Trivia: American actor Joel McCrea came from a California family with roots reaching back to the pioneer days. As a youth, McCrea satiated his fascination with movies by appearing as an extra in a serial starring Ruth Roland. By 1920, high schooler McCrea was a movie stunt double, and by the time he attended USC, he was regularly appearing at the Pasadena Playhouse. McCrea's big Hollywood break came with a part in the 1929 talkie Jazz Age; he matriculated into one of the most popular action stars of the 1930s, making lasting friendships with such luminaries as director Cecil B. DeMille and comedian Will Rogers. It was Rogers who instilled in McCrea a strong business sense, as well as a love of ranching; before the 1940s had ended, McCrea was a multi-millionaire, as much from his land holdings and ranching activities as from his film work. Concentrating almost exclusively on westerns after appearing in The Virginian (1946), McCrea became one of that genre's biggest box-office attractions. He extended his western fame to an early-1950s radio series, Tales of the Texas Rangers, and a weekly 1959 TV oater, Wichita Town, in which McCrea costarred with his son Jody. In the late 1960s, McCrea increased his wealth by selling 1200 acres of his Moorpark (California) ranch to an oil company, on the proviso that no drilling would take place within sight of the actor's home. By the time he retired in the early 1970s, McCrea could take pride in having earned an enduring reputation not only as one of Hollywood's shrewdest businessmen, but as one of the few honest-to-goodness gentlemen in the motion picture industry.

Trivia: Forrest Tucker occupied an odd niche in movies -- though not an "A" movie lead, he was, nonetheless, a prominent "B" picture star and even a marquee name, who could pull audiences into theaters for certain kinds of pictures. From the early/mid-1950s on, he was a solid presence in westerns and other genre pictures. Born Forrest Meredith Tucker in Plainfield, Indiana in 1919, he was bitten by the performing bug early in life -- he made his debut in burlesque while he was still under-age. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1937, he enlisted in the United States Army, joining a cavalry unit. Tucker next headed for Hollywood, where his powerful build and six-foot-four frame and his enthusiasm were sufficient to get him a big-screen debut in The Westerner (1940), starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan. Signed to Columbia Pictures, he mostly played anonymous tough-guy roles over the next two years, primarily in B pictures, before entering the army in 1943. Resuming his career in 1946, he started getting bigger roles on a steady basis in better pictures, and in 1948 signed with Republic Pictures. He became a mainstay of that studio's star roster, moving up to a co-starring role in Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949), which also brought him into the professional orbit of John Wayne, the movie's star. Across the early/middle 1950s, Tucker starred in a brace of action/adventure films and westerns, alternating between heroes and villains, building up a significant fan base. By the mid-1950s, he was one of the company's top box-office draws. As it also turned out, Tucker's appeal was international, and he went to England in the second half of the decade to play starring roles in a handful of movies. At that time, British studios such as Hammer Films needed visiting American actors to boost the international appeal of their best productions, and Tucker fulfilled the role admirably in a trio of sci-fi/horror films: The Crawling Eye, The Cosmic Monsters, and The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. Part of Tucker's motivation for taking these roles, beyond the money, he later admitted, was his desire to sample the offerings of England's pubs -- Tucker was a two-fisted drinker and, in those days, was well able to handle the effects of that activity so that it never showed up on-screen. And he ran with the opportunity afforded by those three science fiction movies -- each of those films, he played a distinctly different role, in a different way, but always with a certain fundamental honesty that resonated with audiences. When he returned to Hollywood, he was cast as Beauregard Burnside in Auntie Mame (1958), which was the top-grossing movie of the year. Then stage director Morton De Costa, seeing a joyful, playful romantic huckster in Tucker (where others had mostly seen an earnest tough-guy), picked him to star as Professor Harold Hill in the touring production of The Music Man -- Tucker played that role more than 2000 times over the years that followed. He was also the star of the 1964 Broadway show Fair Game For Lovers (in a cast that included Leo Genn, Maggie Hayes, and a young Alan Alda), which closed after eight performances. The Music Man opened a new phase for Tucker's career. The wily huckster became his image, one that was picked up by Warner Bros.' television division, which cast him in the role of Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke, the charmingly larcenous post-Civil War cavalry soldier at the center of the western/spoof series F-Troop. That series only ran for two seasons, but was in syndicated reruns for decades afterward, and though Tucker kept his hand in other media -- returning to The Music Man and also starring in an unsold pilot based on the movie The Flim-Flam Man (taking over the George C. Scott part), it was the part of O'Rourke with which he would be most closely identified for the rest of his life. He did occasionally take tougher roles that moved him away from the comedy in that series -- in one of the better episodes of the series Hondo, entitled "Hondo And The Judas", he played Colonel William Clark Quantrill very effectively. At the end of the decade, he returned to straight dramatic acting, most notably in the John Wayne western Chisum, in which he played primary villain Lawrence Murphy. That same year, he appeared in a challenging episode of the series Bracken's World entitled "Love It Or Leave It, Change It Or Lose It", playing "Jim Grange," a sort of film-a-clef version of John Wayne -- a World War II-era film star known for his patriotism, Grange is determined to express his political views while working alongside a young film star (portrayed by Tony Bill) who is closely associated with the anti-war movement. Tucker continued getting television work and occasional film roles, in addition to returning to the straw-hat circuit, mostly as Professor Harold Hill. None of his subsequent series lasted very long, but he was seldom out of work, despite a drinking problem that did worsen significantly during his final decade. In his final years, he had brought that under control, and was in the process of making a comeback -- there was even talk of an F-Troop revival in film form -- when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and emphysema. He died in the fall of 1986 at age 67.

Trivia: Susan Cabot's movie career was exclusively concentrated within the 1950s. The first of her many appearances was in Universal's On the Isle of Samoa (1950). After co-starring in several medium-budget westerns and Arabian Nights endeavors, Susan became a "regular" in the bottom-budget epics of Roger Corman, including Sorority Girl (1957), Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1958), Machine Gun Kelly (1958), and the immortal The Wasp Woman (1959).. Tragically, Susan Cabot was bludgeoned to death in her home, purportedly by her own son.

Trivia: Two things American actor John Russell was not: he was not cinematographer John L. Russell, nor was he the Johnny Russell who appears as Shirley Temple's brother in 20th Century-Fox's The Blue Bird (1940). He was however, a contract juvenile at Fox from 1937 through 1941. Interrupting his career for war service, Russell emerged from his tour of duty as a highly decorated marine. Busy in postwar films and TV as a secondary lead and utility villain, Russell was given costar billing with Chick Chandler in the 1955 syndicated TV adventure series Soldiers of Fortune. Four years later, Russell (now sporting a mustache) was cast as Marshal Dan Troop on the Warner Bros. weekly western series Lawman. This assignment lasted three years, after which Russell became a journeyman actor again. John Russell was well served with character parts in 1984's Honkytonk Man and 1985's Pale Rider, both directed by and starring another ex-TV-cowboy, Clint Eastwood.

Trivia: American-born Anthony Caruso decided early in his showbiz career to cash in on his last name by becoming a singer. Though he enjoyed some success in this field, Caruso had better luck securing acting roles. Typecast as a villain from his first film, Johnny Apollo (1940), onward, he remained a reliable screen menace until the 1980s. Usually cast as an Italian (he was Louis Chiavelli in 1950's The Asphalt Jungle), he has also played his share of Greeks, Spaniards, Slavs, and Indian chiefs. He was occasionally afforded an opportunity to essay sympathetic characters on the various TV religious anthologies of the 1960s and 1970s, notably This Is the Life. In 1976, Anthony Caruso enjoyed one of his biggest and most prominent screen roles in Zebra Force.On April 4, 2003 Anthony Caruso died following an extended illness in Brentwood, CA. He was 86.

Trivia: After his 1948 film debut in Columbia's The Dark Past, American general purpose actor Robert Osterloh was signed to a Warner Bros. contract. During his Warners tenure, Osterloh was spotted in such fleeting roles as the prisoner whose mail is censored into oblivion in the 1949 James Cagney classic White Heat (1949). He then went into his "officer" period, wearing many uniforms and bearing several ranks over the next decade. Among Robert Osterloh's 1950s film assignments were Major White in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Colonel Robert E. Lee in Seven Angry Men (1955) and Lieutenant Claybourn in I Bury the Living (1958).

Trivia: Had he been born a decade earlier, American actor Denver Pyle might well have joined the ranks of western-movie comedy sidekicks. Instead, Pyle, a Colorado farm boy, opted for studying law, working his way through school by playing drums in a dance band. Suddenly one day, Pyle became disenchanted with law and returned to his family farm, with nary an idea what he wanted to do with his life. Working in the oil fields of Oklahoma, he moved on to the shrimp boats of Galveston, Texas. A short stint as a page at NBC radio studios in 1940 didn't immediately lead to a showbiz career, as it has for so many others; instead, Pyle was inspired to perform by a mute oilfield coworker who was able to convey his thought with body language. Studying under such masters as Michael Chekhov and Maria Ouspenskaya, Pyle was able to achieve small movie and TV roles. He worked frequently on the western series of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; not yet bearded and grizzled, Pyle was often seen as deputies, farmers and cattle rustlers. When his hair turned prematurely grey in his early '30s, Pyle graduated to banker, sheriff and judge roles in theatrical westerns -- though never of the comic variety. He also was a regular on two TV series, Code 3 (1956) and Tammy (1966). But his real breakthrough role didn't happen until 1967, when Pyle was cast as the taciturn sheriff in Bonnie and Clyde who is kidnapped and humilated by the robbers -- and then shows up at the end of the film to supervise the bloody machine-gun deaths of B&C. This virtually nonspeaking role won worldwide fame for Pyle, as well as verbal and physical assalts from the LA hippie community who regarded Bonnie and Clyde as folk heroes! From this point forward, Denver Pyle's billing, roles and salary were vastly improved -- and his screen image was softened and humanized by a full, bushy beard. Returning to TV, Pyle played the star's father on The Doris Day Show (1968-73); was Mad Jack, the costar/narrator of Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1978-80); and best of all, spent six years (1979-85) as Uncle Jesse Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. Looking stockier but otherwise unchanged, Denver Pyle was briefly seen in the 1994 hit Maverick, playing an elegantly dishonest cardshark who jauntily doffs his hat as he's dumped off of a riverboat. Pyle died of lung cancer at Burbank's Providence St. Joseph Medical Center at age 77.

Trivia: George Neise played character roles on stage, screen, and television. Born and raised in Chicago, Neise became an actor following service as a colonel in the Army Air Corps during WWII. Neise made his feature-film debut in They Raid by Night (I942). Though he would specialize in action-dramas and Westerns, Neise appeared in a wide range of roles ranging from comedy to drama to romance. Neise made his final film appearance in The Barefoot Executive (1971). On television, Neise has appeared on The Jackie Gleason Show, The Red Skelton Show, and The Loretta Young Show. Neise passed away in his Hollywood home on April 14, 1996.

Trivia: A staple of Western-themed films and television series, veteran character actor Rayford Barnes began his onscreen career with John Wayne in Hondo, and in recent years appeared on television in Walker, Texas Ranger and ER. After beginning his career in New York training with Stella Adler and the Neighborhood Playhouse, Barnes moved to San Francisco to open his own theater, and later relocated to San Francisco, where he landed his role in Hondo. A veteran of WWII, Barnes made regular appearances on such TV series as Gunsmoke, The Virginian, and Little House on the Prairie while concurrently appearing in Westerns like The Wild Bunch and The Hunting Party. Rayford Barnes died on November 11, 2000, at St. Andrews Medical Center in Santa Monica, CA. He was 80.

Trivia: Irving Bacon entered films at the Keystone Studios in 1913, where his athletic prowess and Ichabod Crane-like features came in handy for the Keystone brand of broad slapstick. He appeared in over 200 films during the silent and sound era, often playing mailmen, soda jerks and rustics. In The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) it is Irving, as a flustered jury foreman, who delivers the film's punchline. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Irving played the recurring role of Mr. Crumb in Columbia's Blondie series; he's the poor postman who is forever being knocked down by the late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead, each collision accompanied by a cascade of mail flying through the air. Irving Bacon kept his hand in throughout the 1950s, appearing in a sizeable number of TV situation comedies.

Trivia: Brassy, bleached-blonde Claire Carleton was a reliable supporting actress on Broadway, in films and on TV for nearly thirty years. Carleton's New York stage credits include The Body Beautiful, 20th Century and The Women. In films, she was usually cast as"B"-girls, strippers, gum-chewing manicurists and divorce correspondents: her character names were generally along the lines of Mamie, Tessie, Nellie or simply "The Blonde." She was afforded leading roles in the two-reelers of such comedians as The Three Stooges and Leon Errol, entering into the slapstick proceedings with relish and abandon: in the 1946 Columbia short Headin' for a Weddin', Carleton has a light bulb broken in her mouth, and in the final scene engages in a knock-down, drag-out fight with star Vera Vague. A frequent TV performer, Claire Carleton co-starred as Mickey Rooney's mother (she was eight years older than he!) in the 1955 sitcom Hey, Mulligan!, and played Alice Purdy on the 1958 western Cimarron City.

Trivia: Blessed with matinee idol looks, an athletic physique, and a generous supply of talent, Francis J. McDonald entered films in 1912 after brief stage experience. A popular leading man of the teen years, McDonald segued into villainous characterizations in the 1920s, notably as the title character in Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926). He remained busy during the talkie era, primarily as a mustachioed heavy in "B" westerns and a featured player in the films of Cecil B. DeMille. Francis J. McDonald was at one time the husband of the "ever popular" Mae Busch.

Trivia: American character actor Walter Kray has appeared in feature films and on television. He was typically cast as a villain.