Trivia: John Derek was the son of writer/director Lawson Harris and bit-actress Dolores Johnson. Signed by David O. Selznick in 1943, Derek made his film debut as an extra in Since You Went Away, playing a soldier--which indeed he was at the time. His first starring role was as a death-row juvenile delinquent in Columbia's Knock on Any Door (1949), in which he was given more screen time than nominal star Humphrey Bogart. Most of Derek's subsequent Columbia assignments were in workaday "B" costume pictures and westerns; he enjoyed his best role in years, that of John Wilkes Booth, in 20th Century-Fox's Prince of Players (1954). By 1961, Derek's film career was seriously flagging, obliging him to sign on as one of the stars of the 26-week TV series Frontier Circus. Unhappy with his progress (or lack of it) as an actor, Derek turned director for the 1966 wartime flick Once Before I Die. Derek used many of his directorial efforts as showcases for his various "protege" wives: Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and Bo Derek. When not playing "Svengali" (an appellation he fully accepted with high good humor, as did his lovely "Trilbys"), John Derek kept busy as a director and cinematographer on such quasi-erotic films as Bolero (1984) and Ghosts Can't Do It (1990). Derek had suffered from heart trouble for many years; on May 20, 1998, the 71-year-old director was found unconscious in his Santa Ynez Valley home. Despite doctor's efforts, the damage to his heart muscle proved too great and on May 22, he passed away.

Trivia: Ruby-lipped, brunette leading lady Elaine Stewart worked as an usherette, cashier and model before entering films in 1951. Signed to an MGM contract, Stewart was hard to ignore in such roles as the sluttish Lila in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and the garrulous socialite Jane Ashton in Brigadoon (1954). Usually consigned to secondary parts, she was afforded a leading role as a harem-togged princess in The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954). Out of films by 1965, Elaine Stewart later showed up as a blackjack dealer on the TV game shows High Rollers (1975) and Las Vegas Gambit (1980), both of which were co-produced by her husband, Merrill Heater.

Trivia: Awarded a scholarship to a prestigious New York drama school at 17, Thomas Gomez first stepped on the Broadway stage as a cadet in Walter Hampden's Cyrano de Bergerac. He joined Alfred Lunt's company in the 1930s, playing character parts of varying sizes. He also made a pioneering television appearance in a 1940 broadcast of a long-forgotten playlet called "A Game of Chess". After garnering good reviews for his performance in the 1942 play Flowers of Virtue, Gomez was signed to play a megalomanic Nazi spy in his first film, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942). By virtue of his weight, his raspy voice and his baleful appearance, Gomez was often cast as heavies, though he evinced a preference for characters with "some rascality, warmth and dimension." Of Spanish heritage, Gomez refused to play Latin characters unless they could be presented "with sympathy, or at least with humanity." In 1947, Gomez was Oscar-nominated for just such a role in Ride the Pink Horse. Amidst his dramatic roles, Gomez proved a worthy foil to such comedians as Bob Hope and Abbott and Costello. Thomas Gomez' extensive television work included the part of a most courtly devil in the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "Escape Clause," Soviet functionary Malenkov in the like-vintage Playhouse 90 drama "The Plot to Kill Stalin," and a Minnesota Fats-type pool player in a well-circulated 1965 Mister Ed installment; he also played Pasquale in the 1953 TV revival of radio's Life With Luigi.

Trivia: Following her training in regional theatre and radio, red-headed actress Amanda Blake was signed by MGM in 1949, where she was briefly groomed for stardom. Among her MGM assignments was 1950's Stars in My Crown, in which she was cast for the first time opposite James Arness. Film fame eluded Amanda, especially after her sizeable role in the 1954 version of A Star is Born was almost completely excised from the release print. By 1955, she had to make do with appearances in such epics as the Bowery Boys' High Society. Amanda's fortunes took a turn for the better later in 1955, when she won the role of Miss Kitty, the euphemistically yclept "hostess" of the Long Branch Saloon on the TV western Gunsmoke, which starred James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon. She remained with Gunsmoke until its next-to-last season in 1974. After Gunsmoke, Amanda went into semi-retirement save for a handful of film projects like the made-for-TV Betrayal (1974), the theatrical releases The Boost (1988) and B.O.R.N (1989), and the 1987 reunion project Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge. Amanda Blake died in 1989 at the age of sixty.

Trivia: Loyola University grad Paul Picerni became an actor at a time when Arrow-collar leading men were giving way to blue-collar realistic types. Picerni never seemed too comfortable with his leading assignments in such films as House of Wax (1953); he appeared more at ease in down-to-earth supporting roles. His latter-day reputation rests on his four-year run as a federal agent on the slam-bang TV series The Untouchables. Paul Picerni is the brother of stunt man and stunt coordinator Charles Picerni.

Trivia: American actor Peter Mamakos began his stage career in 1939 and his film and TV work in the early 1950s. Mamakos' bushy mustache made him instantly recognizable. Generally cast in ethnic roles, Mamakos has been seen as many a Greek, Italian and Arab. Peter Mamakos' last appearance was in the 1990 Jackie Collins-inspired TV miniseries Lucky Chances.

Trivia: Foreboding, shaven-headed Polish actor Kurt Katch studied acting and directing with the fabled Viennese impresario Max Reinhardt. Katch went on to organize Berlin's Kulturbund Deutschen Juden Theater and a Yiddish-speaking troupe in Warsaw. When Hitler rose to power, the Jewish Katch saw the handwriting on the wall and came to the U.S. in 1937. He established himself as a movie villain in the 1940s, most often cast as a smirking, monocled Nazi. In films until 1958's The Young Lions, Kurt Katch is best remembered by boys of all ages as the unspeakable Hulagu Khan in that ultimate escapist adventure yarn Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944).

Trivia: Character actor Carl Milletaire specialized in playing gangsters. Fans of the television show The Untouchables may remember him for playing Frank Nitti's number one stooge. Milletaire made his screen debut with a tiny role in Double Life (1947).