Trivia: A former accountant for the Gulf Oil Company, Dana Andrews made his stage debut with the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse in 1935. Signed to a joint film contract by Sam Goldwyn and 20th Century Fox in 1940, Andrews bided his time in supporting roles until the wartime shortage of leading men promoted him to stardom. His matter-of-fact, dead pan acting style was perfectly suited to such roles as the innocent lynching victim in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and laconic city detective Mark McPherson in Laura (1944). For reasons unknown, Andrews often found himself cast as aviators: he was the downed bomber pilot in The Purple Heart (1944), the ex-flyboy who has trouble adjusting to civilian life in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and the foredoomed airliner skipper in Zero Hour (1957), The Crowded Sky (1960), and Airport 1975 (1974). His limited acting range proved a drawback in the 1950s, and by the next decade he was largely confined to character roles, albeit good ones. From 1963 to 1965, Andrews was president of the Screen Actors Guild, where among other things he bemoaned Hollywood's obsession with nudity and sordidness (little suspecting that the worst was yet to come!). An ongoing drinking problem seriously curtailed his capability to perform, and on a couple of occasions nearly cost him his life on the highway; in 1972, he went public with his alcoholism in a series of well-distributed public service announcements, designed to encourage other chronic drinkers to seek professional help. In addition to his film work, Andrews also starred or co-starred in several TV series (Bright Promise, American Girls, and Falcon Crest) and essayed such TV-movie roles as General George C. Marshall in Ike (1979). Dana Andrews made his final screen appearance in Peter Bogdanovich's Saint Jack.

Trivia: The son of an Irish whiskey distiller, Brian Donlevy was 10 months old when his family moved to Wisconsin. At 15, Donlevy ran away from home, hoping to join General Pershing's purge against Mexico's Pancho Villa. His tenure below the border was brief, and within a few months he was enrolled in military school. While training to be a pilot at the U.S. Naval Academy, Donlevy developed an interest in amateur theatricals. He spent much of the early 1920s living by his wits in New York, scouting about for acting jobs and attempting to sell his poetry and other writings. He posed for at least one Arrow Collar ad and did bit and extra work in several New York-based films, then received his first break with a good supporting role in the 1924 Broadway hit What Price Glory?. Several more Broadway plays followed, then in 1935 Donlevy decided to try his luck in Hollywood. A frustrated Donlevy was prepared to head back to Manhattan when, at the last minute, he was cast as a villain in Sam Goldwyn's Barbary Coast. In 1936 he was signed to a 20th Century-Fox contract, alternating between "B"-picture heroes and "A"-picture heavies for the next few years. The most notable of his bad-guy roles from this period was the cruel but courageous Sgt. Markoff in Beau Geste (1939); reportedly, Donlevy deliberately behaved atrociously off-camera as well as on, so that his co-workers would come to genuinely despise his character. From 1940 through 1946, Donlevy was most closely associated with Paramount Pictures, delivering first-rate performances in such films as The Great McGinty (1940), Wake Island (1942), The Glass Key (1942) and The Virginian (1946). His own favorite role was that of the good-hearted, raffish con-artist in Universal's Nightmare (1942). In 1950, Donlevy took time off from films to star and co-produce the syndicated radio (and later TV) series Dangerous Assignment. He went on to introduce the character of Dr. Quatermass in two well-received British science fiction films, The Creeping Unknown (1955) and Enemy From Space (1957). Brian Donlevy left behind an impressive enough filmic legacy to put the lie to his own assessment of his talents: "I think I stink."

Trivia: Energetic red-haired leading lady Susan Hayward (born Edythe Marrener) specialized in portraying gutsy women who rebound from adversity. She began working as a photographer's model while still in high school, and when open auditions were held in 1937 for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, she arrived in Hollywood with scores of other actresses. Unlike most of the others, however, she managed to become a contract player. Her roles were initially discouragingly small, although she gradually work her way up to stardom. For her role in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) -- the first in which she played a strong-willed, courageous woman -- Hayward received the first of her five Oscar nominations; the others were for performances in My Foolish Heart (1950), With a Song in My Heart (1952), I'll Cry Tomorrow (1956), and I Want to Live (1958), winning for the latter. Although the actress maintained her star status through the late '50s, the early '60s saw her in several unmemorable tearjerkers, and although she formally retired from films in 1964, that retirement was not a permanent one - as she later returned to the screen for a few more roles including parts in a couple of telemovies and one theatrical feature during the early 1970s. Her ten-year marriage to actor Jess Barker ended in 1954 with a bitter child-custody battle, and she died in 1975 after a two-year struggle with a brain tumor, one of several cast and crew members from 1956's The Conqueror to be stricken with cancer later in life.

Trivia: American actor Ward Bond was a football player at the University of Southern California when, together with teammate and lifelong chum John Wayne, he was hired for extra work in the silent film Salute (1928), directed by John Ford. Both Bond and Wayne continued in films, but it was Wayne who ascended to stardom, while Bond would have to be content with bit roles and character parts throughout the 1930s. Mostly playing traffic cops, bus drivers and western heavies, Bond began getting better breaks after a showy role as the murderous Cass in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Ford cast Bond in important roles all through the 1940s, usually contriving to include at least one scene per picture in which the camera would favor Bond's rather sizable posterior; it was an "inside" joke which delighted everyone on the set but Bond. A starring role in Ford's Wagonmaster (1950) led, somewhat indirectly, to Bond's most lasting professional achievement: His continuing part as trailmaster Seth Adams on the extremely popular NBC TV western, Wagon Train. No longer supporting anyone, Bond exerted considerable creative control over the series from its 1957 debut onward, even seeing to it that his old mentor John Ford would direct one episode in which John Wayne had a bit role, billed under his real name, Marion Michael Morrison. Finally achieving the wide popularity that had eluded him during his screen career, Bond stayed with Wagon Train for three years, during which time he became as famous for his offscreen clashes with his supporting cast and his ultra-conservative politics as he was for his acting. Wagon Train was still NBC's Number One series when, in November of 1960, Bond unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and died while taking a shower.

Trivia: Blonde, radiantly beautiful British actress Patricia Roc had only a few months of stage experience when she was cast in her first film, Taras Bulba (1938). Her popularity peaked in the mid-'40s, thanks to such escapist film fare as Madonna of the Seven Moons (1944) and Jassy (1947). During this decade, hardly a week went by without Roc's face adorning the cover of at least one of the leading British fan magazines; she was frequently voted "best actress" by movie exhibitors, more a reflection of her box-office pull than her talent. Active in films in England and the Continent until 1960, Patricia Roc also starred in two American productions, Canyon Passage (1946) and The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949).

Trivia: Andy Devine was born in Kingman, Arizona, where his father ran a hotel. During his youth, Devine was a self-confessed hellraiser, and stories of his rowdy antics are still part of Kingman folklore (though they've undoubtedly improved in the telling). His trademarked ratchety voice was the result of a childhood accident, when he fell while carrying a stick in his mouth, resulting in permanent vocal-chord injuries. A star football player at Santa Clara University, Andy decided to break into movies in 1926; he was almost immediately cast in Universal's two-reel series The Collegians. When talkies came, Devine was convinced that his voice was unsuitable for the microphone. He reportedly became so despondent at one point that he attempted to commit suicide by asphyxiation, only to discover that his landlady had turned off the gas! Devine needn't have worried; his voice became his greatest asset, and from 1930 until his retirement, he was very much in demand for bucolic comedy roles. In 1937 he became a regular on Jack Benny's radio program, his howl of "Hiya, Buck!" becoming a national catchphrase. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he was a popular comedy sidekick in the western films of Roy Rogers. Later film assignments included his atypical performance as a corrupt Kansas City cop in Jack Webb's Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Most baby boomers retain fond memories of Devine's TV appearances as Jingles Jones on the long-running western series Wild Bill Hickock, and as host of the Saturday morning kid's program Andy's Gang. In his later years, Devine cut down his performing activities, preferring to stay on his Van Nuys (California) ranch with his wife and children. Made a very wealthy man thanks to real estate investments, Andy Devine abandoned moviemaking in 1970, resurfacing only to provide voices for a brace of Disney cartoon features; he remained active in civic and charitable affairs, at one juncture serving as honorary mayor of Van Nuys.

Trivia: The daughter of a cellist with the New York Symphony, Rose Hobart's first brush with the arts was a model for several Woodstock-based artists like George Bellows. Splitting her time with her divorced parents, Hobart was educated in boarding schools all over the country. At 15, she began her stage career as a performer in the Chautaqua tent-show circuit. During the 1920s, she appeared on stage with such notables as Eva Le Gallienne, Noel Coward and Ina Claire; in 1929, she replaced Katharine Hepburn in the first Broadway staging of Death Takes a Holiday. She came to films in 1930, once again as a replacement, this time for Janet Gaynor in Frank Borzage's production of Liliom. Many of her leading lady roles were decorative but colorless (e.g. the "good" girl in 1931's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde); she became a much more fascinating screen presence when she began portraying spiteful other women, castrating wives and subtle villainesses. After 1949's Bride of Vengeance, Rose Hobart was involuntarily retired from films, the victim of the Hollywood blacklist; she spent the rest of her professional life as an acting counselor, and in 1995 -- at the age of 88 -- published her memoirs, A Steady Digression to a Fixed Point.

Trivia: Having been born at Stratford-on-Avon, Halliwell Hobbes would have been remiss if he hadn't given acting a try. On stage from 1898, the imposing, sturdily built Hobbes appeared opposite such immortals as Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry. His first U.S. appearance was in the 1923 Broadway staging of Molnar's The Swan. He made the first of his over 150 films in 1929. Hobbes was most often seen as a diplomatic butler, in films ranging from Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) to the East Side Kids' Million Dollar Kid (1943) (in which he was billed as Holliwell Hobbs!). Other notable screen appearances in Halliwell Hobbes' resume include the role of General Carew in the 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and as the "fugitive" iceman, Mr. DePinna, in You Can't Take It With You (1938).

Trivia: Working from the ground up in stock companies, Lloyd Bridges was a member of the progressive Actors Lab company in the mid 1930s. He made his Broadway debut toward the end of that decade in a production of Othello. Signed by Columbia in 1941, Bridges appeared in everything the studio assigned him, from Three Stooges 2-reel comedies to such "A" pictures as Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Talk of the Town (1942), and Sahara (1943). He began freelancing in 1945, accepting the prescient role of a deep-sea diver in 1948's 16 Fathoms Deep, among other films. The most memorable of his '50s assignments was the leading role in the cult science-fiction programmer Rocketship X-M (1950) and the part of the look-out-for-number-one deputy in High Noon (1952).Thanks to his earlier involvement in the Actors Lab and his admission at the HUAC hearings that he'd once flirted with communism, Bridges was "graylisted" during the mid-'50s, able to find work only in lesser pictures and TV shows. He was rescued by producer Ivan Tors, who cast Bridges as diver-for-hire Mike Nelson in the TV series Sea Hunt. Filmed between 1957 and 1961, Sea Hunt was the most popular syndicated program of the era, turning Bridges into a millionaire. Alas, neither of his subsequent series of the '60s, The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962) and The Loner (1965), survived their first seasons. Undaunted, Bridges continued working into the '90s, displaying a hitherto untapped flair for zany comedy in such films as Airplane! (1980), Joe vs. the Volcano (1990), and the two Hot Shots films. Bridges was the father of actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges. A committed environmentalist, he was involved in several organizations including the American Oceans Campaign and Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group. Bridges died of natural causes on March 10, 1998. Shortly before his passing, he had completed work on two films, Jane Austen's Mafia and Meeting Daddy; in the latter film, Bridges co-starred with his eldest son Beau.

Trivia: A protégé of musical comedy star Beatrice Lillie in his native England, actor Stanley Ridges made his London stage debut in O' Boy. He went on to star as a romantic lead in several Broadway plays, and was cast in a similar capacity in his first film, the New York-lensed Crime of Passion (1934). Thereafter, the grey-templed Ridges excelled in dignified, underplayed, and distinctly non-British character roles. His best film assignments included the schizophrenic professor-turned-criminal in Black Friday (1940) (it would be unfair to say that he "stole" the picture from official star Boris Karloff, but he did have the best part), and the treacherous Professor Seletzky in Ernst Lubitsch's matchless black comedy To Be or Not to Be (1942). One of Stanley Ridges' last movie performances was as the kindly mentor of young doctor Sidney Poitier in the race-relations melodrama No Way Out (1950).

Trivia: Stage actress Dorothy Peterson made her screen debut in 1930's Mothers Cry, a lachrymose domestic drama that required the 29-year-old actress to age nearly three decades in the course of the film. Mothers Cry instantly typecast Peterson in careworn maternal roles, which she continued to essay for the rest of her career. Most of her subsequent film assignments were supporting roles like Mrs. Hawkins in Treasure Island (1934); often as not she received no screen credit, not even for her touching cameo in 1943's Air Force. In 1942, she briefly replaced Olive Blakeney as Mrs. Aldrich in the comedy series entry Henry Aldrich for President. Her last screen appearance was as Shirley Temple's mother in That Hagen Girl (1947). Dorothy Peterson remained active on the New York TV and theatrical scene until the early '60s.

Trivia: Born Dorothy Fay Hammerton, she appeared as a dancer on the British stage by the age of nine, and later turned to acting; eventually she worked with California's Pasadena Playhouse. Not until her early 40s did she enter films, working in Hollywood and debuting onscreen in 1936; at first she was billed as "Gaby Fay," which she soon changed to "Fay Holden." For the next two-plus decades she played supporting roles in numerous films, frequently cast as a warm, devoted mother. She is perhaps best remebered as Mickey Rooney's wise and loving mother in the popular Andy Hardy series. She retired from the screen after 1958. She was married to actor David Clyde, the brother of actor Andy Clyde.

Trivia: Actor/singer/composer Hoagy Carmichael was taught piano by his mother in his native Bloomington, Indiana. Carmichael worked his way through the University of Indiana law school by performing with his own three-piece band. His first published song, written while he was in college, was "Riverboard Shuffle." Even while trying to set up a law practice in Florida, Carmichael's composition "Riverboat Shuffle" was being turned into a modest hit by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Finally giving in to the inevitable, Carmichael began making records as an orchestra leader; among his musicians were the Dorsey brothers, Benny Goodman, and Carmichael's personal hero and closest friend, jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke. In 1931, Hoagy and lyricist Michael Parish cooked up a little something called "Stardust," which soon became a standard and made Carmichael a millionaire. He followed this with a steady stream of easygoing hit tunes, including "Up the Lazy River," "Lazybones" and "Rocking Chair." His first movie work occurred in 1936's Anything Goes; one year later he played an unbilled cameo in Topper, for which he wrote an original number, "Old Man Moon." His first "dramatic" role was in To Have and Have Not (1944), followed by laid-back character parts in such films as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Night Song (1947), Young Man with a Horn (1951) (an a clef version of Bix Beiderbecke's life story) and Belles on Their Toes (1952). His bony, angular on-screen presence made quite an impression on author Ian Fleming, who in his first James Bond novel Casino Royale described Bond as closely resembling Hoagy. In 1946, Carmichael received an Academy Award nomination for his song "Old Buttermilk Sky" (from the 1946 western Canyon Passage), and in 1952 won an Oscar for "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (from Here Comes the Groom). Carmichael's TV work included a regular role on the TV western Laramie (1959-63), and a pen-and-ink "guest" appearance on a 1961 episode of the cartoon series The Flintstones, for which he contributed a song titled (what else?) "Yabba Dabba Doo." Though he wrote his last hits in the 1950s, Hoagy Carmichael lived in comfortable retirement thanks to his song royalties and wise real estate investments.

Trivia: Onslow Stevens was the son of character actor Housley Stevenson who, in turn, was the son of a prominent British artist. Stevens' own career in the arts began in 1928, when he was featured in the Pasadena Playhouse production Under the Roof. To believe his publicity, Stevens was "accidentally" hired for film work in 1932 when he agreed to help an actress friend get through her screen test. At first a leading man, Stevens soon established himself in character roles, often cast as saturnine villains -- or, as in the case of films like House of Dracula (1945), he played weak-willed men with the capacity for villainy. From 1952 through 1955, Stevens played the kindly Mr. Fisher on the religious TV dramatic series This Is the Life. Onslow Stevens spent his last years in a nursing home, where, according to his wife, he was persecuted and brutalized by his fellow patients; he died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 75.

Trivia: Possessor of one of the meanest faces in the movies, American actor Ray Teal spent much of his film career heading lynch mobs, recruiting for hate organizations and decimating Indians. Naturally, anyone this nasty in films would have to conversely be a pleasant, affable fellow in real life, and so it was with Teal. Working his way through college as a saxophone player, Teal became a bandleader upon graduation, remaining in the musical world until 1936. In 1938, Teal was hired to act in the low-budget Western Jamboree, and though he played a variety of bit parts as cops, taxi drivers and mashers, he seemed more at home in Westerns. Teal found it hard to shake his bigoted badman image even in A-pictures; as one of the American jurists in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he is the only member of Spencer Tracy's staff that feels that sympathy should be afforded Nazi war criminals -- and the only one on the staff who openly dislikes American liberals. A more benign role came Teal's way on the '60s TV series Bonanza, where he played the sometimes ineffectual but basically decent Sheriff Coffee. Ray Teal retired from films shortly after going through his standard redneck paces in The Liberation of LB Jones (1970).

Trivia: Blessed with matinee idol looks, an athletic physique, and a generous supply of talent, Francis J. McDonald entered films in 1912 after brief stage experience. A popular leading man of the teen years, McDonald segued into villainous characterizations in the 1920s, notably as the title character in Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926). He remained busy during the talkie era, primarily as a mustachioed heavy in "B" westerns and a featured player in the films of Cecil B. DeMille. Francis J. McDonald was at one time the husband of the "ever popular" Mae Busch.

Trivia: With his penetrating eyes, trademark pencil-thin mustache, and stocky build, Missouri-born Karl Hackett appeared in scores of low-budget Westerns from 1935 to 1948, usually playing characters with untrustworthy names like Wolf Hines (Colorado Kid [1937]), Slaughter (Utah Trail [1938]), or Three-Fingers Rogel (Where the Buffalo Roam [1938]). Once in a while he wore a badge (The Lion's Den [1936], Wild Horse Rustler [1943]), but was still highly suspicious. On his few excursions away from the range, Hackett played thugs in the 1939 serials The Green Hornet and its sequel The Green Hornet Strikes Again (1940) and was Councillor Krenko in Buck Rogers (1940).

Trivia: In films from 1921 through 1952, white-maned American character actor Erville Alderson was most closely associated with D.W. Griffith in his early movie years. Alderson played major roles in Griffith's The White Rose (1932), America (1924) and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924). In D.W.'s Sally of the Sawdust (1926), Alderson performed double duty, playing the merciless Judge Foster in front of the cameras and serving as assistant director behind the scenes. During the talkie era, the actor showed up in "old codger" roles as sheriffs, court clerks and newspaper editors. You might remember Erville Alderson as the crooked handwriting expert (he was crooked, not the handwriting) in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and as Jefferson Davis in the Errol Flynn starrer Santa Fe Trail (1940).

Trivia: Moon-faced American character actor Ralph Peters was active in films from 1937 to 1956. At first, Peters showed up in Westerns, usually cast as a bartender. He then moved on to contemporary films, usually cast as a bartender. During the 1940s, Ralph Peters could be seen in scores of Runyon-esque gangster roles like Asthma Anderson in Ball of Fire (1941) and Baby Face Peterson in My Kingdom for a Cook (1943).

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: According to his official studio bio, Italian-born stage actor Joseph Mack (born Magnatti) appeared in Edwin S. Porter's groundbreaking Western The Great Train Robbery (1903), a claim all but impossible to verify. The heavyset character actor, however, can be found near the bottom of hundreds of cast lists in a screen career that lasted until the year of his death.

Trivia: A former boxer from Italy and the second husband of notorious socialite/actress Evelyn Nesbit, Jack Clifford (born Jack Montani) appeared opposite his wife in Threads of Destiny (1914). Much busier in the talkie era, Clifford played innumerable bit roles from 1931 to 1949, including the nasty dogcatcher in Jackie Cooper's Skippy (1931), Uncle Tom in Shirley Temple's Dimples (1936), and assorted lawmen in B-Westerns. Clifford's final role was that of a henchman in several episodes of television's The Lone Ranger series.

Trivia: Burly American utility actor Gene Roth appeared in nearly 200 films, beginning around 1946. He was initially billed under his given name of Gene Stutenroth, shortening his surname in 1949. Most often cast as a hulking villain, Roth growled and glowered through many a Western and serial (he was the principal heavy in the 1951 chapter play Captain Video). He also showed up in several Columbia two-reel comedies, starting with the Shemp Howard/Tom Kennedy film Society Mugs (1946). A frequent foil of the Three Stooges, Columbia's top short-subject stars, Roth extended his association with the comedy trio into the 1962 feature The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. A ubiquitous TV actor, Roth was frequently cast as a judge or bailiff on the Perry Mason series and essayed two roles in the 1961 Twilight Zone classic "Shadow Play." An active participant on the nostalgia-convention circuit of the 1970s, Gene Roth died in 1976 when he was struck down by a speeding automobile.

Trivia: Though he started in films around 1924, beefy American character actor Richard Alexander was regarded in studio press releases as a comparative newcomer when he was cast in the 1930 antiwar classic All Quiet on the Western Front. Alexander played Westhus, who early in the film orders novice soldier Lew Ayres to get out of his bunk. After this promising assignment, Alexander was soon consigned to bit parts, usually in roles calling for dumb brute strength; for example, Alexander is the bouncer at the violent Geneva "peace conference" in Wheeler and Woolsey's Diplomaniacs (33). Though familiar for his dozens of villainous roles in westerns, Alexander is best-known for his kindly interpretation of the noble Prince Barin in the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s. Towards the end of his career, Richard Alexander became active with the executive board of the Screen Actors Guild, representing Hollywood extras.

Trivia: Native American actor Chief Yowlachie (pronounced "Yo-latchee") spent many years on stage as an opera singer, performing under his given name of Daniel Simmons. His film career began in the mid-1920s with feathered-headdress bits in such productions as Ella Cinders (1925). Though well into middle age when he started showing up on screen, he was youthful-looking enough to play fierce Indian warriors and renegades well into the 1930s. His larger roles include the nominal villain in Ken Maynard's Red Raiders (1928), Billy Jackrabbit in the 1930 version of Girl of the Golden West (1930) and Geronimo in Son of Geronimo. After years of portraying noble, taciturn characters with names like Running Deer, Yellow Feather, Long Arrow, Little Horse and Black Eagle, Chief Yowlachie let his hair down in the role of "Chief Hi-Octane" in the Bowery Boys' Bowery Buckaroos (1948).

Trivia: Burly character actor Peter Whitney was under contract to Warner Bros. from 1941 to 1945. Whitney spent much of that time on loan-out, playing a variety of moronic thugs and henchmen. His best-ever screen role (or roles) was as identical twin hillbilly murderers Mert and Bert Fleagle in the 1944 screwball classic Murder He Says. He enjoyed a rare romantic lead in the 1946 horror film The Brute Man (the title character was played by Rondo Hatton). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Whitney supported himself by portraying some of TV's most scurrilous and homicidal backwoods villains. Peter Whitney essayed a more comical characterization as rustic free-loader Lafe Crick in several first-season episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.