Trivia: American actor/singer Gordon MacRae went from winning a hometown talent contest to singing at the 1939 New York World's Fair at the age of 18. Following stage and cabaret work, MacRae was introduced to film audiences via The Big Punch (1948). His robust baritone obscuring his acting defiencies, MacRae became Warner Bros.' resident male songbird in the early 1950s: he was teamed several times with Doris Day and headlined such Technicolor musicfests as About Face (1952) and The Desert Song (1953). In 1955, MacRae was selected to play Curley in the splashy, Todd-AO film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1955), where he set female hearts aflutter with such standards as "Surrey with the Fringe on Top," "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'," "People Will Say We're in Love," and the title song. Though he registered well in Oklahoma, MacRae was not the first choice for Billy Bigelow in the 1956 filmization of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. Frank Sinatra was to have played the irresponsible carnival barker Billy Bigelow, but a combination of throat problems and pressing prior commitments forced Sinatra to bow out, allowing MacRae to play what would be his best film role, and to sing Carousel's immortal "Soliloquy." MacRae left films in 1956 in favor of concert work and TV assignments, in which the singer appeared regularly on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Lux Video Theatre, and (surprise, surprise) The Gordon MacRae Show. At the time of his death, MacRae had been divorced for many years from Sheila MacRae, a multitalented performer in her own right; Gordon and Sheila were the parents of actresses Heather and Meredith MacRae.

Trivia: Sultry blues vocalist Julie London began her film career long before she achieved fame as a recording artist. In 1945, 18-year-old London was selected to play a bargain-basement jungle princess, appearing opposite a gorilla in the PRC cheapie Nabonga. She was pretty bad, but no worse than the film itself. By the time she was cast as a sexy teenager in The Red House (1947), her acting had improved immensely, and by the time she played the female lead in the 1951 programmer The Fat Man, it looked as though she actually had a future in films. Still, London's greatest claim to fame was her long string of hit records ("Cry Me a River" et. al.) of the 1950s; many male admirers bought her albums simply to gaze upon her come-hither countenance on the dust jacket. Her status as every red-blooded American boy's wish dream was gently lampooned in Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956), in which she appears as a spectral vision who transfixes a wistful Tom Ewell. Her best dramatic film appearances of this period include her leading-lady gigs in Voice in the Mirror (1958) and Man of the West (1958). From 1945 through 1955, Julie London was the wife of actor/producer Jack Webb; years after the divorce, London played Nurse Dixie McCall on the popular Jack Webb-produced TV series Emergency, in which she co-starred with her second husband, actor/jazz musician Bobby Troup.

Trivia: Handsome leading man Rory Calhoun's successful film and television career spanned well over 50 years. In the mid-1940s,after a difficult childhood and adolescence, Calhoun found work as a lumberjack in Santa Cruz, California. It was while there employed that Calhoun was discovered by actor Alan Ladd, who suggested that the rugged young man give movies a try. Billed as "Frank McCown," Calhoun was signed to a brief contract at 20th Century-Fox, but most of his earliest movie scenes (including a sizeable supporting role in the Laurel and Hardy vehicle The Bullfighters) ended up on the cutting room floor. Free-lancing in the late 1940s, Calhoun first attracted a fan-following with his supporting role as a high-school lothario in 1948's The Red House. He returned to Fox in 1950, enjoying major roles in such films as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and River of No Return (1955). Established as a western player by the late 1950s, Calhoun starred on the popular TV western The Texan from 1958 through 1960. He spent his spare time writing, publishing at least one novel, The Man From Padeira. From 1949 through 1970, Calhoun was married to actress Lita Baron. Perpetuating his career into the 1980s and '90s, a more weather-beaten Rory Calhoun was seen in the lead of the satirical horror film Motel Hell (1980), was quite funny as a washed-up macho movie star in Avenging Angel (1985), and stole the show from ostensible leading-man George Strait in Pure Country (1992).

Trivia: When comic-strip artist Chester Gould created his famed detective Dick Tracy in 1931, he deliberately patterned Tracy's jut-jawed countenance and stoic demeanor after that of his favorite film star, Jack Holt. Dropping out of Virginia Military Institute as a teenager, Holt held down a variety of tough, he-man jobs before settling into film acting in 1913. He flourished in the 1920s as a virile action hero, especially in the late-silent Columbia productions of up-and-coming director Frank Capra. Holt was one of Columbia's most valuable commodities in the early talkie era, but his popularity waned as the quality of his films plummeted. After serving as a major in World War II, Holt returned to films as a supporting actor, often (as in the 1950 Roy Rogers vehicle Trail of Robin Hood) playing thinly disguised variations on his own off-screen persona. Jack Holt was the father of three film performers: western star Tim Holt, leading lady Jennifer Holt, and character actor David Holt.

Trivia: American actor Fred Clark embarked upon his lifelong career immediately upon graduation from Stanford University. With his lantern jaw, bald pate and ulcerated disposition, Clark knew he'd never be a leading man and wisely opted for character work. After several years on stage, during which time he was briefly married to musical comedy actress Benay Venuta, Clark made his movie debut in Ride the Pink Horse (1947), playing one of his few out-and-out villains. The actor's knowing portrayal of a callous movie producer in Sunset Boulevard (1949) led to his being typecast as blunt, sometimes shady executives. Clark's widest public recognition occurred in 1951 when he was cast as next-door neighbor Harry Morton on TV's Burns and Allen Show; when Clark insisted upon a larger salary, producer-star George Burns literally replaced him on the air with actor Larry Keating. Dividing his time between films and television for the rest of his career, Clark earned latter-day fame in the 1960s as star of a series of regionally distributed potato chip commercials. Though most of his fans prefer to remember the disappointing Otto Preminger farce Skiddoo (1968) as Fred Clark's screen farewell, the truth is that Clark's last performance was in I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew (1969).

Trivia: Actor Matt McHugh was born into a show business family, joining his parents, his brother Frank, and his sister Kitty in the family stock company as soon as he learned to talk. Matt came to Hollywood to repeat his stage role in the 1931 film adaptation of Elmer Rice's Broadway hit Street Scene. He continued to have sizeable film assignments for the next few years (notably the bourgeois Italian bridegroom Francesco in Laurel and Hardy's The Devil's Brother [1933]) before settling into bits and minor roles. A dead ringer for his more famous brother Frank McHugh, Matt projected an abrasive, sardonic screen image; as such, he was utilized in such rough-edged roles as cab drivers, bartenders and mechanics. Matt McHugh's best screen opportunities in the '40s came with his supporting roles in the 2-reel comedy output of Columbia Pictures; he appeared in the short comedies of Andy Clyde, Hugh Herbert, Walter Catlett, The Three Stooges and many others, most often cast as a lazy or caustic brother-in-law.

Trivia: An amiable, big-nosed former vaudevillian from Tennessee, Brit Wood's main claim to cinematic fame was his brief 1939-1940 stint as William Boyd's comic sidekick Speedy in the long-running Hopalong Cassidy B-Western series. Although he was summarily replaced with the better-known (and plain better) Andy Clyde, Wood wasn't too annoying and could actually play dramatic scenes better than most B-Western rubes. An accomplished harmonica virtuoso, Wood supplied hillbilly tunes to several B-Westerns, including "The Covered Wagon Rolled Right Along" from Gene Autry's Saddle Pals (1947).