Trivia: The parents of American actor Jack Oakie had hopes that their son would enter the business world, but a spell as telephone clerk in a brokerage house convinced Oakie to look elsewhere for a career. After appearing at an amateur show staged by Wall Street executives for the Cardiac Society, Oakie was encouraged by the show's director to give acting his full attention. Oakie's professional debut was in the chorus of the 1922 George M. Cohan musical Little Nellie Kelly. Several Broadway productions later, Oakie travelled westward to try his luck in films, the first of which was Finders Keepers. Transferring without a hitch to talkies, Oakie found himself much in demand, usually playing a dimwitted braggart (with one of the best "double takes" in the business) who somehow made good and got the girl before fadeout time. By the late 1930s Oakie's career had gone into decline. The experience humbled the bombastic comedian and convinced him take a new approach to his career. After his unforgettable Mussolini take-off in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940), Oakie entered a new movie phase as second lead and character actor, which sustained him through many a musical comedy of the 1940s. And when called upon to do so, he could still carry a picture with finesse, as witness the 1945 fantasy That's the Spirit. Stage and TV work took up much of his time in the 1950s and 1960s, with occasional choice character parts in such films as The Rat Race (1960) and Lover Come Back (1962). Unpredictable in his likes and dislikes, Oakie was the sort of fellow who brusquely shooed away autograph seekers, but who also visited ailing comedian Stan Laurel, a man Oakie barely knew, to brighten up Stan's hospital stay at a time when some of Laurel's "close" pals didn't want to show up. Just before his death, Jack Oakie committed his memories to a sometimes fanciful but always entertaining biography, Jack Oakie's Double Takes, which was published posthumously by Jack's widow, actress Victoria Horne.

Trivia: Matronly British-born actress Emma Dunn was typed as mothers, grandmothers and housekeepers even during her earliest years in the theater. She was 41 when she played her first starring role on stage in 1916's Old Lady 31. She made her first film in 1919, and her last in 1948, changing very little physically during those three decades. Emma Dunn's best-remembered film assignments included the housekeeper of "pixillated" Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and the mother of Lew Ayres in several installments of MGM's Dr. Kildare series.

Trivia: With his haughty demeanor and near-satanic features, British actor Henry Daniell was the perfect screen "gentleman villain" in such major films of the 1930s and 1940s as Camille (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). An actor since the age of 18, Daniell worked in London until coming to America in an Ethel Barrymore play. He co-starred with Ruth Gordon in the 1929 Broadway production Serena Blandish, in which he won critical plaudits in the role of Lord Iver Cream. Making his movie debut in Jealousy (1929)--which co-starred another stage legend, Jeanne Eagels--Daniell stayed in Hollywood for the remainder of his career, most often playing cold-blooded aristocrats in period costume. He was less at home in action roles; he flat-out refused to participate in the climactic dueling scene in The Sea Hawk (1940), compelling star Errol Flynn to cross swords with a none too convincing stunt double. Daniell became something of a regular in the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films made at Universal in the 1940s--he was in three entries, playing Professor Moriarty in The Woman in Green (1945). Though seldom in pure horror films, Daniell nonetheless excelled in the leading role of The Body Snatcher (1945). When the sort of larger-than-life film fare in which Daniell specialized began disappearing in the 1950s, the actor nonetheless continued to prosper in both films (Man in the Grey Flannel Suit [1956], Witness for the Prosecution [1957]) and television (Thriller, The Hour of St. Francis, and many other programs). While portraying Prince Gregor of Transylvania in My Fair Lady (1964), under the direction of his old friend George Cukor, Daniell died suddenly; his few completed scenes remained in the film, though his name was removed from the cast credits.

Trivia: American actress Paulette Goddard, born Pauline Marion Levy, spent her teen years as a Broadway chorus girl, gaining attention when she was featured reclining on a prop crescent moon in the 1928 Ziegfeld musical Rio Rita. In Hollywood as early as 1929, Goddard reportedly appeared as an extra in several Hal Roach two-reel comedies, making confirmed bit appearances in a handful of these short subjects wearing a blonde wig over her naturally raven-black hair. Continuing as a blonde, she appeared as a "Goldwyn Girl" in the 1932 Eddie Cantor film Kid From Spain, where she was awarded several close-ups. Goddard's career went into full gear when she met Charlie Chaplin, who was looking for an unknown actress to play "The Gamin" in his 1936 film Modern Times. Struck by the actress's breathtaking beauty and natural comic sense, Chaplin not only cast her in the film, but fell in love with her. It is still a matter of contention in some circles as to whether or not Chaplin and Goddard were ever legally married (Chaplin claimed they were; it was his third marriage and her second), but whatever the case, the two lived together throughout the 1930s. Goddard's expert performances in such films as The Young in Heart (1938) and The Cat and the Canary (1939) enabled her to ascend to stardom without Chaplin's sponsorship, but the role she truly craved was that of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 epic Gone With the Wind. Unfortunately, that did not work out, and Vivien Leigh landed the part.After working together in The Great Dictator (1940), Goddard and Chaplin's relationship crumbled; by the mid-1940s she was married to another extremely gifted performer, Burgess Meredith. The actress remained a box-office draw for her home studio Paramount until 1949, when (presumably as a result of a recent flop titled Bride of Vengeance) she received a phone call at home telling her bluntly that her contract was dissolved. Goddard's film appearances in the 1950s were in such demeaning "B" pictures as Vice Squad (1953) and Babes in Baghdad (1953). Still quite beautiful, and possessed of a keener intellect than most movie actors, she retreated to Europe with her fourth (or third?) husband, German novelist Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front). This union was successful, lasting until Remarque's death. Coaxed out of retirement for one made-for-TV movie in 1972 (The Snoop Sisters), Goddard preferred to remain in her lavish Switzerland home for the last two decades of her life.

Trivia: Tall, rotund, popular comedic supporting actor Billy Gilbert is best remembered for his ability to sneeze on cue. The son of opera singers, he was 12 when he started performing. Later, in vaudeville and burlesque, he perfected a suspenseful sneezing routine; this became his trademark as a screen actor (he provided the voice of "Sneezy," one of the Seven Dwarfs, in Disney's feature cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, [1938]). Gilbert appeared in some silent films, then began a busier screen career during the sound era, eventually appearing in some 200 feature films and shorts where he was usually cast in light character roles as comic relief to straight performers and as support for major comedians, notably Laurel and Hardy. He also frequently had accented roles, including Field Marshall Herring in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). In the late '40s, Gilbert directed two Broadway shows; he also wrote a play, Buttrio Square, which was produced in New York in 1952. Billy Gilbert rarely appeared in films after the early '50s.

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: American actress Grace Hayle spent most of her screen time playing bejeweled dowagers, huffy department store customers and aggressive lady journalists. Hayle proved a worthy Margaret Dumont type in Wheeler and Woolsey's Diplomaniacs (1933), supplied laughs as a ruddy-faced cyclist in The Women (1939) and played a most unlikely rhumba dancer in Two-Faced Woman (1940). One of her few credited roles was the long-suffering Madame Napaloni in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). Grace Hayle remained in Hollywood long enough to appear in an early Elvis Presley film.

Trivia: The son of an insurance man who'd aspired to appear onstage but never had the chance, British-born actor Reginald Gardiner more than made up for his dad's unrealized dreams with a career lasting 50 years. Graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Gardiner started as a straight actor but drifted into musical revues, frequently working in the company of such favorite British entertainers as Bea Lillie. His Broadway bow occurred in the 1935 play At Home Abroad, and though he'd made his film debut nearly ten years earlier in Hitchcock's silent The Lodger (1926), he suddenly became a "new" Hollywood find. Handsome enough to play romantic leads had he so chosen (he gets away with it in the 1939 Laurel and Hardy comedy Flying Deuces), Gardiner preferred the sort of kidding-on-the-square comedy he'd done in his revue days. His turn as a traffic cop who imagines himself a symphony conductor in his first American film Born to Dance (1936) was so well received that he virtually repeated the bit--this time as a butler who harbors operatic aspirations--in Damsel in Distress (1937). For most of his film career, Gardiner played suave but slightly untrustworthy British gentlemen; a break from this pattern occurred in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940), in which Gardiner played a fascist military man who turns his back on dictator "Adenoid Hinkel" to cast his lot with a community of Jews. Devoting his private life to the enjoyment of classical music, rare books, painting, and monitoring the ghost that supposedly haunted his Beverly Hills home, Reginald Gardiner flourished as a stage, film and television actor into the 1960s; one of his latter-day assignments was his weekly dual role in the 1966 Phyllis Diller sitcom, Pruitts of Southampton.

Trivia: Of Jewish-Swiss descent, actor Bernard Gorcey was in his early 20s when he emigrated to the U.S. At 4' 10", Gorcey ruled out the possibility of becoming a leading man on stage; instead, he concentrated on comedy roles, and in so doing assured himself nearly five decades of steady work. On Broadway and in stock, he provided comedy relief to such operettas as Rose Marie, Wildflower, and Song of the Flame. In 1922, he was cast as Isaac Cohen in the phenomenally popular Broadway play Abie's Irish Rose; six year later, he repeated his role in the film version. Then it was back to Broadway and radio work until 1939, when Charlie Chaplin hired Gorcey to play philosophical ghetto dweller Mr. Mann in The Great Dictator. Gorcey went on to play minor roles at Warner Bros. and Monogram, where his son, actor Leo Gorcey was firmly established as a member of the "Dead End Kids" and "East Side Kids" aggregations. After another sojourn to Broadway, the elder Gorcey returned to Monogram, this time to stay. In 1946, the "East Side Kids" matriculated into "The Bowery Boys," a series that lasted until 1958. In the first Bowery Boys entry Live Wires, Gorcey played a featured role as a nervous bookie. From Bowery Bombshell (1946) onward, he was ensconced in the role of Louie Dumbrowski, the eternally flustered, supremely gullible owner of the sweet shop where the Bowery Boys whiled away their time hatching schemes and mooching sodas. Occasionally, Gorcey would accept an "outside" role in films like No Minor Vices, but his principal source of income remained Louie Dumbrowski (and the Los Angeles print shop that he ran in his off-hours). Not long after appearing in the 1955 Bowery Boys opus Dig That Uranium, Bernard Gorcey died of injuries sustained in a traffic accident.

Trivia: Though born in Germany, Paul Weigel generally played French and Spanish aristocrats during the silent era. Active in films from 1917 to 1943, Weigel spent most of the talkie era portraying kindly ministers. Every so often he would show up in a comedy, notably the 1925 Our Gang two-reeler Boys Will Be Joys. Paul Weigel's best-remembered talkie assignment was the philosophical Jewish ghetto-dweller Mr. Agar in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940).