Trivia: Timid-looking British character actor, onscreen from 1952 and best-known for voicing Wallace in the Wallace & Gromit films and starring in the long-running British series Last of the Summer Wine. Sallis died in 2017, at age 96.

Trivia: British stage and screen actress Thora Hird specialized in loquacious working class types. The wide-eyed, thin-lipped actress seemed destined from birth to portray maids, landladies, clerks and charwomen. To add variety to this narrow acting category, Hird became an expert in a variety of regional British accents. In films from 1940's Spellbound (not the Hitchcock picture of the same name), Thora brightened her fleeting moments in such films as The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947), The Good Companions (1950), The Galloping Major (1951), The Creeping Unknown (1956) and A Kind of Loving (1962). In 1978, she wrote her autobiography, Seen and Hird. Thora Hird was the mother of Janette Scott, a former child actress who became a popular and attractive film leading lady of the late '50s and early '60s (As Long as They're Happy (1957), Day of the Triffids (1963), etc).

Trivia: Though born in Southport, Dora Bryan convincingly portrayed many a Cockney and Northerner in her long British film career. In films from 1947, Bryan was more often than not cast as good-natured tarts and garrulous neighbors, her nasal line delivery adding credibility to her characterizations. Many feel that she delivered her best performance in the 1962 slice-of-life drama A Taste of Honey. Her prolific TV work has included the popular 1994 situation comedy Mother's Ruin. In 1987, Dora Bryan came out with her autobiography, According to Dora.

Trivia: A former holiday camp entertainer, dance band musician, and vocalist, Bill Owen rose to prominence in eccentric comedy roles on the London stage. Owen made his initial film appearance in 1945 and his lastest in the early '70s. He was a semi-regular in the Carry On comedies of the 1950s and 1960s, usually playing self-important cockneys. Bill Owen was also seen in the British TV series Copper's End (1971) and Last of the Summer Wine (1973).

Trivia: Born in England and raised in Shanghai, actor Burt Kwouk can best be described as a funnier variation of Bruce Lee. To be sure, many of his acting assignments have called for straight interpretations, notably his roles in such films Satan Never Sleeps (1961) and The Brides of Fu Manchu (1965). But Kwouk is best known for his role as karate champ Cato Fong, right-hand man of the hapless Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers). Trained by his boss to attack without warning (the better to keep Clouseau on guard and in shape), Cato has invariably done his job too well, kicking and chopping at the Inspector at the most inopportune times -- when Clouseau is making love, for example. As Cato, Bert Kwouk has appeared in the Blake Edwards-directed Clouseau films A Shot in the Dark (1964), Return of the Pink Panther (1975), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1978) and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1979), and has guest-starred in two pastiche films made after Peter Sellers' death, Curse of the Pink Panther (1981) and Trail of the Pink Panther (1982). Outside the aegis of Blake Edwards, Kwouk has taken action-oriented parts in films like Rollerball (1980) and Air America (1990). For several years in the '80s, Kwouk played a Japanese commandant on the British TV series Tenko. Kwouk continued to work steadily through the 2010s, including a recurring role on Last of the Summer Wine. He died in 2016, at age 85.