Trivia: An "Okie" whose parents died when he was a child, William Boyd became a manual laborer before breaking into the movies in 1919 as an extra in Cecil B. De Mille's Why Change Your Wife? He soon became one of De Mille's favorite actors and was cast as an unassuming leading man in comedies and swashbuckling adventure films. Boyd continued his success in the sound era, but was hurt when a scandal hit another actor named "William Boyd" and the public confused the two. His career took off in 1935 when he began to appear in "Hopalong Cassidy" films (based on the Clarence E. Mulford stories of the Old West), beginning with Hop-A-Long Cassidy and eventually amounting to 66 episodes, the final twelve of which Boyd produced. Cassidy, dressed in black and mounted on his famous horse Topper, was a clean-living good guy who didn't smoke, drink, or swear, and hardly ever kissed the heroine; the character became an enormous hero to millions of American boys, and Boyd bought the rights to it. With the breakthrough of TV in the early 50s, Boyd began to reap huge profits from the character as the old shows found a new audience and by-products began to be produced and sold; he played Cassidy the rest of his life, even into genial, gray-haired old age. Ultimately, William Boyd Enterprises was sold for $8 million. Boyd was married four times and divorced three, each time to an actress: Ruth Miller, Elinor Fair, Dorothy Sebastian, and Grace Bradley.

Trivia: The son of a Scottish theatrical producer/manager, Andy Clyde joined his siblings David and Jean on stage in childhood. At the invitation of his close friend James Finlayson, Clyde came to the U.S. in the early 1920s to join producer Mack Sennett's roster of comedians. An expert at makeup, Clyde played a variety of supporting roles, from city slickers to unshaven bums; he was also co-starred with Billy Bevan for such classic Sennett 2-reelers as Wandering Willies (1926) and Ice Cold Cocos (1927). His best-known characterization was as a grizzled, paintbrush-mustached old codger. In this guise, Andy was Sennett's most popular star in the early talkie era, appearing in as many as 18 comedies per year. After parting company with Sennett in 1932, Clyde worked briefly at Educational Studios, then in 1934 signed on with Columbia's short subject unit, where he remained the next 22 years. With 79 shorts to his credit, Andy was second only to the Three Stooges as Columbia's premiere comedy attraction. He also appeared as "California," comic sidekick to western star William Boyd, in the popular Hopalong Cassidy westerns of the 1940s. Clyde filled out his busy schedule with character roles in such films as Million Dollar Legs (1932), Annie Oakley (1936) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). Barely pausing for breath, Clyde kept up his hectic pace on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing regularly on the weekly series The Real McCoys, Lassie and No Time for Sergeants. A real trouper, Andy Clyde was one of Hollywood's best-liked actors, never giving less than 100% to any role of any size.

Trivia: Hayden was born Pate Lucid. After working behind the scenes in films as a grip, sound recorder, film cutter, and assistant cameraman, he began acting in films in the mid '30s. Between 1937-41 he played Lucky Jenkins, William Boyd's saddle pal, in 27 Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. He starred in his own Western series in the '40s, and in 1943-44 he was voted one of the Top Ten Cowboy stars; he also costarred with James Ellison in numerous Westerns which he co-produced, and occasionally had leads in non-Westerns as well as one adventure serial. Beginning in the early '50s (when he retired from films) he produced and directed TV Westerns, including the series 26 Men and Judge Roy Bean, starring in the latter. He married and divorced actress Jan Clayton, who was his leading lady in some of the Hopalong Cassidy films. Later he married actress Lillian Porter.

Trivia: Born in Florida, Evelyn Brent was raised in New York by her widowed father. A teenaged model, Evelyn began appearing in films at the Popular Plays and Players studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After World War I, she travelled to England, where she worked in films and on stage. Back in the U.S. in 1922, Evelyn established herself in exotic, "dangerous" roles, notably in the late-silent efforts of director Josef Von Sternberg. Luckily, Evelyn's voice matched her screen image perfectly, and she had no trouble adjusting to talkies; unluckily, her earliest talkie starring efforts were box-office failures, and by the mid-1930s Evelyn was consigned to secondary roles. She took occasional sabbaticals from Hollywood to tour in vaudeville, rounding out her acting career in such Monogram cheapies as Bowery Champs (1944) and The Golden Eye (1948). Evelyn Brent worked as an actor's agent in the 1950s, then retired, periodically emerging from her Westwood Village home to appear as guest of honor at theatrical revivals of her best silent films.

Trivia: After a rough-and-tumble adolescence, Victor Jory attended high school in California, studying acting with Gilmor Brown at the Pasadena Playhouse. Jory's subsequent tenure at the University of California lasted all of one year before he was bitten by wanderlust; he joined the coast guard, where he distinguished himself as a champion in several contact sports. Sharp-featured, muscular, and possessed of a rich theatrical voice, Jory made his New York stage bow in 1929, and one year later co-starred in the original Broadway production of Berkeley Square. Inaugurating his film career with Renegades (1930), Jory spent the next five decades in roles ranging from romantic leads to black-hearted villains. Highlights in his screen career include a sinister but strangely beautiful performance as Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935); the vicious Injun Joe in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938); white-trash carpetbagger Jonas Wilkerson in Gone With the Wind (1939); Texas patriot William Travis in Man of Conquest (1939); the hissable, crippled patriarch in The Fugitive Kind (1960); the taciturn father of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962); and the ancient South American Indian chief in Papillon (1973). In 1940, Jory starred in the Columbia serial The Shadow (1940), essaying the dual role of the mind-clouding Shadow and his alter ego Lamont Cranston (with several disguise sequences along the way). The outspoken Jory was supremely confident of his talents, remarking on several occasions that he was "damn good" -- though he was tougher than any movie critic in assessing his lesser performances. He was also more than generous with young up-and-coming actors (except for self-involved "method" performers), and was a veritable fountain of Broadway and Hollywood anecdotes, some of which were actually true. An occasional theatrical director and playwright, Jory wrote the Broadway production Five Who Were Mad. On TV, Jory starred in the popular syndicated detective series Manhunt (1959-1960) and guested on dozens of other programs. Long married to actress Jean Innes, Victor Jory was the father of Jon Jory, who for many years was artistic director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Trivia: American actor Kenneth Harlan possessed the main prerequisite to succeed as a silent-movie leading man: he looked as though he'd just stepped out of an Arrow Collar ad. The nephew of rolypoly character actor Otis Harlan, Kenneth was on stage from the age of seven. He signed with D.W. Griffith's production company in the mid teens, though he was never actually directed by Griffith. Taking to the Roaring Twenties like a fish to water, Harlan spent as much time partying as he did acting; he also was quite a ladies' man, toting up seven marriages. Harlan's popularity was already on the wane when sound came in, so it didn't really matter that his voice had a surly edge to it which precluded future romantic leading roles. He remained in films as a supporting and bit actor in major features, and as a leading player in serials (Dick Tracy's G-Men [1937]) and short subjects (The Three Stooges' Movie Maniacs [1936]). It was clear that he couldn't muster much enthusiasm for the roles assigned him in the '30s; whenever appearing as a western villain, Harlan seldom bothered to dress the part, generally showing up on the set with a stetson hat and a modern business suit. Kenneth Harlan left acting in 1944 to become a reasonably successful actor's agent and restauranteur.

Trivia: American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as Robert Preston and Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were Rocketship X-M (1950), Red Planet Mars (1952), Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director Joe Dante's 1993 comedy Matinee: the military officer played by Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film Mant is named General Ankrum.

Trivia: The son of an itinerant sharecropper, Roy Barcroft harbored dreams of becoming an army officer, and to that end lied about his age to enter the service during World War I. Discouraged from pursuing a military career by his wartime experiences, Barcroft spent the 1920s in a succession of jobs, ranging from fireman to radio musician. In the 1930s he and his wife settled in California where he became a salesman. It was while appearing in an amateur theatrical production that Barcroft found his true calling in life. He eked out a living as a movie bit player until finally being signed to a long contract by Republic Pictures in 1943. For the next decade, Barcroft was Republic's Number One villain, growling and glowering at such cowboy stars as Don "Red" Barry, Wild Bill Elliot, Sunset Carson, Allan Lane, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. His best screen moments occurred in Republic's serial output; his favorite chapter-play roles were Captain Mephisto in Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945) and the invading Martian in The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). In the 1948 serial G-Men Never Forget, Barcroft played a dual role--an honest police commissioner and his less-than-honest look-alike--ending the film by shooting "himself." In contrast to his on-screen villainy, Barcroft was one of the nicest fellows on the Republic lot, well-liked and highly respected by everyone with whom he worked. When the "B"-picture market disappeared in the mid-1950s, Barcroft began accepting character roles in such A-pictures as Oklahoma (1955), The Way West (1967), Gaily Gaily (1969) and Monte Walsh (1970). Heavier and more jovial-looking than in his Republic heyday, Roy Barcroft also showed up in dozens of TV westerns, playing recurring roles on Walt Disney's Spin and Marty and the long-running CBS nighttimer Gunsmoke.

Trivia: A New Mexican of Native American extraction, actor Glenn Strange held down several rough-and-tumble jobs, from deputy sheriff to rodeo rider, before settling on a singing career. He made his radio bow on Los Angeles station KNX (the CBS-owned affiliate) as a member of the Arizona Wranglers singing group. Thanks to his husky physique and plug-ugly features, Strange had no trouble finding work as a stuntman/villain in western films and serials. He also displayed a flair for comedy as the sidekick to singing cowboy Dick Foran in a series of B-sagebrushers of the late '30s. During the war years, Strange became something of a bargain-basement Lon Chaney Jr., playing homicidal halfwits in a handful of horror pictures made at PRC and other low-budget studios. These appearances led to his being cast as the Frankenstein monster in the 1944 Universal programmer House of Frankenstein; he was coached in this role by the "creature" from the original 1931 Frankenstein, Boris Karloff. Given very little to do in House of Frankenstein and the 1945 sequel House of Dracula other than stalk around with arms outstretched at fadeout time, Strange brought none of the depth and pathos to the role that distinguished Karloff's appearances. Strange was shown to better advantage in his last appearance as The Monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) where he convincingly menaced the eternally frightened Lou Costello and even indulged in a couple of time-honored "scare" routines, while still remaining in character (Some scenes had to be reshot because Strange couldn't stop laughing at Costello's antics; towards the end of shooting, Strange broke his ankle and had to be replaced in a few shots by Lon Chaney Jr., who was costarring in the film as the Wolf Man). Though typecast as heavies in both movies and television -- he played the hissable Butch Cavendish in the Lone Ranger TV pilot -- Strange was well known throughout Hollywood as a genuine nice guy and solid family man. Glenn Strange's last engagement of note was his 11-year run (1962-73) as Sam, the Long Branch bartender on TV's Gunsmoke.

Trivia: Steely-eyed, mustachioed Edward Cassidy (or plain Ed Cassidy) bore a striking resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt, whom he played three times onscreen, including a brief appearance in the MGM musical Take Me out to the Ball Game (1949). But the McGill University graduate was more at home in B-Westerns and serials, of which he did an impressive total of 218. Cassidy could occasionally be found on the wrong side of the law, but more often than not, he would portray the heroine's (or hero's) beleaguered father, the stern sheriff, or a troubled rancher. Retiring after his 1957 appearance in the television series Circus Boy, the veteran supporting player died from undisclosed causes at the Motion Picture House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Trivia: The quintessential B-movie lawman, granite-faced, mustachioed Jack Rockwell began turning up in low-budget oaters in the late 1920s and went on to amass an impressive array of film credits that included 225 Westerns and two dozen serials, working mostly for Republic Pictures and Columbia although he was never contracted by either. The Jack Rockwell that most fans remember is a stolid, unsmiling sheriff or marshal but he could also pop up as ranchers, homesteaders, stage drivers, and the occasional henchman, always recognizable even if unbilled and awarded only a couple of words of dialogue. Born John Trowbridge, Rockwell was the brother of another busy Hollywood supporting player, Charles Trowbridge (1982-1967).

Trivia: In films after 1915, hatchet-faced Robert Kortman claimed to have served in the U.S. Cavalry prior to going on-stage. With producer Thomas H. Ince in the mid-1910s, the menacing actor often supported the era's great Western icon William S. Hart (he was one of the rowdy townsmen in 1916's Hell's Hinges) and was equally busy in the '20s. Kortman, however, came into his own in sound serials, especially at Mascot and its successor Republic Pictures, where his menacing visage turned up everywhere, from playing Magua in Last of the Mohicans (1932) to portraying One-Eye Chapin in Adventures of Red Ryder (1940). His roles grew increasingly smaller, and Kortman continued to play mostly villains until at least 1951. He died of cancer.

Trivia: A master at abrasive and intrusive old-codger roles, George Cleveland enjoyed a 58-year career in vaudeville, stage, movies and television. Spending his earliest professional days in his native Canada, Cleveland barnstormed around the U.S. with his own stock company until settling in New York. He came to Hollywood in 1934 for an assignment in the Noah Beery Sr. programmer Mystery Liner and remained in Tinseltown for the next two decades. At first appearing in small roles in serials and westerns, Cleveland's screen time increased when he signed with RKO in the early 1940s. In the Fibber McGee and Molly feature Here We Go Again, Cleveland essayed the "Old Timer" role played on radio by Bill Thompson (who also showed up in Here We Go Again in another of his radio characterizations, Wallace Wimple). Other choice '40s assignments for Cleveland included the role of Paul Muni's faithful butler in Angel on My Shoulder (1946), and featured parts in two Abbott and Costello comedies, 1946's Little Giant (as Costello's uncle) and 1947's Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (as a corrupt western judge). George Cleveland appeared on TV as a befuddled postman on the forgettable 1952 sitcom The Hank McCune Show; a far more memorable assignment was his three-year gig as Gramps on the Lassie series, which kept Cleveland busy until his sudden death in the spring of 1957.