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: Reportedly a great-niece of novelist Vicente Blasco Ibanez of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse fame, brunette Ruth Hall had been an extra prior to playing Zeppo Marx's girlfriend in Monkey Business (1931). The comedy earned her a berth as one of the 1932 Wampas Baby Stars and a host of leading lady chores opposite silver screen cowboys such as John Wayne (with whom she also did the serial The Three Musketeers in 1933), Ken Maynard, and Tom Mix. Hall recalled being termed "the girl" on these cheaply made program Westerns. "The Girl," she told Western historian Jon Tuska, "had to play her scene right because there were no second takes and, horrors, of course no retakes. The main stars were coached but not the girls." It may have been arduous work, especially on dusty locations with few if any conveniences -- especially for The Girl -- but the always game Hall would remain a favorite of both Wayne and Ken Maynard, who felt the loss when she left films to marry one of the industry's best cinematographers, Lee Garmes, a union that would last a lifetime.

Trivia: Frail-looking but iron-willed American actor Henry B. Walthall set out to become a lawyer, but was drawn to the stage instead. After several seasons appearing opposite such luminaries as Henry Miller and Margaret Anglin, Walthall was firmly established in New York's theatrical circles by the time he entered films in 1909 at the invitation of director D.W. Griffith. Clearly, both men benefited from the association: Griffith was able to exploit Walthall's expertise and versatility, while Walthall learned to harness his tendency to overact. The best of the Griffith/Walthall collaborations was Birth of a Nation (1915), in which Walthall portrayed the sensitive Little Colonel. Walthall left Griffith in 1915, a move that did little to advance his career. A string of mediocre productions spelled finis to Walthall's stardom, though he continued to prosper in character parts into the 1930s. One of his best showings in the talkie era was a virtual replay of his Little Colonel characterization in the closing scenes of the 1934 Will Rogers vehicle Judge Priest. Henry B. Walthall died while filming the 1936 Warner Bros. film China Clipper; ironically, he passed away just before he was scheduled to film his character's death scene.

Trivia: Cherubic, pop-eyed character actor Otis Harlan came to films in the 1920s after extensive legitimate-stage and vaudeville experience. Though he essayed a variety of roles in silent films (he even appeared as a black family retainer in one effort), Harlan was most felicitously cast as a semi-regular in the Reginald Denny comedies at Universal. In 1929, he played Captain Andy in the first filmization of Edna Ferber's Show Boat. Most of his talkie assignments were bits, albeit memorable ones, including Starveling in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and small-town constable Hi Jenks in the 1937 "Our Gang" 1-reeler Roamin' Holiday. Generations of cartoon fans have revelled in Harlan's voiceover portrayal of "Happy" in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Otis Harlan was the uncle of silent-movie leading man Kenneth Harlan.

Trivia: The archetypal screen sourpuss (excluding Ned Sparks, that is), actor Charles A. Sellon was already typecast when he made his first film appearance in 1923. In the first few years of the talkies, Sellon tended to play nondescript character roles in such films as Bulldog Drummond (1929) and Tom Sawyer (1930). He truly came into his own with his unforgettable performance as a cantankerous blind man Mr. Muckle ("Hah! Moved that door again, eh?") in the 1934 W.C. Fields classic It's a Gift (1934). Charles A. Sellon's other memorable mid-'30s roles included the wheelchair-bound, surreptitiously softhearted Uncle Ned in Shirley Temple's Bright Eyes and dour police coroner Doremus in The Casino Murder Case (1935).

Trivia: Arriving in America from his native Australia at the turn of the century, Frank S. Hagney eked out a living in vaudeville. He entered films during the silent era as a stunt man, gradually working his way up to featured roles. While most of Hagney's film work is forgettable, he had the honor of contributing to a bonafide classic in 1946. Director Frank Capra hand-picked Frank S. Hagney to portray the faithful bodyguard of wheelchair-bound villain Lionel Barrymore in the enduring Yuletide attraction It's A Wonderful Life (1946).