Trivia: Hirsute, puckish "renaissance man" Peter Ustinov was born in England to parents of Russian lineage. Trained at the London Theatre Studio, Ustinov was on stage from the age of 17, performing sketches written by himself in the 1939 revue Late Joys. In 1940, the year that his first play, Fishing for Shadows, was staged, the 19-year-old Ustinov appeared in his first film. Just before entering the British army, Ustinov penned his first screenplay, The True Glory (1945). School for Secrets (1946) was the first of several films starring, written, and directed by Ustinov; others include Vice Versa (1946), Private Angelo (1949), Romanoff and Juliet (1961) (adapted from his own stage play), and Lady L (1965). Perhaps Ustinov's most ambitious film directorial project was Billy Budd (1962), a laudable if not completely successful attempt to transfer the allegorical style of Herman Melville to the screen. As an actor in films directed by others, Ustinov has sparkled in parts requiring what can best be described as "justifiable ham" -- he was Oscar-nominated for his riveting performance as the addled Nero in 1951's Quo Vadis and has won the Best Supporting Actor prize for Spartacus (1961) and Topkapi (1964). Never one to turn down a good television assignment, Ustinov has appeared on American TV in such guises as King George and Dr. Samuel Johnson, winning the first of his three Emmy awards for the latter characterization; he is also a frequent talk show guest, regaling audiences with his droll wit and his mastery over several dialects. While he has never starred on-camera in a weekly TV series, his voice could be heard essaying virtually all the roles on the 1981 syndicated cartoon series Dr. Snuggles. The closest he has come to repeating himself was with his frequent theatrical film and TV-movie appearances as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in the late '70s and early '80s. The author of several plays (the most popular of which included Love of Four Colonels and Photo Finish) and books (including two autobiographies), Peter Ustinov was still going strong into the 1990s, making a long-overdue return to Hollywood in the 1992 film Lorenzo's Oil.

Trivia: The daughter of a Massachusetts lawyer, American actress Bette Davis matured with a desire to become an actress upon her graduation from Cushing Academy, but was turned away from Eva LeGallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory in New York. Undaunted, Davis enrolled in John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School, where everyone (including classmate Lucille Ball) regarded her as the star pupil. After a 1928 summer season with director George Cukor's stock company in Rochester, NY (where she worked with future co-star -- and rival -- Miriam Hopkins), Davis went on to Broadway, starring in Broken Dishes and Solid South before Hollywood called. Dazzling on-stage, Davis was signed to a contract by Universal in 1930. After an unimpressive debut in Bad Sister in 1931, however, Davis was out of work, but picked up by Warner Bros. soon thereafter. Davis applied herself with white-hot intensity to becoming a star with that company, and after a major role in the 1932 George Arliss vehicle The Man Who Played God, a star she became. Still, the films at Warner Bros. were uneven, and it wasn't until the studio loaned out Davis to play the bravura role of Mildred in RKO's Of Human Bondage (1934) that the critics began to take notice. An Oscar nomination seemed inevitable for her performance in Bondage, but Davis was let down by Warner Bros., which didn't like the fact that her best appearance had been in a rival's movie, and it failed to get behind her Oscar campaign (although there was a significant write-in vote for the actress). But, in 1935, Davis excelled as a self-destructive actress in the otherwise turgid film Dangerous, and an Oscar was finally hers. And when Warner Bros. subsequently failed to give Davis the top roles she felt she then merited, the actress went on strike and headed for England. She lost a legal battle with the studio and came back, but it acknowledged her grit and talent by increasing her salary and giving her much better roles. In 1939 alone, Davis starred in Dark Victory, Juarez, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and The Old Maid. But she didn't get the plum role of the season -- Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind -- because Warner Bros. wouldn't loan her to David O. Selznick unless Errol Flynn was chosen to play Rhett Butler (a piece of casting both Selznick and Davis violently opposed). But Davis had already had her turn at playing a Southern belle in Jezebel (1938), which won her second a Oscar. As her star status increased in the 1940s, Davis found that it would have to be at the expense of her private life -- she would be married and divorced four times, admitting toward the end of her life that her career came first, last, and always. A fling at being her own producer in 1946 was disappointing, and her contract with Warner Bros. petered out in 1949 with a string of unsuccessful films. Davis made a spectacular comeback in 1950 when she replaced an ailing Claudette Colbert in the role of Margot Channing in the Oscar-winning All About Eve. Though suffering from a bone disease that required part of her jaw to be removed, Davis continued to work in films throughout the '50s; but, in 1961, things came to a standstill, forcing the actress to take out a famous job-wanted ad in the trade papers. In 1962, Davis began the next phase of her career when she accepted the role of a whacked-out former child star in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? This led to a string of gothic horror films that did little to advance Davis' reputation, but kept her in the public eye. It was also in 1962 that Davis penned her thoughtful and honest autobiography The Lonely Life. Working in movies, TV, on-stage and on one-woman lecture tours into the '70s, Davis may have been older but no less feisty and combative; her outspokenness may have unnerved some of her co-stars, but made her an ideal interview subject for young film historians and fans. In 1977, Davis received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, an honor usually bestowed upon performers who were retired or inactive. Not Davis. She kept at her craft into the '80s, even after a stroke imposed serious limitations on her speech and movement. Amidst many TV movies and talk-show appearances, Davis gave one last memorable film appearance in The Whales of August (1987), in which she worked with another venerable screen legend, Lillian Gish. Though plagued with illness, Davis was formidable to the end -- so much so that when she died in France at the age of 82, a lot of her fans refused to believe it.

Trivia: American actress and long-time Woody Allen muse, Mia Farrow was the third of seven children born to film star Maureen O'Sullivan and director John Farrow. Born February 9, 1945, she enjoyed the usual pampered Hollywood kid lifestyle until she fell victim to polio at the age of nine; her struggle to recover from this illness was the first of many instances in which the seemingly frail Farrow exhibited a will of iron. Educated in an English convent school, Farrow returned to California with plans to take up acting. With precious little prior experience that included a bit part in her father's 1959 film John Paul Jones, she debuted on Broadway in a 1963 revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. The following year, she was cast as Alison McKenzie in the nighttime TV soap opera Peyton Place, which made her an idol of the American teen set. That people over the age of 18 were also interested in Farrow was proven in the summer of 1965, when she became the third wife of singer Frank Sinatra, 30 years her senior. The marriage provided fodder for both the tabloids and leering nightclub comics for a time, and while the union didn't last long, it put Farrow into the international filmgoing consciousness. (She and Sinatra remained close, long-time friends after their divorce). Farrow's first important movie appearance was in Rosemary's Baby (1968) as the unwitting mother of Satan's offspring. She was often cast in damsel-in-distress parts -- capitalizing on Rosemary's Baby -- and in "trendy" pop-culture roles for several years thereafter. During this period, she married pianist André Previn and starting a family. Her skills as an actress increased, even if her films didn't bring in large crowds; Farrow's performance as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (1974) remains one of the few high points of the largely disappointing film. By the early '80s, a newly divorced Farrow had taken up with comedian/director Woody Allen, for whom she did some of her best work in such films as Zelig (1983); Broadway Danny Rose (1984), in which she was barely recognizable in a brilliant turn as a bosomy blonde bimbo; The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985); Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Radio Days (1987); Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989); and Husbands and Wives (1992). Farrow and Allen were soul mates in private as well as cinematic life; she had a child by him named Satchel, who was Allen's first son. In 1992, ironically the same year that she starred as Allen's discontented spouse in Husbands and Wives, Farrow once more commanded newspaper headlines when she discovered that Allen had been having more than a parental relationship with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn (whom he later married). Farrow and Allen then engaged in a long, well-publicized court battle for custody of their adopted and biological children; in the aftermath, Farrow wrote a tell-all memoir entitled What Falls Away. She also continued to appear on the screen in such films as Widows' Peak (1994), Miami Rhapsody (1995), and Coming Soon (1999).Farrow stayed out of the limelight at the beginning of the next decade, but brought back memories of one of her best films, Rosemary's Baby, when she appeared as the nanny guiding the evil Satan child Damien in John Moore's adaptation of The Omen. The actress appeared in The Ex (2006), a romantic comedy, and in the first installment of filmmaker Luc Besson's fantasy adventured trilogy Arthur and the Invisibles. Farrow starred alongside Jack Black, Mos Def, and Danny Glover in the lighthearted comedy Be Kind Rewind (2008), which followed a bumbling movie lover who accidentally erased a vast collection of VHS films. In 2011, Farrow joined the cast of filmmaker Todd Solondz' Dark Horse, in which she co-starred with Selma Blair and Jordan Gelber.

Trivia: A former top model who went on to utilize her smoldering sensuality as Bond girl Holly Goodhead in 1979's Moonraker, actress Lois Chiles crafted a successful onscreen career with roles in such acclaimed indies as Diary of a Hit Man (1991) and Curdled (1996). A native of Alice, TX, who graduated from the University of Texas in 1969, Chiles was discovered by a Glamour magazine photographer while attending Finch College and soon found herself whisked into the world of high fashion. After conquering catwalks and haute couture, the model made her cinematic debut in the racially charged drama Together for Days (1972). She subsequently landed high-profile roles in The Way We Were (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), and Coma (1978), but it was her role of the suggestively named NASA scientist (and, of course, James Bond love interest) in Moonraker that truly got the attention of audiences. Although Chiles had originally been offered a role in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, she had turned it down while taking some time off from the silver screen. Following a chance meeting with The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker director Lewis Gilbert on a plane, Chiles was convinced to return to the screen for another opportunity. That was only the beginning of her lucrative film career, and following a healthy run on the popular television drama Dallas, Chiles returned to film work with supporting roles in Creepshow 2 and Broadcast News (both 1987). Although she never attained leading-lady status, Chiles remained a successful fixture of independent film throughout the 1990s, even appearing in such A-list releases as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Speed 2: Cruise Control (both 1997). Chiles remained active onscreen in the early 2000s, and was frequently seen in numerous made-for-TV movies, including Warning: Parental Advisory and Sudden Fear (both 2002).

Trivia: British actor Jon Finch's splendid reputation in Shakespearean repertory led to his being cast in the 1970 Roman Polanski film version of MacBeth. Finch's ability to convey "cross purposes" by having his voice say one thing and his eyes another, served him well in Hitchcock's 1972 Frenzy. In the opening scene, we are meant to assume that Finch is a serial killer--and once we find out he isn't, we can still understand why everyone around him thinks he is. Finch remained active as a thespian up through his final years, but demonstrated little interest in stardom, turning down opportunities to play James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973) and Aramis in Richard Lester's Three Musketeers (1973). He made one of his final appearances in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and died at age 71 in late 2012.

Trivia: Born in Argentina to British parents, dark-eyed actress Olivia Hussey was "introduced" in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 production of Romeo and Juliet; in point of fact, she had been in films from 1965, though never in any sort of starring capacity. Much was made at the time of the extreme youth of Hussey and her Romeo, Leonard Whiting. It was said that she was the first movie Juliet who was a genuine teenager rather than an established, venerated screen star; even so, at 16 Hussey was still two or three years older than Shakespeare's Juliet. Few of her subsequent films were on the same artistic or box-office level as Romeo and Juliet, though Hussey was a most fetching damsel in distress in 1978's Death on the Nile and a competent "femme fatale" in 1980's The Man With Bogart's Face. Olivia Hussey has been married to actor/tennis player Dean Paul Martin and Japanese recording artist Akira Fuse, respectively.

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: British actor Simon MacCorkindale was a young but established stage actor when he made his first brief film appearance in 1974's Juggernaut. Most of his subsequent movies were unmemorable, but MacCorkindale remained in the public eye as the husband of popular film actress Susan George. By the '80s, MacCorkindale had moved his base of operations to Hollywood, where he landed regular roles in two TV series: Manimal and Falcon Crest, appearing in the latter from 1984 through 1986 as Greg Reardon. In 1988, Simon MacCorkindale set up his own production company, Amy Productions: His first film project as an exec was Stealing Heaven (1988).

Trivia: The son a well-to-do British Army captain who died in the battle of Gallipoli in 1915, David Niven was shipped off to a succession of boarding schools by his stepfather, who didn't care much for the boy. Young Niven hated the experience and was a poor student, but his late father's reputation helped him get admitted to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and he was later commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. Rakishly handsome and naturally charming, Lt. Niven met a number of high society members while stationed in Malta, and, through their auspices, made several important contacts while attending parties. Although he later claimed to have been nothing more than a wastrel-like "professional guest" at this stage of his life, Niven was actually excellent company, a superb raconteur, and a loyal friend, and he paid back his social obligations by giving lavish parties of his own once he become famous. Niven also insisted that he fell into acting without any prior interest, although he had done amateur theatricals in college.Following his military discharge, Niven wandered the world working odd jobs ranging from a lumberjack to a gunnery instructor for Cuban revolutionaries to (by his own account) a petty thief. He became a Hollywood extra in 1935, and eventually came to the attention of producer Samuel Goldwyn, who had been building up a stable of attractive young contract players. Having made his speaking debut in Without Regret (1935), Niven quickly learned how to successfully get through a movie scene. After several secondary roles for Goldwyn, he was loaned out for a lead role in the 20th Century Fox feature Thank You, Jeeves (1936). The actor formed lasting friendships with several members of Hollywood's British community -- notably Errol Flynn, with whom he briefly lived -- and was quite popular with the American-born contingent as well, especially the ladies.Although he worked steadily in the '30s, it was usually in support of bigger stars; he was seldom permitted to carry a film by himself, except for such modest productions as Dinner at the Ritz (1937) and Raffles (1939). Anxious to do something more substantial than act during World War II, Niven re-entered the British service as a Lieutenant Colonel, where he served nobly, if not spectacularly. (His batman, or valet, during the war was a Pvt. Peter Ustinov, himself an actor of no mean talent.) Married by the end of the war, Niven went back to films but found that he still wasn't getting any important roles; despite ten years experience, he was considered too "lightweight" to be a major name. His life momentarily shattered by the accidental death of his wife in 1946, Niven's spirit was restored by his second marriage to Swedish model Hjordis Tersmeden, his wife of 37 years until the actor's death. Once again, Niven took a self-deprecating attitude towards his domestic life, claiming to be a poor husband and worse father, but despite the time spent away from his family, they cherished his concern and affection for them.After his Goldwyn contract ended in 1949, Niven marked time with inconsequential movies before joining Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, and Ida Lupino to form Four Star, a television production company. Niven was finally able to choose strong dramatic roles for himself, becoming one of TV's first and most prolific stars, although his public still preferred him as a light comedian. The actor's film career also took an upswing in the '50s with starring performances in the controversial The Moon Is Blue (1953) -- a harmless concoction which was denied a Production Code seal because the word "virgin" was bandied about -- and the mammoth Around the World in 80 Days (1956), in which Niven played his most famous role, erudite 19th century globetrotter Phileas Fogg. When Laurence Olivier dropped out of the 1958 film Separate Tables, Niven stepped in to play an elderly, disgraced British military man. Although he was as flippant about the part as usual -- telling an interviewer, "They gave me very good lines and then cut to Deborah Kerr while I was saying them" -- he won an Oscar for this performance. Niven continued his career as a high-priced, A-list actor into the '60s, returning to television in the stylish "caper" series The Rogues in 1964. He revisited his hobby of writing in the early '70s; an earlier novel, Round the Ragged Rocks, didn't sell very well, but gave him pleasure while working on it. But two breezy autobiographies did better: The Moon's a Balloon (1972) and Bring on the Empty Horse (1975). Working alone, without help of a ghostwriter (as opposed to many celebrity authors), Niven was able to entertainingly transfer his charm and wit to the printed page (even if he seldom let the facts impede his storytelling). In 1982, Niven discovered he was suffering from a neurological illness commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which would prove fatal within a year. Courageously keeping up a front with his friends and the public, Niven continued making media appearances, although he was obviously deteriorating. While appearing in his last film, Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), the actor's speech became so slurred due to his illness that his lines were later dubbed by impressionist Rich Little. Refusing all artificial life-support systems, Niven died in his Switzerland home later that year. While his career produced a relatively small legacy of worthwhile films, and despite his own public attitude that his life had been something of an elaborate fraud, Niven left behind countless friends and family members who adored him. Indeed, journalists sent out to "dig up dirt" following the actor's death came back amazed (and perhaps secretly pleased) that not one person could find anything bad to say about David Niven.

Trivia: Breathes there a theatergoer or film fan on Earth who has not, at one time or another, fallen in love with the sublimely brilliant British comedic actress Dame Maggie Smith? The daughter of an Oxford University pathologist, Smith received her earliest acting training at the Oxford Playhouse School. In 1952, she made her professional stage bow as Viola in Twelfth Night. Four years later she was on Broadway, performing comedy routines in Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1956; that same year, she made her first, extremely brief screen appearance in Child in the House (she usually refers to 1959's Nowhere to Go as her screen debut).In 1959, Smith joined the Old Vic, and in 1962 won the first of several performing honors, the London Evening Standard Award, for her work in the West End production The Private Ear/The Public Eye. Her subsequent theatrical prizes include the 1963 and 1972 Variety Club awards for Mary Mary and Private Lives, respectively, and the 1990 Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway play Lettice and Lovage. In addition, Smith has won Oscars for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978), and British Film Academy awards for A Private Function (1985), A Room With a View (1986), and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987).These accolades notwithstanding, Smith has had no qualms about accepting such "lightweight" roles as lady sleuth Dora Charleston (a delicious Myrna Loy takeoff) in Murder By Death (1976), the aging Wendy in Steven Spielberg's Peter Pan derivation Hook (1991), and the Mother Superior in Whoopi Goldberg's Sister Act films of the early '90s. During the same decade, she also took more serious roles in Richard III (1995), Washington Square (1997), and Tea With Mussolini (1999). On a lighter note, her role in director Robert Altman's Gosford Park earned Smith her sixth Oscar nomination. She earned a whole new generation of fans during the first decade of the next century when she was cast as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a part she would return to for each of the film's phenomenally successful sequels. She worked in other films as well including Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Becoming Jane, and Nanny McPhee Returns. In 2010 she earned rave reviews for her work in the television series Downton Abbey.Made a Dame Commander in 1989, Smith was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1994. Previously married to the late actor Sir Robert Stephens, she is the wife of screenwriter Beverly Cross and the mother of actors Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin.

Trivia: A former prizefighter, nightclub bouncer and lifeguard, Jack Warden took to the stage after serving as a paratrooper in World War II. Warden's first professional engagement was with the Margo Jones repertory troupe in 1947. He made both his Broadway and film debuts in 1951, spending the next few years specializing in blunt military types and short-tempered bullies. Among his most notable screen roles of the 1950s was the homicidally bigoted factory foreman in Edge of the City and the impatient Juror #7 in Twelve Angry Men (both 1957). He was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of the cuckolded Lester in Warren Beatty's Shampoo (1975) and for his work as eternally flustered sports promoter Max Corkle in another Beatty vehicle, Heaven Can Wait (1978). He has also played the brusque, bluff President in Being There (1978); senile, gun-wielding judge Ray Ford in ...And Justice For All (1979); the twin auto dealers--one good, one bad--in Used Cars (1980); Paul Newman's combination leg-man and conscience in The Verdict (1982); shifty convenience store owner Big Ben in the two Problem Child films of the early 1990s; the not-so-dearly departed in Passed Away (1992); and Broadway high-roller Julian Marx in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). Extensive though his stage and screen credits may be, Warden has been just as busy on television, winning an Emmy for his portrayal of George Halas in Brian's Song (1969) and playing such other historical personages as Cornelius Ryan (1981's A Private Battle) and Mark Twain (1984's Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues). Barely stopping for air, Jack Warden has also starred or co-starred on the weekly TV series Mister Peepers (1953-55), The Asphalt Jungle (1961), Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965), NYPD (1967-68), Jigsaw John (1975), The Bad News Bears (1979) and Crazy Like a Fox (1984-85); and, had the pilot episode sold, Jack Warden was to have been the star in a 1979 revival of Topper. Though this was not to be for Warden, the gruff actor's age and affectionately sour demeanor found him essaying frequent albiet minor feature roles through the new millennium. Remaining in the public eye withn appearances in While You Were Sleeping (1995), Ed (1996), Bullworth (1998) and The Replacements (2000), the former welterweight fighter remained as dependable as ever when it came to stepping in front of the lens.

Trivia: British character Harry Andrews, who has appeared in a wide assortment of British, American, and international films, is best remembered for his portrayals of stern fellows or military men in films such as The Red Beret (1952), and Sands of the Kalahari (1965). Though almost always a supporting player, his performances often overshadow those of the stars. Before making his cinematic debut in the early '50s, Andrews graduated from Wrekin College. During the 1930s he began his career as a distinguished stage actor noted for his portrayals of Shakespearean roles. Though he was often typecast as the tough guy in films, Andrews broke the mold in his brilliant portrayal of a flamboyant homosexual in the 1970 black comedy Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Andrews' son David was a well-known child actor who eventually became a television director.

Trivia: Actor/director Sam Wanamaker was one of those whose career was nearly derailed by the machinations of Senator McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee. A native of Chicago, born Samuel Watenmaker, he began his career in theater at age 17 following training at Chicago's Goodman Theater. Wanamaker honed his acting skills in stock, traveling shows, and on Broadway. He also attended Drake University. Between 1943 and 1946, Wanamaker was in the U.S. Army. Early in his career, he also worked in radio. He made his feature film debut in My Girl Tisa (1948). The following year, Wanamaker, whose leftist political views were no secret in Hollywood, went to England to appear in blacklisted director Edward Dymtryk's Give Us This Day (1949). After making another film in Britain, Wanamaker learned that he too was about to be investigated and had been blacklisted; therefore, Wanamaker elected to remain in England. Over the next ten years, Wanamaker worked on-stage as a director, producer, and actor. In the 1960s, Wanamaker resumed his acting career in internationally produced films such as The Concrete Jungle (1962) and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965). He made his directorial bow in 1969 with The File of the Golden Goose (1969) and went on to make several more films, including The Executioner (1970). He also made television movies such as the well-regarded true story, The Killing of Randy Webster (1981). In 1985, Wanamaker appeared on the short-lived television series The Berrengers. When not busy acting or directing, Wanamaker had been an active supporter of the plan to restore Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Unfortunately, Wanamaker died of cancer just before the project was completed. His daughter Zoe Wanamaker is also an actor.

Trivia: Angela Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for her first film, Gaslight, in 1944, and has been winning acting awards and audience favor ever since. Born in London to a family that included both politicians and performers, Lansbury came to the U.S. during World War II. She made notable early film appearances as the snooty sister in National Velvet (1944); the pathetic singer in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which garnered her another Academy nomination; and the madam-with-a-heart-of-gold saloon singer in The Harvey Girls (1946). She turned evil as the manipulative publisher in State of the Union (1948), but was just as convincing as the good queen in The Three Musketeers (1948) and the petulant daughter in The Court Jester (1956). She received another Oscar nomination for her chilling performance as Laurence Harvey's scheming mother in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and appeared as the addled witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), among other later films. On Broadway, she won Tony awards for the musicals Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), the revival of Gypsy (1975), Sweeney Todd (1979) and, at age 82, for the play Blithe Spirit (2009). Despite a season in the '50s on the game show Pantomime Quiz, she came to series television late, starring in 1984-1996 as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote; she took over as producer of the show in the '90s. She returned to the Disney studios to record the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and to sing the title song and later reprised the role in the direct-to-video sequel, The Enchanted Christmas (1997). Lansbury is the sister of TV producer Bruce Lansbury.

Trivia: Wanted to be a ballerina, but was rejected from the Royal Ballet; as a result, she suffered from anorexia and spent three months in psychiatric hospital as part of her recovery. Made her stage debut at age 16 as a chorus girl at a theatre in Colchester, England. Discovered on the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are that one of her ancestors was imprisoned in the infamous Tower of London, and another was accused of plotting to kill King Charles II. Released her debut novel, Not Quite Nice, in 2015.

Trivia: East Indian actor who had supporting roles in numerous international films.

Trivia: Born January 8, 1929 in Malerkotla, Punjab, India, to Shia Muslim parents of "rather good aristocratic Mogul stock," Saeed was the oldest of four children. After a variegated education in Muslim, Hindu and Church of England schools, where he amused his classmates with impressions of movie stars, Jaffrey graduated with honors in English Literature and earned a Masters in history from Allahabad University. He agreed to follow his father's wishes in pursuing a teaching career, but took a few months off before beginning his appointment to travel in Delhi. Friends he met on the train invited him to a coffee house, where he learned All India Radio was hiring English-speaking announcers. He auditioned, was accepted, and embarked on a performing career instead, joining All India Radio and founding an English-language theater troupe in Delhi in 1951. During his troupe's 1954 performance of The Eagle Has Two Heads, Jaffrey became infatuated with actress Madhur Bahadur. The two traveled to New York City in 1956, where Jaffrey took classes at The Actor's Studio (a classmate was Marilyn Monroe) and later traveled on a Fulbright scholarship to study drama at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Saeed and Madhur married in 1958 and had three daughters, but Jaffrey's relentless womanizing sabotaged their marriage. (Don't cry for Madhur Jaffrey, however - after their divorce she became a celebrated expert in Indian cuisine, writing many cookbooks on the subject.)After retreating back to London post-divorce, Jaffrey struggled to make ends meet, moonlighting as a sales assistant at Harrods department store while working for BBC's World Service international radio service, where his Urdu, Hindi and English fluency made him valuable. He worked occasionally in British television, but his upwards climb didn't truly begin until he was cast in John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King, starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery. Caine and Jaffrey had become friends when both were cast in The Wilby Conspiracy, and Caine recommended him to Huston. Further roles in Gandhi, My Beautiful Laundrette (for which he received a BAFTA nomination), and TV series like The Jewel in the Crown and Coronation Street cemented his reputation in Britain.While making inroads in Britain, Jaffrey also had a parallel acting career in Bollywood, begun after his role in Satyajit Ray's The Chess Players. He made more than 100 films in his Indian movie career, often changing costumes and reading the script in a limo transporting him from one movie set to another. Despite this breakneck pace, he still took time to research his roles, including working as a paanwalla (a hawker selling a stimulating herbal chew wrapped in leaves) for 15 days for a role in the romantic comedy Chashme Buddoor. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized him for "Most Appearances in International Films" (18) in 2000.Jaffrey's final decades showed no sign of slowing down. He married his manager Jennifer Sorrell in 1980, told all of his candid bed-hopping adventures in his autobiography Saeed: An Actor's Journey, and wrote and starred in many radio plays, including the 1997 World Service series "A Suitable Boy" where he performed all 86 voice characters. In 1995 he was awarded an Order of the British Empire, Britain's highest civilian award, and was the first Asian actor to do so. He died in 2015, at age 86.

Trivia: Italian composer Nino Rota's first oratorio was performed in 1921, when he was a veteran at age 11. Refining his skills at the Milan Conservatory, the Santa Cecilia Academy of Italy, and the Curtis Institute of the United States, Rota continued turning out symphonies, operas, and ballets throughout his long career, and also spent nearly four decades as director of the Bari Conservatory. His best-known operas include Torquemada (1942), The Florentine Straw Hat (1946), and Alladin and His Magic Lamp (1968), all bearing the influence of his many years as a film composer. Rota's first movie work was for Italy's "white telephone" romances and musicals of the 1930s. In an earthier vein, Rota composed for several of the neorealist directors of the postwar era. His longest professional association (25 years) was with director Federico Fellini, who once described the relationship thusly: "It is a harmonious collaboration that I haven't felt like changing. His music is a kind of drama that is very true for my story and images." Rota's better-known Fellini scores were for La Strada (1954), Il Bidone (1955), Nights of Cabiria (1956), and, perhaps best of all, La Dolce Vita (1961). One of Rota's many stage compositions was for a late-'50s ballet version of La Strada. When director Francis Ford Coppola wanted an authentic Italian "feel" for the music of the Godfather, he knew exactly who to contact: Nino Rota, who won his first-ever Oscar for the now-classic The Godfather score (alas, he was later disqualified because he'd lifted his themes from one of his own earlier film scores). Outside of Godfather, Nino Rota's most popular film composition was the love theme from Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968).

Trivia: A movie child star at age four, Briton Jack Cardiff acted opposite such visiting American talent as Will Rogers, Adolphe Menjou and Dorothy Gish. Outgrowing his cuteness at 14, Cardiff determined to stay in the film business, and to that end secured a lower-rung job as tea boy at Elstree's British International Studios. He was listed as "fourth assistant director" on the 1929 version of The Informer, though his responsibilities were more of the "gopher" variety. Fascinated with the mechanics of cinematography, Cardiff was camera operator on the first Technicolor film ever made in England, Wings of the Morning (1937). He continued turning out first-rate color and black-and-white camerawork for the Rank Organisation into the 1940s; his finest work in the three-strip Technicolor process can be seen in the indescribably gorgeous Powell/Pressburger productions Black Narcissus (1948) and The Red Shoes (1948). After serving as director of photography for such well-received 1950s films as John Huston's The African Queen (1951) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz' The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Cardiff felt himself sufficiently experienced to begin a directing career. Beginning modestly with Intent to Kill (1958), Cardiff directed such laudable efforts as Sons and Lovers (1960), The Lion (1963) and Dark of the Sun (1968); he also had the dubious honor of filming the first (and last) "Smell-o-vision" epic, Scent of Mystery. At age 55, Cardiff retired to Switzerland, but was coerced back to filmmaking by Kirk Douglas to direct Douglas' Scalawag (1972). Jack Cardiff retired for keeps after 1976's Ride a Wild Pony. He died in 2009 at the age of 94.