Trivia: Vivacious American actress Barbara Britton was active in student theatricals at Long Beach City College before signing with Paramount Pictures in 1941. Many of her film appearances were enjoyable but unmemorable, with a few exceptions like her comic turn as Ronald Colman's sister in Champagne for Caesar (1950). Barbara's chief claim to fame was her two-year tenure as inquisitive amateur sleuth Pam North on the Thin Man-like TV series Mr. and Mrs. North. Thereafter, Barbara was best known for her long tenure as commercial spokeswoman for Revlon Products. Perhaps the most intriguing assignment of Barbara Britton's post-North years was the 1959 TV sitcom pilot Head of the Family, in which she created the role of Laura Petrie--a role later essayed by Mary Tyler Moore when Head of the Family was retooled as The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Trivia: Anyone born with a name like Worster Van Eps probably had no choice but to become a top tennis pro. But when he entered films in 1937, Van Eps altered his name to the more hero-friendly Willard Parker. A leading man at Columbia in the 1940s, Parker, a handsome hunk in the Sonny Tufts mold (though a far better actor), never quite reached the summit. His best-remembered performance was as the bombastic, clueless "other man" in the 1953 musical Kiss Me Kate. From 1955 through 1957, Parker built up a kiddie fan following as co-star (with Harry Lauter) of the TV series Tales of the Texas Rangers. Retiring from acting in the late '60s to become a thriving real estate agent, Willard Parker was married from 1951 to actress Virginia Field, with whom he co-starred in The Earth Dies Screaming (1966) -- the last film for both.

Trivia: One didn't become a stage and movie leading man with a monicker like Milton LeRoy in the early '30s, so the Brooklyn-born, Cornell-educated LeRoy was rechristened Phillip Reed. He made his earliest appearances as a utility actor in films like Penthouse (1933), then came into his own with several starring parts in the late '30s and early '40s. Mostly he was cast opposite big names like Dorothy Lamour and Bette Davis, who occasionally preferred to work with handsome but unremarkable hunks who wouldn't detract from their star performances. When not outshone by his female costars, Reed was often seen as a good-looking but mean-spirited type, who lost the girl to the hero or who found himself the principal murder suspect. Better served in his stage work, Reed still managed a few truly memorable film appearances: he was the stalwart Uncas in the 1936 version of Last of the Mohicans (1936), and was superb as a loudmouthed house guest who just won't leave in Weekend for Three (1941). Phillip Reed's final film was the Elvis Presley vehicle Harum Scarum (1965), after which the 57 year old actor launched a lucrative career in business.

Trivia: Barton MacLane may have been born on Christmas Day, but there was precious little chance that he'd ever be cast as Santa Claus. A star athlete at Wesleyan University, MacLane won his first movie role in the 1924 silent Quarterback as the result of his football skills. This single incident sparked his interest in performing, which he pursued on a serious basis at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He performed in stock, on Broadway, and in bit parts in films lensed at Paramount's Astoria studios (notably the Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts). In 1932, MacLane wrote a slice-of-life play titled Rendezvous, selling it to influential Broadway producer Arthur Hopkins on the proviso, that he, MacLane, be given the lead. The play was a success, leading to a lucrative film contract from Warner Bros. Most effectively cast as a swaggering villain ("who never spoke when shouting would do," as historian William K. Everson observed), MacLane played good-guy leads in several Warner "B"s: he played the conclusion-jumping lieutenant Steve McBride in the studio's Torchy Blaine series. Free-lancing in the 1940s, MacLane made an unfortunate return to writing in 1941, penning the screenplay for the PRC quickie Man of Courage; it is reported that audiences erupted in shrieks of laughter when MacLane, reciting his own lines, recalled his childhood days on the farm by declaring "Boy! Did I love ta plow!" He was better served in a brace of John Huston-directed films, beating up Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and being beaten up by Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. MacLane's TV-series work included a starring stint on The Outlaws (1960-62) and the recurring role of General Peterson on I Dream of Jeannie (1965-69). Having come into the world on a holiday, Barton MacLane died on New Years' Day, 1969; he was survived by his wife, actress Charlotte Wynters.

Trivia: His European/Scandinavia heritage notwithstanding, actor Martin Garralaga was most effectively cast in Latin American roles. Many of his screen appearances were uncredited, but in 1944 he was awarded co-starring status in a series of Cisco Kid westerns produced at Monogram. Duncan Renaldo starred as Cisco, with Garralaga as comic sidekick Pancho. In 1946, Monogram producer Scott R. Dunlap realigned the Cisco Kid series; Renaldo remained in the lead, but now Garralaga's character name changed from picture to picture, and sometimes he showed up as the villain. Eventually Garralaga was replaced altogether by Leo Carrillo, who revived the Pancho character. Outside of his many westerns, Martin Garralaga could be seen in many wartime films with foreign settings; he shows up as a headwaiter in the 1942 classic Casablanca.

Trivia: New Jersey-born Victor Kilian drove a laundry truck before joining a New England repertory company when he was 18. His first break on Broadway came with the original 1924 production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms. After making a few scattered appearance in East Coast-produced films, Kilian launched his Hollywood career in 1936. Often cast as a brutish villain (notably "Pap" in the 1939 version of Huckleberry Finn) Kilian duked it out with some of moviedom's most famous leading men; while participating in a fight scene with John Wayne in 1942's Reap the Wild Wind, Kilian suffered an injury that resulted in the loss of an eye. Victimized by the Blacklist in the 1950s, Kilian returned to TV and film work in the 1970s. Fans of the TV serial satire Mary Hartman Mary Hartman will have a hard time forgetting Kilian as Mary's grandpa, a.k.a. "The Fernwood Flasher." In March of 1979, Victor Kilian was murdered in his apartment by intruders, a scant few days after a similar incident which culminated in the death of another veteran character actor, Charles Wagenheim.

Trivia: The living image of the man on the Monopoly cards, Thurston Hall began his six-decade acting career on the New England stock-company circuit. Forming his own troupe, Hall toured America, Africa and New Zealand. On Broadway, he was starred in such venerable productions as Ben-Hur and Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. In films from 1915, Hall appeared in dozens of silents, notably the 1917 Theda Bara version of Cleopatra, in which he played Mark Antony. After 15 years on Broadway, Hall returned to films in 1935, spending the next 20 years portraying many a fatuous businessman, pompous politician, dyspeptic judge or crooked "ward heeler." From 1953 through 1955, Hall was seen as the choleric bank president Mr. Schuyler on the TV sitcom Topper. Towards the end of his life, a thinner, goateed Thurston Hall appeared in several TV commercials as the Kentucky-colonel spokesman for a leading chicken pot pie manufacturer.

Trivia: American actor Pepe Hern played character roles in about 50 films and was frequently on television. He was typically cast as a Spaniard or Latino. His brother Tom Hernandez is also an actor.

Trivia: South African-born actress Cecil Weston came to America with her husband, cinematographer/producer Fred Balshofer, in the early teens. Weston's best-known talkie-film role was Mrs. Thatcher in the 1931 version of Huckleberry Finn. She went on to play scores of minor roles as mothers, dowagers, and nurses. After a few more character parts at 20th Century Fox, Cecil Weston retired in 1962.

Trivia: Born John Myrtland LaVarre, John Merton has appeared on Broadway as "Myrtland LaVarre" in the Theatre Guild's hit production of Karel Capek's R.U.R. (1922). More theater work followed and he was spotted in the background of several silent films, including as a fireman in W.C. Fields' It's the Old Army Game (1926). But the handsome, slightly frosty-looking actor found his rightful place in B-Westerns and serials. He would appear in a total of 170 films, turning up as an assortment of blackguards. Usually a bit more sophisticated than the average "dog heavy," Merton could nevertheless rough it with the best of 'em, a talent he passed on to his equally tough-looking son, Lane Bradford. Father and son appeared in six films together, including 1947's Jack Armstrong. (Another son played supporting roles on television in the '50s under the moniker of Robert La Varre.) Retiring after a bit in Cecil B. DeMille's gigantic The Ten Commandments (1956), Merton died of a heart attack at the age of 58.

Trivia: A veteran stunt man, Hugh Hooker also did the occasional bit part, such as a bellboy in Dead Reckoning (1947) and an outlaw in The Bandit Queen (1950). The following year, he starred in a failed television pilot which was eventually released theatrically as The Adventures of the Texas Kid (1954). Conceived by veteran B-Western entrepreneur Robert Emmett Tansey, the lackluster oater also featured silent screen stars Monte Blue and James Kirkwood. Hooker stuck mostly to stunt work thereafter and also produced a couple of B-movies: The Littlest Hobo (1958) and The Devil's Partner (1962). He was the father of stunt performers Buddy Joe Hooker and Billy Hank Hooker.

Trivia: A WWI veteran who later studied law at the University of Texas, tough-looking Jack Ingram began his long show business career as a minstrel player and later reportedly toured with Mae West. He began turning up playing scruffy henchmen and assorted other B-Western villains in the mid-'30s and was later the featured heavy in Columbia serials. Ingram would go on to appear in a total of 200 Westerns and approximately 50 serials in a career that later included appearances on such television programs as The Cisco Kid and The Lone Ranger. Many of his later films and almost all his television Westerns, including the Roy Rogers and Gene Autry shows, were filmed on Ingram's own 200-acre ranch on Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking Woodland Hills, which he had purchased from Charles Chaplin in 1944 and which remains a wilderness today.

Trivia: Mikel Conrad began his screen career in 1948 as a Universal-International contract player. In 1949, Conrad embarked upon an extended working vacation to Alaska, which he parlayed into a short starring career. In 1950, he produced, wrote, and appeared in The Flying Saucer, an Alaska-based piece of speculative fiction. In hopes of drumming up business, Conrad sent out a publicity release which intimated that his film contained actual footage of a flying saucer (it didn't). Mikel Conrad dropped out of sight shortly after appearing in another sci-fi cheapie, Untamed Women. Mikel Conrad should not be confused with Michael Conrad of Hill Street Blues fame.

Trivia: Michigan-born Jack Perrin moved to California with his family in the early 1900s. Perrin launched his film career in 1914 as a bit player and extra, working his way up to leading roles by 1917. After serving on a submarine in WWI, he resumed his movie work, attaining stardom in the 1919 Universal serial Lion Man. Handsome and athletic, Perrin became a popular Western star in the 1920s. Throughout the silent era, he worked for most of the major Western units (Universal, Pathe, First National) and not a few of the minor ones (Rayart, Mascot). In 1929, he was starred in the first all-talkie B-Western, Overland Bound. Perrin spent the early '30s laboring away for such Poverty Row concerns as Aywon and Big Four, where, despite shabby production values and substandard sound recording, he and his "wonder horse" Starlight remained Saturday-matinee favorites. He also briefly co-starred with Ben Corbett in a series of three-reel Westerns, released under the blanket title Bud and Ben. After his final starring series for producer William Berke in 1936, Perrin settled into character roles, both large (Davy Crockett in the 1937 serial The Painted Stallion) and small (the prison guard who escorts James Cagney to the hot seat in 1938's Angels With Dirty Faces). In 1956, Jack Perrin, together with several other former B-Western favorites, rode alongside Col. Tim McCoy in the "Cavalry rescue" sequence in Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

Trivia: Mexican-born utility actor Joe Dominguez claimed to have entered films in 1913, and to have appeared in over 300 pictures. Primarily a bit player, Dominguez usually showed up in Westerns, serials, and historical films with South-of-the-Border settings. Among Joe Dominguez' larger roles were Gonzalez in Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious (1952) and the Grandfather in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1970), his last film.

Trivia: Diminutive American actor Angelo Rossitto was a fixture in American movies for more than 50 years, usually in highly visible supporting and extra roles. Born Angelo Salvatore Rossitto, he entered movies in his teens during the height of the silent era, making his first known appearance in The Beloved Rogue, starring John Barrymore, in 1926. Standing less than four feet tall, with dark hair and a grim visage, and billed at various times as Little Angie, Little Mo, and Little Angelo, Rossitto was a natural for pygmies and circus dwarves, often of a sinister appearing nature; his presence could help "dress" a carnival set or the setting for a fantasy film. He played the dwarf Angeleno in Tod Browning's Freaks at MGM, a pygmy in Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross at Paramount, and one of the Three Little Pigs in the Laurel & Hardy-starring vehicle Babes in Toyland. Off camera, he was also a stand-in for Shirley Temple in several of her films. Rossitto didn't become a well-known figure, even among movie cultists, until he went to work for Monogram Pictures during the early '40s, in a series of low-budget horror films and horror film spoofs starring Bela Lugosi, often cast in tandem with the Hungarian-born actor as a kind of double act. His presence added to the bizarre, threatening nature of the films and he became as well known to fans of these low-budget movies as Lugosi, George Zucco, or any of the other credited stars. His role in the first of those Monogram productions with Lugosi, Spooks Run Wild, also starring the East Side Kids, deliberately played off of Lugosi's and Rossitto's sinister seeming images. In between his Poverty Row Monogram productions, the actor fit in small parts at Universal, including Preston Sturges' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, and he was one of the jesters tormenting the blinded Samson in DeMille's Samson and Delilah. Rossitto, along with his younger contemporaries Jerry Maren, Frank Delfino, and Billy Curtis, was one of Hollywood's busier little people in the years after World War II. Rossitto can be spotted in carnival scenes in Carousel, appeared as the smallest of the "Moon Men" in the low-budget Jungle Jim movie Jungle Moon Men, and played the leader of the aliens in the late-'50s sci-fi satire Invasion of the Saucer Men. Many of Rossitto's appearances were in roles without character names, constituting highly specialized, uncredited (but highly visible) extra work, and he may have been in as many as 200 movies.On television in the late '60s and early '70s, he portrayed a life-sized puppet in the series H.R. Pufnstuf and played a hat in Lidsville. Rossitto was a sideshow huckster in the cheap cult horror movie Dracula Vs. Frankenstein, and as late as the mid-'80s was seen in a small role in Something Wicked This Way Comes and in the featured role of the Master-Blaster in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Although work in 200 movies and television shows sounds like a lot, most of those appearances involved only a single day's or a single week's work, rather than full-time employment. He made his regular living from the 1930s through the 1960s at a newsstand in Hollywood just outside the gate of one of the studios; he joked that when he was needed for a film, they would simply pass the word directly to him on the street and he would report.

Trivia: Chuck Roberson was a rancher before serving in World War II. Upon his discharge, he sought out film work as a stunt man. While under contract to Republic Pictures, Roberson doubled for John Wayne in Wake of the Red Witch (1948). Thereafter, he worked in virtually all of Wayne's films as stunt double, action coordinator, second-unit director and bit actor. His best speaking part was Sheriff Lordin in the Duke's McClintock (1963). Chuck Roberson's career served as the inspiration for the Lee Majors TV series The Fall Guy (1981-86).