Trivia: Warren Mitchell might be the finest actor in England of his generation, which overlaps with Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Albert Finney, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, and Alan Bates. Mitchell is certainly among the best of his profession from that era and the rival to any of those actors; the difference is that Mitchell has made his career almost exclusively in England. Born Warren Misell to an Orthodox Jewish family in London in 1926, he grew up over his grandmother's fish-and-chips shop in the East End. Misell's mother died when he was 13 and his father did his best holding the family together on his own. At around the same time, young Misell was partly alienated from his family when he chose to fulfill his obligation to the football team for which he was playing by participating in a game on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. Misell made it on his own as an actor through some lean years; after training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he married, had a family, and watched as his wife got steadier work than he did for many years while he raised the family. Misell's earliest professional credits on stage and screen date from 1954, when the 29-year-old actor, having changed his name to Warren Mitchell, appeared in a production of Can-Can at the Coliseum in London and made an appearance in the feature film Passing Stranger. He did The Threepenny Opera at the Royal Court Theatre, found some television work, and played ever larger roles in movies through the 1950s. Science fiction fans will remember him as Professor Crevett in The Crawling Eye; it was one of many avuncular and older-man roles that Mitchell played successfully in his thirties, following a pattern slightly similar to that of his colleague Lionel Jeffries. His screen work fairly exploded in the late '50s and kept Mitchell busy in character roles for the next decade. American audiences of a certain age may remember him as Abdul in the Beatles's feature film Help! (1965), and he also did some delightful work in episodes of The Avengers. In 1966, Mitchell got the role that turned him into a star when he won the lead in the television series Till Death Us Do Part. In the series, created by Johnny Speight, Mitchell played belligerent, bigoted, working-class, right-wing zealot Alf Garnett, head of a family that included his long-suffering wife, slightly bubble-headed daughter, and dedicated socialist son-in-law. Mitchell became an instant star on the series, which was an immediate hit in England and was popular enough to attract attention from America, where it was translated by producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin into All in the Family and became a star vehicle for Carroll O'Connor, in Alf's transatlantic equivalent, Archie Bunker. Mitchell ended up playing the role of Alf Garnett in numerous follow-up seasons and revivals, as well as a feature film, and the part became a defining point in his career. It also proved to be very controversial, as Mitchell brought so much humanity, and just enough gentleness, to the role of Alf Garnett that one could not be entirely repulsed by the character. Many pundits and columnists felt that he made the bigoted, racist figure too appealing, but others found him to be a compelling presence in the highly repulsive, deeply flawed character, which is the goal of any real actor. Luckily for his career, Mitchell was able to quickly move into other, better, and different roles, on stage and television, and now he had the recognition to get the offers. This culminated with a wave of recognition, highlighted by the Society of West End Theatre Award (the British equivalent of the Tony Award) for his portrayal of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in 1979. Amid essaying roles in a vast range of modern and classical works, Mitchell also portrayed Shylock in the public television production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In more recent years, Mitchell has been acclaimed for his King Lear as well, and entered the 21st century as one of the most highly regarded and popular actors in England.

Trivia: Perhaps best known to British audiences for his extensive work on the West End stage, actor Denis Quilley also parlayed his stage success into an impressive feature film and television career -- usually by means of such stage-bound adaptations as A Long Day's Journey Into Night (1973) and The Crucible (1980). A London native who began his career in 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theater, the following decade soon found Quilley rising through the West End ranks courtesy of winning performances in Wild Thyme and Grab Me a Gondola. Appropriately enough, the experienced stage actor would in 1955 make his television debut in a small-screen production of The Merchant of Venice. Though he would continue to appear frequently in both film and television (where he hosted the program The Magic of Music and appeared in such popular series as Contrabandits, Timeslip, and Clayhanger), it was his leading role in 1980s West End production of Sweeny Todd that netted him a Society of West End Theaters award and truly cemented his status as an actor of formidable talent. That role, paired with his previous SWET winning performance in the 1977 production of Privates on Parade, truly sent his career into the stratosphere. A mainstay of the renowned National Theater, it was there that Quilley would impress audiences with roles in such classical Shakespearean plays as Macbeth, The Tempest, and Hamlet. Still very active throughout the 1990s, performances in The School for Scandal and La Cage aux Folles served as a fine balance to feature work in Bruce Beresford's Mister Johnson (1990) and Franco Zeffirelli's Sparrow (1993). Cast in director Trevor Nunn's hit National production of the 1930s Cole Porter musical Anything Goes at the dawn of the new millennium, Quilley essayed the role with zeal to spare until a mystery illness forced him from the stage. On October 5, 2003, Denis Quilley died of liver cancer in his hometown of London. He was 75.

Trivia: An alumnus of London's Central School of Speech and Drama, English actress Amanda Donohoe's first film role was a supporting one in the door-slamming sex farce Foreign Body (1986). She then starred in a handful of British TV movies, usually cast as the slinky femme fatale. Briefly a member of director Ken Russell's informal stock company, Donohoe was stunning as the wicked snake woman in Russell's Lair of the White Worm (1988); in the same director's The Rainbow (1989), she played the worldly seductress to whom sexual naif Judy Davis turns to for advice. Donohoe was also starred as the alluring desert-island companion of Oliver Reed in director Nicholas Roeg's Castaway (1987), and was seen in a rare sympathetic role in 1990's Paper Mask. It was back to "black widows" again in 1993's made-for-cable The Substitute--one of several recent TV appearances for Donohoe, the most well-publicized of which was her weekly assignment as attorney C. J. Lamb on the popular TV series LA Law.

Trivia: The second child of actors Raymond Massey and Adrienne Allen, Anna Massey made her own film bow as the spunky daughter of Jack Hawkins in John Ford's Gideon's Day (1958). Anna was one of the few members of the female cast of the controversial Peeping Tom (1960) who was not murdered by psycho photographer Karl Boehm; conversely, she was the second victim of the necktie strangler in Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972) (she's the one whose murder occurs off-camera, as Hitchcock dollies from a second-floor flat to the street below). Maturing into a versatile character actress in her 40s, Massey had an amazing facility for appearing in TV redos of earlier films: she played Miss Ronberry in the 1979 remake of The Corn is Green, Mrs. Danvers in the 1981 remake of Rebecca, and Betsy in the 1985 remake of Anna Karenina. In 1994, Anna Massey was among the stars of the weekly British sitcom Nice Day at the Office.

Trivia: Character actor Stratford Johns was best known for his unusual "half head of hair." The South African-born Johns spent most of his forty years before the camera in villainous, unsympathetic characterizations. Some of his better-known film roles include Bradshaw in Cromwell (1970) and Piso in the British TV miniseries I, Claudius. Stratford Johns gained a whole slew of fans when he was "humanized"as the police inspector in the immensely popular BBC cop series Z Cars; he repeated this character (now promoted to police superintendent) in the spin-off series Softly Softly.

Trivia: British actor Trevor Howard trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and while there he made his London stage debut in 1934; however, his subsequent work onstage gained little attention until the mid-'40s. While fighting World War II with the Royal Artillery, he was injured and discharged. Howard made his feature film debut in 1944; soon he attained star status as the result of playing the romantic lead in David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945). Thus began a long and consistently successful film career. At first, Howard was cast in romantic leads, but then began playing more heroic leads before eventually moving into character roles. Regardless of his role, he was known as a consistent, polished actor with an understated, true-to-life style. At first appearing exclusively in British films, he began appearing occasionally in Hollywood productions in the mid-'50s. For his performance as the father in Sons and Lovers (1960) he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. He was married to actress Helen Cherry, with whom he appeared in A Soldier for Christmas (1944).

Trivia: British character actor Roy Evans appeared in films, on stage and on television. He got his show business start as a professional ballet dancer.

Trivia: Was born and raised in Scotland, but lost his accent to avoid being typecast. Was put off acting by his secondary school drama teacher, who said he could not speak properly; became a laboratory technician instead, but decided to attend drama school at 27. Was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1994 for his services to drama. Won the TMA Best Director Award for Mr Kolpert at the Royal Court Theatre in 2000. In 2010, appeared as Malvolio in Gregory Doran's adaptation of Twelfth Night at the Duke of York's Theatre. In 2016, was due to reprise his most well-known role of Victor Meldrew at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but the show was cancelled when he suffered a heart attack. Is a supporter of multiple charities, including the LGBT rights charity Stonewall, the AIDS charity Terrence Higgins Trust, and Graeae, an accessible theatre company.