Trivia: Born Barbara Berman, Barrie was a supporting actress onscreen from 1956, when she appeared in the James Dean vehicle Giant. She won Cannes Film Fetival Best Actress Award for her star role in One Potato, Two Potato. Barrie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in Breaking Away.

Trivia: Widely acclaimed as one of the great beauties of the stage, British actress Gladys Cooper had the added advantage of great talent. Daughter of a London magazine editor, she made her stage bow at age 17 in a Colchester production of Bluebell in Fairyland; at 19, she was a member of the "Gaiety Girls," a famous and famously attractive chorus-girl line. Graduating to leading roles, Cooper was particularly popular with young stage door johnnies; during World War I, she was the British troops' most popular "pin-up." Switching from light comedy to deep drama in the 1920s, Cooper retained her following, even when leaving England for extended American appearances after her 1934 Broadway debut in The Shining Hour. She made subsequent New York appearances in Shakespearean roles, thereafter achieving nationwide fame with her many Hollywood film appearances (she'd first acted before the cameras way back in 1911 in a British one-reeler, Eleventh Commandment). Now past fifty but still strikingly attractive, Cooper was often cast as aristocratic ladies whose sharp-tongued cattiness was couched in feigned politeness; her film parts ranged from Bette Davis' overbearing mother in Now Voyager (1941) to the hidden murderess in a Universal "B" horror, The Black Cat (1941). Returning to the London stage in 1947, Cooper remained there for several years before returning to Broadway in The Chalk Garden(1955). New York was again regaled by her in 1962 when she played Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India (the role which won Peggy Ashcroft an Oscar when Passage was filmed over 20 years later). The years 1960-1964 were particularly busy for Cooper on TV and in films; she won her third Oscar nomination for her role as Prof. Henry Higgins' mother in My Fair Lady (1964), starred as the matriarch of a family of genteel swindlers on the TV series The Rogues (1964), and even found time to co-star with a very young Robert Redford on a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone. Made a Dame Commander of the O.B.E. in 1967, Cooper had no plans for slowing down in her eighties, even though she was appalled by the "let it all hang out" theatre offerings of the era. Cooper was planning to tour in a Canadian revival of Chalk Garden in 1971 when she contracted pneumonia and died in November of that year.

Trivia: Born William Anderson, this brawny, blond second lead had the looks of a Viking god. He worked as a band vocalist and trombone player, then gained a small amount of stage experience before debuting onscreen in a bit part (as a corpse) in Wanderer of the Wasteland (1935). Billed by Paramount as Glenn Erickson, he began his screen career as a leading man in Westerns. Because of his Nordic looks he was renamed Leif Erikson, which he later changed to Erickson. He played intelligent but unexciting second leads and supporting parts in many films. Erickson took four years off to serve in World War II and was twice wounded. He made few films after 1965 and retired from the screen after 1977. Also working on Broadway and in TV plays, he played the patriarch Big John Cannon in the TV series High Chaparral (1967-1971). From 1934 to 1942, he was married to actress Frances Farmer, with whom he co-starred in Ride a Crooked Mile (1938); later, he was briefly married to actress Margaret Hayes (aka Dana Dale).

Trivia: By the time she first appeared as Grandma Walton in 1971, American actress Ellen Corby had been playing elderly characters for nearly thirty years--and she herself was still only in her fifties. The daughter of Danish immigrants, Ellen Hansen was born in Wisconsin and raised in Philadelphia; she moved to Hollywood in 1933 after winning several amateur talent shows. Her starring career consisted of tiny parts in low-budget Poverty Row quickies; to make a living, Ellen became a script girl (the production person responsible for maintaining a film's continuity for the benefit of the film editor), working first at RKO and then at Hal Roach studios, where she met and married cameraman Francis Corby. The marriage didn't last, though Ellen retained the last name of Corby professionally. While still a script girl, Ellen began studying at the Actors Lab, then in 1944 decided to return to acting full time. She played several movie bit roles, mostly as servants, neurotics, and busybodies, before earning an Oscar nomination for the role of Trina the maid in I Remember Mama (1948). Her career fluctuated between bits and supporting parts until 1971, when she was cast as Grandma Walton in the CBS movie special The Homecoming. This one-shot evolved into the dramatic series The Waltons in 1972, with Ms. Corby continuing as Grandma. The role earned Ellen a "Best Supporting Actress" Emmy award in 1973, and she remained with the series until suffering a debilitating stroke in 1976. After a year's recuperation, Ellen returned to The Waltons, valiantly carrying on until the series' 1980 cancellation, despite the severe speech and movement restrictions imposed by her illness. Happily, Ellen Corby endured, and was back as Grandma in the Waltons reunion special of the early '90s.

Trivia: British actor Robert Harris is best known for his ability to bring Shakespearean roles to life. Though most of his career was spent on stage, Harris also appeared in many feature films and occasionally on television. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the London-born Harris took his first professional bow at the Westminister Theater following a 1932 production of J.M. Barrie's The Will. Harris made his Broadway debut in Noel Coward's Easy Virtue. Harris's film credits include The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957), The Alamo (1960), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943).

Trivia: American actress Carmen Phillips played leads in many MGM films during the '50s and '60s.

Trivia: American actress Alice Backes has played supporting roles on stage, screen, radio, and primarily television (where she has played over 100 roles) since 1946.

Trivia: Trained as a musician, Virginia Gregg drew her first professional paychecks with the Pasadena Symphony. Gregg was sidetracked into radio in the 1940s, playing acting roles in an abundance of important California-based network programs. Her extensive radio credits include Gunsmoke, Suspense, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, and Richard Diamond. Her first film was 1946's Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who last cast Gregg as the voice of "Mother" in his classic chiller Psycho (1960). Virginia Gregg was most closely associated with the output of actor/producer/director Jack Webb: she co-starred in both of Webb's film versions of his popular radio and TV series Dragnet, and guest-starred in virtually every other episode of the 1967-70 Dragnet TV revival.