Trivia: Arguably the most popular -- and certainly the busiest -- movie leading man in Hollywood history, John Wayne entered the film business while working as a laborer on the Fox lot during summer vacations from U.S.C., which he attended on a football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to make a name for himself in action films, comedies, and dramas. Wayne was cast in small roles in Ford's late-'20s films, occasionally under the name Duke Morrison. It was Ford who recommended Wayne to director Raoul Walsh for the male lead in the 1930 epic Western The Big Trail, and, although it was a failure at the box office, the movie showed Wayne's potential as a leading man. During the next nine years, be busied himself in a multitude of B-Westerns and serials -- most notably Shadow of the Eagle and The Three Mesquiteers series -- in between occasional bit parts in larger features such as Warner Bros.' Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck. But it was in action roles that Wayne excelled, exuding a warm and imposing manliness onscreen to which both men and women could respond. In 1939, Ford cast Wayne as the Ringo Kid in the adventure Stagecoach, a brilliant Western of modest scale but tremendous power (and incalculable importance to the genre), and the actor finally showed what he could do. Wayne nearly stole a picture filled with Oscar-caliber performances, and his career was made. He starred in most of Ford's subsequent major films, whether Westerns (Fort Apache [1948], She Wore a Yellow Ribbon [1949], Rio Grande [1950], The Searchers [1956]); war pictures (They Were Expendable [1945]); or serious dramas (The Quiet Man [1952], in which Wayne also directed some of the action sequences). He also starred in numerous movies for other directors, including several extremely popular World War II thrillers (Flying Tigers [1942], Back to Bataan [1945], Fighting Seabees [1944], Sands of Iwo Jima [1949]); costume action films (Reap the Wild Wind [1942], Wake of the Red Witch [1949]); and Westerns (Red River [1948]). His box-office popularity rose steadily through the 1940s, and by the beginning of the 1950s he'd also begun producing movies through his company Wayne-Fellowes, later Batjac, in association with his sons Michael and Patrick (who also became an actor). Most of these films were extremely successful, and included such titles as Angel and the Badman (1947), Island in the Sky (1953), The High and the Mighty (1954), and Hondo (1953). The 1958 Western Rio Bravo, directed by Howard Hawks, proved so popular that it was remade by Hawks and Wayne twice, once as El Dorado and later as Rio Lobo. At the end of the 1950s, Wayne began taking on bigger films, most notably The Alamo (1960), which he produced and directed, as well as starred in. It was well received but had to be cut to sustain any box-office success (the film was restored to full length in 1992). During the early '60s, concerned over the growing liberal slant in American politics, Wayne emerged as a spokesman for conservative causes, especially support for America's role in Vietnam, which put him at odds with a new generation of journalists and film critics. Coupled with his advancing age, and a seeming tendency to overact, he became a target for liberals and leftists. However, his movies remained popular. McLintock!, which, despite well-articulated statements against racism and the mistreatment of Native Americans, and in support of environmentalism, seemed to confirm the left's worst fears, but also earned more than ten million dollars and made the list of top-grossing films of 1963-1964. Virtually all of his subsequent movies, including the pro-Vietnam War drama The Green Berets (1968), were very popular with audiences, but not with critics. Further controversy erupted with the release of The Cowboys, which outraged liberals with its seeming justification of violence as a solution to lawlessness, but it was successful enough to generate a short-lived television series. Amid all of the shouting and agonizing over his politics, Wayne won an Oscar for his role as marshal Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, a part that he later reprised in a sequel. Wayne weathered the Vietnam War, but, by then, time had become his enemy. His action films saw him working alongside increasingly younger co-stars, and the decline in popularity of the Western ended up putting him into awkward contemporary action films like McQ (1974). Following his final film, The Shootist (1976) -- possibly his best Western since The Searchers -- the news that Wayne was stricken ill with cancer (which eventually took his life in 1979) wiped the slate clean, and his support for the Panama Canal Treaty at the end of the 1970s belatedly made him a hero for the left. Wayne finished his life honored by the film community, the U.S. Congress, and the American people as had no actor before or since. He remains among the most popular actors of his generation, as evidenced by the continual rereleases of his films on home video.

Trivia: Dean Martin found phenomenal success in almost every entertainment venue and, although suffering a few down times during his career, always managed to come out on top. During the '50s, he and partner Jerry Lewis formed one of the most popular comic film duos in filmdom. After splitting with Lewis, he was associated with the Hollywood's ultra-cool "Rat Pack" and came to be known as the chief deputy to the "Chairman of the Board," Frank Sinatra. Although initially a comic actor, Martin also proved himself in such dramas as The Young Lions (1958), more than holding his own opposite Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. He was also never above poking sly fun at his image as a smooth womanizer in such outings as the Matt Helm spy spoofs of the '60s. As a singer, Martin was, by his own admission, not the greatest baritone on earth, and made no bones about having copied the styles of Bing Crosby and Perry Como. He couldn't even read music, and yet recorded more than 100 albums and 500 songs, racking up major hits such as "That's Amore," "Volare," and his signature tune "Everybody Loves Somebody." Elvis Presley was said to have been influenced by him, and patterned "Love Me Tender" after his style. For three decades, Martin was among the most popular nightclub acts in Las Vegas. Although a smooth comic, he never wrote his own material. On television, Martin had a highly-rated, near-decade-long series; it was there that he perfected his famous laid-back persona of the half-soused crooner suavely hitting on beautiful women with sexist remarks that would get anyone else slapped, and making snappy, if not somewhat slurred, remarks about fellow celebrities during his famous roasts. Martin attributed his long-term TV popularity to the fact that he never put on airs or pretended to be anyone else on-stage, but that's not necessarily true. Those closest to him categorized him as a great enigma; for, despite all his exterior fame and easy-going charm, Martin was a complex, introverted soul and a loner. Even his closest friend, Frank Sinatra, only saw Martin once or twice per year. His private passions were golf, going to restaurants, and watching television. He loathed parties -- even when hosting them -- and would sometimes sneak off to bed without telling a soul. He once said in a 1978 interview for Esquire magazine, that, although he loved performing, particularly in nightclubs, if he had to do it over again he would be a professional golfer or baseball player. The son of a Steubenville, OH, barber, Martin (born Dine Crochets) dropped out of school in the tenth grade and took a string of odd jobs ranging from steel mill worker to bootlegger; at the age of 15, he was a 135-pound boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crocetti." It was from his prize-fighting years that he got a broken nose (it was later fixed), a permanently split lip, and his beat-up hands. For a time, he was involved with gambling as a roulette stickman and black jack croupier. At the same time, he practiced his singing with local bands. Billing himself as "Dino Martini," he got his first break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. A hernia got Martin out of the Army during WW II, and, with wife and children in tow, he worked for several bands throughout the early '40s, scoring more on looks and personality than vocal ability until he developed his own smooth singing style. Failing to achieve a screen test at MGM, Martin appeared permanently destined for the nightclub circuit until he met fledgling comic Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both men were performing. Martin and Lewis formed a fast friendship which led to their participating in each other's acts, and ultimately forming a music/comedy team. Martin and Lewis' official debut together occurred at Atlantic City's Club 500 on July 25, 1946, and club patrons throughout the East Coast were soon convulsed by the act, which consisted primarily of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while the he was trying to sing, and, ultimately, the two of them chasing each other around the stage and having as much fun as possible. A radio series commenced in 1949, the same year that Martin and Lewis were signed by Paramount producer Hal Wallis as comedy relief for the film My Friend Irma. Martin and Lewis was the hottest act in nightclubs, films, and television during the early '50s, but the pace and the pressure took its toll, and the act broke up in 1956, ten years to the day after the first official teaming. Lewis had no trouble maintaining his film popularity alone, but Martin, unfairly regarded by much of the public and the motion picture industry as something of a spare tire to his former partner, found the going rough, and his first solo-starring film (Ten Thousand Bedrooms [1957]) bombed. Never totally comfortable in films, Martin still wanted to be known as a real actor. So, though offered a fraction of his former salary to co-star in the war drama The Young Lions (1957), he eagerly agreed in order that he could be with and learn from Brando and Clift. The film turned out to be the cornerstone of Martin's spectacular comeback; by the mid-'60s, he was a top movie, recording, and nightclub attraction, even as Lewis' star began to eclipse. In 1965, Martin launched the weekly NBC comedy-variety series The Dean Martin Show, which exploited his public image as a lazy, carefree boozer, even though few entertainers worked as hard to make what they were doing look easy. It's also no secret that Martin was sipping apple juice, not booze, most of the time on-stage. He stole the lovable-drunk shtick from Phil Harris; and his convincing portrayals of heavy boozers in Some Came Running (1958) and Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo (1959) led to unsubstantiated claims of alcoholism. In the late '70s, Martin concentrated on club dates, recordings, and an occasional film, and even make an appearance on the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon in 1978. (Talk of a complete reconciliation and possible re-teaming of their old act, however, was dissipated when it was clear that, to paraphrase Lewis, the men may have loved each other, but didn't like each other). Martin's even-keel world began to crumble in 1987, when his son Dean Paul was killed in a plane crash. A much-touted tour with old pals Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra in 1989 was abruptly canceled, and the public was led to believe it was due to a falling out with Sinatra; only intimates knew that Martin was a very sick man, who had never completely recovered from the loss of his son and who was suffering from an undisclosed illness. But Martin courageously kept his private life private, emerging briefly and rather jauntily for a public celebration of his 77th birthday with friends and family. Whatever his true state of health, he proved in this rare public appearance that he was still the inveterate showman. Martin died of respiratory failure on Christmas morning, 1995. He was 78.

Trivia: An actor-turned production assistant-turned-director, Michael Anderson had a relatively undistinguished record in motion pictures until the mid 1950s, when he directed The Dam Busters. One of the more successful British films about World War II, it involved mixed drama and special effects work in a combination that pointed the way toward Anderson's later career in international pictures. His mid 1950s version of 1984 received mixed notices but wide distribution, and Around The World In 80 Days brought him into international prominence, despite producer Michael Todd being the dominant personality involved in shaping the movie, and Anderson worked in the United States as often as he did in England over the next two decades. Operation Crossbow and The Shoes of the Fisherman were dramas featuring international casts and large canvases for their action, in which Anderson largely held the proceedings together, in spite of major script problems. His most popular movie, other than Around The World In 80 Days, is the science-fiction adventure Logan's Run, in which he once again overcame a weak script by getting some strong performances out of his actors and pulling them together around extremely impressive special-effects sequences.

Trivia: While many of Earl Holliman's bucolic screen characters tended to shy away from "book learnin," Holliman himself is a graduate of UCLA. Making his film debut with a one-line bit as a bellboy in Martin and Lewis' Scared Stiff (1953), Holliman went on to featured and co-starring roles in westerns and military dramas, usually cast as a hot-headed rustic with a streak of manic unpredictability. His larger film roles include the comic-relief cook in Forbidden Planet (1956), Katharine Hepburn's girl-happy brother in The Rainmaker (1956)--a performance that earned him a Golden Globe nomination--and Matt Elder in the John Wayne starrer Sons of Katie Elder (1965). A nearly inescapable presence on television, Holliman turned in some impressive work on the many live TV anthologies of the 1950s. His portrayal of a shipwrecked marine in the 1958 Kraft Theatre production "The Sea is Boiling Hot," in which he carried on a one-sided debate with monolingual Japanese officer Sessue Hayakawa, led to his being cast in a similar solo turn in the 1959 Twilight Zone pilot episode "Where is Everybody?" His series-TV credits include the roles of gunslinger-turned-hotelier Sundance in Hotel de Paree (1959), bronco buster Mitch Guthrie in Wide Country (1962), Palm Springs private eye Matthew Durning in PS I Luv U (1991) and barkeep Darden Towe in Delta (1992). Undoubtedly his most famous TV assignment was as Angie Dickinson's superior officer Lt. Bill Crowley in the weekly Police Woman (1974-78). Most recently Earl Holliman made a most welcome guest appearance as Lea Thompson's Wisconsinite dad in the TV sitcom Caroline in the City.

Trivia: The daughter of a Texas judge, Martha Hyer majored in speech and drama at Northwestern University. Her work at the Pasadena Playhouse led to a 1946 contract with RKO. Free from her contract in 1951, Hyer free-lanced in films made both in the U.S. and abroad. In 1954, she played the role of William Holden's fiancée in Sabrina. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of a prim small schoolteacher in Some Came Running (1958), but has also played "hot to trot" roles in films like Pyro (1966) and spoiled-little-rich-girl types in films such as The Happening (1967). She retired from acting in the '70s. The widow of producer Hal B. Wallis, Martha Hyer has set forth her life story in the 1990 autobiography Finding My Way. Hyer died in 2014 at age 89.

Trivia: One of the more talented "barrel-chested surfer boys" of the early '60s to follow in the wake of Tab Hunter and Troy Donahue, Jeremy Slate gained instant notoriety as a playboy hunk who set many a female heart aflutter. Born February 17, 1926, in Atlantic City, NJ, Slate first fell into the public spotlight at age 34, when cast as second-string fiddle to Keith Larsen in the CBS prime-time series The Aquanauts. Larsen and Slate played Drake Andrews and Larry Lahr, professional deep-sea divers who spent their days salvaging for treasure off the Southern California coast. The adventure drama debuted on CBS Wednesday evening, September 14, 1960. Unfortunately, The Aquanauts (unlike its syndicated competitor, Sea Hunt) ran headfirst into awful ratings. After several attempts by the network to save it from oblivion (including a new lead actor replacing Larsen, a new location in Malibu Beach, and a new title, Malibu Run) it quickly plummeted out of sight before wrapping in September 1961. Slate's early film roles were almost all of the vacuous-hunk variety, and thus mirrored his Aquanauts turn. He appeared in a brace of Elvis flicks, G.I. Blues (1960) and Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), and as Scandinavian beefcake Eric Carlson in Bob Hope's musical comedy farce I'll Take Sweden (1965). The Henry Hathaway-directed Westerns The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969) provided the actor with slightly more substantial roles. Meanwhile, Slate guest starred on an estimated 100 television programs, from Bewitched to Gunsmoke to Police Story to Mission: Impossible.Slate maintained a higher profile as a writer and star of the motorcycle cult film Hell's Angels '69 (1969), directed by Lee Madden. This fell in the middle of a spate of grade-Z motorcycle flicks with Slate in the cast, from 1968's The Mini-Skirt Mob to 1967's Born Losers (the first of the Billy Jack cycle) to 1969's Hell's Belles. The "tough guy" role in these films was not anomalous for Slate, for as the '60s rolled on (and the actor entered his forties), his onscreen type shifted from that of a lusty Southern Californian sex symbol to a wizened street tough. The films in which he sustained this image varied somewhat in quality, but Slate scraped bottom (and then some) in William Grefe's nasty exploitationer The Hooked Generation (1969) as the head of a gang of drug pushers.In 1979, Slate hit a second wind of his career as Chuck Wilson on the ABC daytime soap One Life to Live. The role lasted eight years. During the '80s and '90s, he also appeared as a character actor in such low-profile cinematic features as Deadlock (1988), Maddalena Z (1989), and The Lawnmower Man (1992, playing Father McKeen).Jeremy Slate died at age 80, of complications following surgery for esophageal cancer, on November 19, 2006. His last film, Terry Leonard's Buttermilk Sky (2007), was released posthumously.

Trivia: "As familiar as a favorite leather easy chair" is how one magazine writer described the craggy, weather-beaten face of ineluctable character actor James Gregory. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any time in the past six decades that Gregory hasn't been seen on stage, on TV or on the big screen. There were those occasional periods during the 1930s and 1940s when he was working on Wall Street rather than acting, and there were those uniformed stints in the Marines and the Naval Reserve. Otherwise, Gregory remained a persistent showbiz presence from the time he first performed with a Pennsylvania-based travelling troupe in 1936. Three years later, he was on Broadway in Key Largo; he went on to appear in such stage hits as Dream Girl, All My Sons, Death of a Salesman and The Desperate Hours. In films from 1948, Gregory was repeatedly cast as crusty no-nonsense types: detectives, military officers, prosecuting attorneys and outlaw leaders. With his bravura performance as demagogic, dead-headed senator Johnny Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Gregory launched a second career of sorts, cornering the market in portraying braggadocio blowhards. One of his best characterizations in this vein was as the hard-shelled Inspector Luger in the TV sitcom Barney Miller. He played Luger for six seasons (1975-78, 1979-81), with time out for his own short-lived starring series, Detective School (1978). He also played Prohibition-era detective Barney Ruditsky on The Lawless Years (1959-61) and T. R. Scott in The Paul Lynde Show (1972), not to mention nearly 1000 guest appearances on other series. James Gregory has sometimes exhibited his sentimental streak by singing in his spare time: he has for many years been a member of the SPEBQSA, which as any fan of The Music Man can tell you is the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.

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: Born into a show business family, George Kennedy made his stage debut at the age of two in a touring company of Bringing up Father. By the time he was seven, he was spinning records on a New York radio station. Kennedy' showbusiness inclinations were put aside when he developed a taste for the rigors of military life during World War II, and he wound up spending 16 years in the army. His military career ended and his acting career began when a back injury in the late 1950s inspired him to seek out another line of work.Appropriately enough, given his background, Kennedy first made his name with a role as a military advisor on the Sergeant Bilko TV series. In films from 1961, the burly, 6'4" actor usually played heavies, both figuratively and literally; quite often, as in Charade (1963) and Straitjacket (1964), his unsavory screen characters were bumped off sometime during the fourth reel. One of his friendlier roles was as a compassionate Union officer in Shenandoah (1965), an assignment he was to treasure because it gave him a chance to work with the one of his idols, Jimmy Stewart.Kennedy moved up to the big leagues with his Academy Award win for his portrayal of Dragline in Cool Hand Luke (1967). An above-the-title star from then on, Kennedy has been associated with many a box-office hit, notably all four Airport films. Unlike many major actors, he has displayed a willingness to spoof his established screen image, as demonstrated by his portrayal of Ed Hocken in the popular Naked Gun series. On TV, Kennedy has starred in the weekly series Sarge (1971) and The Blue Knight (1978), and was seen as President Warren G. Harding in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House. During the mid '90s, he became known as a persuasive commercial spokesman in a series of breath-freshener advertisements. In 1997, he provided the voice for L.B. Mammoth in the animated musical Cats Don't Dance, and the following year again displayed his vocal talents as one of the titular toys-gone-bad in Small Soldiers. Kennedy continued to steadily work through the next two decades; his final role was in The Gambler in 2014. He died in 2016, at age 91.

Trivia: The odyssey of Dennis Hopper was one of Hollywood's longest, strangest trips. A onetime teen performer, he went through a series of career metamorphoses -- studio pariah, rebel filmmaker, drug casualty, and comeback kid -- before finally settling comfortably into the role of character actor par excellence, with a rogues' gallery of killers and freaks unmatched in psychotic intensity and demented glee. Along the way, Hopper defined a generation, documenting the shining hopes and bitter disappointments of the hippie counterculture and bringing their message to movie screens everywhere. By extension, he spearheaded a revolt in the motion picture industry, forcing the studio establishment to acknowledge a youth market they'd long done their best to deny. Born May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper began acting during his teen years, and made his professional debut on the TV series Medic. In 1955 he made a legendary collaboration with the director Nicholas Ray in the classic Rebel Without a Cause, appearing as a young tough opposite James Dean. Hopper and Dean became close friends during filming, and also worked together on 1956's Giant. After Dean's tragic death, it was often remarked that Hopper attempted to fill his friend's shoes by borrowing much of his persona, absorbing the late icon's famously defiant attitude and becoming so temperamental that his once-bright career quickly began to wane. Seeking roles far removed from the stereotypical 'troubled teens' which previously dotted his resume, Hopper began training with the Actors Studio. However, on the set of Henry Hathaway's From Hell to Texas he so incensed cast and crew with his insistence upon multiple takes for his improvisational techniques -- the reshoots sometimes numbering upwards of 100 -- that he found himself a Hollywood exile. He spent much of the next decade mired in "B"-movies, if he was lucky enough to work at all. Producers considered him such a risk that upon completing 1960's Key Witness he did not reappear on-screen for another three years. With a noteworthy role in Hathaway's 1965 John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder, Hopper made tentative steps towards a comeback. He then appeared in a number of psychedelic films, including 1967's The Trip and the following year's Monkees feature Head, and earned a new audience among anti-establishment viewers.With friends Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in front of the camera, Hopper decided to direct his own movie, and secured over $400,000 in financing to begin filming a screenplay written by novelist Terry Southern. The result was 1969's Easy Rider, a sprawling, drug-fueled journey through an America torn apart by the conflict in Vietnam. Initially rejected by producer Roger Corman, the film became a countercultural touchstone, grossing millions at the box office and proving to Hollywood executives that the ever-expanding youth market and their considerable spending capital would indeed react to films targeted to their issues and concerns, spawning a cottage industry of like-minded films. Long a pariah, Hopper was suddenly hailed as a major new filmmaker, and his success became so great that in 1971 he appeared in an autobiographical documentary, American Dreamer, exploring his life and times.The true follow-up to Easy Rider, however, was 1971's The Last Movie, an excessive, self-indulgent mess that, while acclaimed by jurors at the Venice Film Festival, was otherwise savaged by critics and snubbed by audiences. Once again Hopper was left picking up the pieces of his career; he appeared only sporadically in films throughout the 1970s, most of them made well outside of Hollywood. His personal life a shambles -- his marriage to singer/actress Michelle Phillips lasted just eight days -- Hopper spent much of the decade in a haze, earning a notorious reputation as an unhinged wild man. An appearance as a disturbed photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now did little to repair most perceptions of his sanity. Then in 1980, Hopper traveled to Canada to appear in a small film titled Out of the Blue. At the outset of the production he was also asked to take over as director, and to the surprise of many, the picture appeared on schedule and to decent reviews. Slowly he began to restake his territory in American films, accepting roles in diverse fare ranging from 1983's teen drama Rumble Fish to the 1985 comedy My Science Project. In 1986 Hopper returned to prominence with a vengeance. His role as the feral, psychopathic Frank Booth in David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet was among the most stunning supporting turns in recent memory, while his touching performance as an alcoholic assistant coach in the basketball drama Hoosiers earned an Academy Award nomination. While acclaimed turns in subsequent films like 1987's The River's Edge threatened to typecast Hopper, there was no doubting his return to Hollywood's hot list, and in 1988 he directed Colors, a charged police drama starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. While subsequent directorial efforts like 1989's Chattahoochee and 1990's film noir The Hot Spot failed to create the same kind of box office returns as Easy Rider over two decades earlier, his improbable comeback continued throughout the 1990s with roles in such acclaimed, quirky films as 1993's True Romance and 1996's Basquiat. Hopper was also the villain-du-jour in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including 1994's Speed and the following year's Waterworld, and was even a pitchman for Nike athletic wear. He also did a number of largely forgettable films such asRon Howard's EdTV (1999). In addition, he also played writer and Beat extraordinaire William S. Burroughs in a 1999 documentary called The Source with Johnny Depp as Jack Kerouac and John Turturro as Allen Ginsberg. In 1997 Hopper was awarded the distinction of appearing 87th in Empire Magazine's list of "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time."Hopper contracted prostate cancer in the early 2000s, and died of related complications in Venice, CA, in late May 2010. He was 74 years old.

Trivia: Noted for his quirky cartoon compositions for such Saturday morning fare as George of the Jungle and Super Chicken in addition to providing the singing voice for television's perennial four-legged superstar Mr. Ed, singer/songwriter/actor Sheldon Allman was also a much sought after character actor who turned in memorable performances in such films as Hud (1963) and Dirty Harry (1971). Born in Chicago, IL, and raised in Canada, Allman received his education at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music before kicking off a singing career with the Royal National Guard during World War II. Rising to fame with such tunes as "A Quiet Kind of Love" and "Patapan," Allman kept busy in front of the cameras with roles in both television and film. With over 150 acting credits to his name, Allman appeared on film in All the President's Men (1976) and In Cold Blood (1967), and on the small screen in The Twilight Zone and Batman. On January 22, 2002, Sheldon Allman died of heart failure in Culver City, CA. He was 77.

Trivia: Wisconsinite John Litel was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. When World War I broke out in Europe, Litel didn't feel like waiting until America became officially involved and thus joined the French army, serving valiantly for three years. Returning to America, Litel studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and entered into the peripatetic world of touring stock companies. His first film was the 1929 talkie The Sleeping Porch, which starred top-hatted comedian Raymond Griffith. He settled in Hollywood for keeps in 1937, spending the next three decades portraying a vast array of lawyers, judges, corporate criminals, military officers, and even a lead or two. Litel was a regular in two separate "B"-picture series, playing the respective fathers of Bonita Granville and James Lydon in the Nancy Drew and Henry Aldrich series. On television, John Litel was appropriately ulcerated as the boss of Bob Cummings on the 1953 sitcom My Hero.

Trivia: Whenever actor Ed Platt blew one of his lines in his role of "The Chief" in the TV comedy series Get Smart, star Don Adams would cry out "Is John Doucette available?" Adams was kidding, of course, but he was not alone in his high regard for the skill and versatility of the deep-voiced, granite-featured Doucette. In films on a regular basis since 1947 (he'd made his official movie debut in 1943's Two Tickets to London), Doucette was usually cast in roles calling for bad-tempered menace, but was also adept at dispensing dignity and authority. He was equally at home with the archaic dialogue of Julius Caesar (1953) and Cleopatra (1963) as he was with the 20th-century military patois of 1970's Patton, in which he played General Truscott. John Doucette's many TV credits include a season on the syndicated MacDonald Carey vehicle Lock-Up (1959), and the role of Captain Andrews on The Partners (1971), starring Doucette's old friend and admirer Don Adams.

Trivia: Character actor James Westerfield made comparatively few films, as his first love was the stage; he produced, directed and acted in a number of Broadway productions, and was the recipient of two New York Drama Critics awards. In films from 1941 (he's easily recognizable as a traffic cop in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons), he was generally cast as villains, notably as a recurring rapscallion on the 1963 TV series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters. Disney fans will remember Westerfield as the flustered small-town police officer (variously named Hanson and Morrison) in such fanciful farces as The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent Minded Professor (1960) and Son of Flubber (1963). James Westerfield was married to actress Fay Tracy.

Trivia: Few of the performers in director John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941) were as qualified to appear in the film as Rhys Williams. Born in Wales and intimately familiar from childhood with that region's various coal-mining communities, the balding, pug-nosed Williams was brought to Hollywood to work as technical director and dialect coach for Ford's film. The director was so impressed by Williams that he cast the actor in the important role of Welsh prize fighter Dai Bando. Accruing further acting experience in summer stock, Rhys Williams became a full-time Hollywood character player, appearing in such films as Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Inspector General (1949), and Our Man Flint (1966).

Trivia: The son of a Norwegian pastor, John Qualen was born in British Columbia. After his family moved to Illinois, Qualen won a high school forensic contest, which led to a scholarship at Northwestern University. A veteran of the tent-show and vaudeville circuits by the late '20s, Qualen won the important role of the Swedish janitor in the Broadway play Street Scene by marching into the producer's office and demonstrating his letter-perfect Scandinavian accent. His first film assignment was the 1931 movie version of Street Scene. Slight of stature, and possessed of woebegone, near-tragic facial features, Qualen was most often cast in "victim" roles, notably the union-activist miner who is beaten to death by hired hooligans in Black Fury (1935) and the pathetic, half-mad Muley in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Qualen was able to harness his trodden-upon demeanor for comedy as well, as witness his performance as the bewildered father of the Dionne quintuplets in The Country Doctor (1936). He was also effectively cast as small men with large reserves of courage, vide his portrayal of Norwegian underground operative Berger in Casablanca (1942). From Grapes of Wrath onward, Qualen was a member in good standing of the John Ford "stock company," appearing in such Ford-directed classics as The Long Voyage Home (1940), The Searchers (1955), Two Rode Together (1961), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). John Qualen was acting into the 1970s, often appearing in TV dramatic series as pugnacious senior citizens.

Trivia: A graduate of the University of Michigan, Strother Martin was the National Junior Springboard Diving Champion when he came to Hollywood as a swimming coach in the late 1940s. He stuck around Lala-land to play a few movie bits and extra roles before finally receiving a role of substance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Lean and limber in his early day, Martin was frequently cast in parts which called upon his athletic prowess (e.g. a drawling big-league ball player in 1951's Rhubarb). As his face grew more pocked and his body more paunched with each advancing year, Martin put his reedy, whiny voice and sinister squint to excellent use as a villain, most often in westerns. It took him nearly 20 years to matriculate from character actor to character star. In 1967, Martin skyrocketed to fame as the sadistic prison-farm captain in Cool Hand Luke: his character's signature line, "What we have here is a failure t' communicate," became a national catchphrase. While he continued accepting secondary roles for the rest of his career, Martin was awarded top billing in two sleazy but likeable programmers, Brotherhood of Satan (1971) and Ssssssss (1973). A veteran of scores of television shows, Strother Martin was seen on a weekly basis as Aaron Donager in Hotel De Paree (1959) and as star Jimmy Stewart's country cousin in Hawkins (1973).

Trivia: The son of actors, Percy Helton began his own career at age two in a Tony Pastor revue in which his parents were performing. The undersized Helton was a valuable juvenile player for producer David Belasco, making his film debut in a 1915 Belasco production, The Fairy and the Waif. Helton matured into adult roles under the stern guidance of George M. Cohan. After serving in the Army during World War I, Helton established himself on Broadway, appearing in such productions as Young America, One Sunday Afternoon and The Fabulous Invalid. He made his talkie debut in 1947's Miracle on 34th Street, playing the inebriated Macy's Santa Claus whom Edmund Gwenn replaces. Perhaps the quintessential "who is that?" actor, Helton popped up, often uncredited, in over one hundred succinct screen characterizations. Forever hunched over and eternally short of breath, he played many an obnoxious clerk, nosey mailman, irascible bartender, officious train conductor and tremulous stool pigeon. His credits include Fancy Pants (1950), The Robe (1953), White Christmas (1954), Rally Round the Flag Boys (1959), The Music Man (1962) and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1965), as well as two appearances as sweetshop proprietor Mike Clancy in the Bowery Boys series. Thanks to his trademarked squeaky voice, and because he showed up in so many "cult" films (Wicked Woman, Kiss Me Deadly, Sons of Katie Elder), Helton became something of a high-camp icon in his last years. In this vein, Percy Helton was cast as the "Heraldic Messenger" in the bizarre Monkees vehicle Head (he showed up at the Monkees' doorstep with a beautiful blonde manacled to his wrist!), the treacherous Sweetieface in the satirical western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the bedraggled bank clerk Cratchit on the TV series The Beverly Hillbillies.

Trivia: Karl Swenson was one of the busiest performers in the so-called golden days of network radio. Swenson played the leading role in the seriocomic daily serial Lorenzo Jones, and was also heard on Our Gal Sunday as Lord Henry, the heroine's "wealthy and titled Englishman" husband. He carried over his daytime-drama activities into television, playing Walter Manning in the 1954 video version of radio's Portia Faces Life. From 1958 onward, Swenson was seen in many small roles in a number of big films: Judgment of Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), and The Birds (1963). One of his more sizeable movie assignments was the voice of Merlin in the 1963 Disney animated feature The Sword in the Stone. One of his last roles was the recurring part of Mr. Hansen on TV's Little House on the Prairie. Karl Swenson was married to actress Joan Tompkins.

Trivia: Beginning in the '60s, stunt man and supporting actor Larry Gatlin often appeared in westerns.

Trivia: Chuck Roberson was a rancher before serving in World War II. Upon his discharge, he sought out film work as a stunt man. While under contract to Republic Pictures, Roberson doubled for John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch (1948). Thereafter, he worked in virtually all of Wayne's films as stunt double, action coordinator, second-unit director and bit actor. His best speaking part was Sheriff Lordin in the Duke's McClintock (1963). Chuck Roberson's career served as the inspiration for the Lee Majors TV series The Fall Guy (1981-86).

Trivia: American stunt man Henry Wills made his first recorded film appearances around 1940. Wills has shown up in scores of westerns, often in utility roles as stagecoach drivers and villainous henchmen. He commandeered chariots in several Biblical epics, including Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Ten Commandments (1956). Henry Wills also served as stunt coordinator for such films as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Beastmaster (1982).

Trivia: Along with his brother Bill, Joe Yrigoyen began his screen career performing stunts for pennies at Nat Levine's ramshackle Mascot Pictures, the early sound era's busiest provider of serial thrills. The Yrigoyen brothers stayed with the company when it was incorporated into Republic Pictures, doubling for the action studio's cowboy and serial stars, and most of their villains too. Joe Yrigoyen, who also worked tirelessly on such television shows as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Davy Crockett, retired in the late '70s. In 1985, he was awarded the prestigious Golden Boot Award, presented to him by old friend Roy Rogers.

Trivia: The son of a noted British filmmaker, Michael Anderson Jr. began his career as an actor in 1957. Playing leading roles in British and American films and television during the '60s, Anderson later continued playing co-leads and supporting roles.

Trivia: Mexican actor Rodolpho Acosta first became known to North American audiences by way of his appearance in John Ford's The Fugitive (1948). Frequently typecast as a bandit or indigent peasant, Acosta held out for less stereotypical roles once he was established in Hollywood. In 1957, he was top-billed in The Tijuana Story, playing a courageous Mexican journalist who wages a one-man war against a vicious narcotics ring. Depending on the role, Rodolpho Acosta was sometimes billed as Rudy Acosta.

Trivia: Expert horseman Boyd "Red" Morgan entered films as a stunt man in 1937. Morgan was justifiably proud of his specialty: falling from a horse in the most convincingly bone-crushing manner possible. He doubled for several top western stars, including John Wayne and Wayne's protégé James Arness. He could also be seen in speaking roles in such films as The Amazing Transparent Man (1959), The Alamo (1960), True Grit (1968), The Wild Rovers (1969) and Rio Lobo (1970). According to one report, Boyd "Red" Morgan served as the model for the TV-commercial icon Mister Clean.