Trivia: Though many have followed in his illustrious foot-steps, Maurice Costello, known as the "Dimpled Darling," was one of the first big Broadway stars to appear in movies. Prior to making the switch, he was a theatrical star for 15 years. In film, he first worked with Edison until 1908 when he began working for Vitagraph. Costello's best-known movie role was that of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. He continued playing leads through the mid-1920s when he became a character actor until he retired in the early 1940s. Occasionally, he directed his own films.

Trivia: The youngest of the three filmmaking Ince brothers, he was a child actor in theater and became a cartoonist at Vitagraph in 1906. He soon began acting in films and became a director in 1912. Continuing as an actor, Ince had a penchant for impersonating Abraham Lincoln, for other directors as well as in his own mid-teens films Lincoln the Lover and The Highest Law. He helmed numerous films in the '20s, several of which he also acted in, including Bigger Than Barnum's, The Sea Wolf (appearing as Jack London's Wolf Larsen) and Chicago After Midnight. Ince found few directing opportunities in Hollywood after the advent of sound, although he continued to act in others' films, including Little Caesar and Law and Order. He relocated to England in 1934 and helmed numerous features there until his untimely death in an auto accident in 1937.

Trivia: American actress Norma Talmadge began her career as a model for the illustrated slides which were projected on the screen during movie house "singalongs." Norma's ambitious mother Peg Talmadge then bundled her daughter off to the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, where Norma scored her first cinema success in the small role of the seamstress in A Tale of Two Cities (1911). Thanks to her own good looks and talent and her mother's dynamic promotional skills, Talmadge worked up the ladder to leading-lady status; her stock in the film world began to really soar when she married influential movie executive Joseph M. Schenck, who set up his wife in her own film production company. Norma's specialty was tear-stained drama, reaching a plateau in the 1926 weeper Kiki. Even as Norma's star ascended, her sister Constance became a film favorite in her own right, conversely specializing in comedies; a third Talmadge sister, Natalie, made only a handful of films before retiring to marry comedian Buster Keaton. In 1929, Norma made an ill-advised entry into talking pictures, where her flat Brooklyn accent was at odds with her glamorous screen personality. After filming the notorious DuBarry, Woman of Passion (1930), Norma Talmadge retired, an extraordinarily wealthy woman. Once leaving the movie world, Norma rid herself of all the duties and responsibilities of stardom; when approached by autograph seekers, she would wave them off with a "Go away, my dears. I don't need you anymore."

Trivia: At age three Florence Turner began appearing in stage productions, and was already a veteran actress when she joined Vitagraph at age 21; the year was 1906 and the dawn of popular cinema was at hand. Credited only as the Vitagraph Girl, she became one of the screen's first stars. In 1913, she went to England with Larry Trimble, her frequent director and long-time friend; they performed together in London music halls and formed Turner Films, their own production company. Turner sometimes co-wrote and/or directed her own films. From 1916-20 she lived in the U.S.; from 1920-24 in England; and after 1924 in Hollywood. However, her popularity had greatly decreased as the popularity of films boomed; she went on to play secondary roles and eventually had to beg for work. In the '30s she was put on the MGM payroll, but it was an act of charity: she was used only as an extra and in bit parts.

Trivia: As plain-looking as his name, James Morrison was nevertheless one of America's first screen stars. With some experience in vaudeville and stock companies, in 1912 Morrison became one of the Vitagraph company's first matinee idols, starring in countless one and two-reel melodramas and remaining with the company for six years. He returned to Vitagraph often as a freelance actor as well, appearing for the company as late as 1924, when he played Jeremy Pitt in Captain Blood. He retired from the screen the following year.

Trivia: Filmmaker Charles Kent was among Vitagraph's first directors. He primarily made films adapted from literature and occasionally starred in them. He was the first to employ creative close-ups and this caused him to suffer considerable criticism. When not making and acting in his own films, Kent frequently appeared in other films. After 1913, he became a full-time actor.

Trivia: A veteran stage actor from Scotland, gray-haired William J. Shea became one of America's earliest and most prominent screen actors, spending his entire film career with Brooklyn's Vitagraph company and the IMP, the forerunner of Universal. Florence Lawrence, who appeared opposite Shea as early as 1907, held him in high regard, pronouncing him "as good-natured, jolly, and friendly as he is on the screen." The veteran actor died from angina pectoris at his home in Brooklyn, NY. He should not be confused with the later film editor of the same name.

Trivia: American actress Lillian "Dimples" Walker was most popular in silent films of the late teens. She began her career in 1911 at Vitagraph and was frequently cast opposite John Bunny in a variety of films. In 1918, she founded Crest Productions and starred in her own films until her retirement in the early '20s. Later Walker attempted to make a comeback in vaudeville and Broadway. During the '30s, she also returned to Hollywood to appear in a couple of films. She then left performing for good and eventually moved to Trinidad where she remained until her death.