Trivia: Steely jawed, hard bodied, terse in speech, Charlton Heston was an American man's man, an epic unto himself. While he played modern men, he was at his best when portraying larger-than-life figures from world history, preferably with his shirt off. He was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1924 and originally trained in the classics in Northwestern University's drama program, gaining early experience playing the lead in a 1941 filmed school production of Peer Gynt. He also performed on the radio, and then went on to serve in the Air Force for three years during WWII. Afterwards, he went to work as a model in New York, where he met his wife, fellow model Lydia Clarke, to whom he remained married until his death. Later the two operated a theater in Asheville, North Carolina where Heston honed his acting skills. He made his Broadway debut in Katharine Cornell's 1947 production of Anthony and Cleopatra and subsequently went on to be a staple of the highly-regarded New York-based Studio One live television anthology where he played such classic characters as Heathcliff, Julius Caesar and Petruchio. The show made Heston a star. He made his Hollywood film debut in William Dieterle's film noir Dark City playing opposite Lizabeth Scott. Even though she was more established in Hollywood, it was Heston who received top billing. He went on to appear as a white man raised in Indian culture in The Savage (1952) and then as a snob who snubs a country girl in King Vidor's Ruby Gentry (1952). His big break came when Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the bitter circus manager Brad Braden in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). In subsequent films, Heston began developing his persona of an unflinching hero with a piercing blue-eyed stare and unbending, self-righteous Middle American ethics. Heston's heroes could be violent and cruel, but only when absolutely necessary. He began a long stint of playing historical characters with his portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Pony Express and then Andrew Jackson in The President's Lady (both 1953). Heston's star burned at its brightest when DeMille cast him as the stern Moses in the lavish The Ten Commandments (1956). From there, Heston went on to headline numerous spectaculars which provided him the opportunity to play every one from John the Baptist to Michelangelo to El Cid to General "Chinese" Gordon. In 1959, Heston won an Academy Award for the title role in William Wyler's Ben Hur. By the mid-1960s, the reign of the epic film passed and Heston began appearing in westerns (Will Penny) and epic war dramas (Midway). He also did sci-fi films, the most famous of which were the campy satire Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1970) and the cult favorite Soylent Green (1973). The '70s brought Heston into a new kind of epic, the disaster film, and he appeared in three, notably Airport 1975. From the late '80s though the '90s, Heston has returned to television, appearing in series, miniseries and made-for TV movies. He also appeared in such films as Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996) and 1998's Armageddon (as the narrator).Outside of his film work, Heston served six terms as the president of the Screen Actors Guild and also chaired the American Film Institute. Active in such charities as The Will Rogers Institute, he was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1977 Oscar ceremony. Known as a conservative Republican and proud member of the National Rifle Association, Heston worked closely with his long-time colleague and friend President Ronald Reagan as the leader of the president's task force on arts and the humanities. He made two of his final film appearances in the disastrous Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton sex farce Town and Country (2001) (in a parodistic role, as a shotgun wielding arsonist who burns Beatty's cabin to the ground) and as himself in Michael Moore's documentary Bowling For Columbine (2002) (in which he stormed out of an interview after Moore pummeled him with gun-related questions). Heston died in the spring of 2008 at age 84; although the cause of death was officially undisclosed, he had revealed several years prior that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.

Trivia: Born into the Czech ghetto in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Lizabeth Scott attended the Alvienne School of Drama in New York and began her career in stock. Scott's first break came when she was cast as Tallulah Bankhead's understudy in Broadway's The Skin of Our Teeth (1942); meanwhile, she also worked as a fashion model. Starmaker Hal Wallis spotted her, and she did well in a screen test, leading to her film debut in 1945. She went on to play alluring leads in a number of films throughout the next decade, hyped by her studio as another Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake. There was speculation that Scott would marry Wallis, but this never occurred, and he dropped her option in 1957, effectively ending her movie career. In 1955 she sued Confidential magazine over its allegations concerning her sexual preferences. She appeared in her last film, Pulp (1972), with Michael Caine. Scott died in 2015, at age 92.

Trivia: Educated at Goucher College and at Johns Hopkins and Columbia University, American actress Mildred Dunnock was introduced to films in her stage role as Miss Ronsberry in The Corn Is Green (1945). Her next major assignment was as Willy Loman's long-suffering wife Linda in Arthur Miller's 1948 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Death of a Salesman, a part that she also essayed in the 1952 film version. Dunnock preferred stage work and college lecture tours to the movies, but returned before the cameras occasionally in such films as 1952's Viva Zapata (directed by the director of Salesman, Elia Kazan), Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). One of Dunnock's most spectacular film appearances was her unbilled role in the gangster melodrama Kiss of Death (1948); she was the wheelchair-bound old lady pushed down a flight of stairs by giggling psychopath Richard Widmark!

Trivia: Edmonton-born Dianne Foster relocated to England at an early age. By age 13, Foster was an established model and film actress (The Quiet Woman, Isn't Life Wonderful?) She moved to the U.S. in 1954, where she was signed by Columbia Pictures. Her best-remembered credits under the Columbia banner include John Ford's The Last Hurrah (1958) and Gideon's Day (1959). On loan to Kirk Douglas' Bryna Productions, she co-starred with Douglas in The Kentuckian (1955). Dianne Foster retired from show business in the early 1960s, after wrapping up her Columbia obligations with Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963).

Trivia: Armed with extensive radio and stage credits, Arthur Franz made his first film appearance in 1948's Jungle Patrol. Franz has been prominently featured in a number of "fantastic" films: he played one-third of the title role in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), and had leads in Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953), and The Atomic Submarine (1960). He has also thrived in military characterizations in films like Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Submarine Command (1951), and The Caine Mutiny (1954). His finest screen portrayal was as the psychopathic "hero" of Stanley Kramer's The Sniper (1952). Arthur Franz flourished as a character actor into the 1980s, retiring from films after appearing in That Championship Season (1982).

Trivia: A descendant of one of California's pioneer families, American actor Ray Collins' interest in the theatre came naturally. His father was drama critic of the Sacramento Bee. Taking to the stage at age 14, Collins moved to British Columbia, where he briefly headed his own stock company, then went on to Broadway. An established theatre and radio performer by the mid-1930s, Collins began a rewarding association with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. He played the "world's last living radio announcer" in Welles' legendary War of the Worlds broadcast of 1938, then moved to Hollywood with the Mercury troupe in 1939. Collins made his film debut as Boss Jim Gettys in Welles' film classic Citizen Kane (1940). After the Mercury disbanded in the early 1940s, Collins kept busy as a film and stage character actor, usually playing gruff business executives. Collins is most fondly remembered by TV fans of the mid-1950s for his continuing role as the intrepid Lt. Tragg on the weekly series Perry Mason.

Trivia: At age 12 she began performing in stage productions. She was a major Broadway star in the '10s and '20s and appeared in a dozen or so silent films, most of them released in 1917. She moved to Hollywood in her early 40s, playing a wide variety of major character roles and some leads between 1930-57; she tended to portray aging harlots and fallen women, and could be raucous, vicious, heartbreaking, or commanding in her portrayals. For her work in Primrose Path (1940) she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, and was again nominated in that category for Torch Song (1953). She married and divorced Willard Mack, an actor, playwright, and screenwriter.

Trivia: Moderately successful as a leading man in British films from 1931 through 1934, Lester Matthews moved to the U.S. in the company of his then-wife, actress Anne Grey. Though Grey faded from view after a handful of Hollywood pictures (Break of Hearts [35] and Bonnie Scotland [35] among them), Matthews remained in Tinseltown until his retirement in 1968. At first, his roles were substantial, notably his romantic-lead stints in the Karloff/Lugosi nightmare-inducer The Raven (35) and the thoughtful sci-fier Werewolf of London (35), which starred Henry Hull in the title role. Thereafter, Matthews was consigned to supporting roles, often as British travel agents, bankers, solicitors, company clerks and military officers. Active in films, radio and television throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Lester Matthews was last seen in the Julie Andrews musical Star (1968).

Trivia: Few of the performers in director John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941) were as qualified to appear in the film as Rhys Williams. Born in Wales and intimately familiar from childhood with that region's various coal-mining communities, the balding, pug-nosed Williams was brought to Hollywood to work as technical director and dialect coach for Ford's film. The director was so impressed by Williams that he cast the actor in the important role of Welsh prize fighter Dai Bando. Accruing further acting experience in summer stock, Rhys Williams became a full-time Hollywood character player, appearing in such films as Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Inspector General (1949), and Our Man Flint (1966).

Trivia: American character actor Frank Sully worked as a vaudeville and Broadway comedian before drifting into movies in 1935. Often typecast as musclebound, doltish characters, the curly-haired, lantern-jawed Sully was seen in a steady stream of hillbilly, GI and deputy sheriff roles throughout the '40s and '50s. He was prominently cast as Noah in John Ford's memorable drama The Grapes of Wrath (1940), one of the few times he essayed a non-comic role. During the '50s, Sully accepted a number of uncredited roles in such westerns as Silver Lode (1954) and was a member in good standing of the Columbia Pictures 2-reel "stock company," appearing as tough waiters, murderous crooks and jealous boyfriends in several short comedies, including those of the Three Stooges (Fling in the Ring, A Merry Mix-Up etc.) Frank Sully's last screen appearance was a bit as a bartender in Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl (1968).

Trivia: Ann Robinson was one of the few movie actresses who could lay claim to being a true "child of Hollywood;" she was born in the heart of Tinseltown, at Hollywood Hospital. After some experience in school plays, Robinson turned professional in the early 1950s. She was signed by Paramount, where she was second-billed in her very first film, the sci-fi classic War of the Worlds. Upon completing this assignment in mid-1952, Robinson left for Warner Bros., where she co-starred with Jack Webb in the 1953 film version of Webb's popular Dragnet TV series. Towards the end of 1953, Paramount finally released War of the Worlds; hiring Robinson to make a promotional tour for the film, the studio was compelled to pay her a far higher salary than she'd received as an actress. She then inked a contract with independent producer Eddie Small, who featured her in a brace of westerns and loaned her services to television producers. Her small-screen credits include a recurring role on the Saturday-morning adventure series Fury and a guest stint as "Suzerain of Planet Herculon" in Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Robinson retired from films in 1959 when she married a bullfighter and moved to Mexico. After raising her family, Ann Robinson returned to acting, co-starring in Midnight Movie Massacre (1988) and reprising her War of the Worlds role of Sylvia van Buren in the spoofish direct-to-video Attack of the B-Movie Monsters.