Trivia: A versatile American screen actor and former juvenile star who made up in energy what he lacked in height, Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920, in Brooklyn, NY. The son of vaudevillians, Rooney first became a part of the family act when he was 15-months-old, and was eventually on-stage singing, dancing, mimicking, and telling jokes. He debuted onscreen at the age of six in the silent short Not to Be Trusted (1926), playing a cigar-smoking midget. His next film was the feature-length Orchids and Ermine (1927). Over the next six years, he starred in more than 50 two-reel comedies as Mickey McGuire (a name he legally adopted), a series based upon a popular comic strip, "Toonerville Folks." In 1932, he changed his name to "Mickey" Rooney when he began to appear in small roles in feature films. He was signed by MGM in 1934 and gave one of the most memorable juvenile performances in film history as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). A turning point in Rooney's career came with his 1937 appearance as Andy Hardy, the wise-cracking son of a small-town judge, in the B-movie A Family Affair. The film proved to be such a success that it led to a string of 15 more Andy Hardy pictures over the next twenty years. The films were sentimental light comedies that celebrated small-town domestic contentment and simple pleasures, and the character became the one with which the actor became most identified. Rooney went on to a memorable role in Boys Town (1938) and several high-energy musicals with Judy Garland. Added to his Andy Hardy work, these performances caused his popularity to skyrocket, and, by 1939, he was America's biggest box-office attraction. Rooney was awarded a special Oscar (along with Deanna Durbin) in 1939 for his "significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and, as a juvenile player, setting a high standard of ability and achievement." His popularity peaked in the early '40s with his appearances in such films as The Human Comedy (1943) and National Velvet (1944), the latter with a young Elizabeth Taylor. After his World War II service and subsequent military discharge, however, his drawing power as a star decreased dramatically, and was never recovered; suddenly he seemed only acceptable as a juvenile, not a grown man. In the late '40s Rooney formed his own production company, but it was a financial disaster and he went broke. To pay off his debts, he was obliged to take a number of low-quality roles. By the mid-'50s, though, he had reinvented himself as an adult character actor, starring in a number of good films, including the title role in Baby Face Nelson (1957). Rooney continued to perform in both film, television, stage, and even dinner theater productions over the next four decades, and debuted on Broadway in 1979 with Sugar Babies. Although his screen work was relatively erratic during the '90s, he managed to lend his talents to diverse fare, appearing in both Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and the independent Animals (And the Tollkeeper) (1997). In 2006 Rooney was back on the big screen in the comedy hit A Night at the Museum, with a slew of subsequent roles on low-budget fare preceding an appearance in 2011's The Muppets. That same year, Rooney made headlines when he testified before Congress on the issue of elder abuse, and revealing himself as one of many seniors who had been victimized as a result of their age. Rooney continued working until his death in 2014 at age 93.During the course of his career, Rooney received two Best Actor and two Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations, the last of which for his work in 1979's The Black Stallion. He also won a Golden Globe for the 1981 TV movie Bill. In 1983, while undergoing a well-publicized conversion to Christianity, he was awarded a special Lifetime Achievement Oscar "in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances." Rooney published his autobiography, Life Is Too Short, in 1991. His eight wives included actresses Ava Gardner and Martha Vickers.

Trivia: Entertainer Judy Garland was both one of the greatest and one of the most tragic figures in American show business. The daughter of a pushy stage mother, Garland and her sisters were forced into a vaudeville act called the Gumm Sisters (her real name), which appeared in movie shorts and at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. It was clear from the outset that Judy was the star of the act, and, as such, was signed by MGM as a solo performer in 1936. The studio adored Garland's adult-sounding singing but was concerned about her puffy facial features and her curvature of the spine. MGM decided to test both Garland and another teenage contractee, Deanna Durbin, in a musical "swing vs. the classics" short subject entitled Every Sunday (1936). The studio had planned to keep Durbin and drop Garland, but, through a corporate error, the opposite took place. Nevertheless, MGM decided to allow Garland her feature film debut in another studio's production, just in case the positive audience response to Every Sunday was a fluke. Loaned to 20th Century Fox, Garland was ninth-billed in Pigskin Parade (1936), but stole the show with her robust renditions of "Balboa" and "Texas Tornado." Garland returned to MGM in triumph and was given better opportunities to show her stuff: the "Dear Mr. Gable" number in Broadway Melody of 1938, "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart" in Listen, Darling (1938), and so on. When MGM planned to star 20th Century Fox's Shirley Temple in The Wizard of Oz, Garland almost didn't get her most celebrated role, but the deal fell through and she was cast as Dorothy. But even after this, the actress nearly lost her definitive screen moment when the studio decided to cut the song "Over the Rainbow," although finally kept the number after it tested well in previews. The Wizard of Oz made Garland a star, but MGM couldn't see beyond the little-girl image and insisted upon casting her in "Hey, kids, let's put on a show" roles opposite Mickey Rooney (a life-long friend). Garland proved to the world that she was a grown-up by marrying composer David Rose in 1941, after which MGM began giving her adult roles in such films as For Me and My Gal (1942) -- although still her most successful film of the early '40s was in another blushing-teen part in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Once very popular on the set due to her infectious high spirits, in the mid-'40s Garland became moody and irritable, as well as undependable insofar as showing up on time and being prepared. The problem was an increasing dependency upon barbiturates, an addiction allegedly inaugurated in the 1930s when the studio had Garland "pepped up" with prescription pills so that she could work longer hours. Garland also began drinking heavily, and her marriage was deteriorating. In 1945, she married director Vincente Minnelli, with whom she had a daughter, Liza, in 1946. By 1948, Garland's mood swings and suicidal tendencies were getting the better of her, and, in 1950, she had to quit the musical Annie Get Your Gun. That same year, she barely got through Summer Stock, her health problems painfully evident upon viewing the film. Before 1950 was half over, Garland attempted suicide, and, after recovering, was fired by MGM. Garland and Vincente Minnelli divorced in 1951, whereupon she married producer Sid Luft, who took over management of his wife's career and choreographed Garland's triumphant comeback at the London Palladium, a success surpassed by her 1951 appearance at New York's Palace Theatre. Luft strong-armed Warner Bros. to bankroll A Star Is Born (1954), providing Garland with her first film role in four years. It was Garland's best film to date, earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and allowed her a wealth of songs to sing and a full range of emotions to play.Riding high once more, Garland was later reduced to the depths of depression when she lost the Oscar to Grace Kelly. Her subsequent live appearances were wildly inconsistent, and her film performances ranged from excellent (Judgment at Nuremberg [1961]) to appallingly undisciplined (A Child Is Waiting [1963]). Her third marriage on the rocks, Garland nonetheless pulled herself together for an unforgettable 1961 appearance at Carnegie Hall, which led indirectly to her 1963 weekly CBS series, The Judy Garland Show. As with most of the significant moments in Garland's life, much contradictory information has emerged regarding the program and her behavior therein; the end result, however, was its cancellation after one year, due less to the inconsistent quality of the series (it began poorly, but finished big with several "concert" episodes) as to the competition of NBC's Bonanza. Garland's marriage to Sid Luft, which produced her daughter Lorna, ended in divorce in 1965, and, from there on, Garland's life and career made a rapid downslide. She made a comeback attempt in London in 1968, but audiences ranged from enthusiastic to indifferent -- as did her performances. A 1969 marriage to discotheque manager Mickey Deems did neither party any good, nor did a three-week engagement at a London nightclub, during which Garland was booed off the stage. On June 22, 1969, Judy Garland was found dead in her London apartment, the victim of an ostensibly accidental overdose of barbiturates. Despite (or perhaps because of) the deprivations of her private life, Garland has remained a show business legend. As to her untimely demise, Ray Bolger summed it up best in his oft-quoted epitaph: "Judy didn't die. She just wore out."

Trivia: He was an established matinee idol in his mid-thirties when he broke into films in 1915. After a career interruption caused by service in the cavalry in World War I, he returned to films as a popular leading man. Throughout the '20s, he was very busy onscreen playing dignified, well-mannered romantic heroes. For his work in The Patriot (1928), he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Stone's career remained very busy through the mid-'30s, and then continued at a slower pace through the early '50s; in the early sound era, when he was in his fifties, he played mature leads for some time before moving into character roles. Stone is best remembered as Judge Hardy, Andy's father in the Andy Hardy series of films with Mickey Rooney; typically, later in his career, he played Judge Hardy-like senior citizens. Ultimately, he appeared in over 200 films, almost all of them at MGM.

Trivia: Winsome Canadian-born leading lady Cecilia Parker made her first film at age 16. She was one of the hardest-working B ingénues of the 1930s, appearing in many a Western, serial, and rural romance. In several of her films, she teamed with wholesome leading man Eric Linden. Much of Cecilia Parker's latter-day fame rests primarily on the 11 appearances she made in MGM's Andy Hardy series (1938-1944) in the role of Andy's older sister, Marian.

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: Brunette Canadian leading lady Ann Rutherford had the sort of button-cute baby face that allowed her to play ingénues into her thirties. The daughter of an opera tenor and a stage actress, Rutherford was performing on-stage from childhood. She was still a teenager when she made her first film appearances as leading lady to such Western heroes as John Wayne and Gene Autry. At MGM from 1937, Ms. Rutherford gained minor stardom as Polly Benedict in the studio's Andy Hardy series. She was allowed to display her perky comic gifts in a trio of 1940s mystery-comedies co-starring Red Skelton (Whistling in the Dark, Whistling in Dixie, Whistling in Brooklyn), and was quite appealing as Careen O'Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939). She closed out her film career in 1950 to devote more time to her private life; for many years, she was the wife of 20th Century Fox executive William Dozier. Ann Rutherford returned to the screen in 1972 to join several fellow MGM alumni in They Only Kill Their Masters, thereafter confining most of her professional activity to her annual appearances as Suzanne Pleshette's mother on TV's The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978).

Trivia: A pretty, blonde ingenue of the 1920s, Betty Ross Clarke had toured in the hit play Fair and Warmer prior to entering films as Katherine de Vaucelles opposite William Farnum's François Villon in If I Were King (1920). She was also Roscoe Arbuckle's leading lady in the comedy Brewster's Millions (1921), but then did mostly programmers. Leaving films in 1924 in favor of the stage, Clarke returned as a character actress in the sound era and is perhaps best remembered for replacing an otherwise engaged Sara Haden as Aunt Milly in two Andy Hardy comedies, Judge Hardy's Children and Love Finds Andy Hardy (both 1938).

Trivia: One of the most glamorous superstars of Hollywood's golden era, Lana Turner was born February 8, 1921, in Wallace, ID. At the age of 15, while cutting school, she was spotted by Hollywood Reporter staffer Billy Wilkinson in a Hollywood drugstore; enchanted by her beauty, he escorted her to the offices of the Zeppo Marx Agency, resulting in a bit part in 1937's A Star Is Born. Rejected by RKO, Fox, and any number of other studios, Turner next briefly showed up in They Won't Forget. Mervin LeRoy, the picture's director, offered her a personal contract at 50 dollars a week, and she subsequently appeared fleetingly in a series of films at Warner Bros. When LeRoy moved to MGM, Turner followed, and the usual series of bit parts followed before she won her first lead role in the 1939 B-comedy These Glamour Girls. Dancing Co-Ed, a vehicle for bandleader Artie Shaw, followed that same year, and after starring in 1940's Two Girls on Broadway, she and Shaw married. Dubbed "the Sweater Girl" by the press, Turner was touted by MGM as a successor to Jean Harlow, but audiences did not take her to heart; she did, however, become a popular pin-up, especially with American soldiers fighting overseas. In 1941 she starred opposite Clark Gable in Honky Tonk, her first major hit. They again teamed in Somewhere I'll Find You the next year. Upon separating from Shaw, Turner married actor Stephen Crane, but when his earlier divorce was declared invalid, a media frenzy followed; MGM chief Louis B. Mayer was so incensed by the debacle that he kept the now-pregnant Turner off movie screens for a year. Upon returning in 1944's Marriage Is a Private Affair, Turner's stardom slowly began to grow, culminating in her most sultry and effective turn to date as a femme fatale in 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice. The film was a tremendous success, and it made Turner one of Hollywood's brightest stars. Both 1947's Green Dolphin Street and Cass Timberlane were hits, but a 1948 reunion with Gable in Homecoming failed to re-create their earlier sparks. After appearing in The Three Musketeers, she disappeared from screens for over a year, resurfacing in the George Cukor trifle A Life of Her Own. Turner's box-office stock was plummeting, a situation which MGM attempted to remedy by casting her in musicals; while the first, 1951's Mr. Imperium, was an unmitigated disaster, 1952's The Merry Widow was more successful. However, a string of failures followed, and after 1955's Diane, MGM opted not to renew her contract.When Turner's next project, The Rains of Ranchipur, also failed to ignite audience interest, she again took a sabbatical from movie-making. She returned in 1957 with Peyton Place, director Mark Robson's hugely successful adaptation of Grace Metalious' infamous best-seller about the steamy passions simmering beneath the surface of small-town life. Turner's performance won an Academy Award nomination, and the following year she made international headlines when her lover, gangster Johnny Stampanato, was stabbed to death by her teenage daughter, Cheryl Crane; a high-profile court trial followed, and although Crane was eventually acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide, Turner's reputation took a severe beating. The 1959 Douglas Sirk tearjerker Imitation of Life was Turner's last major hit, however, and after a string of disappointments culminating in 1966's Madame X, she did not reappear in films for three years, returning with The Big Cube. Also in 1969, she and George Hamilton co-starred in the short-lived television series The Survivors. After touring in a number of stage productions, Turner starred in the little-seen 1974 horror film Persecution, followed in 1976 by Bittersweet Love. Her final film, Witches' Brew, a semi-comic remake of the 1944 horror classic Weird Woman, was shot in 1978 but not widely released until 1985. In 1982, she published an autobiography, Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth, and also began a stint as a semi-regular on the TV soap opera Falcon Crest. After spending the majority of her final decade in retirement, Lana Turner died June 29, 1995, at the age of 74.

Trivia: Born Edith Blossom MacDonald, Marie Blake started out as a child performer in vaudeville, singing with her younger sisters Jeanette and Elsie. In 1926, Marie married song-and-dance man Clarence Rock, forming an act that endured into the 1930s. When vaudeville died, Marie and Clarence went "legit" in straight drama. While playing a consumptive prostitute in the Los Angeles company of Dead End, Marie was spotted by an MGM talent agent. Since sister Jeanette was already an established MGM star, the studio decided to avoid accusations of nepotism by changing Marie's last name to Blake. Never a leading lady, Marie remained a reliable member of MGM's featured-player stable for nearly ten years. She played hospital receptionist Sally in 13 of the studio's Dr. Kildare entries, and also showed up in such short subjects as Our Gang's Alfalfa's Aunt (1940). Loaned out to RKO in 1944, she enjoyed one of her meatiest roles as Harold Peary's vis-a-vis in Gildersleeve's Ghost. From 1957 onward, Blake acted under her married name, Blossom Rock (her husband, who'd retired from show business to work as night manager of the Beverly Hilton, died in 1960). Marie Blake/Blossom Rock's last major assignment was as Grandmama in the TV series The Addams Family (1965-66).

Trivia: A former stage actor, Donald Castle was groomed for stardom by MGM in the late 1930s. Castle played Marian Hardy's (Cecilia Parker) beau Dennis Hunt in three of MGM's Andy Hardy features, but apparently he didn't catch on with audiences, in spite of his close resemblance to Clark Gable. He moved into character parts, playing both lawmen and disreputables in crime flicks and westerns. A close friend of actress Bonita Granville and her entrepreneur-husband Jack Wrather, Castle was part owner of a commercial 16-millimeter film production company run by Wrather, and in the 1950s and early 1960s served as associate producer for Wrather's TV series Lassie. Following a traffic accident in 1966, 49-year-old Don Castle died of a medication overdose.

Trivia: Best known for his association with the acclaimed, long-running television comedy/drama M*A*S*H, director Gene Reynolds started out as a juvenile actor. He made his debut at age 11 when he was cast as Bobby Smith in the comedy Thank You, Jeeves (1936). He continued his career as a supporting actor through the late '50s. Reynolds began directing television shows in 1958 and became a producer a decade later. In 1972 he created M*A*S*H, which he based on Robert Altman's adaptation of Richard Hooker's satirical novel. He and writer Larry Gelbert produced the show for its first four years and then Reynolds served as co-executive producer with Gelbert for the fifth year and then left the series to executive produce Lou Grant (1977). Since then Reynolds has only been sporadically involved in producing and directing.

Trivia: The daughter of Will Rogers, actress Mary Rogers was so anxious to succeed on her own without her dad's help or influence that she billed herself as Mary Howard, and for several years managed to hide her lineage from prospective employees. In films from 1933, she never quite achieved stardom, but she managed to work steadily in features and short subjects. Her screen roles ranged from the heroine in the wacky Olsen and Johnson starrer All Over Town (1937) to Ann Rutledge in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). She also appeared in such Broadway productions as On to Fortune and Crime Marches On. Mary Howard retired to private life at the age of 29 and died in the summer of 2009 at age 94.

Trivia: Paris-born George Breakston moved to the U.S. when he was six. As a child actor, Breakston got in on the ground floor of the Los Angeles radio industry. In films, he played the young Pip in the 1934 Great Expectations, and that same year played the sickliest of the Wiggs children in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch and the boy with the ailing bus-passenger mother in It Happened One Night. In the late 1930s, Breakston was seen in the recurring role of Breezy in MGM's Andy Hardy series. Upon reaching adulthood, Breakston retired from acting to become a producer/director. He moved to Kenya, where he set up his own production company, turning out several African-themed films (Urubu, Golden Ivory) and such TV series as African Patrol and Adventures of a Jungle Boy. George Breakston went on to produce and direct films in Europe and Japan before returning to his "home town" of Paris.

Trivia: Looking for all the world like a beardless Rumpelstiltskin, actor Raymond Hatton utilized his offbeat facial features and gift for mimicry in vaudeville, where he appeared from the age of 12 onward. In films from 1914, Hatton was starred or co-starred in several of the early Cecil B. DeMille productions, notably The Whispering Chorus (1917), in which the actor delivered a bravura performance as a man arrested for murdering himself. Though he played a vast array of characters in the late teens and early 1920s, by 1926 Hatton had settled into rubeish character roles. He was teamed with Wallace Beery in several popular Paramount comedies of the late silent era, notably Behind the Front (1926) and Now We're in the Air (1927). Curiously, while Beery's career skyrocketed in the 1930s, Hatton's stardom diminished, though he was every bit as talented as his former partner. In the 1930s and 1940s, Hatton showed up as comic sidekick to such western stars as Johnny Mack Brown and Bob Livingston. He was usually cast as a grizzled old desert rat, even when (as in the case of the "Rough Riders" series with Buck Jones and Tim McCoy) he happened to be younger than the nominal leading man. Raymond Hatton continued to act into the 1960s, showing up on such TV series as The Abbott and Costello Show and Superman and in several American-International quickies. Raymond Hatton's last screen appearance was as the old man collecting bottles along the highway in Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood (1967).

Trivia: Frail-looking character actor Frank Darien began working in films around 1910, playing parts in a smattering of D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett shorts. Darien was busiest during the early-talkie era, essaying peripheral roles in such productions as Cimarron (1931), The Miracle Man (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1932). He was most often cast as coroners, doctors, household servants, doormen and justices of the peace. Frank Darien's most memorable role was Uncle John in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), directed by another D. W. Griffith alumnus, John Ford.

Trivia: Gangly L.A.-born Rand Brooks made his first film appearance in 1938. The following year, he gained a small niche in film history with his performance as Charles Hamilton, ill-fated first husband of Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), in Gone With the Wind (1939). He spent the next several years in Westerns, most frequently appearing as Lucky Jenkins in the Hopalong Cassidy series. On television, Brooks was seen as Corporal Boone on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1956-1958). Rand Brooks was at one time married to comedian Stan Laurel's daughter Lois, with whom he operated a successful emergency ambulance service. As the 1970s wound to a close, Brooks disappeared entirely from the screen.On September 1, 2003, the man who gave legendary bombshell Marilyn Monroe her first screen kiss died of cancer at his Santa Ynez, CA home. He was 84.

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).