Trivia: British-born actor Cary Grant (born Archibald Leach) escaped his humble Bristol environs and unstable home life by joining an acrobatic troupe, where he became a stilt-walker. Numerous odd jobs kept him going until he tried acting, and, after moving to the United States, he managed to lose his accent, developing a clipped mid-Atlantic speaking style uniquely his own. After acting in Broadway musicals, Grant was signed in 1932 by Paramount Pictures to be built into leading-man material. His real name would never do for marquees, so the studio took the first initials of their top star Gary Cooper, reversed them, then filled in the "C" and "G" to come up with Cary Grant. After a year of nondescript roles, Grant was selected by Mae West to be her leading man in She Done Him Wrong (1933) and I'm No Angel(1934). A bit stiff-necked but undeniably sexy, Grant vaulted to stardom, though Paramount continued wasting his potential in second rate films. Free at last from his Paramount obligations in 1935, Grant vowed never to be strictly bound to any one studio again, so he signed a dual contract with Columbia and RKO that allowed him to choose any "outside" roles he pleased. Sylvia Scarlett (1936) was the first film to fully demonstrate Grant's inspired comic flair, which would be utilized to the utmost in such knee-slappers as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1939), and The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947). (Only in Arsenic and Old Lace [1941] did he overplay his hand and lapse into mugging.) The actor was also accomplished at straight drama, as evidenced in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Destination Tokyo (1942), Crisis (1950), and in his favorite role as an irresponsible cockney in None but the Lonely Heart (1942), for which Grant was nominated for an Oscar -- he didn't win, although he was awarded a special Oscar for career achievement in 1970. Off-stage, most of Grant's co-workers had nothing but praise for his craftsmanship and willingness to work with co-stars rather than at them. Among Grant's yea-sayers was director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast the actor in three of his best films, most notably the quintessential Hitchcock thriller North by Northwest (1959). Seemingly growing handsomer and more charming as he got older, Grant retained his stardom into the 1960s, enriching himself with lucrative percentage-of-profits deals on such box-office hits as Operation Petticoat (1959) and Charade (1964). Upon completing Walk, Don't Run in 1966, Grant decided he was through with filmmaking -- and he meant it. Devoting his remaining years to an executive position at a major cosmetics firm, Grant never appeared on a TV talk show and seldom granted newspaper interviews. In the 1980s, however, he became restless, and decided to embark on a nationwide lecture tour, confining himself exclusively to small towns in which the residents might otherwise never have the chance to see a Hollywood superstar in person. It was while preparing to lecture in Davenport, IA, that the 82-year-old Cary Grant suffered a sudden and fatal stroke in 1986.

Trivia: Both literally and metaphorically, Grace Kelly was the cinema's fairy-tale princess; beautiful, elegant, and impossibly glamorous, she transcended the limits of Hollywood aristocracy to attain the power and glory of true royalty. Born November 12, 1929, in Philadelphia, PA, her father was a wealthy industrialist while her mother was a onetime cover girl. Her uncle, George Kelly, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist behind the plays The Show-Off and Craig's Wife. At the age of ten, she made her own theatrical debut in a Philadelphia-area production, and in her late teens she moved to New York, where she worked as a model while attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After turning down a Hollywood contract for fear of being typecast as a starlet, Kelly began to work in television, and in 1949 she made her Broadway debut in a revival of August Strindberg's The Father. When Hollywood again came calling, she accepted and was soon cast in a bit part in 1951's Fourteen Hours.In just her second screen appearance, Kelly co-starred in a certifiable classic, the 1952 Western High Noon. Curiously, however, she did not benefit from the film's success, and no other offers were immediately forthcoming. She agreed to a screen test for a role in Taxi! but was rejected in favor of Constance Smith. However, the screen test found its way to director John Ford, who tapped her for 1953's Mogambo. The result was a seven-year contract with MGM, as well as a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Alfred Hitchcock then enlisted Kelly's services for a pair of 1954 films, Dial M for Murder and the brilliant Rear Window; it was said that she was the perfect blonde the master director had been seeking throughout his career. She was now a major star, and when actress Jennifer Jones became unexpectedly pregnant, Paramount begged MGM to allow Kelly to take her place in 1954's The Country Girl. The studio initially refused, but she successfully battled for the role. The result was a Best Actress Oscar.After starring in MGM's Green Fire, Kelly teamed with Hitchcock for the third and final time on 1955's To Catch a Thief. While filming on the French Riviera, she met Prince Rainier III of Monaco, and the two began a romance which was soon making international headlines. After starring in 1956's High Society, a musical update of The Philadelphia Story, and a remake of the onetime Lillian Gish vehicle The Swan, Kelly announced her pending marriage to Rainier. She also announced her retirement from filmmaking to devote her full energies to her new duties as Princess of Monaco. A lavish wedding soon followed, and although it was announced in 1962 that she was to return to Hollywood to star in Hitchcock's Marnie, she later withdrew from the project and never acted again. Grace Kelly died September 14, 1982, in an auto accident after suffering a heart attack while driving.

Trivia: As elucidated by the title of her 1954 autobiography You Won't Be So Pretty, Jesse Royce Landis concluded early on that she was not the ingenue type. Landis became a character actress, thereby outlasting many of her more attractive contemporaries. A solitary film appearance in 1930's Derelict convinced Landis that the stage would remain her forte. She would not appear onscreen on a regular basis until 1949, and then only when her theatrical schedule permitted it. Most often playing outspoken society matrons, Landis was amusingly cast in maternal roles in two Hitchcock films, To Catch a Thief (1955) and North By Northwest (1959); in the latter, she portrayed the mother of Cary Grant, who was exactly the same age as she. Jesse Royce Landis' final appearance was in the made-for-television Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (1971).

Trivia: An actor from the age of 16, when he appeared in a Parisian production of Hamlet, Charles Vanel made his screen bow in the 1912 film Jim Crow. He would eventually enjoy the longest movie career of any French actor, toting up well over 200 starring appearances. He was frequently seen in the films of screenwriter Jacques de Baroncelli; he also turned director on two occasions, helming 1929's Dans la Nuit and 1935's Le Coup de Minuit. His popularity diminished during the war years, but he was able to stage a comeback as a member of director Henri-Georges Clouzot's stock company. He made only one appearance in a Hollywood production, playing a key role in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief. The recipient of a lifetime achievement award at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, Charles Vanel retired in 1982, only to make another wholly unexpected comeback at the age of 85.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1952.

Trivia: General purpose actor Don Megowan began his acting career in 1951 in Robert Parrish's crime thriller The Mob, playing a beefy longshoreman. Usually playing low-mentality thugs, he made several fleeting appearances in Westerns and crime dramas. Larger roles came his way in Disney productions as Colonel Billy Travis in Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955) and as Marion A. Ross in The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), and starting in the second half of 1950s he also became a familiar figure to fans of horror and science fiction -- although pretty much unrecognizable, Megowan played the title role of the land-bound Gill Man in John Sherwood's The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), and that same year was the star -- this time as the hero, the sheriff trying to understand a series of seemingly random, grisly killings -- in Fred F. Sears' The Werewolf; and in 1962, he was the lead in Wesley Barry's The Creation Of The Humanoids, a script that gave Megowan the largest amount of dialogue of his whole career . On television, Megowan was seen as Captain Huckabee on the 1961 syndicated adventure series The Beachcomber, replacing Adam West, who had been cast in the role in the pilot episode. And he later played Lucille Ball's boyfriend, whose indisposition gets her Lucy Carmichael involved in stuntman work, on The Lucy Show. One of the actor's more enjoyable assignments during the '70s was as the gum-chewing desperado in Mel Brooks' Western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974). Megowan died of throat cancer in 1981.

Trivia: Born in Puerto Rico, actor Alberto Morin received his education in France. While in that country he worked briefly for Pathe Freres, a major film distribution firm, then studied theatre at the Escuela de Mimica in Mexico. Upon the advent of talking pictures, Morin was signed by Fox Pictures to make Spanish-language films for the South American market. He remained in Hollywood as a character actor, seldom getting much of a part but nearly always making an impression in his few seconds of screen time. Morin also worked steadily in radio and on such TV weeklies as Dobie Gillis and Mr. Roberts, sometimes billed as Albert Morin. During his five decades in Hollywood, Alberto Morin contributed uncredited performances in several of Tinseltown's most laudable achievements: he played Rene Picard in the Bazaar sequence in Gone With the Wind (1939), was a French military officer at Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca (1942), and showed up as a boat skipper in Key Largo (1947).

Trivia: Many research sources arbitrarily begin the list of French actor Eugene Borden's films in 1936. In fact, Borden first showed up on screen as early as 1917. Seldom afforded billing, the actor was nonetheless instantly recognizable in his many appearances as headwaiters, porters, pursers and coachmen. Along with several other stalwart European character actors, Borden was cast in a sizeable role in the above-average Columbia "B" So Dark the Night (1946). Musical buffs will recall Eugene Borden as Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant's landlord in An American in Paris (1951).

Trivia: Beginning his stage career in his native Holland in 1927, Phil Van Zandt moved to America shortly afterward, continuing to make theatrical appearances into the late '30s. From his first film (Those High Gray Walls [1939]) onward, the versatile Van Zandt was typed as "everyday" characters whenever he chose not to wear his mustache; with the 'stache, however, his face took on a sinister shade, and he found himself playing such cinematic reprobates as evil caliphs, shady attorneys, and heartless Nazis. Because of deliberately shadowy photography, the audience barely saw Van Zandt's face at all in one of his best roles, as the Henry Luce-like magazine editor Rawlston in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Though many of his feature-film assignments were bits, Van Zandt was permitted generous screen time in his many appearances in two-reel comedies. Beginning with the Gus Schilling/Dick Lane vehicle Pardon My Terror (1946), Van Zandt was a fixture at the Columbia Pictures short subjects unit, usually playing crooks and mad scientists at odds with the Three Stooges. He established his own acting school in Hollywood in the 1950s, though this and other ventures ultimately failed. Philip Van Zandt died of a drug overdose at the age of 54.

Trivia: Czech character actor Steven Geray was for many years a member in good standing of the Hungarian National Theater. He launched his English-speaking film career in Britain in 1935, then moved to the U.S. in 1941. His roles ranged from sinister to sympathetic, from "A" productions like Gilda (1946) to potboilers like El Paso (1949). He flourished during the war years, enjoying top billing in the moody little romantic melodrama So Dark the Night (1946), and also attracting critical praise for his portrayal of Dirk Stroeve in The Moon and Sixpence (1942). Many of Geray's film appearances in the 1950s were unbilled; when he was given screen credit, it was usually as "Steve Geray." Geray's busy career in film and television continued into the 1960s. Steven Geray worked until he had obviously depleted his physical strength; it was somewhat sad to watch the ailing Geray struggle through the western horror pic Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1965).

Trivia: French character actor Louis Mercier was in American films from 1929's Tiger Rose until well into the 1970s. Mercier was particularly busy at 20th Century-Fox's "B"-picture unit in the 1930s and 1940s, usually cast as detectives and magistrates. He can be seen fleetingly in Casablanca (1942) as a smuggler in the first "Rick's Café Americain" sequence. Louis Mercier's later credits include An Affair to Remember (1957, in which he was given a character name--a rarity for him), The Devil at 4 O'Clock (1961) and Darling Lili (1970).

Trivia: American character actress Gladys Holland played small roles in a number of 1950s' films. She was born in Texas and got her start in theater. Later she, who learned French from her Belgian parents, became a French dialogue/voice specialist.

Trivia: The scion of a wealthy Argentine family, boyishly handsome Barry Norton came to Hollywood in 1926, where he was promptly signed to a Fox Studios contract. Stardom came fairly rapidly for Norton with his poignant performance as "mama's boy" Private Lewisohn in the 1927 WWI drama What Price Glory? He followed this triumph with excellent performances in such films as Legion of the Condemned and Four Devils (1928). He had difficulty weathering the change to talking pictures, not because his voice was inadequate, but because he'd never truly mastered the English language. In the early talkie era, Norton starred in Spanish-language versions of Hollywood films (he played the David Manners part in the Spanish Dracula), occasionally doubling as director. His last important screen role was the South American fiancé of ingénue Jean Parker in Frank Capra's Lady for a Night (1933). In 1935, he was given a comeback opportunity as the romantic lead in Laurel and Hardy's Bonnie Scotland (1935), but he was replaced during rehearsals, reportedly because he couldn't keep apace of Stan and Ollie's improvisations. Norton spent the remainder of his Hollywood career as a bit player and extra, taking whatever job came his way without complaint or regret. An excellent dancer, he frequently showed up in nightclub and ballroom scenes, occasionally giving between-takes dance lessons to such male stars as Humphrey Bogart. One of Barry Norton's last screen appearances was as a priest in the 1952 remake of What Price Glory?

Trivia: Alfred Hitchcock was the most well-known director to the general public, by virtue of both his many thrillers and his appearances on television in his own series from the mid-'50s through the early '60s. Probably more than any other filmmaker, his name evokes instant expectations on the part of audiences: at least two or three great chills (and a few more good ones), some striking black comedy, and an eccentric characterization or two in every one of the director's movies.Originally trained at a technical school, Hitchcock gravitated to movies through art courses and advertising, and by the mid-'20s he was making his first films. He had his first major success in 1926 with The Lodger, a thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. While he worked in a multitude of genres over the next six years, he found his greatest acceptance working with thrillers. His early work with these, including Blackmail (1929) and Murder (1930), seem primitive by modern standards, but have many of the essential elements of Hitchcock's subsequent successes, even if they are presented in technically rudimentary terms. Hitchcock came to international attention in the mid- to late '30s with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). By the end of the 1930s, having gone as far as the British film industry could take him, he signed a contract with David O. Selznick and came to America.From the outset, with the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940) and the topical anti-Nazi thrillers Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Saboteur (1942), Hitchcock was one of Hollywood's "money" directors whose mere presence on a marquee attracted audiences. Although his relationship with Selznick was stormy, he created several fine and notable features while working for the producer, either directly for Selznick or on loan to RKO and Universal, including Spellbound (1945), probably the most romantic of Hitchcock's movies; Notorious (1946); and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), considered by many to be his most unsettling film.In 1948, after leaving Selznick, Hitchcock went through a fallow period, in which he experimented with new techniques and made his first independent production, Rope; but he found little success. In the early and mid-'50s, he returned to form with the thrillers Strangers on a Train (1951), which was remade in 1987 by Danny DeVito as Throw Momma From the Train; Dial M for Murder (1954), which was among the few successful 3-D movies; and Rear Window (1954). By the mid-'50s, Hitchcock's persona became the basis for the television anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which ran for eight seasons (although he only directed, or even participated as producer, in a mere handful of the shows). His films of the late '50s became more personal and daring, particularly The Trouble With Harry (1955) and Vertigo (1958), in which the dark side of romantic obsession was explored in startling detail. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and all were phenomenally popular -- The Birds, in particular, managed to set a new record for its first network television showing in the mid-'60s.By then, however, Hitchcock's films had slipped seriously at the box office. Both Marnie (1964) and Torn Curtain (1966) suffered from major casting problems, and the script of Torn Curtain was terribly unfocused. The director was also hurt by the sudden departure of composer Bernard Herrmann (who had scored every Hitchcock's movie since 1957) during the making of Torn Curtain, as Herrmann's music had become a key element of the success of Hitchcock's films. Of his final three movies, only Frenzy (1972), which marked his return to British thrillers after 30 years, was successful, although his last film, Family Plot (1976), has achieved some respect from cult audiences. In the early '80s, several years after his death in 1980, Hitchcock's box-office appeal was once again displayed with the re-release of Rope, The Trouble With Harry, his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo, all of which had been withheld from distribution for several years, but which earned millions of dollars in new theatrical revenues.

Trivia: Although not as remembered as Yakima Canutt or even Cliff Lyons, brawny George DeNormand became one of the founding fathers of modern movie stunt work. In films from the early '30s, DeNormand performed stunts and played bit roles in scores of action thrillers, B-Westerns, and serials, working mostly for that memorable factory of thrills, Republic Pictures. His career lasted well into the television era and he was especially visible on such shows as The Cisco Kid, Range Rider, and Sky King. Married to writer/director Wanda Tuchock (1898-1985), DeNormand spent his last years at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: The faces of most movie extras are unmemorable blurs in the public's memory. Not so the elegant, statuesque Bess Flowers, who was crowned by appreciative film buffs as "Queen of the Hollywood Dress Extras." After studying drama (against her father's wishes) at the Carnegie Inst of Technology, Flowers intended to head to New York, but at the last moment opted for Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922, subsequently appearing prominently in such productions as Hollywood (1922) and Chaplin's Woman of Paris (1923). Too tall for most leading men, Flowers found her true niche as a supporting actress. By the time talkies came around, Flowers was mostly playing bits in features, though her roles were more sizeable in two-reel comedies; she was a special favorite of popular short-subject star Charley Chase. Major directors like Frank Lloyd always found work for Flowers because of her elegant bearing and her luminescent gift for making the people around her look good. While generally an extra, Flowers enjoyed substantial roles in such films as Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), Gregory La Cava's Private Worlds and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937). In 1947's Song of the Thin Man, the usually unheralded Flowers was afforded screen billing. Her fans particularly cherish Flowers' bit as a well-wisher in All About Eve (1950), in which she breaks her customary screen silence to utter "I'm so happy for you, Eve." Flowers was married twice, first to Cecil B. DeMille's legendary "right hand man" Cullen Tate, then to Columbia studio manager William S. Holman. After her retirement, Bess Flowers made one last on-camera appearance in 1974 when she was interviewed by NBC's Tom Snyder.

Trivia: It is usually axiomatic that any actor who uses the nickname "Tiny" is anything but. Such was the case of tall, stockily built Paul "Tiny" Newlan. Born in Nebraska, Newlan began his acting career in repertory at the Garden Theater in Kansas City. After attending the University of Missouri, he played pro football and basketball, then returned to acting. In films from 1935, he signed a two-year Paramount contract in 1938, leading to dozens of tiny roles as bartenders, bouncers, stevedores, and the like. The size of his screen roles increased in the late '40s-early '50s, though Newlan didn't start landing truly important parts until he entered television. Paul Newlan is best remembered for his recurring appearances as Captain Grey on the TV cop show M-Squad (1957-1960).

Trivia: The son of a movie-studio musician, John Williams was trained for the family business at UCLA and Juilliard. Proficient with several instruments, Williams settled down to a thriving career as a jazz pianist. Billing himself as "Johnny Williams" to avoid confusion with British character actor John Williams, the young composer worked closely with Henry Mancini on the Peter Gunn series, then branched out to compose his own scores for several of the 1960s TV adventure programs produced by Irwin Allen. Williams' first film credit was for the 1959 adventure film Daddy-O. A composer, arranger, and musical supervisor throughout the 1960s, Williams received the first of several Oscars for his orchestrations in Valley of the Dolls (1967). Although he went on to work for a number of directors in the 1970s, Williams' name became conjoined with the twin wunderkinds George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. He composed the music for all three of Lucas' Star Wars films, and for just about all of Spielberg's films, from Sugarland Express (1974) to Saving Private Ryan (1998). Williams' main themes for Jaws, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark were particularly famous, inspiring a large number of imitations, many of which were of markedly fifth-rate value. The number of films Williams has scored is truly dizzying, as is the number of awards he has received for his work: Over the course of his career, the composer has been nominated for 36 Academy awards, winning six for his work on Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. (1982), Empire of the Sun (1987), and Schindler's List (1993). Nominated by the academy nearly every year throughout the 1990s, the tireless composer continued his longtime collaboration with Spielberg with such efforts as A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), and Munich (2005). He also kept busy scoring the latest installments in the Star Wars saga as well as entering into the Harry Potter franchise with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and its subsequent sequels. In 2006, Williams won his fourth Golden Globe Award for penning the score to Memoirs of a Geisha. He also composed the score for 2006's Superman Returns -- a fitting job for Williams, who had written the music to the original Superman in 1978. In 2011 Williams reteamed with longtime collaborator Spielberg not once but twice, providing the scores for both War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin. Although each of Williams' orchestrations were nominated for Best Original Score at the 84th Academy Awards, the Oscar ultimately went to Ludovic Bource for The Artist.

Trivia: A mustachioed supporting player from Russia, Jack Chefe (sometimes credited as Chefé) played exactly what he looked and sounded like: headwaiters. That was also his occupation when not appearing in films, of which he did literally hundreds between 1932 and 1959, serving such stars as Carole Lombard (My Man Godfrey, 1936), Jeanette MacDonald (Bitter Sweet, 1940), Bob Hope (My Favorite Brunette, 1947), and even Dick Tracy (in the 1945 RKO feature film). Once in a while, Chefe managed to escape typecasting, playing one of the legionnaires in Laurel and Hardy's Flying Deuces (1939) and a croupier in The Big Sleep (1946).