Trivia: The son a well-to-do British Army captain who died in the battle of Gallipoli in 1915, David Niven was shipped off to a succession of boarding schools by his stepfather, who didn't care much for the boy. Young Niven hated the experience and was a poor student, but his late father's reputation helped him get admitted to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and he was later commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. Rakishly handsome and naturally charming, Lt. Niven met a number of high society members while stationed in Malta, and, through their auspices, made several important contacts while attending parties. Although he later claimed to have been nothing more than a wastrel-like "professional guest" at this stage of his life, Niven was actually excellent company, a superb raconteur, and a loyal friend, and he paid back his social obligations by giving lavish parties of his own once he become famous. Niven also insisted that he fell into acting without any prior interest, although he had done amateur theatricals in college.Following his military discharge, Niven wandered the world working odd jobs ranging from a lumberjack to a gunnery instructor for Cuban revolutionaries to (by his own account) a petty thief. He became a Hollywood extra in 1935, and eventually came to the attention of producer Samuel Goldwyn, who had been building up a stable of attractive young contract players. Having made his speaking debut in Without Regret (1935), Niven quickly learned how to successfully get through a movie scene. After several secondary roles for Goldwyn, he was loaned out for a lead role in the 20th Century Fox feature Thank You, Jeeves (1936). The actor formed lasting friendships with several members of Hollywood's British community -- notably Errol Flynn, with whom he briefly lived -- and was quite popular with the American-born contingent as well, especially the ladies.Although he worked steadily in the '30s, it was usually in support of bigger stars; he was seldom permitted to carry a film by himself, except for such modest productions as Dinner at the Ritz (1937) and Raffles (1939). Anxious to do something more substantial than act during World War II, Niven re-entered the British service as a Lieutenant Colonel, where he served nobly, if not spectacularly. (His batman, or valet, during the war was a Pvt. Peter Ustinov, himself an actor of no mean talent.) Married by the end of the war, Niven went back to films but found that he still wasn't getting any important roles; despite ten years experience, he was considered too "lightweight" to be a major name. His life momentarily shattered by the accidental death of his wife in 1946, Niven's spirit was restored by his second marriage to Swedish model Hjordis Tersmeden, his wife of 37 years until the actor's death. Once again, Niven took a self-deprecating attitude towards his domestic life, claiming to be a poor husband and worse father, but despite the time spent away from his family, they cherished his concern and affection for them.After his Goldwyn contract ended in 1949, Niven marked time with inconsequential movies before joining Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, and Ida Lupino to form Four Star, a television production company. Niven was finally able to choose strong dramatic roles for himself, becoming one of TV's first and most prolific stars, although his public still preferred him as a light comedian. The actor's film career also took an upswing in the '50s with starring performances in the controversial The Moon Is Blue (1953) -- a harmless concoction which was denied a Production Code seal because the word "virgin" was bandied about -- and the mammoth Around the World in 80 Days (1956), in which Niven played his most famous role, erudite 19th century globetrotter Phileas Fogg. When Laurence Olivier dropped out of the 1958 film Separate Tables, Niven stepped in to play an elderly, disgraced British military man. Although he was as flippant about the part as usual -- telling an interviewer, "They gave me very good lines and then cut to Deborah Kerr while I was saying them" -- he won an Oscar for this performance. Niven continued his career as a high-priced, A-list actor into the '60s, returning to television in the stylish "caper" series The Rogues in 1964. He revisited his hobby of writing in the early '70s; an earlier novel, Round the Ragged Rocks, didn't sell very well, but gave him pleasure while working on it. But two breezy autobiographies did better: The Moon's a Balloon (1972) and Bring on the Empty Horse (1975). Working alone, without help of a ghostwriter (as opposed to many celebrity authors), Niven was able to entertainingly transfer his charm and wit to the printed page (even if he seldom let the facts impede his storytelling). In 1982, Niven discovered he was suffering from a neurological illness commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which would prove fatal within a year. Courageously keeping up a front with his friends and the public, Niven continued making media appearances, although he was obviously deteriorating. While appearing in his last film, Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), the actor's speech became so slurred due to his illness that his lines were later dubbed by impressionist Rich Little. Refusing all artificial life-support systems, Niven died in his Switzerland home later that year. While his career produced a relatively small legacy of worthwhile films, and despite his own public attitude that his life had been something of an elaborate fraud, Niven left behind countless friends and family members who adored him. Indeed, journalists sent out to "dig up dirt" following the actor's death came back amazed (and perhaps secretly pleased) that not one person could find anything bad to say about David Niven.

Trivia: Son of a London stockbroker, British actor Leslie Howard worked as a bank clerk after graduating from London's Dulwich School. Serving briefly in World War I, Howard was mustered out for medical reasons in 1918, deciding at that time to act for a living. Working in both England and the U.S. throughout the 1920s, Howard specialized in playing disillusioned intellectuals in such plays as Outward Bound, the film version of which served as his 1930 film debut. Other films followed on both sides of the Atlantic, the best of these being Howard's masterful star turn in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934). In 1935, Howard portrayed yet another disenchanted soul in The Petrified Forest, which co-starred Humphrey Bogart as a gangster patterned after John Dillinger. Howard was tapped for the film version, but refused to make the movie unless Bogart was also hired (Warner Bros. had planned to use their resident gangster type, Edward G. Robinson). Hardly a candidate for "Mr. Nice Guy" -- he was known to count the lines of his fellow actors and demand cuts if they exceeded his dialogue -- Howard was nonetheless loyal to those he cared about. Bogart became a star after The Petrified Forest, and in gratitude named his first daughter Leslie Bogart. Somehow able to hide encroaching middle-age when on screen, Howard played romantic leads well into his late 40s, none more so than the role of -- yes -- disillusioned intellectual Southern aristocrat Ashley Wilkes in the 1939 classic Gone with the Wind. In the late 1930s, Howard began dabbling in directing, notably in his starring films Pygmalion (1938) and Pimpernel Smith (1941). Fiercely patriotic, Howard traveled extensively on behalf of war relief; on one of these trips, he boarded a British Overseas Airways plane in 1943 with several other British notables, flying en route from England to Lisbon. The plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay and all on board were killed. Only after the war ended was it revealed that Howard had selflessly taken that plane ride knowing it would probably never arrive in Lisbon; it was ostensibly carrying Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and was sent out as a decoy so that Churchill's actual plane would be undisturbed by enemy fire.

Trivia: Vibrant, redheaded British actress Rosamund John entered films as an ingenue in 1934. During the war years, John thrived in sharply etched, self-assured roles in films like Spitfire (1941) and The Gentle Sex (1943). She was especially effective as the widow of aviator Michael Redgrave, in the popular "homefront" film The Way to the Stars (1944). Rosamund John retired from moviemaking in 1956.

Trivia: Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate and ex-Royal Air Force pilot Roland Culver quietly pursued a stage career from 1925 and a film career from 1930, reliably if unspectacularly playing a steady stream of leading roles. By the mid-'40s, Culver developed into a dry-witted, low-key character actor turning in memorable work in such films as On Approval (1943) and Dead of Night (1945). He moved to Hollywood in 1946, where for the next five years he essayed such "dependable" gentlemanly characterizations as Heavenly emissary Mr. Jordan in Down to Earth (1947). Back in England in the early '50s, he continued to play prominent parts in films like The Holly and the Ivy (1953). Working regularly in TV, he could be seen as Menenius in Spread of the Eagle, a 1962 BBC series based on the Roman plays of Shakespeare. Roland Culver persevered in small but impressive roles until his retirement in 1982.

Trivia: Well-padded British actor/playwright David Horne entered films in 1935, making his mark in pompous, self-satisfied characterizations. Seldom seen in large roles, he was indispensable in such utility parts as desk clerks, newspaper editors, police officials, lawyers, and doctors. Lutheran filmgoers will recall Horne as Duke Frederick in the church basement perennial Martin Luther (1953). David Horne remained active until 1968.

Trivia: A stage actor from the age of seventeen, Derrick DeMarney made his film bow in 1928, at age 21. A handsome and virile leading man in films like Forbidden Music (1936) and Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937), DeMarney seemed to prefer playing against type in such character roles as Disraeli in Victoria the Great (1936) and Sixty Glorious Years (1938). During his wartime service, he directed the government documentary Malta GC (1942). He went on to produce or co-produce a number of films, including the morale-boosting The Gentle Sex (1943) and the noirish thrillers Latin Quarter (1946) and She Shall Have Murder (1950). De Marney's postwar film roles included the vastly different title characters in Uncle Silas (1947) and Meet Slim Callaghan (1952). Derrick DeMarney was the brother of actor Terence De Marney (1909-71).

Trivia: Gruff, stocky British character actor Gordon McLeod first appeared on stage in repertory in his native Devon. After establishing himself on the London stage, McLeod made his first film in 1925. Almost always cast as a brusque authority figure, he was most often seen as dyspeptic newspaper editors and conclusion-jumping detectives. Though his most famous screen role was the cigar-chomping city editor in The Squeaker (1935), Gordon McLeod is also fondly remembered for his work as Inspector Teal in The Saint in London (1939) and The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943), and as Inspector Venner in Meet Sexton Blake (1946).

Trivia: Filippo del Guidice produced many British films from the mid '30s through the mid '40s. He was born in Trani, Italy and originally worked as a lawyer. Moving to Britain in 1933, he became a legal advisor at Two Cities Films and from there turned to production. In the early 1940s, he acted in two films. In 1958, del Guidice entered a monastery.

Trivia: Brefni O'Rorke was born in 1889 in Dublin and began studying acting with his mother, the actress Jane (Morgan) O'Rorke, at the start of the 20th century. He made his professional debut in 1912 at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin in a production of John Bull's Other Island. In 1916 while still living in Dublin, he became the companion and later the second husband to Alice Cole, a chorus girl-turned-actress who had divorced her husband and emigrated from South Africa with her young son named Cyril Cusack. O'Rorke began training the boy as an actor even as his own career advanced. In 1921, O'Rorke made his first appearance on a London stage in a production of Mr. Malatestra, and he became very prominent in the London theater world in the decades that followed. His earliest film appearance dated from 1918, though he had his greatest impact during the sound era. O'Rorke also worked in four British television productions early in 1939 during the medium's experimental period before the worsening political situation on the European continent forced the British government to switch its efforts to perfecting defensive radar. He had a small role in Love on the Dole (1941) starring Deborah Kerr and bigger parts in the thriller Cottage to Let (1941) and the melodrama Hatter's Castle (1942). His best work and biggest part was probably in Harold French's patriotic wartime thriller Unpublished Story (1942) as Denton, the dour but defiant newspaper editor; he not only had a lot of screen time and excellent scenes but gave the movie's quietly rousing final speech. O'Rorke also appeared as himself in a documentary entitled Men of Rochdale (1944). He was a busy character actor up to his death in late 1946, and his legacy lay not only in several memorable performances but also, to some extent, in the subsequent success of his stepson -- from the late 1940s thru the 1980s, Cyril Cusack was one of the most renowned stage actors of his generation, as well as an acclaimed film actor, and he founded an acting dynasty to rival that of the Redgrave family through his actress daughters.

Trivia: Robert Beatty spent his early adulthood in Canada as a gas-company cashier, salesman and amateur actor. Upon arriving in London, Beatty enrolled at the RADA, making his film debut as an extra and stand-in. During World War II, Beatty achieved fame through his eyewitness radio reports of the nightly London bombings. In most of his postwar film, stage, radio and TV work, Beatty was cast as a rough-hewn American or Canadian. One of his favorite stage roles was rude 'n' crude American junk dealer Harry Brock in Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. He also played more than his share of detectives, most prominently as radio's Phillip O'Dell, and on the 1958 TV series Dial 999. Beatty was given a chance to demonstrate his versatility in the dual role of a milquetoast British hubby and a slick Italian gangster in Her Favorite Husband (1950). Later film roles included Lord Beaverbrook in The Magic Box (1951), Halvorsen in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and two separate characters in Superman III (1980) and Superman IV (1984). On television, Robert Beatty was seen in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977, as Proculus) and The Martian Chronicles (1980), and as President Ronald Reagan in the 1987 PBS special Breakthrough at Reykajavik.