Trivia: British actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke's physician father was resistant to his son's chosen profession; nonetheless, the elder Hardwicke paid Cedric's way through the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. The actor was fortunate enough to form a lasting friendship with playwright George Bernard Shaw, who felt that Hardwicke was the finest actor in the world (Shaw's other favorites were the Four Marx Brothers). Working in Shavian plays like Heartbreak House, Major Barbara and The Apple Cart throughout most of the 1920s and 1930s in England, Hardwicke proved that he was no one-writer actor with such roles as Captain Andy in the London production of the American musical Show Boat. After making his first film The Dreyfus Case in 1931, Hardwicke worked with distinction in both British and American films, though his earliest attempts at becoming a Broadway favorite were disappointments. Knighted for his acting in 1934, Hardwicke's Hollywood career ran the gamut from prestige items like Wilson (1944), in which he played Henry Cabot Lodge, to low-budget gangster epics like Baby Face Nelson (1957), where he brought a certain degree of tattered dignity to the role of a drunken gangland doctor. As proficient at directing as he was at acting, Hardwicke unfortunately was less successful as a businessman. Always a step away from his creditors, he found himself taking more and more journeyman assignments as he got older. Better things came his way with a successful run in the 1960 Broadway play A Majority of One and several tours with Charles Laughton, Agnes Moorehead and Charles Boyer in the "reader's theatre" staging of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. A talented writer, Hardwicke wrote two autobiographies, the last of these published in 1961 as A Victorian in Orbit. It was here that he wittily but ruefully observed that "God felt sorry for actors, so he gave them a place in the sun and a swimming pool. The price they had to pay was to surrender their talent."

Trivia: Blonde American leading lady Constance Ford made her first film appearance in 1956's The Last Hunt. Generally cast in sensible, straightlaced roles, Ford provided welcome relief to the youthful hijinks prevalent in such films as A Summer Place (1959), Claudelle Inglish (1961) and Rome Adventure (1962). Constantly employed on TV, Ford is best remembered for her work in soap operas, which both pre-dated and outlasted her film career. In 1954, Constance Ford starred on the short-lived serial Woman With a Past; and, from 1964 until 1989, Ford portrayed Ada Davis Downs Hobson on NBC's Another World.

Trivia: Ian Wolfe was determined to become an actor even as a youth in his hometown of Canton, IL. His Broadway debut was in the warhorse Lionel Barrymore vehicle The Claw. While acting with Katherine Cornell in The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1934, Wolfe was spotted by MGM producer Irving Thalberg, who brought the actor to Hollywood to re-create his Barretts role. Though not yet 40, Wolfe had the receding hairline and lined features necessary for aged character roles. By his own count, Wolfe appeared in over 200 films, often uncredited assignments in the roles of judges, attorneys, butlers, and shopkeepers. Some of his best screen moments occurred in producer Val Lewton's Bedlam (1946), wherein Wolfe played an 18th century scientist confined to a mental asylum for proposing the invention of motion pictures. Because his actual age was difficult to pinpoint, Wolfe kept working into the 1990s (and his nineties); he was a particular favorite of TV's MTM productions, appearing on such sitcoms as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and Rhoda. Co-workers during this period noted affectionately that, despite his many years as a professional, Wolfe was always seized with "stage fright" just before walking on the set. Though often cast in timid roles, Ian Wolfe was quite outspoken and fiercely defensive of his craft; when asked what he thought of certain method actors who insist upon playing extensions of "themselves," Wolfe snapped that he became an actor to pretend to be other people.

Trivia: He was born John Williams, but there already was a John Williams in show business (several of them, in fact), so the Canadian-born actor selected John McLiam as his professional moniker. McLiam's man-on-the-street countenance could be molded into a vast array of characterizations, ranging from a cockney low-life (My Fair Lady) to a Southern redneck (Cool Hand Luke). The actor's bland normality was a key factor in his being cast as real-life murder victim Herbert Clutter in 1967's In Cold Blood. John McLiam accepted more TV guest-star assignments than can possibly be listed here; he was also a regular on the weekly series Men From Shiloh (1970) and Two Marriages (1983).