Trivia: The daughter of Norman Bel Geddes, the noted architect and theatrical set designer, Barbara Bel Geddes was a professional stage actress from age 18. She gained prominence as the ingenue in the original Broadway production of that summer-stock perennial Out of the Frying Pan. Other accomplishments in Barbara's years on stage included the New York critics circle award in 1945, and her performance as Maggie "The Cat" in the original 1955 production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Ms. Bel Geddes enjoyed a promising beginning in films in 1947's The Long Night (remake of Marcel Carne's Le Jour se Leve); one year later, she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Irene Dunne's daughter in I Remember Mama (1948). The House UnAmerican Activities Committee investigations effectively ended Ms. Bel Geddes' starring career in films. She returned before the cameras thanks to a few brave souls like Alfred Hitchcock, who cast Barbara in his famous "Lamb to the Slaughter" episode in his weekly TV anthology (as well as three additional installments), and in a strong supporting role in his theatrical feature Vertigo (1958). Beginning in 1978, Barbara Bel Geddes played Miss Ellie Ewing on the nigthttime TV serial Dallas, a role which earned her an Emmy award; she remained with Dallas until its cancellation in 1991, save for the 1984-85 season, when she temporarily retired due to heart surgery (the role of Miss Ellie was filled that year by Donna Reed).

Trivia: Born Harold Albershart, he played football and modeled before working as a stage actor in the late '20s. He debuted onscreen in Not Quite Decent (1929), playing the romantic lead; he had similar roles in 25 films made during the '30s at various studios. He began starring in serials in 1940. In 1944 he made his first starring Western, and for almost a decade he was a Western star, twice appearing (1951 and 1953) on the Top Ten Western Money-makers list and appearing in over 100 features and serials, often with his "wonder" horse Blackjack; he portrayed Red Ryder in eight films, then adopted the name "Rocky" Lane in 1947. After B-movie Westerns fizzled out in 1953 his career came to a virtual halt, and he had supporting roles in just three more films. In the '60s he was the dubbed voice of the talking horse on the TV sitcom Mr. Ed.

Trivia: A third-generation actor, Harold J. Stone made his stage debut at age six with his father, Jacob Hochstein, in the Yiddish-language play White Slaves. Stone had one line--"Mama!"--which he managed to forget on opening night. He didn't act again until after his graduation from New York University. After gleaning valuable experience in radio, he returned to the stage in George Jessel's production of Little Old New York at the 1939 World's Fair. Stone made his Broadway bow shortly afterward in Sidney Kingsley's The World We Make, and thereafter was seldom unemployed. In 1952, he began the first of many TV-series gigs when he replaced Philip Loeb as Jake on The Goldbergs; within a decade, he was averaging 20 TV appearances per year. In films from 1956, the harsh-voiced, authoritative Stone was most often seen as big-city detective (as in Hitchcock's The Wrong Man), generals, and gangsters (he was Frank Nitti in 1967's St. Valentine's Day Massacre). Usually billed at the top of the supporting cast, Stone enjoyed a rare above-the-title starring assignment when he played investigator John Kennedy in the 1959 syndicated TV series Grand Jury. His other weekly-series roles included Hamilton Greeley (a character based on New Yorker maven Harold Ross) in My World and Welcome to It (1969) and Sam Steinberg in Bridget Loves Bernie (1972). In the latter stages of his career, Harold J. Stone unexpectedly found himself a favorite of Jerry Lewis, co-starring in Lewis' The Big Mouth (1967), Which Way to the Front? (1970) and Hardly Working (1980).

Trivia: With his learned countenance and a correct Germanic manner that could be avuncular or threatening, Otto Waldis was one of the more familiar European character actors in Hollywood and on television in the years after World War II. Born Otto Brunn in Vienna, Austria, in 1901, he turned to acting in his twenties and made his screen debut in an uncredited role in Fritz Lang's M in 1931. He worked in one more movie that year -- Kinder Vor Gericht -- and then was unseen in films until after the war. Waldis' career resumed in 1947 in Hollywood under the aegis of his fellow European expatriate, director Max Ophüls, in the latter's The Exile. He was fully employed over the next decade, working constantly in television and movies, his performances covering a wide swath of entertainment. In 1948 alone, before he'd even made the jump to television, Waldis worked in popular, big studio productions like Henry Hathaway's Call Northside 777, Jacques Tourneur's Berlin Express, and independent films such as Ophüls' Letter From an Unknown Woman. He went on to play character roles in lighter fare, including the comedies I Was a Male War Bride and Love Happy (both 1949). With his wizened, bespectacled presence and correct Austrian bearing, Waldis was suited to roles ranging from valets to scientists; in The Whip Hand (1951), he played an unrepentant Nazi germ-warfare expert, while in Unknown World (1951) and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), he played more benign scientists. But in 5 Fingers (1952), he was a Pullman porter, and in the Adventures of Superman episode "The Whistling Bird," he was part of a criminal conspiracy. He would occasionally play much more offbeat parts, such as Patch-Eye in Prince Valiant (1954). He closed out the 1950s portraying a police officer in Edward Dmytryk's disastrous remake of The Blue Angel (1959). Waldis' activity slackened considerably in the '60s, a period in which he made his first appearances in German films since the '30s. He was back in Hollywood during the '70s and had just been signed to appear in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein at the time of his death from a heart attack in early 1974.

Trivia: A former physical culture model, handsome, blond Ken Clark (born Kenneth Donovan Clark) gave Richard Egan a run for his money in the beefcake sweepstakes at 20th Century Fox in the mid-'50s. But Clark, who also appeared on such television shows as The Jack Benny Program and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, was dropped by Fox after Love Me Tender (1956, with Egan and, in his screen debut, Elvis Presley). He then drifted into low-budget fare, including what proved to be his most memorable film, the Roger Corman thriller Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). After the failure of a proposed TV series -- Brock Callahan, based upon a character in William Campbell Gault's detective novels -- Clark went Europe, where he starred in such fare as Arizona Bill (1964) and as Agent 077 in two 1965 Italian spy movies. He resumed his Hollywood career in the '80s with such productions as Twice in a Lifetime (1985) and the mini-series Invasion (aka Robin Cook's Invasion) in 1997.

Trivia: American character actor William Joseph Keene is best remembered for playing the preacher on the Andy Griffith Show and re-creating the same role on Mayberry, RFD.