Trivia: Over the course of his extraordinary life, Audie Murphy went from being a poor Texas sharecropper's son to America's most decorated WWII hero to a popular Western and action movie star. Though he died in 1971, his accomplishments are still commemorated in a variety of ways that range from his native Hunt County's annual Audie Murphy Day celebration to his induction into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Country Music Association of Texas. His name also appears on a VA hospital, a library room, a stretch of U.S. Highway 69 in Texas, and a San Antonio division of the Army. Murphy was born to a family of cotton growers near Kingston, TX. Boyish-looking and slender, he appeared an unlikely war hero, but while stationed in Europe with his infantry unit, Murphy was credited with killing 240 Germans, was promoted to lieutenant, and earned at least 24 medals, including a Purple Heart for a gunshot wound that shattered his hip and the coveted Congressional Medal of Honor. Following the war, Murphy worked as a clerk and a garage attendant before James Cagney invited him to his Hollywood home. Murphy stayed for 18 months and made his screen debut in Beyond Glory (1948), playing a guilt-ridden soldier. He had his first starring role in Bad Boy (1949) and was praised for his naturalistic acting style. Some critics chided him for only playing himself, but Murphy never claimed any acting ability. For audiences impressed with his war record and charmed by his charisma, Murphy playing himself was enough to sustain his busy film career for two decades. By the early '50s, Murphy was appearing in second-string Westerns. In 1953, distinguished director John Huston, whom Murphy regarded as a friend and mentor, starred him as the young soldier in his adaptation of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (1953). He would again work with Huston in 1960s' The Unforgiven. In 1955, Murphy appeared in his signature film, To Hell and Back, a chronicle of his war experiences based on his published autobiography. This film's box-office success allowed Murphy to appear in larger-budget films through the early '60s when he once again returned to B-movies. All told, during his heyday, Murphy worked with some of the era's most prominent stars including Jimmy Stewart, Broderick Crawford, and Audrey Hepburn. But while Murphy's professional life flourished, he had to grapple with some tough situations in his personal life. In the late '60s, an Algerian oil field he'd purchased was blown up during the Seven Day War. Murphy lost around 250,000 dollars. In 1970, he was tried and acquitted for beating up and threatening to kill a man during a heated fight, the precise circumstances of which remain muddled. Despite this courtroom victory, rumors circulated that Murphy was suffering personal problems resulting from his war experiences. Murphy was once briefly married to actress Wanda Hendrix with whom he had appeared in Sierra (1950). In 1951, Murphy married Pamela Archer and they remained happily wed until he accidentally crashed his plane into a Virginia mountainside on Memorial Day 1971. Murphy was given a full military burial and was interred in Arlington Cemetery.

Trivia: American actress Mari Blanchard trained from childhood for a dancing career, but a bout with polio put an end to those dreams. Undaunted, she became an advertising model, then entered films in 1950 after attracting attention in a bubble-bath pose. Possessed of a striking but somewhat synthetic beauty, Mari was most effectively cast as tarts, homewreckers, and other assorted villainesses. Her most prolific work was in tongue-in-cheek exotic roles, such as the Queen of Venus in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) and the Arabian princess in Son of Sindbad (1955). In 1960, Mari appeared as hotel-owner Kate O'Hara in the shortlived TV series Klondike, but was dropped from the project when it switched formats in 1961 and was retitled Acapulco. Mari Blanchard's last screen appearance was in 1963, where she was billed twenty-fourth as the likeable town madam in John Wayne's McClintock (she is but one of many townsfolk who refuses to shelter Maureen O'Hara when Big John sets out to give O'Hara a public spanking). After a long bout with cancer, Mari Blanchard died at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in 1970.

Trivia: Frequently cast as Western heavies due to his steely gaze, longtime character actor Lyle Bettger traveled the well-worn path from stage to screen, making a name for himself on such small screen oaters as Rawhide and Bonanza before stepping into a more contemporary setting with frequent appearances on Hawaii Five-O. A Philadelphia native and graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, subsequent work in theater and summer stock eventually lead Bettger to Broadway, and later a contract with Paramount. In 1950, Bettger made his screen debut with the film noir drama No Man of Her Own,and the fruitful following decade found him building a solid resumé with roles in Union Station (1950) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), among numerous others. Success followed the actor to the small screen, with Bettger donning his spurs as numerous baddies and even moving on to starring roles in the series The Court of Last Resort and The Grand Jury in the late '50s. Later work on Hawaii Five-O found the easygoing actor warming to the hospitable climate in which the show was set, and after appearing in the show's 1979 series finale, Bettger retired and made a home for himself in Paia. Lyle Bettger died of natural causes September 24, 2003, in Atascadero, CA. He was 88.

Trivia: New Mexico-born Lori Nelson spent much of her childhood in radio stations and photo studios as a juvenile actress and model. Signed by Universal in 1952, Nelson played opposite Jimmy Stewart, and also starred in Ma and Pa Kettle and Francis the Talking Mule, all within the space of one year. She freelanced in the mid-'50s, landing reasonably good roles in such films as Warners' I Died a Thousand Times (1955) and Paramount's Pardners (1956) before settling for Grade-Z drive-in fare like Hot Rod Girl. After a year of starring as Greta Lindquist in the syndicated TV sitcom How to Marry a Millionaire, Lori Nelson left the show in 1959 to seek out more challenging roles; when the calls stopped coming in, Nelson reinvented herself as a successful cosmetics manufacturer.

Trivia: The son of Irish immigrants, Thomas Mitchell came from a family of journalists and civic leaders; his nephew, James Mitchell, later became the U.S. Secretary of Labor. Following the lead of his father and brother, Mitchell became a newspaper reporter after high school, but derived more pleasure out of writing comic theatrical skits than pursuing late-breaking scoops. He became an actor in 1913, at one point touring with Charles Coburn's Shakespeare Company. Even when playing leads on Broadway in the 1920s, Mitchell never completely gave up writing; his play Little Accident, co-written with Floyd Dell, would be filmed by Hollywood three times. Entering films in 1934, Mitchell's first role of note was as the regenerate embezzler in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937). Many film fans assume that Mitchell won his 1939 Best Supporting Oscar for his portrayal of Gerald O'Hara in the blockbuster Gone With the Wind; in fact, he won the prize for his performance as the drunken doctor in Stagecoach -- one of five Thomas Mitchell movie appearances in 1939 (his other films that year, classics all, were Only Angels Have Wings, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Those who watch TV only during the Christmas season are familiar with Mitchell's portrayal of the pathetic Uncle Billy in Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). In the 1950s, Mitchell won an Emmy in 1952, a Tony award (for Wonderful Town) in 1954, and starred in the TV series Mayor of the Town (1954). In 1960, Mitchell originated the role of Lieutant Columbo (later essayed by Peter Falk) in the Broadway play Prescription Murder. Thomas Mitchell died of cancer in December of 1962, just two days after the death of his Hunchback of Notre Dame co-star, Charles Laughton.

Trivia: Intending to become a dentist like his father, American actor Edgar Buchanan wound up with grades so bad in college that he was compelled to take an "easy" course to improve his average. Buchanan chose a course in play interpretation, and after listening to a few recitations of Shakespeare he was stagestruck. After completing dental school, Buchanan plied his oral surgery skills in the summertime, devoting the fall, winter and spring months to acting in stock companies and at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He was given a screen test by Warner Bros. studios in 1940, received several bit roles, then worked himself up to supporting parts upon transferring to Columbia Pictures. Though still comparatively youthful, Buchanan specialized in grizzled old westerners, with a propensity towards villainy or at least larceny. The actor worked at every major studio (and not a few minor ones) over the next few years, still holding onto his dentist's license just in case he needed something to fall back on. Though he preferred movie work to the hurried pace of TV filming, Buchanan was quite busy in television's first decade, costarring with William Boyd on the immensely popular Hopalong Cassidy series, then receiving a starring series of his own, Judge Roy Bean, in 1954. Buchanan became an international success in 1963 thanks to his regular role as the lovably lazy Uncle Joe Carson on the classic sitcom Petticoat Junction, which ran until 1970. After that, the actor experienced a considerably shorter run on the adventure series Cade's County, which starred Buchanan's close friend Glenn Ford. Buchanan's last movie role was in Benji (1974), which reunited him with the titular doggie star, who had first appeared as the family mutt on Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

Trivia: "I'm not a comic," insisted Mary Wickes. "I'm an actress who plays comedy." True enough; still Wickes was often heaps funnier than the so-called comics she supported. The daughter of a well-to-do St. Louis banker, Wickes was an excellent student, completing a political science degree at the University of Washington at the age of 18. She intended to become a lawyer, but she was deflected into theatre. During her stock company apprenticeship, Wickes befriended Broadway star Ina Claire, who wrote the young actress a letter of introduction to powerful New York producer Sam Harris. She made her Broadway debut in 1934, spending the next five seasons in a variety of characterizations (never the ingenue). In 1939, she found time to make her film bow in the Red Skelton 2-reeler Seein' Red. After a string of Broadway flops, Wickes scored a hit as long-suffering Nurse Preen (aka "Nurse Bedpan") in the Kaufman-Hart comedy classic The Man Who Came to Dinner. She was brought to Hollywood to repeat her role in the 1941 film version of Dinner. After a brief flurry of movie activity, Wickes went back to the stage, returning to Hollywood in 1948 in a role specifically written for her in The Decision of Christopher Blake. Thereafter, she remained in great demand in films, playing an exhausting variety of nosy neighbors, acerbic housekeepers and imperious maiden aunts. Though her characters were often snide and sarcastic, Wickes was careful to inject what she called "heart" into her portrayals; indeed, it is very hard to find an out-and-out villainess in her manifest. Even when she served as the model for Cruella DeVil in the 1961 animated feature 101 Dalmations, Cruella's voice was dubbed by the far more malevolent-sounding Betty Lou Gerson. Far busier on TV than in films, Wickes was a regular on ten weekly series between 1953 and 1985, earning an Emmy nomination for her work on 1961's The Gertrude Berg Show. She also has the distinction of being the first actress to essay the role of Mary Poppins in a 1949 Studio One presentation. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Wickes did a great deal of guest-artist work in colleges and universities; during this period she herself went back to school, earning a master's degree from UCLA. Maintaining her professional pace into the 1990s, Wickes scored a hit with modern moviegoers as Sister Mary Lazarus in the two Sister Act comedies. Mary Wickes' final performance was a voiceover stint as one of the gargoyles in Disney's animated Hunchback of Notre Dame; she died a few days before finishing this assignment, whereupon Jane Withers dubbed in the leftover dialogue.

Trivia: The son of a patent medicine manufacturer, American actor Alan Hale chose a theatrical career at a time when, according to his son Alan Hale Jr., boarding houses would post signs reading "No Dogs or Actors Allowed." Undaunted, Hale spent several years on stage after graduating from Philadelphia University, entering films as a slapstick comedian for Philly's Lubin Co. in 1911. Bolstering his acting income with odd jobs as a newspaperman and itinerant inventor (at one point he considered becoming an osteopath!), Hale finally enjoyed a measure of security as a much-in-demand character actor in the 1920s, usually as hard-hearted villains. One of his more benign roles was as Little John in Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922), a role he would repeat opposite Errol Flynn in 1938 and John Derek in 1950. Talkies made Hale more popular than ever, especially in his many roles as Irishmen, blusterers and "best pals" for Warner Bros. Throughout his career, Hale never lost his love for inventing things, and reportedly patented or financed items as commonplace as auto brakes and as esoteric as greaseless potato chips. Alan Hale contracted pneumonia and died while working on the Warner Bros. western Montana (1950), which starred Hale's perennial screen cohort Errol Flynn.

Trivia: Bespectacled American actor Walter Baldwin was already a venerable stage performer at the time he appeared in his first picture, 1940's Angels over Broadway. With a pinched Midwestern countenance that enabled him to portray taciturn farmers, obsequious grocery store clerks and the occasional sniveling coward, Baldwin was a familiar (if often unbilled) presence in Hollywood films for three decades. Possibly Baldwin's most recognizable role was as Mr. Parrish in Sam Goldwyn's multi-Oscar winning The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), for which the actor received thirteenth billing. He also had a prime opportunity to quiver and sweat as a delivery man whose truck is commandeered by homicidal prison escapee Robert Middleton in The Desperate Hours (1955). Seemingly ageless, Walter Baldwin made his last film appearance three years before his death in 1969's Hail Hero.

Trivia: Child actor Lee Aaker began making unbilled bit appearances in films in 1951. His roles increased in size and importance after his impressive showing as the contentious title character in the "Ransom of Red Chief" episode in O. Henry's Full House (1952). One of his better-known screen appearances was as yet another kidnap victim, the son of scientist Gene Barry, in The Atomic City (1952). To anyone born between 1945 and 1960, he will always be remembered as honorary cavalry corporal Rusty on TV's Rin Tin Tin, which ran from 1954 to 1958. After Rin Tin Tin ran its course, Aaker moved into the production end of the business, serving as an assistant to producer Herbert B. Leonard (who'd also been his Rin Tin Tin mentor) on the '60s series Route 66. Like many former child stars, Lee Aaker has occasionally been plagued by impostors claiming to be him; one enterprising phony successful posed as Aaker at several nostalgia conventions of the 1980s before one of the actor's sharper-eyed fans blew the whistle.

Trivia: American actor Trevor Bardette could truly say that he died for a living. In the course of a film career spanning three decades, the mustachioed, granite-featured Bardette was "killed off" over 40 times as a screen villain. Entering movies in 1936 after abandoning a planned mechanical engineering career for the Broadway stage, Bardette was most often seen as a rustler, gangster, wartime collaborator and murderous backwoodsman. His screen skullduggery carried over into TV; one of Bardette's best remembered video performances was as a "human bomb" on an early episode of Superman. Perhaps being something of a reprobate came naturally to Trevor Bardette -- or so he himself would claim in later years when relating a story of how, as a child, he'd won ten dollars writing an essay on "the evils of tobacco," only to be caught smoking behind the barn shortly afterward.

Trivia: Supporting actor in Australian comedies of the '30.

Trivia: Character actor Richard Reeves was one of the most familiar heavies in big- and small-screen crime dramas and westerns of the early/middle 1950s. In just a thin sliver of his total output, he threatened (and even tortured) friends and allies of the Man of Steel in episodes of the Adventures of Superman, murdered district attorney Robert Shayne (and got Lou Costello into terrible trouble) in the Abbott & Costello film Dance With Me, Henry, and helped scare Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz half-to-death as an assassin from Franistan in an episode of I Love Lucy. Richard Jourdan Reeves was born in New York City in 1912, and his acting career seems to have begun in tandem with his World War II military service, in the movie This Is The Army (1943). Solidly built and heavy set with dark, wavy hair, Reeves went into acting in character and bit parts after the war, almost all of them uncredited until the advent of television -- when he did receive billing, it was sometimes as Dick Richards, Richard J. Reeves, and Dick Reeves. He played an array of police officers, soldiers, prison guards, laborers, and drivers in an array of films (including Abraham Polonsky's Force Of Evil and Richard Thorpe's Carbine Williams). But mostly as the 1950s wore on he gravitated toward thugs and henchmen -- though never the "brains" of the outfit -- whether in crime dramas or westerns. He made his first appearance on the Adventures of Superman in the 1951 episode "No Holds Barred" as a tough, somewhat lunk-headed wrestler working for a crooked promoter, and over the next few seasons portrayed various strong-arm men and leg-breakers working in the service of crime, on that show and others. But Reeves' seeming lack of intellect in his portrayals, and a slightly good nature that came through, often made his criminal characters in that series seem just a little sympathetic, at least compared to the men for whom they worked, and that gave his portrayals an edge that young viewers, especially, often remembered fondly. The closest he got to a role with real dignity on television in those days was in the episode of "The Boy Who Hated Superman", one of Reeves' finest acting jobs, culminating in a beautiful scene in which his rough-hewn hood, trying to hijack $5000 intended for his employer, opens a young man's eyes about the real nature of the criminal uncle he has idolized. By the mid-1950s, Reeves was ensconsed in these sorts of character roles, whether criminals, tough military men, or police officers. He also managed to impress directors and producers sufficiently to get asked back a lot on many shows -- after appearing in as an assassin from Franistan in the I Love Lucy episode "The Publicity Agent", Reeves did seven more appearances on the series across the run of the show. And his presence on western series such as The Roy Rogers Show, 26 Men, Cheyenne, and other western series was downright ubiquitous. The television work was broken up by the occasional bit part in feature films such as Androcles And The Lion (1952) and Destry (1954). His role in Dance With Me, Henry (1956) was one of his two biggest movie parts, but not his most challenging. The latter distinction was reserved for Reeves' rare chance to play a character on the side of the angels -- in Sherman A. Rose's sci-fi thriller Target Earth (1954), Reeves was cast opposite Virginia Grey as part of a quartet of survivors of an alien invasion of an American city, hiding out and trying to survive. It was his shining moment on-screen, allowing him to show a heroic, intelligent, and sensitive side (even as he strangles a man -- deservedly so -- with his bare hands in one scene). The actor was busy in the 1960s, appearing in lots of western series, and also had a bit part in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). Reeves even managed to make an appearance in the first episode of Batman. He was still doing a mixture of television and film work at the time of his death, at age 54, in 1967.

Trivia: A stage actor from 1938, American-born Frank Richards made his earliest recorded-film appearance in 1940. Generally cast as stubble-chinned heavies and slick gangsters, he also served as an "art director" for the 1946 Western Rustler's Roundup. More notable among his 200 or so on-camera television credits was his bad-guy role on the 1951 Superman episode "A Night of Terror." Richards' last film was John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence in 1974. He died in 1992.

Trivia: Moon-faced American character actor Ralph Peters was active in films from 1937 to 1956. At first, Peters showed up in Westerns, usually cast as a bartender. He then moved on to contemporary films, usually cast as a bartender. During the 1940s, Ralph Peters could be seen in scores of Runyon-esque gangster roles like Asthma Anderson in Ball of Fire (1941) and Baby Face Peterson in My Kingdom for a Cook (1943).

Trivia: Whenever actor Ed Platt blew one of his lines in his role of "The Chief" in the TV comedy series Get Smart, star Don Adams would cry out "Is John Doucette available?" Adams was kidding, of course, but he was not alone in his high regard for the skill and versatility of the deep-voiced, granite-featured Doucette. In films on a regular basis since 1947 (he'd made his official movie debut in 1943's Two Tickets to London), Doucette was usually cast in roles calling for bad-tempered menace, but was also adept at dispensing dignity and authority. He was equally at home with the archaic dialogue of Julius Caesar (1953) and Cleopatra (1963) as he was with the 20th-century military patois of 1970's Patton, in which he played General Truscott. John Doucette's many TV credits include a season on the syndicated MacDonald Carey vehicle Lock-Up (1959), and the role of Captain Andrews on The Partners (1971), starring Doucette's old friend and admirer Don Adams.

Trivia: One look at Alan Hale Jr. and no one could ever assume he was adopted; Hale Jr. so closely resembled his father, veteran character actor Alan Hale Sr., that at times it appeared that the older fellow had returned to the land of the living. In films from 1933, Alan Jr. was originally cast in beefy, athletic good-guy roles (at 6'3", he could hardly play hen-pecked husbands). After the death of his father in 1950, Alan dropped the "Junior" from his professional name. He starred in a brace of TV action series, Biff Baker USA (1953) and Casey Jones (1957), before his he-man image melted into comedy parts. From 1964 through 1967, Hale played The Skipper (aka Jonas Grumby) on the low-brow but high-rated Gilligan's Island. Though he worked steadily after Gilligan's cancellation, he found that the blustery, slow-burning Skipper had typed him to the extent that he lost more roles than he won. In his last two decades, Alan Hale supplemented his acting income as the owner of a successful West Hollywood restaurant, the Lobster Barrel.

Trivia: The career of American comic actor Billy Bletcher stretched from the silent era through the late 1960s. He began performing in vaudeville at age 19 and began his screen career at the Vitagraph Studios, Brooklyn in 1913. While there, he sometimes directed John Bunny comedies. He and his wife Arline came to Hollywood in 1917 where he became a stock comic for Mack Sennett's troupe and played in many two-reelers. Bletcher's career didn't really take off until the early 1920s when he teamed up with Billy Gilbert. Together they appeared in a number of Hal Roach two-reelers. Bletcher later appeared as Spanky's father in the "Our Gang" shorts. He also provided voices for Disney cartoon characters and in features such as The Wizard of Oz (as a Munchkin). Bletcher also did voiceovers on television. His last film appearance was in 1969.

Trivia: Wisconsonite actor Stanley Blystone was the brother of director John G. Blystone and assistant director Jasper Blystone. Entering films in 1915, the burly, muscular, mustachioed Blystone excelled in gruff, villainous roles; he was particularly menacing as a crooked ringmaster in Tom Mix's The Circus Ace (1927). In the talkie era, Blystone was busiest at the 2-reel comedy mills of RKO, Columbia and Hal Roach, often cast as brutish authority figures at odds with the comedy leads. In the Three Stooges' Half Shot Shooters (1936), he plays the sadistic Sgt. McGillicuddy, who reacts to the Stooges' ineptness by taking aim with a long-range cannon and blowing the three comedians right out of their boots! Blystone was much in demand as both "action" and "brains" heavies in Columbia's westerns and serials of the 1940s. Extending his activities to television in the 1950s, the 71-year-old Stanley Blystone was en route to Desilu Studios to play a small role on the TV series Wyatt Earp when he collapsed on the sidewalk and died of heart failure.

Trivia: A tall (reportedly 6'4") stuntman from Texas, Fred Carson played scores of bit parts in both films and television while doubling the likes of Rod Cameron, Victor Mature, and Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1954). He later functioned as stunt coordinator on such films as The Big Circus (1959), More Dead Than Alive (1969), and the made-for-television movie Tarantula: The Deadly Cargo (1977).

Trivia: Though no relation to comedian Chester Conklin, Charles "Heinie" Conklin spent his early film years at Chester's alma mater, Mack Sennett's Keystone studios; in later years, Heinie claimed to be one of the original Keystone Kops. Heinie's silent-screen makeup consisted of heavy eyebrow lining and a thinnish, upside-down, painted-on variation of Kaiser Wilhelm's moustache. In areas where anti-German sentiments still ran high during the post-World War 1 era, Conklin was billed on screen as Charlie Lynn. One of Conklin's first talkie appearances was as the addled military hospital patient in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). He spent most of his sound career in microscopic bit roles, often appearing at Columbia studios in support of such 2-reeler stars as The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, Hugh Herbert and Harry Langdon. Significantly, Heinie Conklin's last billed performance was in 1955's Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops.