Trivia: While attending the medical school of Columbia University, Gerald Mohr was offered an opportunity to audition as a radio announcer. The upshot of this was a job at CBS as the network's youngest reporter. He moved to the Broadway stage upon landing a role in The Petrified Forest. Shortly afterward, he became a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. He was chosen on the basis of his voice alone for his first film role as a heavily disguised phony mystic in Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939). Following wartime service, the dark, roguish Mohr was selected to play thief-turned-sleuth the Lone Wolf in Columbia's B-picture series of the same name. His detective activities spilled over into radio, where Mohr starred as Philip Marlowe, and TV, where in 1954 he was cast as Bogart-like café owner Chris Storm on the final season of the syndicated Foreign Intrigue. Gerald Mohr died at the age of 54, shortly after playing a crooked gambler in Funny Girl (1968).

Trivia: Energetic dancer, singer, and actress Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio in Puerto Rico to a family of independent farmers. She moved to New York City with her mother at age five and went on to become one of the few people to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy throughout her long career. At age 13, she took her vibrant stage presence and star quality to Broadway, and by the next year she had made it to Hollywood, where MGM studio executives suggested she change her name to Rita.Mostly appearing in musicals, her most notable roles of the '50s include Zelda Zanders the Zip Girl in Singin' in the Rain and Tuptim in The King and I. During this close-minded time period in American cinema, she was showcased for her "exotic" qualities in films like Pagan Love Song, Latin Lovers, and The Fabulous Señorita. She also starred in the costume drama The Vagabond King as well as various adventures and Westerns, usually providing the musical entertainment. Her big breakthrough came in 1961 with her role as the spitfire Anita in West Side Story, winning her an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. During the '60s, she took her talents back to the stage and got married, but she did appear in the films Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson and Popi with Alan Arkin. As a mother during the '70s, she turned to television and got involved with the PBS children's series The Electric Company, which led to a Grammy award for her recording contribution to the soundtrack album. She also won Emmy awards for her work on The Rockford Files and The Muppet Show. Meanwhile, she reprised her Tony-winning Broadway role of entertainer Googie Gomez for the 1976 film version of The Ritz. In the '80s, she appeared in the TV sitcom 9 to 5, the detective series B.L. Stryker, and several made-for-TV movies. In the '90s, she provided the voice for the title character in the PBS educational program Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? She started making features again, taking supporting roles in independent comedy dramas, including Slums of Beverly Hills. In 1997, she turned to confrontational drama as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on the HBO prison drama Oz. Since 2000, she has been a leading advocate of osteoporosis awareness and has appeared in the John Sayles ensemble feature Casa de los Babys in 2003.In 2007, Moreno appeared in a cameo role on the hit series Ugly Betty, playing the title character's aunt. Later that same year, she joined the cast of the drama series Cane, a show about a Latin family and their trials and tribulations running a family owned business. In 2011 she was cast as one of the leads on the sitcom Happily Divorced alongside Fran Drescher.

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: His European/Scandinavia heritage notwithstanding, actor Martin Garralaga was most effectively cast in Latin American roles. Many of his screen appearances were uncredited, but in 1944 he was awarded co-starring status in a series of Cisco Kid westerns produced at Monogram. Duncan Renaldo starred as Cisco, with Garralaga as comic sidekick Pancho. In 1946, Monogram producer Scott R. Dunlap realigned the Cisco Kid series; Renaldo remained in the lead, but now Garralaga's character name changed from picture to picture, and sometimes he showed up as the villain. Eventually Garralaga was replaced altogether by Leo Carrillo, who revived the Pancho character. Outside of his many westerns, Martin Garralaga could be seen in many wartime films with foreign settings; he shows up as a headwaiter in the 1942 classic Casablanca.

Trivia: A graduate of Santa Monica Junior College, Jack Elam spent the immediate post-World War II years as an accountant, numbering several important Hollywood stars among his clients. Already blind in one eye from a childhood fight, Elam was in danger of losing the sight in his other eye as a result of his demanding profession. Several of his show business friends suggested that Elam give acting a try; Elam would be a natural as a villain. A natural he was, and throughout the 1950s Elam cemented his reputation as one of the meanest-looking and most reliable "heavies" in the movies. Few of his screen roles gave him the opportunity to display his natural wit and sense of comic timing, but inklings of these skills were evident in his first regular TV series assignments: The Dakotas and Temple Houston, both 1963. In 1967, Elam was given his first all-out comedy role in Support Your Local Sheriff, after which he found his villainous assignments dwindling and his comic jobs increasing. Elam starred as the patriarch of an itinerant Southwestern family in the 1974 TV series The Texas Wheelers (his sons were played by Gary Busey and Mark Hamill), and in 1979 he played a benign Frankenstein-monster type in the weekly horror spoof Struck By Lightning. Later TV series in the Elam manifest included Detective in the House (1985) and Easy Street (1987). Of course Elam would also crack up audiences in the 1980s with his roles in Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II. Though well established as a comic actor, Elam would never completely abandon the western genre that had sustained him in the 1950s and 1960s; in 1993, a proud Elam was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Two short years later the longitme star would essay his final screen role in the made for television western Bonanza: Under Attack.

Trivia: Stage actor Peter Brocco made his first film appearance in 1932's The Devil and Deep. He then left films to tour in theatrical productions in Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Returning to Hollywood in 1947, Brocco could be seen in dozens of minor and supporting roles, usually playing petty crooks, shifty foreign agents, pathetic winos and suspicious store clerks. His larger screen roles included Ramon in Spartacus (1960), The General in The Balcony (1963), Dr. Wu in Our Man Flint (1963), and the leading character in the Cincinnati-filmed black comedy Homebodies (1974). The addition of a fuzzy, careless goatee in his later years enabled Brocco to portray generic oldsters in such films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1977), The One and Only(1977), Throw Momma From the Train (1989) and War of the Roses (1983). In 1983, Peter Brocco was one of many veterans of the Twilight Zone TV series of the 1950s and 1960s to be affectionately cast in a cameo role in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Trivia: American actor Pepe Hern played character roles in about 50 films and was frequently on television. He was typically cast as a Spaniard or Latino. His brother Tom Hernandez is also an actor.

Trivia: American actor Victor Millan played character roles on stage, television, and in feature films during the '50s and in the '70s and '80s. When not acting, associate professor Millan taught theater arts at Santa Monica College.

Trivia: One of the earliest Latino actors to establish a television presence in the 1950s, bandleader-turned-actor Tony Martinez gained a loyal fan base for his role on the popular small-screen series The Real McCoys before taking to the stage for the role of Sancho Panza in a staggering 2,245 productions of The Man of La Mancha. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in January 1920, Martinez was a music scholar in his native city before relocating to New York to continue his studies at Juilliard. The founder of Tony Martinez and His Mambo-USA in the 1940s, the extremely talented musician was versed in five instruments as well as vocals, though it was in film and television that Martinez would find popularity. After studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, he went on to appear with his band in the musical Rock Around the Clock (1956). Approached by television writer/producers Irving and Norman Pincus while playing with his band on the Sunset Strip, Martinez was offered the role of Pepino Garcia when the series debuted in 1957. The role served as a milestone in the representation of minorities on television, and Martinez would subsequently write for numerous Mexican films of the 1970s in addition to serving as executive director of Puerto Rico's Artists Variety Co. (an organization dedicated to helping citizens break into the entertainment industry) as well as executive director of Puerto Rico's Institute of Motion Pictures in the early '80s. Married to wife Myra in 1981, the couple would remain together until Martinez's death in September 2002. He was 82.

Trivia: Was adopted at a very young age. Met ex-husband Desmond Park on a blind date in 1967 and married him six weeks later. Her version of "Nun's Chorus" composed by Johann Strauss was New Zealand's first gold record. Has received honorary degrees from eight British, one American and two New Zealand universities. Was awarded a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, the Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1990 and Order of New Zealand in 1995. Won the Edison Classical Music Award in 2008. Started the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation which provides scholarships to talented musicians.

Trivia: The son of a wholesale grocer who later became one of the founders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Robert Shayne studied business administration at Boston University. Intending to study for the ministry, Shayne opted instead to work as field secretary for the Unitarian Layman's League. He went on to sell real estate during the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s before heading northward to launch an acting career. After Broadway experience, Shayne was signed to a film contract at RKO radio in 1934. When this led nowhere, Shayne returned to the stage. While appearing with Katharine Hepburn in the Philip Barry play Without Love, Shayne was again beckoned to Hollywood, this time by Warner Bros. Most of his feature film roles under the Warner banner were of the sort that any competent actor could have played; he was better served by the studio's short subjects department, which starred him in a series of 2-reel "pocket westerns" built around stock footage from earlier outdoor epics. He began free-lancing in 1946, playing roles of varying size and importance at every major and minor outfit in Hollywood. In 1951, Shayne was cast in his best-known role: Inspector Henderson on the long-running TV adventure series Superman. He quit acting in the mid-1970s to become an investment banker with the Boston Stock Exchange. The resurgence of the old Superman series on television during this decade thrust Shayne back into the limelight, encouraging him to go back before the cameras. He was last seen in a recurring role on the 1990 Superman-like weekly series The Flash. Reflecting on his busy but only fitfully successful acting career, Robert Shayne commented in 1975 that "It was work, hard and long; a terrible business when things go wrong, a rewarding career when things go right."