Trivia: Attractive, dark-haired leading man Edson Stroll was born in Chicago in the mid-'30s and arrived in Hollywood just in time for television to have eaten away at most of the opportunities he might otherwise have had. Possessed of a deep voice to go with his good looks, he appeared in Westerns and adventure shows such as Tombstone Territory and Sea Hunt, plus a pair of Twilight Zone episodes, "The Eye of the Beholder" and "The Trade-ins," and the Elvis Presley vehicle G.I. Blues, in an uncredited role. He finally started getting leading parts in films in 1961, but those were in a pair of Three Stooges features, the too-opulent-for-its-own-good Snow White and the Three Stooges (playing Prince Charming) and The Three Stooges in Orbit. From there, his being cast as Gunner's Mate Virgil Edwards in the sitcom McHale's Navy -- playing the resident lothario of Ernest Borgnine's motley crew -- must have seemed a step up. He was never in another feature film, though he has since turned up in episodes of Simon & Simon and Murder, She Wrote, among other series, and as of 2003, was a top voice artist in Hollywood.

Trivia: In British films from her teens, actress Patricia Medina came to Hollywood in the company of her first husband, actor Richard Greene, in 1946. Invited to film a screen test at MGM by studio president Louis B. Mayer, the raven-haired actress was signed to a contract -- then promptly ignored when Mayer left the studio on an extended business trip. Spending much of her MGM contract on loan-out, Medina appeared in 20th Century-Fox's Moss Rose (1948) and The Foxes of Harrow (1948), and at Universal in Francis (1950) and Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950). With the 1951 Columbia quickie The Magic Carpet, Medina established herself as the queen of the "B" costume pictures. One of her more worthwhile film assignments was as a femme fatale in Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin (1955). She was also an impressive wicked queen in Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961), and surprisingly adept at portraying a predatory lesbian in The Killing of Sister George (1968). On television, Medina guest-starred on such series as Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Man From UNCLE, usually as black-widow villainesses. Patricia Medina is the widow of actor Joseph Cotten, whom she married in 1960.

Trivia: After sampling such professions as race-car driving and boxing, Briton Guy Rolfe turned actor in his early twenties. Rolfe made his first stage appearance in 1936, and that same year appeared fleetingly in his first film, Knight Without Armour (1936). The goateed, saturnine Rolfe alternated with ease between heroes and villains; he also brought as much commitment to such important roles as Caiphas in The King of Kings (1961) and Prince Grigory in Taras Bulba (1962) as he did to such negligible projects as Mister Sardonicus and Snow White and the Three Stooges (both 1961). Late in life, Guy Rolfe became a favorite of the slasher-movie crowd by appearing as insane puppet manufacturer Andre Toulon in the two Puppetmaster horror opuses.

Trivia: In his few major film appearances, American actor Edgar Barrier exuded a professorial air, which he frequently augmented by sporting a well-groomed beard. Barrier's best acting opportunities came via his association with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, both in its Broadway incarnation and its radio spinoff. Welles used Barrier to good advantage in his film productions of Journey Into Fear and MacBeth; in the latter picture, Barrier plays the unfortunate Banquo, whose materialization as a ghost is one of the film's highlights. Outside of the Welles orbit, Barrier worked steadily on radio, notably in the spooky confections of Lights Out maven Arch Oboler. In 1945, Barrier starred in the radio detective weekly The Saint. Many of Edgar Barrier's film roles were brief, and often uncredited (War of the Worlds [1953], On the Double [1961] etc.); his most memorable film appearance was as the mad sportsman Count Zaroff, enthusiastic hunter of human beings, in A Game of Death (1945).

Trivia: Chances are when a doctor made a house call in a '40s movie, that doctor was portrayed by Sam Flint. Silver-haired, authoritative, and distinguished by an executive-style moustache, Flint entered films in the early '30s after a long stage career. Though his movie roles were usually confined to one or two scenes per picture, Flint was always instantly recognizable in his characterizations of businessmen, bankers, chairmen of the board, politicians, publishers, fathers of the bride--and, as mentioned before, doctors. In addition to his prolific feature-film work, Sam Flint was always welcome in short subjects, appearing in support of everyone from Our Gang to the Three Stooges.

Trivia: Born Edith Blossom MacDonald, Marie Blake started out as a child performer in vaudeville, singing with her younger sisters Jeanette and Elsie. In 1926, Marie married song-and-dance man Clarence Rock, forming an act that endured into the 1930s. When vaudeville died, Marie and Clarence went "legit" in straight drama. While playing a consumptive prostitute in the Los Angeles company of Dead End, Marie was spotted by an MGM talent agent. Since sister Jeanette was already an established MGM star, the studio decided to avoid accusations of nepotism by changing Marie's last name to Blake. Never a leading lady, Marie remained a reliable member of MGM's featured-player stable for nearly ten years. She played hospital receptionist Sally in 13 of the studio's Dr. Kildare entries, and also showed up in such short subjects as Our Gang's Alfalfa's Aunt (1940). Loaned out to RKO in 1944, she enjoyed one of her meatiest roles as Harold Peary's vis-a-vis in Gildersleeve's Ghost. From 1957 onward, Blake acted under her married name, Blossom Rock (her husband, who'd retired from show business to work as night manager of the Beverly Hilton, died in 1960). Marie Blake/Blossom Rock's last major assignment was as Grandmama in the TV series The Addams Family (1965-66).

Trivia: See "Three Stooges"

Trivia: The "middle stooge" in the various incarnations of the Three Stooges, Larry Fine was most recognizable across his four decades in show business by his eccentric frizzed out hair. He occupied the awkward and often ill-defined position of "middle man," his presence necessary to give a gag body and a boost of action, and to keep it going to its conclusion. As an actor in the group's sketches, he was most often characterized as the wide-eyed nebbish, often nearly as surprised as any by-stander character by the physical comedy (and mayhem) taking place. His most memorable catch-phrases included "Moe, I didn't mean it" (usually followed by a slap from Moe), and "I'm a victim of circumstance" (which was used by Curly on occasion as well).And "victim of circumstance" might define his whole entre to the world of performing. He was born Louis Feinberg in Philadelphia, the son of a jeweler. One day while at his father's shop, an accident took place that resulted in his forearm being badly burned with aqua regia, the acid used to test the purity of gold. The doctor who treated him warned his parents that he would have to do something to strengthen the arm or he would lose it. That led to his taking up the violin, an instrument at which he became so proficient that the family considered sending him to Europe for advanced study, a plan that fell apart with the advent of the First World War He began playing the violin in vaudeville under the name Larry Fine, developing a routine in which he would play from a nearly sitting, knees-bent position, kicking his legs alternately. In 1925, he crossed paths with Moe Howard, who was already working, in tandem with his brother Shemp Howard as part of a comedy act with Ted Healy. He became part of the act and remained when Shemp left, to be replaced by another Howard brother, Curly (aka Jerome). The trio eventually left Healy's employ and struck out on their own as the Three Stooges. Over the course of 25 years and 190 short films at Columbia Pictures, they became one of the longest running movie comedy acts (if not always the most respected or beloved, especially by women) in history. Larry Fine's contribution was a mix of violin virtuosity (on display at various times across their history, from Punch Drunks, Disorder In The Court, and "Violent Is The Word For Curly" in the early/middle 1930s to Sweet And Hot in the late 1950s) and zany cluelessness, mixed with an occasional out-of-left-field ad-lib. Larry usually played the wide-eyed middle-stooge, but occasionally the plots of the trio's movies would allow him some variation on this characterization. In "Sweet And Hot," he plays a small-town boy who has made good as a stage producer, and whose intervention sets the plot (focused on characters played by Muriel Landers and Joe Besser) in motion; and in Rockin' In The Rockies, a full-length feature, as a result of a plot that split Moe Howard's character off from the trio, Larry plays the aggressive "head stooge," and is surprisingly good at it. But he was best known as the clueless middle stooge, often referred to by Moe as "porcupine" because of his hair-style. He kept on with the Stooges into the 1960s, but was forced to retire as his health -- damaged by a series of strokes -- deteriorated later in the decade. He passed away in 1975. He was so familiar, that in 1980, five years after his death, his name still turned up in popular culture. In episode two of the sitcom Bosom Buddies, when women's hotel manager Lucille Benson finds Tom Hanks' Kip Wilson in a female tenant's room, she pulls him by the ear down the hall, causing him to exclaim, "Who am I -- Larry Fine?" And in 1983, SCTV presented "Give 'Em Hell, Larry," a short bit (done as a TV promo spot) in which Joe Flaherty portrays James Whitmore (who had previously enjoyed major success playing President Harry Truman in the one-man show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry") performing the one-man show as Larry Fine -- it was among the funniest 60 seconds of television that season.

Trivia: Joe DeRita, sometimes known as "Curly Joe DeRita," was the last of the six members of the Three Stooges to join that august comedic trio. Born Joseph Wardell in Philadelphia in 1909, he came from a show business family, his mother a dancer and his father a stage hand. DeRita accompanied his parents on tour from the age of seven, and he soon had a dancing act with his sister. He continued working as a single after she married and their parents had retired, and his comedic specialty involved lots of dancing, which would serve him in good stead when he later joined the Three Stooges. He worked in burlesque comedian from the early '20s until 1942, when he went out to California to headline a show. He got a film contract out of the trip, and in 1944 made his screen debut at Warner Bros. in The Doughgirls starring Ann Sheridan. In 1946, following appearances in two more comedy features, DeRita jumped to Columbia Pictures for a series of comedy shorts. He also entertained the troops during World War II, touring with Randolph Scott, a good friend with whom he did a comedy act. After World War II, DeRita returned to the stage and also began working on radio. In 1958, he made his return to movies in his only non-comedic acting role, playing the phony, murderous hangman in Henry King's Western chase-drama The Bravados. He also began showing up on television occasionally in comedy roles on series such as Bachelor Father. That same year, fate would take a hand in his career with the crisis affecting the Three Stooges -- the 30-year-old comedy team had reached an impasse with the decision by Joe Besser, the fat "third" stooge who'd come in to succeed Shemp Howard following the latter's death in 1955, to leave the act. Partners Moe Howard and Larry Fine needed a new partner with none in sight, and that was when Fine happened to go to Las Vegas and caught DeRita's act in a revue called Minsky's Follies of 1958. He was impressed and duly informed Moe Howard, who was similarly enthusiastic after meeting DeRita and testing him in performances at different nightclubs. In October of 1958, Joe DeRita -- christened "Curly Joe" because of his resemblance to the group's most famous member, Curly Howard -- made his debut as a member of the trio. DeRita may have missed the trio's busiest years, but he got in on their most profitable era, appearing as the comically goofy member of the trio in six full-length feature film in which they starred, as well as two more movies, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Four for Texas, in which the group had bit parts. Beyond that, however, were innumerable personal appearances, lots of merchandising, and television work by the trio, all of which was enough to keep DeRita busy and solvent for the rest of his life. With his goofy physiognomy and dancer's agility, DeRita was the sparkplug for much of the trio's physical comedy during this period, as well as some of its zaniest moments; he had an acrobat's grace, reminiscent of Curly Howard, but also a childlike innocence and good-nature that made younger audience members love him as well as laugh at him -- this was especially true in Have Rocket, Will Travel, the all-important 1959 feature that established the trio in full-length movies. He remained with the Three Stooges until Moe Howard's retirement in the mid-'70s. Such was his relationship with Howard that the oldest surviving Stooge, who controlled the group's name, broke precedent and gave DeRita permission to put together a new, very short-lived group of Three Stooges. That project didn't last, however, and DeRita retired in the 1970s. The youngest of the Three Stooges, he passed away after all of the others, in 1993.