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: 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: American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as Robert Preston and Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were Rocketship X-M (1950), Red Planet Mars (1952), Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director Joe Dante's 1993 comedy Matinee: the military officer played by Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film Mant is named General Ankrum.

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: A former model and stock-company ingenue, brunette Nora Lane agreed to a screen test "just for the fun of it." She landed a contract with FBO (the future RKO) and made her debut opposite cowboy star Tom Tyler in The Flying U Ranch (1927). It was the first of many oaters for Lane, whose silent career was highlighted by four fine examples of the genre starring Fred Thomson, the lanky husband of screenwriter Frances Marion. There probably would have been many more had Thomson not died suddenly at the age of 38. Instead, Lane made her Western sound debut in Lucky Larkin opposite yet another legendary cowboy star, Ken Maynard, and went on to appear in five low-budget films with Tim McCoy and with William Boyd in four "Hopalong Cassidy" oaters. By the '40s, she was reduced to playing bit parts; her October 1948 suicide was reportedly due to a lack of work.

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: With his articulate speech patterns and his wide range of facial nuances, George Cheseboro was a cut above the usual western supporting player. He began his career with a stock company in 1907; three years later, he toured the Orient with another acting troupe. Vaudeville experience followed, and then in 1915 Cheseboro made his first motion picture. With 1918's Hands Up, Cheseboro became a popular serial star, extending his repertoire to western leads after serving in World War I. Though his star had faded by the time talkies arrived, Cheseboro prospered as a character actor in the many "B" westerns clogging the market in the 1930s, usually playing a scuzzy henchman, barroom bully or lynch-happy bystander. One of the actor's most satisfying screen moments occurred in the 1950 Roy Rogers feature Trail of Robin Hood. The climax contrives to have several popular western stars ride on the scene to rescue movie-star-turned-rancher Jack Holt from rustlers. As Allan Lane, Rex Allen, Monte Hale et. al. greet each other effusively, Cheseboro rides up to offer his help--whereupon he is roundly snubbed. A little girl steps out of the crowd to reprimand Cheseboro for spending his cinematic career on the wrong side of the law. "I know, honey," replies George Cheseboro with a warm smile. "But after being beaten up by Jack Holt in twenty pictures, he's reformed me!"

Trivia: Dignified character actor John Saint Polis billed himself as Saint Polis when he made his screen bow in 1914. During the pre-WWI era, the actor starred in such important productions as Joseph and His Brethren. During the 1920s, he was established as a character actor, with sizeable roles in Three Weeks (1924) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), among others. He made an impressive transition to talkies as Mary Pickford's fatally honor-bound father in Coquette (1929), then spent the remainder of his career in roles of varying sizes, usually playing doctors or officials. Like many other venerable silent-film veterans, John Saint Polis made his last appearance in a Cecil B. De Mille production, Reap the Wild Wind (1942).

Trivia: With his penetrating eyes, trademark pencil-thin mustache, and stocky build, Missouri-born Karl Hackett appeared in scores of low-budget Westerns from 1935 to 1948, usually playing characters with untrustworthy names like Wolf Hines (Colorado Kid [1937]), Slaughter (Utah Trail [1938]), or Three-Fingers Rogel (Where the Buffalo Roam [1938]). Once in a while he wore a badge (The Lion's Den [1936], Wild Horse Rustler [1943]), but was still highly suspicious. On his few excursions away from the range, Hackett played thugs in the 1939 serials The Green Hornet and its sequel The Green Hornet Strikes Again (1940) and was Councillor Krenko in Buck Rogers (1940).

Trivia: This handsome, mustachioed leading man of the 1910s was, of course, not the young actor of the same name who married Jennifer Jones. The earlier Walker began his screen career with pioneering film companies such as Kalem and Thanhouser and reached stardom as Viola Dana's leading man in Blue Jeans (1917), a charming bit of Americana directed by the much-neglected John D. Collins. In the 1920s, having added a dashing mustache and an air of haughty menace, Walker became one of the best "boss villains" in westerns, handsome enough to be a serious rival to the hero -- at least in the first couple of reels. To the everlasting chagrin of film researchers, the two Robert Walkers careers overlap for four years (1935-1939).

Trivia: Someone once called American supporting actor Charles "Slim" Whitaker a "no good yellow-bellied polecat," and that is as good a description as any for this paunchy, mustachioed gent, a former stage manager and stock company actor from Kansas City, MO. Whitaker's screen career was spent almost entirely in B-Westerns, where he would skulk around as lazy ranch hands, tobacco-chewing henchmen, Mexican "half-breeds," and even the occasional corrupt lawman. More versatile than most Western supporting players, Whitaker was adept at comedy as well, and was humorously billed "Slender" Whitaker in 1925's Border Intrigue, in which he played a comedic Mexican bandito. Whitaker, who made his screen bow around 1925, was busiest in the 1930s, appearing in over 25 films in 1935 alone! He continued in pictures through the late '40s, but spent his final years working as a short-order cook in a Hollywood coffee shop.

Trivia: Snake-eyed, mustachioed character actor Frank Ellis seldom rose above the "member of the posse" status in "B" westerns. Once in a while, he was allowed to say things like "Now here's my plan" and "Let's get outta here," but generally he stood by waiting for the Big Boss (usually someone like Harry Woods or Wheeler Oakman) to do his thinking for him. Ellis reportedly began making films around 1920; he remained in the business at least until the 1954 Allan Dwan-directed western Silver Lode. Frank Ellis has been erroneously credited with several policeman roles in the films of Laurel and Hardy, due to his resemblance to another bit player named Charles McMurphy.

Trivia: A titan in the field of low-budget movie-making, Australian-born stage actor J.P. McGowan enjoyed his first major success directing his wife Helen Holmes in the immensely popular and lucrative Hazards of Helen series, in which he also often played the villain. The McGowans left the producer, Kalem, after 30-odd installments to produce their own railroad series and serials under the Signal banner. The venture was reasonably successful until the distributor, Mutual, went out of business in 1919, after which the couple went into an immediate decline professionally and personally. On his own, McGowan spent the 1920s producing, directing, and acting in some of the cheapest professional films ever released, usually budgeting his little action melodramas for less money than MGM would spend on a newspaper add and economizing by incorporating plenty of stock footage that at least offered the illusion of grandeur. A character actor and bit part player in the 1930s, McGowan made his final screen appearance in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939).

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.

Trivia: A small mustache and squinty eyes placed this B-Western supporting player squarely among the less desirable denizens of the Old West. In films from the late '30s, Parkinson (born Clifford Emmitt Pixley Parkinson) rode with most of the well-known hissables, including Republic Pictures' main villains, Leroy Mason and Roy Barcroft. Although often merely a member of the posse, Parkinson was awarded good roles in several Hopalong Cassidy entries in the mid-'40s. Parkinson died at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital.

Trivia: One of the busiest performers in the history of B-westerns, mustachioed Jack Evans appeared in at least 220 oaters and a dozen or so serials in the sound era alone. Onscreen from the early '20s, Evans was very visible in the 1930s, almost always playing one of the villain's sloppy-looking, ornery, and altogether unpleasant-to-be-around henchmen. His hair and mustache graying, Evans remained in westerns until the late '40s but could by then usually be found in the saloon, merely observing the hectic goings-on from the sidelines instead of being an active participant.

Trivia: The son of a Scottish theatrical producer/manager, Andy Clyde joined his siblings David and Jean on stage in childhood. At the invitation of his close friend James Finlayson, Clyde came to the U.S. in the early 1920s to join producer Mack Sennett's roster of comedians. An expert at makeup, Clyde played a variety of supporting roles, from city slickers to unshaven bums; he was also co-starred with Billy Bevan for such classic Sennett 2-reelers as Wandering Willies (1926) and Ice Cold Cocos (1927). His best-known characterization was as a grizzled, paintbrush-mustached old codger. In this guise, Andy was Sennett's most popular star in the early talkie era, appearing in as many as 18 comedies per year. After parting company with Sennett in 1932, Clyde worked briefly at Educational Studios, then in 1934 signed on with Columbia's short subject unit, where he remained the next 22 years. With 79 shorts to his credit, Andy was second only to the Three Stooges as Columbia's premiere comedy attraction. He also appeared as "California," comic sidekick to western star William Boyd, in the popular Hopalong Cassidy westerns of the 1940s. Clyde filled out his busy schedule with character roles in such films as Million Dollar Legs (1932), Annie Oakley (1936) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). Barely pausing for breath, Clyde kept up his hectic pace on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing regularly on the weekly series The Real McCoys, Lassie and No Time for Sergeants. A real trouper, Andy Clyde was one of Hollywood's best-liked actors, never giving less than 100% to any role of any size.

Trivia: Hayden was born Pate Lucid. After working behind the scenes in films as a grip, sound recorder, film cutter, and assistant cameraman, he began acting in films in the mid '30s. Between 1937-41 he played Lucky Jenkins, William Boyd's saddle pal, in 27 Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. He starred in his own Western series in the '40s, and in 1943-44 he was voted one of the Top Ten Cowboy stars; he also costarred with James Ellison in numerous Westerns which he co-produced, and occasionally had leads in non-Westerns as well as one adventure serial. Beginning in the early '50s (when he retired from films) he produced and directed TV Westerns, including the series 26 Men and Judge Roy Bean, starring in the latter. He married and divorced actress Jan Clayton, who was his leading lady in some of the Hopalong Cassidy films. Later he married actress Lillian Porter.

Trivia: Actor Earle Hodgins has been characterized by more than one western-film historian as a grizzled, bucolic Bob Hope type. Usually cast as snake-oil salesmen, Hodgins would brighten up his "B"-western scenes with a snappy stream of patter, leavened by magnificently unfunny wisecracks ("This remedy will give ya a complexion like a peach, fuzz 'n' all..."). When the low-budget western market died in the 1950s, Hodgins continued unabated on such TV series as The Roy Rogers Show and Annie Oakley. He also made appearances in such "A" films as East of Eden (55), typically cast as carnival hucksters and rural sharpsters. In 1961, Earle Hodgins was cast in the recurring role of wizened handyman Lonesome on the TV sitcom Guestward Ho!

Trivia: Steely-eyed, mustachioed Edward Cassidy (or plain Ed Cassidy) bore a striking resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt, whom he played three times onscreen, including a brief appearance in the MGM musical Take Me out to the Ball Game (1949). But the McGill University graduate was more at home in B-Westerns and serials, of which he did an impressive total of 218. Cassidy could occasionally be found on the wrong side of the law, but more often than not, he would portray the heroine's (or hero's) beleaguered father, the stern sheriff, or a troubled rancher. Retiring after his 1957 appearance in the television series Circus Boy, the veteran supporting player died from undisclosed causes at the Motion Picture House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.