Trivia: Truly a single-note man, American actor Arthur Lake spent most of his adult life portraying only one screen role: Dagwood Bumstead. The son of circus acrobats and the brother of character actress Florence Lake (famed for her ongoing portrayal of Mrs. Edgar Kennedy in nearly 100 two-reel comedies), Lake began his professional career as one of the "Fox Kiddies" in a series of silent-film takeoffs of famous fairy tales, featuring casts comprised completely of children. Lake graduated to a succession of collegiate and office boy roles in feature films, gaining a degree of stardom in the late 1920s and early 1930s after appearing in the title role of Harold Teen (1928). The actor's high-pitched voice and Mama's boy features were amusing for a while, but audiences became bored with Lake by 1934, and the actor found himself shunted to supporting parts and bits. An amusing role as a flustered bellboy in Topper (1937) rejuvenated his career, but Lake's comeback wouldn't be complete until Columbia Pictures cast him as woebegone suburbanite Dagwood Bumstead in Blondie (1938), based on Chic Young's internationally popular comic strip. The strip's characterizations were altered to fit the personalities of Lake and his costar Penny Singleton; in the films, Dagwood was the dope and Blondie the brains of the family, precisely the opposite of the comic-strip situation. A few scattered "straight" performances aside, Lake was nothing other than Dagwood in films from 1938 through 1950; he not only starred in 28 "Blondie" pictures, but repeated the role on radio and starred in an unsuccessful 1954 TV series based on the property. Not at all the blithering idiot that he played on screen, Lake was a sagacious businessman in real life, his wise investments increasing the fortune he'd already accumulated by playing Dagwood -- and also bolstering the moneys inherited by his socialite wife, Patricia Van Cleve. Though he often remarked that it would be wonderful to play Dagwood forever, Lake parted company with the role in the mid-1950s; when another Blondie TV series appeared briefly in 1968, it starred Will Hutchins. Appearing publicly only rarely in the 1960s and 1970s (usually in summer theatres and revivals of 1920s musicals like No, No Nanette), Lake retired before his 70th birthday, a far more prosperous and secure man than his alter ego Dagwood Bumstead -- who's still being fired regularly by boss Mr. Dithers in the funny papers - ever would be.

Trivia: The daughter of a journalist and the niece of former U.S. Postmaster General James Farley, Penny Singleton spent a good portion of her childhood singing "illustrated" songs at Philadelphia movie theaters. After briefly attending Columbia University, Singleton -- billed under her given name, Dorothy McNulty -- made her Broadway debut as the energy-charged soubrette in the popular 1927 musical Good News. She repeated this vivacious performance in the 1930 film version, then settled into "other woman" and gold digger parts, the best of which was in 1936's After the Thin Man. Upon her marriage to dentist Lawrence Singleton, Singleton changed her professional name. When Shirley Deane was unable to play the title role in Columbia's 1938 filmization of Chic Young's comic strip Blondie, Singleton dyed her hair blonde to qualify for the part. She ended up starring in 28 Blondie B-pictures between 1928 and 1950, with Arthur Lake co-starring as hubby Dagwood Bumstead. During this period, she married for the second time to Blondie producer Robert Sparks. When Blondie folded, Singleton returned to the nightclub singing and dancing work that she'd been doing in the mid-'30s. As an officer in the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA), Singleton lobbied for better and more equitable treatment of professional chorus dancers, a stance that earned her several powerful enemies in management (and the Mob). Inactive as a performer for several years, Singleton returned to acting in the early '60s, playing a supporting part in The Best Man (1964) and providing the voice of Jane Jetson on the prime-time animated TV series The Jetsons. Penny Singleton later revived her Jane Jetson characterization for several theatrical and made-for-TV animated features, and also appeared in a cameo role on the weekly Angela Lansbury series Murder She Wrote.

Trivia: A child model from age two, Larry Simms was discovered by a Hollywood talent scout when he appeared in a 1937 Saturday Evening Post advertisement. The three-year-old, curly haired Simms made his screen debut as the infant son of Jimmy Stewart and Rose Stradner in MGM's The Last Gangster. He was then hired by Columbia to play Baby Dumpling in the 1938 cinemadaptation of Chic Young's comic strip Blondie. Simms remained with the Blondie series until its cessation in 1950, billed onscreen as Baby Dumpling until his character name was formalized as Alexander Bumstead. During this period, he also made a few "outside" appearances in films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Madame Bovary (1949). Though his career as a child star was a pleasant experience (and, at 750 dollars per week, a lucrative one), Simms wasn't all that interested in acting; the technical end of moviemaking was more fascinating to him. In 1950, he quit show business to join the Navy, then studied aeronautical engineering at California Polytech. Larry Simms was then hired as an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where he remained until his retirement.

Trivia: Actress Ruth Terry was 17 when she inked her first movie contract at 20th Century Fox. After a few nondescript roles at Fox and Columbia, Terry settled at Republic Studios, where she thrived as an all-purpose leading lady, playing roles both friendly and unsympathetic. Her more famous Republic credits include The Affairs of Jimmy Valentine (1943), My Buddy (1944), Steppin' in Society (1945), and The Cheaters (1945). Ruth Terry retired in the mid-'40s, making a brief comeback in 1962.

Trivia: The idol of millions South of the Border, singer/guitarist Tito Guizar began his Hollywood film career in 1935. At first, Guizar was usually cast as himself (as in The Big Broadcast of 1938) or variations of himself. During the WW II years, when the Latin American market was vital to Hollywood's survival, Guizar's screen activity was at its peak. He showed up as a suave bandleader in Blondie Goes Latin (1942), played the lead in Brazil (1944), and appeared opposite Roy Rogers as a bullfighter in The Gay Ranchero (1948). Guizar then returned to South America, where he remained an enormously popular radio, TV and recording star well into the 1980s. Tito Guizar's final film performance was a dramatic role in the Mexican Time and the Touch (1962).

Trivia: Once Canadian-born actor Jonathan Hale became well known for his portrayal of well-to-do businessmen, he was fond of telling the story of how he'd almost been a man of wealth in real life--except for an improvident financial decision by his father. A minor diplomat before he turned to acting, Hale began appearing in minor film roles in 1934, showing up fleetingly in such well-remembered films as the Karloff/Lugosi film The Raven (1935), the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera (1935) and the first version of A Star is Born (1937). In 1938, Hale was cast as construction executive J. C. Dithers in Blondie, the first of 28 "B"-pictures based on Chic Young's popular comic strip. Though taller and more distinguished-looking than the gnomelike Dithers of the comics, Hale became instantly synonymous with the role, continuing to portray the character until 1946's Blondie's Lucky Day (his voice was heard in the final film of the series, Beware of Blondie, though that film's on-camera Dithers was Edward Earle). During this same period, Hale also appeared regularly as Irish-brogued Inspector Fernack in RKO's "The Saint" series. After 1946, Hale alternated between supporting roles and bits, frequently unbilled (e.g. Angel on My Shoulder, Call Northside 777 and Son of Paleface); he had a pivotal role as Robert Walker's hated father in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951), though the part was confined to a smidgen of dialogue and a single long-shot. Hale worked prolifically in television in the '50s, with substantial guest roles in such series as Disneyland and The Adventures of Superman. In 1966, after a long illness, Jonathan Hale committed suicide at the age of 75, just months before the TV release of the Blondie films that had won him prominence in the '30s and '40s.

Trivia: Child actor Danny Mummert made his screen debut in 1938 as pesky neighbor kid Alvin Fuddle in the first Blondie picture. Mummert literally grew up before the audience's eyes in the Blondie series, essaying Alvin in virtually all the series' entries including the last, 1950's Beware of Blondie. He made a few side trips to other films in the 1940s, notably as Donna Reed's younger brother in the 1946 Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life. After the cessation of the Blondie series, Danny Mummert showed up in a handful of teenaged roles, retiring from films after his appearance in 1952's Member of the Wedding.

Trivia: Irving Bacon entered films at the Keystone Studios in 1913, where his athletic prowess and Ichabod Crane-like features came in handy for the Keystone brand of broad slapstick. He appeared in over 200 films during the silent and sound era, often playing mailmen, soda jerks and rustics. In The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) it is Irving, as a flustered jury foreman, who delivers the film's punchline. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Irving played the recurring role of Mr. Crumb in Columbia's Blondie series; he's the poor postman who is forever being knocked down by the late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead, each collision accompanied by a cascade of mail flying through the air. Irving Bacon kept his hand in throughout the 1950s, appearing in a sizeable number of TV situation comedies.

Trivia: Surprisingly, Universal Studios' last B-Western star and television's legendary Sky King had begun his professional career as a concert violinist at the age of 12, later graduating from Chicago's American Conservatory of Music. In fact, Grant made his screen debut playing the violin in I Dream Too Much (1935), a musical starring French opera diva Lily Pons. Often billing himself Robert Stanton, the former child prodigy began appearing in Westerns starring The Three Mesqueteers and George O'Brien before finding a niche as a pleasant crooner in more mainstream fare ranging from Blondie Goes Latin (1941) as an orchestra leader to Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943). Following a stint in the army, Grant finally found a berth at Universal in 1944, replacing Rod Cameron as the star of the studio's low-budget Westerns. As always, the Universal oaters enjoyed better production values than their poverty row rivals but Grant proved fairly nondescript and was often overshadowed by his comic sidekick Fuzzy Knight, and on occasion, even his leading lady. According to Jane Adams, who appeared in two of his Universal Westerns, Grant was a "very nice, down-to-earth man. Not temperamental at all." A bit of temperament may perhaps have benefited the series, which was summarily discontinued in 1946 when the studio was reorganized into the new Universal-International. Grant continued to appear in the odd non-Western role, then in 1949 he signed with Monogram/Allied Artists for a series of Northwest melodramas vaguely based on the works of pulp fiction writer James Oliver Curwood. Slickly enough produced, these "Northwesterns" had fur smugglers substituting for cattle rustlers and so on, but Grant was once again overshadowed by a co-star, this time a beautiful white malamute named Chinook. The Monogram series continued on and off until 1954, but by then Grant had become famous as television's Sky King. Trading in his horse for an airplane, Grant starred in a total of 130 episodes of this durable Western-cum-Aviation adventure, which lasted from 1951 to 1953 but would continue in re-runs well into the 1960s. Grant pretty much retired with the demise of his two series and later functioned as public relations director at Florida's Sea World. A welcome guest at B-Western revivals, Kirby Grant was tragically killed in a car accident near Titusville, FL. Reportedly, he had been on his way to view the launching of a space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center.

Trivia: Actor/director Joseph King's screen credits extend as far back as 1913. As an actor, the stocky, take-charge King hit his stride at Warner Bros. in 1936, spending the next several seasons playing doctors, lawyers, police commissioners and newspaper editors. At Universal, he was briefly seen as the ill-fated Sheriff Keogh in Destry Rides Again (1939). Joseph King made his last film in 1942.

Trivia: The brother of country/western singer Roy Acuff, actor Eddie Acuff drifted to Hollywood in the early 1930s, where he almost immediately secured day-player work at Warner Bros. studios. From his 1934 debut in Here Comes the Navy onward, Acuff showed up in film after film as reporters, photographers, delivery men, sailors, shop clerks, and the occasional western comical sidekick. Acuff's most memorable acting stint occured after actor Irving Bacon left Columbia's Blondie series. From 1946 through 1949, Eddie Acuff made nine Blondie appearances as the hapless postman who was forever being knocked down by the eternally late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead (Arthur Lake).