and Crawford for several years. But Brown never really found his acting niche until he starred in King Vidor's Billy the Kid (1930). From then on he was happily typecast as a cowboy actor, and became a hero to millions of American boys, appearing in over 200 B-grade Westerns over the next two decades. From 1942-50 he was consistently among the screen's ten most popular Western actors. Brown formally retired from movies in 1953 but made occasional return appearances as a "nostalgia" act.

Trivia: Looking for all the world like a beardless Rumpelstiltskin, actor Raymond Hatton utilized his offbeat facial features and gift for mimicry in vaudeville, where he appeared from the age of 12 onward. In films from 1914, Hatton was starred or co-starred in several of the early Cecil B. DeMille productions, notably The Whispering Chorus (1917), in which the actor delivered a bravura performance as a man arrested for murdering himself. Though he played a vast array of characters in the late teens and early 1920s, by 1926 Hatton had settled into rubeish character roles. He was teamed with Wallace Beery in several popular Paramount comedies of the late silent era, notably Behind the Front (1926) and Now We're in the Air (1927). Curiously, while Beery's career skyrocketed in the 1930s, Hatton's stardom diminished, though he was every bit as talented as his former partner. In the 1930s and 1940s, Hatton showed up as comic sidekick to such western stars as Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Livingston. He was usually cast as a grizzled old desert rat, even when (as in the case of the "Rough Riders" series with Buck Jones and Tim McCoy) he happened to be younger than the nominal leading man. Raymond Hatton continued to act into the 1960s, showing up on such TV series as The Abbott and Costello Show and Superman and in several American-International quickies. Raymond Hatton's last screen appearance was as the old man collecting bottles along the highway in Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood (1967).

Trivia: As handsome as most of the Western stars he supported, if not more so, Zon Murray (born Emery Zon Murray) often sported a mustache and was thus obviously not up to anything good. Rarely the "Boss Villain," Murray instead played scores of so-called "Dog Heavies" in run-of-the-mill Westerns from 1945 to 1956, ending his long run in the feature film version of The Lone Ranger. There would be a few minor roles in cheap action fare to come, but Murray definitely belonged to the era of the series Western. Very prolific in television as well -- especially on such shows as Gene Autry, Wild Bill Hickock, Roy Rogers, and yes, The Lone Ranger -- Murray seems to have ended his career after a bit in Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965).

Trivia: American actor William H. Ruhl made his first film in 1934, and his last in 1952. Seldom rising above bit parts, Ruhl showed up in one-scene assignments as detectives, lawyers, and the like. Someone over at Monogram must have liked Ruhl, else why would the actor have shown up in six of the studio's Bowery Boys features from 1946 to 1949? William H. Ruhl also appeared in various other Monogram series, including Charlie Chan and Joe Palooka.

Trivia: The brother of western star Ken Maynard, Kermit Maynard was a star halfback on the Indiana University college team. He began his career as a circus performer, billed as "The World's Champion Trick and Fancy Rider." He entered films in 1926 as a stunt man (using the stage name Tex Maynard), often doubling for his brother Ken. In 1927, Kermit starred in a series for Rayart Films, the ancestor of Monogram Pictures, then descended into minor roles upon the advent of talking pictures, taking rodeo jobs when things were slow in Hollywood. Independent producer Maurice Conn tried to build Kermit into a talkie western star between 1931 and 1933, and in 1934 launched a B-series based on the works of James Oliver Curwood, in which the six-foot Maynard played a Canadian mountie. The series was popular with fans and exhibitors alike, but Conn decided to switch back to straight westerns in 1935, robbing Maynard of his attention-getting gimmick. Kermit drifted back into supporting roles and bits, though unlike his bibulous, self-indulgent brother Ken, Kermit retained his muscular physique and square-jawed good looks throughout his career. After his retirement from acting in 1962, Kermit Maynard remained an active representative of the Screen Actors Guild, lobbying for better treatment and safer working conditions for stuntpersons and extras.