Trivia: Reportedly a neighbor of Harry Houdini while growing up in the Bronx, American actor Edmond O'Brien decided to emulate Houdini by becoming a magician himself. The demonstrative skills gleaned from this experience enabled O'Brien to move into acting while attending high school. After majoring in drama at Columbia University, he made his first Broadway appearance at age 21 in Daughters of Atrus. O'Brien's mature features and deep, commanding voice allowed him to play characters far older than himself, and it looked as though he was going to become one of Broadway's premiere character actors. Yet when he was signed for film work by RKO in 1939, the studio somehow thought he was potential leading man material -- perhaps as a result of his powerful stage performance as young Marc Antony in Orson Welles' modern dress version of Julius Caesar. As Gringoire the poet in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), O'Brien was a bit callow and overemphatic, but he did manage to walk off with the heroine (Maureen O'Hara) at the end of the film. O'Brien's subsequent film roles weren't quite as substantial, though he was shown to excellent comic advantage in the Moss Hart all-serviceman play Winged Victory, in a role he repeated in the 1944 film version while simultaneously serving in World War II (he was billed as "Sergeant Edmond O'Brien"). Older and stockier when he returned to Hollywood after the war, O'Brien was able to secure meaty leading parts in such "films noir" as The Killers (1946), The Web (1947) and White Heat (1949). In the classic melodrama D.O.A. (1950), O'Brien enjoyed one of the great moments in "noir" history when, as a man dying of poison, he staggered into a police station at the start of the film and gasped "I want to report a murder...mine." As one of many top-rank stars of 1954's The Barefoot Contessa, O'Brien breathed so much credibility into the stock part of a Hollywood press agent that he won an Academy Award. On radio, the actor originated the title role in the long-running insurance-investigator series "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" in 1950. On TV, O'Brien played a Broadway star turned private eye in the 1959 syndicated weekly "Johnny Midnight," though the producers refused to cast him unless he went on a crash vegetarian diet. Plagued by sporadic illnesses throughout his life, O'Brien suffered a heart seizure in 1961 while on location in the Arabian desert to play the Lowell Thomas counterpart in Lawrence of Arabia, compelling the studio to replace him with Arthur Kennedy. O'Brien recovered sufficiently in 1962 to take the lead in a TV lawyer series, "Sam Benedict;" another TV stint took place three years later in "The Long Hot Summer." The actor's career prospered for the next decade, but by 1975 illness had begun to encroach upon his ability to perform; he didn't yet know it, but he was in the first stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Edmond O'Brien dropped out of sight completely during the next decade, suffering the ignominity of having his "death" reported by tabloids several times during this period. The real thing mercifully claimed the tragically enfeebled O'Brien in 1985.

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: A radio performer from the age of 14, Polly Bergen went the summer stock-nightclub route before heading for Hollywood in 1949. During her first months in the entertainment capitol, Bergen married actor Jerome Courtland, a union that was over virtually before it began; her later marriage to agent Freddie Fields endured for nearly 20 years. Though she could take some pride in having survived three Martin and Lewis films (At War With the Army, That's My Boy and The Stooge), Bergen chafed at the nondescript movie parts being offered her, and in 1953 walked out of a very lucrative studio contract. She headed for New York, where, while headlining in the Broadway revue John Murray Anderson's Almanac, she strained her voice and was forced to undergo a painful throat operation. Another serious career set-back occurred in 1959 when, while starring in the musical First Impressions, she nearly lost her life during a difficult pregnancy. Gamely surviving these and other personal travails, Bergen rose to stardom via her stage performance, her one-woman cabaret act, and her many TV appearances, notably her Emmy-winning turn in The Helen Morgan Story (1957). In 1962, she gave films a second chance when she played a North Carolina housewife threatened with rape by rampaging ex-con Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962) (over 20 years later, she and Mitchum played husband and wife in the popular TV miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance). Her bravura portrayal of a mental patient in The Caretakers (1963) was quite an eye-opener for those familiar with Bergen only through her appearances on TV's To Tell the Truth. Less aesthetically successful was Kisses for My President (1964), in which Bergen starred as the first female Chief Executive. Though busy with her show-business activities into the 1990s (she co-starred in the network sitcom Baby Talk), it is interesting to note that, in her Who's Who entry, Bergen listed herself as a business executive first, an actress second. There is certainly plenty of justification for this; for over 40 years, she maintained successful business ventures as Polly Bergen Cosmetics, Polly Bergen Jewelry, and Polly Bergen Shoes; she was also active as part-owner of and pitch person for Oil-of-the-Turtle cosmetics. Equally busy in nonprofit organizations, she served with such concerns as the National Business Council and Freedom of Choice. She also authored three books: Fashion and Charm (1960), Polly's Principles (1974), and I'd Love to, but What'll I Wear? (1977).In later years, Bergen had recurring roles on Commander in Chief and Desperate Housewives, and was nominated for an Emmy for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2008. Bergen died in 2014 at age 84.

Trivia: An Ohio farm boy, Dean Jagger dropped out of school several times before attending Wabash College. He was a schoolteacher for several years before opting to study acting at Chicago's Lyceum Art Conservatory. By the time he made his first film in 1929, Jagger had worked in stock, vaudeville and radio. At first, Hollywood attempted to turn Jagger into a standard leading man, fitting the prematurely balding actor with a lavish wig and changing his name to Jeffrey Dean. It wasn't long before the studios realized that Jagger's true calling was as a character actor. One of his few starring roles after 1940 was as the title character in Brigham Young, Frontiersman--though top billing went to Tyrone Power, cast as a fictional Mormon follower. Jagger won an Academy Award for his sensitive performance in Twelve O'Clock High (1949) as one of General Gregory Peck's officers (and the film's narrator). Physically and vocally, Jagger would have been ideal for the role of Dwight D. Eisenhower, but he spent his career studiously avoiding that assignment. Having commenced his professional life as a teacher, Dean Jagger came full circle in 1964 when cast as Principal Albert Vane on the TV series Mr. Novak.

Trivia: A grandson of the legendary Apache chief Geronimo, Charles Stevens (often billed as Charles "Injun" Stevens because of his ethnic background) made his film bow as an extra in The Birth of a Nation (1915). The close friend and "mascot" of cinema idol Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Stevens appeared in all but one of Fairbanks' starring films, beginning with 1915's The Lamb. He was often seen in multiple roles, never more obviously than in Fairbanks' The Black Pirate (1926). His largest role during his Fairbanks years was Planchet in The Three Musketeers (1921) and its sequel The Iron Mask (1929). In talkies, Stevens was generally cast as a villain, usually an Indian, Mexican, or Arab. Outside of major roles in early sound efforts like The Big Trail and Tom Sawyer (both 1930), he could be found playing menacing tribal chiefs and bandits in serials and B-pictures, and seedy, drunken "redskin" stereotypes (invariably named Injun Joe or Injun Charlie or some such) in big-budget films like John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946). He was also much in demand as a technical adviser on Native American lore and customs. Charles Stevens remained active until 1956, 17 years after the death of his pal and mentor Doug Fairbanks.

Trivia: The son of actors Harry Carey and Olive Golden, Harry Carey Jr. never answered to "Harry" or "Junior"; to his friends, family and film buffs, he was always "Dobe" Carey. Raised on his father's California ranch, the younger Carey spent his first six adult years in the Navy. While it is commonly assumed that he made his film debut under the direction of his dad's longtime friend John Ford, Carey in fact was first seen in a fleeting bit in 1946's Rolling Home, directed by William Berke. It wasn't until his third film, Three Godfathers (dedicated to the memory of his father) that Carey worked with Ford. Honoring his promise to Harry Sr. that he'd "look after" Dobe, Ford saw to it that the younger Carey was given a starring assignment (along with another of the director's proteges, Ben Johnson), in Wagonmaster (1950). Though he handled this assignment nicely, exuding an appealing earnest boyishness, Carey wasn't quite ready for stardom so far as the Hollywood "higher-ups" were concerned, so he settled for supporting roles, mostly in westerns. John Ford continued to use Carey whenever possible; in 1955's The Long Gray Line, the actor has a few brief scenes as West Point undergraduate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carey was also featured on the "Spin and Marty" segments of Walt Disney's daily TVer The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59). In later years, Carey's weather-beaten face was seen in choice character assignments in films ranging from The Whales of August (1987) to Back to the Future III (1990); he was also hired by such John Ford aficionados as Peter Bogdanovich, who cast Carey as an old wrangler named Dobie (what else?) in Nickelodeon (1976), and as an ageing bike-gang member named Red in Mask (1985). In 1994, Harry Carey Jr. published his autobiography, Company of Heroes. Carey died of natural causes at age 91 in late December 2012.

Trivia: Signed up by MGM's dramatic school directly after graduating from the University of Southern California, American actor James Millican was groomed for that studio's stable of young leading men. Instead, he made his first film, Sign of the Cross (1932), at Paramount, then moved on to Columbia for his first important role in Mills of the Gods (1934). Possessor of an athletic physique and Irish good looks, Millican wasn't a distinctive enough personality for stardom, but came in handy for secondary roles as the hero's best friend, the boss' male secretary, and various assorted military adjutants. According to his own count, Millican also appeared in 400 westerns; while such a number is hard to document, it is true that he was a close associate of cowboy star "Wild Bill" Elliott, staging a number of personal-appearance rodeos on Elliott's behalf. Fans of baseball films will recall James Millican's persuasive performance as Bill Killefer in the Grover Cleveland Alexander biopic The Winning Team.

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

Trivia: The son of a brewery owner, steely-eyed American character actor Paul Fix went the vaudeville and stock-company route before settling in Hollywood in 1926. During the 1930s and 1940s he appeared prolifically in varied fleeting roles: a transvestite jewel thief in the Our Gang two-reeler Free Eats (1932), a lascivious zookeeper (appropriately named Heinie) in Zoo in Budapest (1933), a humorless gangster who puts Bob Hope "on the spot" in The Ghost Breakers (1940), and a bespectacled ex-convict who muscles his way into Berlin in Hitler: Dead or Alive (1943), among others. During this period, Fix was most closely associated with westerns, essaying many a villainous (or at least untrustworthy) role at various "B"-picture mills. In the mid-1930s, Fix befriended young John Wayne and helped coach the star-to-be in the whys and wherefores of effective screen acting. Fix ended up appearing in 27 films with "The Duke," among them Pittsburgh (1942), The Fighting Seabees (1943), Tall in the Saddle (1944), Back to Bataan (1945), Red River (1948) and The High and the Mighty (1954). Busy in TV during the 1950s, Fix often found himself softening his bad-guy image to portray crusty old gents with golden hearts-- characters not far removed from the real Fix, who by all reports was a 100% nice guy. His most familiar role was as the honest but often ineffectual sheriff Micah Torrance on the TV series The Rifleman. In the 1960s, Fix was frequently cast as sagacious backwoods judges and attorneys, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

Trivia: It was once said of the versatile Louis Jean Heydt that he played everything except a woman. Born in New Jersey, the blonde, chiseled-featured Heydt attended Worcester Academy and Dartmouth College. He briefly served as a reporter on the New YorkWorld before opting for a stage career. Among his Broadway appearances was the lead in Preston Sturges' Strictly Dishonorable, establishing a long working relationship with Sturges that would extend to the latter's film productions The Great McGinty (1940) and The Great Moment (1942). Heydt's film characters often seemed destined to be killed off before the fourth reel, either because they were hiding something or because they'd just stumbled upon important information that could prove damaging to the villains. He was knocked off in the first three minutes of Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) and was shot full of holes just before revealing an important plot point to Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946) (this after an unforgettable interrogation scene in which Heydt is unable to look Bogart straight in the eye). Heydt's many other assignments include the hungry soldier in Gone with the Wind (1939), Mentor Graham in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), a frustrated general practitioner in Tortilla Flat (1941), a squadron leader in Gung Ho (1943) and a loquacious rural family man in Come to the Stable (1949). Our Gang fans will recall Heydt as Bobby Blake's stepfather in the MGM "Gang" shorts Dad For a Day (1939) and All About Hash (1940). A ubiquitous TV actor, Louis Jean Heydt was seen on many anthology series, and as a semi-regular on the 1958 syndicated adventure weekly MacKenzie's Raiders.

Trivia: Born in Colorado and raised in Oregon, actor Walter Sande was a music student from age six. He dropped out of college to organize his own band, then for many years served as musical director for the West Coast Fox Theater chain. In 1937, Sande entered films with a small role in Goldwyn Follies (1938). He fluctuated thereafter between bits in films like Citizen Kane (1941), in which he played one of the many reporters, and supporting roles in films like To Have and Have Not (1944), in which he portrayed the defaulting customer who is punched out by a boat-renting Humphrey Bogart. On television, Walter Sande played Horatio Bullwinkle on Tugboat Annie (1958) and Papa Holstrum on The Farmer's Daughter (1963-1966).

Trivia: Robert Bray entered films as an RKO contractee in 1946. The studio was billing the leathery, laconic Bray as the "next Gary Cooper," even though there was still plenty of life left in the original Cooper. One of his better roles under the RKO banner was western outlaw John Younger in Best of the Bad Men. Free-lancing in the 1950s, Bray played roles of all sizes and varieties. He played doggedly moralistic bus driver Carl in 1956's Bus Stop, followed by a violent, amoral Mike Hammer in My Gun is Quick. His TV-series credits include a secondary role on the 1959 western Man from Blackhawk and the larger assignment of driver/family man Simon Kane in 1960's Stagecoach West. Viewers of the 1960s knew Robert Bray best as forest ranger Corey Stewart in the long-running weekly series Lassie.

Trivia: From 1939 until his death in 1960, gangly, balding Douglas Spencer could be spotted in unbilled film roles as doctors and reporters. By the early '50s, Spencer had graduated to supporting parts, often in films with a science fiction or fantasy theme. One of his lengthier assignments was Simms, the seance-busting reporter in Houdini (1953). Douglas Spencer's best-ever film role was bespectacled reporter Ned "Scotty" Scott in the 1951 sci-fi classic The Thing, wherein he closed the film with the immortal cautionary words "Keep watching the skies!"

Trivia: American actor James Burke not only had the Irish face and brogueish voice of a New York detective, but even his name conjured up images of a big-city flatfoot. In Columbia's Ellery Queen series of the late 1930s and early 1940s, Burke was cast exquisitely to type as the thick-eared Sergeant Velie, who referred to the erudite Queen as "Maestro." Burke also showed up as a rural law enforcement officer in such films as Nightmare Alley (1947), in which he has a fine scene as a flint-hearted sheriff moved to tears by the persuasive patter of carnival barker Tyrone Power. One of the best of James Burke's non-cop performances was as westerner Charlie Ruggles' rambunctious, handlebar-mustached "pardner" in Ruggles of Red Gap (135), wherein Burke and Ruggles engage in an impromptu game of piggyback on the streets of Paris.

Trivia: Native American actor Chief Yowlachie (pronounced "Yo-latchee") spent many years on stage as an opera singer, performing under his given name of Daniel Simmons. His film career began in the mid-1920s with feathered-headdress bits in such productions as Ella Cinders (1925). Though well into middle age when he started showing up on screen, he was youthful-looking enough to play fierce Indian warriors and renegades well into the 1930s. His larger roles include the nominal villain in Ken Maynard's Red Raiders (1928), Billy Jackrabbit in the 1930 version of Girl of the Golden West (1930) and Geronimo in Son of Geronimo. After years of portraying noble, taciturn characters with names like Running Deer, Yellow Feather, Long Arrow, Little Horse and Black Eagle, Chief Yowlachie let his hair down in the role of "Chief Hi-Octane" in the Bowery Boys' Bowery Buckaroos (1948).

Trivia: Supporting actor who appeared in adventure films and big-budget westerns.

Trivia: A product of the Indiana orphanage system, the part-Cherokee-Indian Monte Blue held down jobs ranging from stevedore to reporter before offering his services as a movie-studio handyman in the early 1910s. Pressed into service as an extra and stunt man, Blue graduated to featured parts in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915). Thanks to his work with Griffith and (especially) Cecil B. DeMille, Blue became a dependable box-office attraction of the 1920s, playing everything from lawyers to baseball players. He was a mainstay of the fledgling Warner Bros. studios, where the profits from his films frequently compensated for the expensive failures starring John Barrymore. In 1928 he was cast in his finest silent role, as the drink-sodden doctor in White Shadows on the South Seas. After making a successful transition to talkies, Blue decided to retire from filmmaking, taking a tour around the world to celebrate his freedom. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1931, Blue found that he had lost his fortune through bad investments, and that the public at large had forgotten him. By now too heavy-set to play romantic leads, Blue rebuilt his career from the bottom up, playing bits in "A" pictures and supporting roles in "B"s. He was busiest in the bread-and-butter westerns produced by such minor studios as Republic, Monogram and PRC; he also showed up in several serials, notably as "Ming the Merciless" clone Unga Khan in 1936's Undersea Kingdom. Movie mogul Jack Warner, out of gratitude for Blue's moneymaking vehicles of the 1920s, saw to it that Monte was steadily employed at Warner Bros., and that his name would appear prominently in the studio's advertising copy. While many of his talkie roles at Warners were bits, Blue was given choice supporting roles in such films as Across the Pacific (1942), Mask of Dimitrios (1944) and especially Key Largo (1948). Extending his activities into TV, Blue continued accepting character roles until retiring from acting in 1954. During the last years of his life, Monte Blue was the advance man for the Hamid-Morton Shrine Circus; it was while making his annual appearance in this capacity in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that Blue suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 73.

Trivia: Busy character actor Frank Ferguson was able to parlay his pinched facial features, his fussy little moustache, and his bellows-like voice for a vast array of characterizations. Ferguson was equally effective as a hen-pecked husband, stern military leader, irascible neighbor, merciless employer, crooked sheriff, and barbershop hanger-on. He made his inaugural film appearance in Father is a Prince (1940) and was last seen on the big screen in The Great Sioux Massacre (1965). Ferguson proved himself an above-average actor by successfully pulling off the treacly scene in The Babe Ruth Story (1948) in which Babe (William Bendix) says "Hi, kid" to Ferguson's crippled son--whereupon the boy suddenly stands up and walks! Among Franklin Ferguson's hundreds of TV appearances were regular stints on the children's series My Friend Flicka (1956) and the nighttime soap opera Peyton Place (1964-68).

Trivia: After a substantial stage career, American actor Cliff Clark entered films in 1937. His movie credits ranged from Mountain Music to the 1953 Burt Lancaster/Virginia Mayo affair South Sea Woman. The weather-beaten Clark usually played surly city detectives, most frequently in RKO's Falcon series of the 1940s. In 1944, Clark briefly ascended from "B"s to "A"s in the role of his namesake, famed politico Champ Clark, in the 20th Century-Fox biopic Wilson. And in the 1956 TV series Combat Sergeant, Cliff Clark was second-billed as General Harrison.

Trivia: Wizened character actor Paul E. Burns tended to play mousey professional men in contemporary films and unshaven layabouts in period pictures. Bob Hope fans will recall Burns' con brio portrayal of boozy desert rat Ebeneezer Hawkins in Hope's Son of Paleface (1952), perhaps his best screen role. The general run of Burns' screen assignments can be summed up by two roles at both ends of his career spectrum: he played "Loafer" in D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) and "Bum in Park" in Barefoot in the Park (1967).

Trivia: Broad-shouldered leading man John Hart was signed to a standard contract by Paramount in 1938. He appeared in a few "B"s like Tip-Off Girls (1938) and King of Alcatraz (1938) before his option was permitted to lapse. Returning to Hollywood after World War II, Hart worked as a journeyman actor in low-budget films: his biggest assignment of the late 1940s was the title role in the Columbia serial Jack Armstrong (1947). When Clayton Moore left the Lone Ranger TV series during a salary dispute in 1952, Hart was hired to play the Masked Rider of the Plains in 26 Ranger episodes. The replacement did not go unnoticed, and soon fans were demanding the return of Moore. Five years later, Hart co-starred with Lon Chaney Jr. in the Canadian-filmed syndicated TVer Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans. He spent the next two decades essaying small roles in films and TV shows and also worked prolifically as a voice-over artist. John Hart came back into the spotlight when the Wrather Corporation produced the 1981 theatrical feature Legend of the Lone Ranger; while Clayton Moore was once more on the "outs" with Wrather, the white-haired, virile Hart was available to play the key supporting role of Lucas Stryker (an inside joke: one of the principal writers of the Lone Ranger radio series was Fran Stryker).