Trivia: American actor Rock Hudson was born Roy Scherer, adopting the last name Fitzgerald when his mother remarried in the mid-'30s. A popular but academically unspectacular student at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL, he decided at some point during his high school years to become an actor, although a wartime stint in the Navy put these plans on hold. Uninspiring postwar jobs as a moving man, postman, telephone company worker, and truck driver in his new home of California only fueled his desire to break into movies, which was accomplished after he had professional photos of himself taken and sent out to the various studios. A few dead-end interviews later, he took drama lessons; his teacher advised him to find a shorter name if he hoped to become a star, and, after rejecting Lance and Derek, he chose Rock ("Hudson" was inspired by the automobile of that name). Signed by Universal-International, Hudson was immediately loaned to Warner Bros. for his first film, Fighter Squadron (1948); despite director Raoul Walsh's predictions of stardom for the young actor, Hudson did the usual contract player bits, supporting roles, and villain parts when he returned to Universal. A good part in Winchester '73 (1950) led to better assignments, and the studio chose to concentrate its publicity on Hudson's physical attributes rather than his acting ability, which may explain why the actor spent an inordinate amount of screen time with his shirt off. A favorite of teen-oriented fan magazines, Hudson ascended to stardom, his films gradually reaching the A-list category with such important releases as Magnificent Obsession (1954) and Battle Hymn (1957). Director George Stevens cast Hudson in one of his best roles, Bick Benedict, in the epic film Giant (1956), and critics finally decided that, since Hudson not only worked well with such dramatic league leaders as Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean -- but frequently outacted them in Giant -- he deserved better, less condescending reviews. Hudson's career took a giant leap forward in 1959 when he was cast in Pillow Talk, the first of several profitable co-starring gigs with Doris Day. Once again taken for granted by the mid-'60s, Hudson turned in another first-rate performance as a middle-aged man given a newer, younger body in the mordant fantasy film Seconds (1966). A longtime television holdout, Hudson finally entered the weekly video race in 1971 with the popular detective series McMillan and Wife, co-starring Susan Saint James, and appeared on the prime time soap opera Dynasty in the early '80s. Regarded by his co-workers as a good sport, hard worker, and all-around nice guy, Hudson endured a troubled private life; though the studio flacks liked to emphasize his womanizing, Hudson was, in reality, a homosexual. This had been hinted at for years by the Hollywood underground, but it was only in the early '80s that Hudson confirmed the rumors by announcing that he had contracted the deadly AIDS virus. Staunchly defended by friends, fans, and co-workers, Rock Hudson lived out the remainder of his life with dignity, withstanding the ravages of his illness, the intrusions of the tabloid press, and the less than tasteful snickerings of the judgmental and misinformed. It was a testament to his courage -- and a tragedy in light of his better film work -- that Hudson will be principally remembered as the first star of his magnitude to go public with details of his battle with AIDS. He died in 1985.

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.

Trivia: Much like Humphrey Bogart before him, Lee Marvin rose through the ranks of movie stardom as a character actor, delivering expertly nasty and villainous turns in a series of B-movies before finally graduating to more heroic performances. Regardless of which side of the law he traveled, however, he projected a tough-as-nails intensity and a two-fisted integrity which elevated even the slightest material. Born February 19, 1924, in New York City, Marvin quit high school to enter the Marine Corps and while serving in the South Pacific was wounded in battle. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the U.S. to begin working as a plumber's apprentice. After filling in for an ailing summer-stock actor, his growing interest in performing inspired him to study at the New York-based American Theater Wing. Upon making his debut in summer stock, Marvin began working steadily in television and off-Broadway. He made his Broadway bow in a 1951 production of Billy Budd and also made his first film appearance in Henry Hathaway's You're in the Navy Now. The following year, Hathaway again hired him for The Diplomatic Courier, and was so impressed that he convinced a top agent to recruit him. Soon Marvin began appearing regularly onscreen, with credits including a lead role in Stanley Kramer's 1952 war drama Eight Iron Men. A riveting turn as a vicious criminal in Fritz Lang's 1953 film noir classic The Big Heat brought Marvin considerable notice and subsequent performances opposite Marlon Brando in the 1954 perennial The Wild One and in John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock cemented his reputation as a leading screen villain. He remained a heavy in B-movies like 1955's I Died a Thousand Times and Violent Saturday, but despite starring roles in the 1956 Western Seven Men From Now and the smash Raintree County, he grew unhappy with studio typecasting and moved to television in 1957 to star as a heroic police lieutenant in the series M Squad. As a result, Marvin was rarely seen in films during the late '50s, with only a performance in 1958's The Missouri Traveler squeezed into his busy TV schedule. He returned to cinema in 1961 opposite John Wayne in The Comancheros, and starred again with the Duke in the John Ford classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance a year later. Marvin, Wayne, and Ford reunited in 1963 for Donovan's Reef. A role in Don Siegel's 1964 crime drama The Killers followed and proved to be Marvin's final performance on the wrong side of the law.Under Stanley Kramer, Marvin delivered a warm, comic turn in 1965's Ship of Fools then appeared in a dual role as fraternal gunfighters in the charming Western spoof Cat Ballou, a performance which won him an Academy Award. His next performance, as the leader of The Dirty Dozen, made him a superstar as the film went on to become one of the year's biggest hits. Marvin's box-office stature had grown so significantly that his next picture, 1968's Sergeant Ryker, was originally a TV-movie re-released for theaters. His next regular feature, the John Boorman thriller Point Blank, was another major hit. In 1969, Marvin starred with Clint Eastwood in the musical comedy Paint Your Wagon, one of the most expensive films made to date. It too was a success, as was 1970's Monte Walsh. Considering retirement, he did not reappear onscreen for two years, but finally returned in 1972 with Paul Newman in the caper film Pocket Money. After turning down the lead in Deliverance, Marvin then starred in Prime Cut, followed in 1973 by Emperor of the North Pole and The Iceman Cometh.Poor reviews killed the majority of Marvin's films during the mid-'70s. When The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday -- the last of three pictures he released during 1976 -- failed to connect with critics or audiences, he went into semi-retirement, and did not resurface prior to 1979's Avalanche Express. However, his return to films was overshadowed by a high-profile court case filed against him by Michelle Triola, his girlfriend for the last six years; when they separated, she sued him for "palimony" -- 1,800,000 dollars, one half of his earnings during the span of their relationship. The landmark trial, much watched and discussed by Marvin's fellow celebrities, ended with Triola awarded only 104,000 dollars. In its wake he starred in Samuel Fuller's 1980 war drama The Big Red One, which was drastically edited prior to its U.S. release. After 1981's Death Hunt, Marvin did not make another film before 1983's Gorky Park. The French thriller Canicule followed, and in 1985 he returned to television to reprise his role as Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission. The 1986 action tale The Delta Force was Marvin's final film; he died of a heart attack on August 29, 1987, in Tucson, AZ, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to the remains of fellow veteran (and boxing legend) Joe Louis.

Trivia: A statuesque lead actress, onscreen from 1952, she later worked behind the scenes in TV productions.

Trivia: Leo Gordon cut one of the toughest, meanest, and most memorable figures on the screen of any character actor of his generation -- and he came by some of that tough-guy image naturally, having done time in prison for armed robbery. At 6 feet 2 inches tall, and with muscles to match, Gordon was an implicitly imposing screen presence, and most often played villains, although when he did play someone on the side of the angels he was equally memorable. Early in his adult life, Gordon did, indeed, serve a term at San Quentin for armed robbery; but after his release he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and was a working actor by the early 1950's. His first credited screen appearance (as Leo V. Gordon) was on television, in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of "The Blue And White Lamp", with Frank Albertson and Earl Rowe, in 1952. His early feature film appearances included roles in China Venture (1953) and Gun Fury (1953), the latter marking the start of his long association with westerns, which was solidified with his villainous portrayal in the John Wayne vehicle Hondo (1953). It was in Don Siegel's Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), which was shot at San Quentin, that a lot of mainstream filmgoers discovered precisely how fearsome Gordon could be, in the role of "Crazy Mike Carnie." One of the most intimidating members of a cast that was overflowing with tough guys (and which used real cons as extras), Gordon's career was made after that. Movie work just exploded for the actor, and he was in dozens of pictures a year over the next few years, as well as working in a lot of better television shows, and he also earned a regular spot in the series Circus Boy, as Hank Miller. More typical, however, was his work in the second episode of the western series Bonanza, "Death on Sun Mountain", in which he played a murderous profiteer in Virginia City's boomtown days. Once in a while, directors triped to tap other sides of his screen persona, as in the western Black Patch (1957). And at the start of the next decade, Gordon got one of his rare (and best) non-villain parts in a movie when Roger Corman cast him in The Intruder (1962), in the role of Sam Griffin, an onlooker who takes it upon himself to break up a race riot in a small southern town torn by court-ordered school integration. But a year later, he was back in his usual villain mold -- and as good as ever at it -- in McLintock!; in one of the most famous scenes of his career, he played the angry homesteader whose attempt to lynch a Native American leads to a head-to-head battle with John Wayne, bringing about an extended fight featuring the whole cast in a huge mud-pit. Gordon was still very busy as an actor and sometime writer well into the 1980's and early 1990's. He played General Omar Bradley in the mini-series War And Remembrance, and made his final screen appearance as Wyatt Earp in the made-for-television vehicle The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Hollywood Follies. He passed away in 2000 of natural causes.

Trivia: The oldest child of an itinerant bridge builder, actor Neville Brand intended to make the military his career, and indeed spent ten years in uniform. During World War II, he became America's fourth most decorated soldier when he wiped out a German 50-caliber machine gun nest. He also decided that he'd seek out another line of work as soon as his hitch was up. Paying for acting classes with his GI Bill, he started his career off-Broadway. In 1949, he made his film debut in D.O.A., playing a psychotic hoodlum who delights in punching poisoned hero Edmond O'Brien in the stomach. Brand spent most of the early '50s at 20th Century Fox, a studio that surprisingly downplayed the actor's war record by shuttling him from one unstressed supporting role to another (though he's the principal villain in 1950's Where the Sidewalk Ends, he receives no screen credit). He fared far better on television, where he won the Sylvania Award for his portrayal of Huey Long in a 1958 telestaging of All the King's Men. Even better received was his portrayal of Al Capone on the TV series The Untouchables, a characterization he repeated in the 1961 theatrical feature The George Raft Story. In 1966, Brand briefly shed his bad-guy image to play the broadly hilarious role of bumbling Texas Ranger Reese Bennett on the TV Western series Laredo. His off-camera reputation for pugnacity and elbow-bending was tempered by his unswerving loyalty to his friends and his insatiable desire to better himself intellectually (his private library was one of the largest in Hollywood, boasting some 5000 titles). Fighting a losing battle against emphysema during his last years, Neville Brand died at the age of 70.

Trivia: Mean-looking John Lacy Cason was one of those unsung Hollywood heroes: a stuntman. A former professional prizefighter (hence his battered-looking nose), Cason was, according to his fellow stunt people, Pierce Lyden, "one of the toughest men in the business." He had arrived in Hollywood in the late '30s and began receiving billing in 1941, always playing henchmen. Nicknamed "Lefty" due to a fierce left-handed hook, Cason appeared in scores of B-Westerns in the '40s and guest starred on nearly all the television oaters of the following decade. He died in a road accident near Santa Barbara, CA, shortly after finishing an episode of Wagon Train.

Trivia: With his crotchety persona, wrinkled visage, and nervous manner, Forrest Lewis is best remembered by most viewers for the neurotic and comical old man roles that he played in dozens of movies and television shows in the 1950s and '60s -- he was somewhere between Harry Carey Sr. and Strother Martin in his characterizations for over two decades. In reality, he'd been playing old men since the age of 20, in 1919. Born in Knightstown, IN, in 1899, Lewis was a linear descendant of Meriwether Lewis, the explorer immortalized by the Lewis and Clark expedition. Forrest Lewis was drawn to performing as a boy, and made his first appearance on a theatrical stage as a singer, at age 12. He made his professional acting debut at 20, with the Emerson Stock Company, portraying an 80-year-old man. Over the next decade, he toured the United States in vaudeville and stock companies, before landing on Broadway in Lulu Belle, starring Lenore Ulric. Radio began its boom years in the late '20s, and Lewis made his debut in the commercial broadcast medium in 1929. He had some small roles until fate took a hand; he inadvertently received a call for an audition that had been intended for another actor, and won the part. There was no looking back for Lewis, who was busy from then on, playing numerous key supporting roles, including Harry Freeman on the radio series Scattergood Baines and (with Van McCune) one half of the comedy team of Buck and Wheat, on the Aunt Jemima radio show. Lewis resisted offers to appear in movies until the mid-'40s, when he began playing character roles -- mostly far older (or acting far older) than his 44 years -- in movies such as Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943) and I'll Tell the World (1945). Lewis' career remained focused on radio, however, until that medium began retrenching in the early '50s. He jumped to television on Amos 'n' Andy and Dragnet, and also became downright ubiquitous on the big screen during the first half of the 1950s, playing a succession of doctors, judges, nit-picking public officials, police officers, and crotchety old men. Westerns predominated as a genre in his film career, but he also played in a few Disney movies (The Shaggy Dog, Son of Flubber) and even two minor B-horror classics, The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) and The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959), the latter offering Lewis one of the biggest parts of his career, as the town constable faced with a series of grisly murders. And Howard Hawks used him in Man's Favorite Sport? (1964) and Red Line 7000 (1965). By the time of Riot on Sunset Strip (1967), in which he played a senior citizen seen in the movie's opening who expresses his anger over the behavior of the teenagers on the renowned stretch of Los Angeles real estate, Lewis had aged into the role. He died in 1977 of a heart attack at age 77, four years after his last television appearance.

Trivia: A writer turned actor/director, Mel Welles was one of the most enduring cult figures from '50s exploitation pictures. Born in New York City in 1924, Welles moved into films after careers in clinical psychology, writing, and radio, and also performed in theater and wrestling promotion in Canada. He arrived in Hollywood at just about the time that his services were needed, in the first half of the 1950s -- filmmakers were eager to make movies appealing to teens, and in addition to some skills as an actor, Welles, who had written for jazz satirist Lord Buckley, was a natural both as a performer and writer of "special material" to jazz up the scripts and action of the exploitation pictures being ground out. His most notable work in this area was in the 1958 drug-and-sexploitation classic High School Confidential, directed by Jack Arnold, for which Welles provided two stunningly funny (and effective) parodies of beat poetry and jargon, and also served as the movie's resident expert on marijuana. During this period, Welles -- who was a master of numerous accents and dialects -- appeared in numerous Roger Corman films (Attack of the Crab Monsters, Rock All Night etc.), usually in small roles, and became part of the stock company that included Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze. His most prominent and enduring role for Corman -- and his personal favorite -- was that of Gravis Mushnik in the original 1960 non-musical version of Little Shop Of Horrors. During the '60s, Welles began directing low budget films such as the crime thriller Code of Silence (1960) and the horror film Lady Frankenstein (1972). By the 1980's, Welles had come to appreciate the admiration lavished on his work by his former teenage fans at conventions and in books -- he appreciated the outpourings of approval for his acting, in cult movies that came to be described and categorized as "psychotronic," though he was also somewhat embarrassed by the seriousness with which modern audiences embraced his beat poetry parodies in High School Confidential (and which, much to his puzzlement, recently surfaced on a compact-disc collection of actual Beat poetry). He had also resumed acting in the 1980s, including occasional voice-over work. Welles died of heart failure in 2005, at the age of 81.

Trivia: Instantly recognizable to devotees of B-westerns of the 1940s, round-faced, cheery-looking Post Park (born B. Post Park) was almost always seen driving the stagecoach. Although rarely awarded lines, on the rare occasions that he actually spoke audiences were treated to a pleasant midwestern drawl. But more often than not, poor Post Park was silenced by some masked outlaw or other before he could utter a single word. Onscreen from the late '30s, Park appeared in nearly 70 Westerns and a dozen or so serials. He was the stagecoach driver once again in his final (credited) film, 1955's The Tall Saddle.

Trivia: Beefy, muscular leading man Philip Carey entered films in 1951, shortly after his hitch in the Marines was up. Cutting quite a dashing figure in a 19th-century military uniform, Carey was most often cast as an American cavalry officer. In a similar vein, he appeared as Canadian-born Lt. Michael Rhodes on the 1956 TV series Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers. Curiously, he never appeared in any of director John Ford's cavalry films, though he did co-star in Ford's Mister Roberts (1955) and The Long Gray Line (1955). In 1959, Carey starred in a TV series based on Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe. While no one could fault his performance in the role, the Philip Marlowe series survived but a single season. He is best known for his four subsequent TV assignments: as spokesperson for the regionally aired Granny Goose potato chips commercials, as forever-flustered Lt. Parmalee on the comedy Western Laredo (1966-1968), as narrator of the documentary series Untamed World (1968-1975), and, from 1980-2007, as eternally scheming patriarch Asa Buchanan on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. One of Philip Carey's least typical TV appearances was on a 1971 All in the Family episode, in which he played Archie Bunker's macho-man bar buddy -- who turns out to be a homosexual.

Trivia: An economics major at the Brown University and the University of Chicago, cadaverous character actor John Dierkes spent the 1930s as an ad-copy writer and as head of an independent polling service. After serving with the Red Cross in World War II, Dierkes worked for the U.S. Treasury; it was in this capacity that he was sent to Hollywood in 1946 to act as technical advisor for MGM's To the Ends of the Earth. A talent scout for Orson Welles spotted Dierkes and convinced him to audition for the part of Ross in Welles' upcoming film version of MacBeth. Dierkes won the part, and remained in Hollywood for the next two decades. He went on to critical acclaim as the Tall Soldier in John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage (1951), topping this assignment with his best screen role, that of "Morgan" in George Stevens' Shane (1953). Suffering from emphysema, John Dierkes gradually cut down on his film and TV appearances in the 1970s; he was last seen in a fleeting role in the Stanley Kramer production Oklahoma Crude (1973).

Trivia: An outdoorsman from an early age, gangling Montana-born actor Ethan Laidlaw began showing up in westerns during the silent era. Too menacing for lead roles, Laidlaw was best suited for villains, usually as the crooked ranch hand in the employ of the rival cattle baron, sent to spy on the hero or heroine. During the talkie era, Laidlaw began alternating his western work with roles as sailors and stevedores; he is quite visible chasing the Marx Brothers around in Monkey Business (1931). Though usually toiling in anonymity, Ethan Laidlaw was given prominent billing for his "heavy" role in the 1936 Wheeler and Woolsey sagebrush spoof Silly Billies.

Trivia: Though born in the American Midwest, Henry Rowland had heavily Teutonic facial features, making him an invaluable commodity in wartime films. Rowland "heiled" and "achtunged" his way through films ranging from 1942's Casablanca to 1975's Russ Meyer's Supervixens, in which he played a suspicious old coot named Martin Borman! Conversely, he showed up as an American flight surgeon in 1944's Winged Victory, billed under his military ranking as Corporal Henry Rowland. In his last years, Rowland continued playing such Germanic characters as the Amish farmer in 1975's The Frisco Kid.

Trivia: While attending Valley College, American actor John David Carson was appropriately cast as a university student in the bizarre Rock Hudson comedy Pretty Maids All in a Row. The cherub-faced Carson was perfect for the role of the sexual naif who is advised in the ways of women by worldly teacher Hudson. Since many of the nubile coeds in this film cavorted about in the nude, young Carson found himself featured in the middle of a Playboy magazine spread. Pretty Maids, and a 1974 assignment as George C. Scott's son in The Savage is Loose, represented the apex of Carson's film career, most of which was spent in supporting roles in such efforts as Day of the Dolphin (1973), Stay Hungry (1976) and Empire of the Ants (1977). In 1987, John David Carson was seen as Jay Spence on the TV series Falcon Crest.

Trivia: Supporting player, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Straight out of finishing school, American actress Elaine Stritch laid the groundwork for her career by studying drama at New York's New School. Stritch's first stage appearance was in 1944, and her Broadway bow was in 1946. A superlative dramatic actress, Ms. Stritch also excelled in musical comedy, a genre she returned to off and on into the '90s. After her film debut in The Scarlet Hour (1956), Stritch contributed a compelling performance to the 1957 remake of A Farewell to Arms, but wouldn't make another truly worthwhile film (worthwhile to her, that is) until the French-filmed Providence in 1970. On television, Stritch starred in the the pioneering 1948 domestic comedy Growing Paynes, the short-lived 1960 sitcom My Sister Eileen, and costarred as the star's mother in The Ellen Burstyn Show (1986). She was also a member of the supporting comedy troupe on the 1949 TVer Jack Carter and Company, a comic switchboard operator on the bi-weekly 1956 variety series Washington Square, and Peter Falk's secretary on the one-season Trials of O'Brien (1965). In 1972, Ms. Stritch moved to London as a cast member of the Broadway hit Company and remained there to work for several years. In the last decade, Elaine Stritch has appeared in such films as September (1988) and Cocoon (1990), and has won additional critical plaudits for her role as Parthy Hawkes in the lavish 1994 Broadway revival of Show Boat. Her on-screen work included projects such as Krippendorf's Tribe, Autumn in New York, Screwed, and the working-class musical Romance & Cigarettes. She was part of Jane Fonda's comeback vehicle Monster-In-Law, and in 2012 she lent he voice to the animated family film ParaNorman. She had a recurring role as Colleen Donaghy, Jack's mother, on 30 Rock, which earned her an Emmy Award in 2007. She died in 2014 at age 89.