Trivia: A child actress in her hometown of Minneapolis, Muriel Evans began her screen career in 1927 as a leading lady to comedian Lupino Lane. Her parents, however, demanded that she finish her education and she was offscreen until 1932. Blonde and, according to at least one reviewer, "unspoiled," Evans enjoyed a busy career in mainly B-films, including no less than 13 series Westerns with the likes of John Wayne, Buck Jones, and Tex Ritter. In the late 1930s, her career came full circle when she starred in two-reel comedies opposite James Finlayson.

Trivia: Virtually the prototype of all grizzled old-codger western sidekicks, George "Gabby" Hayes professed in real life to hate westerns, complaining that they all looked and sounded alike. For his first few decades in show business, he appeared in everything but westerns, including travelling stock companies, vaudeville, and musical comedy. He began appearing in films in 1928, just in time to benefit from the talkie explosion. In contrast to his later unshaven, toothless screen persona, George Hayes (not yet Gabby) frequently showed up in clean-faced, well groomed articulate characterizations, sometimes as the villain. In 1933 he appeared in several of the Lone Star westerns featuring young John Wayne, alternating between heavies and comedy roles. Wayne is among the many cowboy stars who has credited Hayes with giving them valuable acting tips in their formative days. In 1935, Hayes replaced an ailing Al St. John in a supporting role in the first Hopalong Cassidy film, costarring with William Boyd; Hayes' character died halfway through this film, but audience response was so strong that he was later brought back into the Hoppy series as a regular. It was while sidekicking for Roy Rogers at Republic that Hayes, who by now never appeared in pictures with his store-bought teeth, earned the soubriquet "Gabby", peppering the soundtrack with such slurred epithets as "Why, you goldurned whipersnapper" and "Consarn it!" He would occasionally enjoy an A-picture assignment in films like Dark Command (1940) and Tall in the Saddle (1944), but from the moment he became "Gabby", Hayes was more or less consigned exclusively to "B"s. After making his last film appearance in 1952, Hayes turned his attentions to television, where he starred in the popular Saturday-morning Gabby Hayes Show ("Hullo out thar in televisium land!") and for a while was the corporate spokesman for Popsicles. Retiring after a round of personal appearance tours, Hayes settled down on his Nevada ranch, overseeing his many business holdings until his death at age 83.

Trivia: A former Barnum circus clown, pint-sized Chester Conklin entered movies at Mack Sennett's Keystone studios in 1913. Sporting a huge mustache to hide his youthful appearance, Conklin was usually cast as "A. Walrus." Legend has it that Conklin helped Keystone novice Charlie Chaplin put together his famous Tramp costume; true or not, it is a fact that Chaplin kept Conklin on year-round payroll for his later productions Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). After leaving Keystone, Conklin remained a popular comedian at the Fox and Sunshine Studios. In the late 1920s, he was teamed with W.C. Fields for a brief series of feature films at Paramount Pictures. In talkies, Conklin mostly appeared in bits in features and supporting parts in 2-reelers; he also showed up in such nostalgic retrospectives as Hollywood Cavalcade (1939) and The Perils of Pauline (1947). At his lowest professional ebb, in the 1950s, Conklin made ends meet as a department-store Santa. In and out of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in the 1960s, Conklin fell in love with another patient, 65-year-old June Gunther. The two eloped (she was Chester's fourth wife) and settled in a modest bungalow in Van Nuys. Chester Conklin showed up in a handful of films in the 1960s; his last appearance, playing a character appropriately named Chester, was in 1966's A Big Hand for the Little Lady.

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Trivia: American comedian Hank Mann was a product of the turbulent tenement district of New York in the 1880s, where a kid had better learn to be handy with his fists or lose all his teeth by the age of 12. Putting his physical prowess to practical use, Mann became a circus acrobat, then headed westward for a job at Mack Sennett's Keystone studios. His junkyard-dog face was softened a bit by a huge paintbrush mustache, which emphasized his expressive, almost wistful eyes. Seldom a star comedian at Sennett, Mann quickly learned how to "catch flies" -- steal scenes, that is. In the most famous example of this, Mann played the foreman of a jury where Chester Conklin was on trial for his life; as Conklin energetically pleaded his case, Mann grabbed the audience's attention by silently yanking up his necktie in a hanging motion. Mann left Keystone for his own starring series at Fox, thence to a career as a character comic in feature films. He had the potential to be one of the top comedy stars of the era, but bad management and worse judgment left him broke by the late '20s. Mann was given a good break as Charlie Chaplin's contemptuous boxing opponent in City Lights (1931), and was provided with a meaty role as a house detective in the 1935 two-reeler Keystone Hotel, which reunited such former Sennett headliners as Ford Sterling, Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin and Marie Prevost. But Mann's talkie career consisted primarily of bit parts. He worked steadily in the films of Frank Capra, a friend from the silent days, and appeared prominently in two Three Stooge comedies, 1934's Men in Black (as a long-suffering janitor) and 1937's Goofs and Saddles (performing some bone-crushing pratfalls as a confused cattle rustler). Mann also showed up briefly in the two-reelers of such Columbia contractees as Andy Clyde, Buster Keaton and El Brendel. When jobs were scarce, Mann farmed out his services as a makeup artist, and also ran a small California malt shop. During the '50s, Hank Mann could always be relied upon for newspaper interviews about the good old days, and he was cast along with other silent comedy vets in such nostalgic feature films as Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955) and Man of a Thousand Faces (1957).

Trivia: Chinese character actor Willie Fung spent his entire Hollywood career imprisoned by the Hollywood Stereotype Syndrome. During the silent era, Fung was the personification of the "Yellow Peril," never more fearsome than when he was threatening Dolores Costello's virtue in Old San Francisco (1927). In talkies, Fung was a buck-toothed, pigtailed, pidgin-English-spouting comedy relief, usually cast as a cook or laundryman.

Trivia: Albert Hill Jr. was the son of stage actor Al Hill (not to be confused with the Hollywood character actor of the same name). The younger Hill's screen credits were limited to two variations on the same basic role. He was seen as Rod, one of the residents of Boys' Town (1938), then as Pete, an inmate of Boys' Reformatory (1939).

Trivia: Born John Myrtland LaVarre, John Merton has appeared on Broadway as "Myrtland LaVarre" in the Theatre Guild's hit production of Karel Capek's R.U.R. (1922). More theater work followed and he was spotted in the background of several silent films, including as a fireman in W.C. Fields' It's the Old Army Game (1926). But the handsome, slightly frosty-looking actor found his rightful place in B-Westerns and serials. He would appear in a total of 170 films, turning up as an assortment of blackguards. Usually a bit more sophisticated than the average "dog heavy," Merton could nevertheless rough it with the best of 'em, a talent he passed on to his equally tough-looking son, Lane Bradford. Father and son appeared in six films together, including 1947's Jack Armstrong. (Another son played supporting roles on television in the '50s under the moniker of Robert La Varre.) Retiring after a bit in Cecil B. DeMille's gigantic The Ten Commandments (1956), Merton died of a heart attack at the age of 58.

Trivia: He began performing in early childhood, going on to appear in tent shows, vaudeville, and stock throughout the Southwest. He formed Chill Wills and the Avalon Boys, a singing group in which he was the leader and bass vocalist, in the '30s. After appearing with the group in several Westerns, beginning with his screen debut, Bar 20 Rides Again (1935), he disbanded the group in 1938. For the next fifteen years he was busy onscreen as a character actor, but after 1953 his film work became less frequent. He provided the voice of Francis the Talking Mule in the "Francis" comedy series of films. In the '60s he starred in the TV series "Frontier Circus" and "The Rounders." For his work in The Alamo (1960) he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. In 1975 he released a singing album--his first.

Trivia: An "Okie" whose parents died when he was a child, William Boyd became a manual laborer before breaking into the movies in 1919 as an extra in Cecil B. De Mille's Why Change Your Wife? He soon became one of De Mille's favorite actors and was cast as an unassuming leading man in comedies and swashbuckling adventure films. Boyd continued his success in the sound era, but was hurt when a scandal hit another actor named "William Boyd" and the public confused the two. His career took off in 1935 when he began to appear in "Hopalong Cassidy" films (based on the Clarence E. Mulford stories of the Old West), beginning with Hop-A-Long Cassidy and eventually amounting to 66 episodes, the final twelve of which Boyd produced. Cassidy, dressed in black and mounted on his famous horse Topper, was a clean-living good guy who didn't smoke, drink, or swear, and hardly ever kissed the heroine; the character became an enormous hero to millions of American boys, and Boyd bought the rights to it. With the breakthrough of TV in the early 50s, Boyd began to reap huge profits from the character as the old shows found a new audience and by-products began to be produced and sold; he played Cassidy the rest of his life, even into genial, gray-haired old age. Ultimately, William Boyd Enterprises was sold for $8 million. Boyd was married four times and divorced three, each time to an actress: Ruth Miller, Elinor Fair, Dorothy Sebastian, and Grace Bradley.

Trivia: American light leading man James Ellison was recruited from a stock company to appear in the forgotten 1932 film Play Girl. His biggest movie break was DeMille's The Plainsman (1936), in which he played Buffalo Bill Cody opposite Gary Cooper's Wild Bill Hickok and Jean Arthur's Calamity Jane. This sagebrush endeavor led to two seasons' work as "Johnny Nelson" in Paramount's Hopalong Cassidy western programmers. Ellison was one of the stalwarts of the "B" units at 20th Century-Fox and RKO during the 1940s; thereafter he free-lanced in such cost-conscious second features as Dead Man's Trail (1952) and Ghost Town (1956). After starring in the negligible 1963 Castro spoof When The Girls Take Over, James Ellison decided that the time was ripe to leave show business in favor of the lucrative world of real estate.