Trivia: Though born in a Chicago hospital, entertainer Jack Benny was a Waukegan boy through and through. The son of a Polish immigrant haberdasher, Benny studied the violin from an early age (he really could play, though he was certainly no virtuoso), and managed to find work in local theatre orchestras. As a teenager, Benny gave vaudeville a try with a musical act in partnership with pianist Cora Salisbury, but this first fling at show business was only fitfully successful. During World War I, Benny was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, where, while appearing in camp shows, he first began telling jokes in between violin selections. Benny returned to vaudeville with a comedy act, slowly building himself up into a headliner. He made his first radio appearance on Ed Sullivan's interview show on March 29, 1932; within a year he had his own show, which would evolve over the next two decades into one of radio's most popular programs. He met with equal success when he moved into television in 1950. There are few comedy fans in existence who aren't familiar with the character Benny played on the air: The vain, tone-deaf, penny-pinching, eternal 39-year-old who spent his life being flustered and humiliated by his supporting cast (Mary Livingstone, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dennis Day, Frank Nelson, Mel Blanc, Don Wilson et. al.); nor need his fans be reminded that this character developed gradually, rather than springing full-blown upon the world way back in 1932. What is usually de-emphasized in the many accounts of Benny's life and career is his sizeable body of movie work. Benny himself insisted that most of his films were no good, and many casual viewers have been willing to accept his word on this. Actually, Benny's films, while not all classics, were by and large moneymakers, and never anything to be truly ashamed of. His first feature appearance was as the wisecracking emcee of MGM's The Hollywood Revue of 1929. He followed this with a comic-relief role in Chasing Rainbows (1930) and an uncharacteristic straight part in the low-budget The Medicine Man (1930). He was a perfectly acceptable semicomic romantic lead in It's in the Air (1935), Artists and Models (1936), Artists and Models Abroad (1936), and in his appearances in Paramount's College and Big Broadcast series. Whenever Benny expressed displeasure over his film career, he was usually alluding to those pictures that insisted upon casting him as Benny the Famous Radio Comedian rather than a wholly different screen character. Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934), Man About Town (1939) and Buck Benny Rides Again (1940), though enjoyable, are totally reliant upon Benny's pre-established radio character and "schtick" for their laughs, and as such aren't nearly as effective as his actual radio appearances. His most disappointing movie vehicle was Love Thy Neighbor (1940), designed to cash in on his phony feud with fellow radio humorist Fred Allen. Not only was the film uninspired, but also outdated, since the feud's full comic value had pretty much peaked by 1937. Many of Benny's best films were made during his last four years in Hollywood. 1941's Charley's Aunt was a lively adaptation of the old Brandon Thomas theatrical chestnut (though it did have to work overtime in explaining why a man in his forties was still an Oxford undergraduate!); 1942's George Washington Slept Here, likewise adapted from a stage play (by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart), was a reasonably funny comedy of frustration; and yet another stage derivation, 1943's The Meanest Man in the World (based on a George M. Cohan farce), allowed Benny to go far afield from his truculent radio persona by playing a man who is too nice for his own good. Benny's finest film, bar none, was the Ernst Lubitsch-directed To Be or Not to Be (1942), in which the comedian was superbly cast as "that great, great Polish actor" Joseph Tura. Benny's final starring feature, the much maligned Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), was an enjoyable effort, and not by any means the unmitigated disaster he used to joke about on radio. The film's problem at the box-office was that it was a comedy fantasy, and audiences in 1945 had had their fill of comedy fantasies. After Horn Blows at Midnight, Benny's theatrical film appearances were confined to guest spots and unbilled gag bits (e.g. The Great Lover and Beau James). In 1949, Benny produced a Dorothy Lamour movie vehicle, The Lucky Stiff; in addition, his J&M Productions, which produced his weekly television series from 1950 through 1965, was also responsible for the moderately popular TV adventure series Checkmate (1960-62). In 1974, Benny was primed to restart his long-dormant movie career by appearing opposite Walter Matthau in the 1975 film adaptation of Neil Simon's play The Sunshine Boys; unfortunately, he died of cancer before filming could begin, and the film ultimately starred George Burns and Matthau.

Trivia: African American comic actor Eddie Anderson was born into a show-business family: his father was a minstrel performer, and his mother a circus tightrope walker. Anderson entered show business at 14, teaming with his brother Cornelius in a song-and-dance act. His movie career began with a lengthy uncredited part as Lowell Sherman's valet in 1932's What Price Hollywood? The best of his earliest film assignments was the part of Noah in the 1936 cinemazation of Marc Connelly's all-black Broadway production The Green Pastures. On Easter Day of 1937, Anderson was engaged to play a one-shot role as a railway porter nicknamed Rochester on radio's The Jack Benny Program. Response was so overwhelmingly positive to Anderson's sandpaper voice and razor-sharp comic timing that the actor was hired as a regular on Benny's program, cast as Jack's know-it-all butler; it was an association which would last until Benny's death in 1974. In addition to his weekly radio duties, Anderson was co-starred with Benny in such films as Man About Town (1939), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) Love Thy Neighbor (1941) and The Meanest Man in the World (1942); he also continued in the Rochester role on Benny's TV series, which ran until 1965. Outside of his work with Benny, Anderson played various tremulous chauffeurs and handymen in many other films, sometimes in a stereotypical fashion, but nearly always on equal footing with his white co-stars; indeed, his relationship with his screen "boss" Dennis O'Keefe in 1945's Brewster's Millions was so casual that the film was banned in lily-white Mississippi. In 1943, Anderson was afforded top billing in the MGM musical Cabin in the Sky, sharing screen time with such stellar black talent as Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Rex Ingram and Louis Armstrong. One of the wealthiest black entertainers in the business, Anderson enhanced his film, radio and TV earnings with shrewd real estate investment. He suffered a stroke in the early 1960s which forced him to cut down his activities, though he was always available to work with Jack Benny in the latter's television specials. A prized "social awareness" moment occurred on a Benny special of the late 1960s when Jack invited "Rochester" to portray his servant once more. "But, boss," Eddie Anderson raspily responded, "we don't do that any more!"

Trivia: Energetic dancer, singer, and actress Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio in Puerto Rico to a family of independent farmers. She moved to New York City with her mother at age five and went on to become one of the few people to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy throughout her long career. At age 13, she took her vibrant stage presence and star quality to Broadway, and by the next year she had made it to Hollywood, where MGM studio executives suggested she change her name to Rita.Mostly appearing in musicals, her most notable roles of the '50s include Zelda Zanders the Zip Girl in Singin' in the Rain and Tuptim in The King and I. During this close-minded time period in American cinema, she was showcased for her "exotic" qualities in films like Pagan Love Song, Latin Lovers, and The Fabulous Señorita. She also starred in the costume drama The Vagabond King as well as various adventures and Westerns, usually providing the musical entertainment. Her big breakthrough came in 1961 with her role as the spitfire Anita in West Side Story, winning her an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. During the '60s, she took her talents back to the stage and got married, but she did appear in the films Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson and Popi with Alan Arkin. As a mother during the '70s, she turned to television and got involved with the PBS children's series The Electric Company, which led to a Grammy award for her recording contribution to the soundtrack album. She also won Emmy awards for her work on The Rockford Files and The Muppet Show. Meanwhile, she reprised her Tony-winning Broadway role of entertainer Googie Gomez for the 1976 film version of The Ritz. In the '80s, she appeared in the TV sitcom 9 to 5, the detective series B.L. Stryker, and several made-for-TV movies. In the '90s, she provided the voice for the title character in the PBS educational program Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? She started making features again, taking supporting roles in independent comedy dramas, including Slums of Beverly Hills. In 1997, she turned to confrontational drama as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on the HBO prison drama Oz. Since 2000, she has been a leading advocate of osteoporosis awareness and has appeared in the John Sayles ensemble feature Casa de los Babys in 2003.In 2007, Moreno appeared in a cameo role on the hit series Ugly Betty, playing the title character's aunt. Later that same year, she joined the cast of the drama series Cane, a show about a Latin family and their trials and tribulations running a family owned business. In 2011 she was cast as one of the leads on the sitcom Happily Divorced alongside Fran Drescher.