Trivia: One of the best child actors of the 1950s and 1960s, freckled-faced Billy Mumy performed with a directness and sincerity that put many an adult performer to shame. Before he was even ten years old, Mumy had played two of the most unforgettable juveniles in TV history: malevolently telekinetic Anthony Fremont on the 1961 Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life," and the pistol-toting protagonist of "Bang! You're Dead," an incredibly suspenseful 1962 installment of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directed by Hitchcock himself. In films from 1963, Mumy's finest cinematic hour-and-a-half was as Erasmus Leaf, an 8-year-old math genius with an all-consuming crush on Brigitte Bardot, in 1965's Dear Brigette. From 1965 to 1968, Mumy appeared as Will Robinson on the popular TV sci-fi fantasy series Lost in Space. As Mumy matured, he found roles harder to come by, though he was given generous screen time in the 1971 Stanley Kramer production Bless the Beasts and Children and was a regular on the 1975 TV weekly Sunshine. He kept busy in the 1980s on the sci-fi convention lecture circuit and as a scriptwriter; he also played cameo roles in remakes of "It's a Good Life" (the middle section of the 1983 Twilight Zone feature film) and "Bang! You're Dead" (one of the components of the 1985 TV revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents). The many fans of Bill Mumy's previous work in the realm of "fantastic television" were delighted in 1995 to find him playing the recurring role of Lennier on the syndicated TVer Babylon 5.

Trivia: James Stewart was the movies' quintessential Everyman, a uniquely all-American performer who parlayed his easygoing persona into one of the most successful and enduring careers in film history. On paper, he was anything but the typical Hollywood star: Gawky and tentative, with a pronounced stammer and a folksy "aw-shucks" charm, he lacked the dashing sophistication and swashbuckling heroism endemic among the other major actors of the era. Yet it's precisely the absence of affectation which made Stewart so popular; while so many other great stars seemed remote and larger than life, he never lost touch with his humanity, projecting an uncommon sense of goodness and decency which made him immensely likable and endearing to successive generations of moviegoers.Born May 20, 1908, in Indiana, PA, Stewart began performing magic as a child. While studying civil engineering at Princeton University, he befriended Joshua Logan, who then headed a summer stock company, and appeared in several of his productions. After graduation, Stewart joined Logan's University Players, a troupe whose membership also included Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. He and Fonda traveled to New York City in 1932, where they began winning small roles in Broadway productions including Carrie Nation, Yellow Jack, and Page Miss Glory. On the recommendation of Hedda Hopper, MGM scheduled a screen test, and soon Stewart was signed to a long-term contract. He first appeared onscreen in a bit role in the 1935 Spencer Tracy vehicle The Murder Man, followed by another small performance the next year in Rose Marie.Stewart's first prominent role came courtesy of Sullavan, who requested he play her husband in the 1936 melodrama Next Time We Love. Speed, one of six other films he made that same year, was his first lead role. His next major performance cast him as Eleanor Powell's paramour in the musical Born to Dance, after which he accepted a supporting turn in After the Thin Man. For 1938's classic You Can't Take It With You, Stewart teamed for the first time with Frank Capra, the director who guided him during many of his most memorable performances. They reunited a year later for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stewart's breakthrough picture; a hugely popular modern morality play set against the backdrop of the Washington political system, it cemented the all-American persona which made him so adored by fans, earning a New York Film Critics' Best Actor award as well as his first Oscar nomination.Stewart then embarked on a string of commercial and critical successes which elevated him to the status of superstar; the first was the idiosyncratic 1939 Western Destry Rides Again, followed by the 1940 Ernst Lubitsch romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner. After The Mortal Storm, he starred opposite Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in George Cukor's sublime The Philadelphia Story, a performance which earned him the Best Actor Oscar. However, Stewart soon entered duty in World War II, serving as a bomber pilot and flying 20 missions over Germany. He was highly decorated for his courage, and did not fully retire from the service until 1968, by which time he was an Air Force Brigadier General, the highest-ranking entertainer in the U.S. military. Stewart's combat experiences left him a changed man; where during the prewar era he often played shy, tentative characters, he returned to films with a new intensity. While remaining as genial and likable as ever, he began to explore new, more complex facets of his acting abilities, accepting roles in darker and more thought-provoking films. The first was Capra's 1946 perennial It's a Wonderful Life, which cast Stewart as a suicidal banker who learns the true value of life. Through years of TV reruns, the film became a staple of Christmastime viewing, and remains arguably Stewart's best-known and most-beloved performance. However, it was not a hit upon its original theatrical release, nor was the follow-up Magic Town -- audiences clearly wanted the escapist fare of Hollywood's prewar era, not the more pensive material so many other actors and filmmakers as well as Stewart wanted to explore in the wake of battle. The 1948 thriller Call Northside 777 was a concession to audience demands, and fans responded by making the film a considerable hit. Regardless, Stewart next teamed for the first time with Alfred Hitchcock in Rope, accepting a supporting role in a tale based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case. His next few pictures failed to generate much notice, but in 1950, Stewart starred in a pair of Westerns, Anthony Mann's Winchester 73 and Delmer Daves' Broken Arrow. Both were hugely successful, and after completing an Oscar-nominated turn as a drunk in the comedy Harvey and appearing in Cecil B. De Mille's Academy Award-winning The Greatest Show on Earth, he made another Western, 1952's Bend of the River, the first in a decade of many similar genre pieces.Stewart spent the 1950s primarily in the employ of Universal, cutting one of the first percentage-basis contracts in Hollywood -- a major breakthrough soon to be followed by virtually every other motion-picture star. He often worked with director Mann, who guided him to hits including The Naked Spur, Thunder Bay, The Man From Laramie, and The Far Country. For Hitchcock, Stewart starred in 1954's masterful Rear Window, appearing against type as a crippled photographer obsessively peeking in on the lives of his neighbors. More than perhaps any other director, Hitchcock challenged the very assumptions of the Stewart persona by casting him in roles which questioned his character's morality, even his sanity. They reunited twice more, in 1956's The Man Who Knew Too Much and 1958's brilliant Vertigo, and together both director and star rose to the occasion by delivering some of the best work of their respective careers. Apart from Mann and Hitchcock, Stewart also worked with the likes of Billy Wilder (1957's Charles Lindbergh biopic The Spirit of St. Louis) and Otto Preminger (1959's provocative courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder, which earned him yet another Best Actor bid). Under John Ford, Stewart starred in 1961's Two Rode Together and the following year's excellent The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The 1962 comedy Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation was also a hit, and Stewart spent the remainder of the decade alternating between Westerns and family comedies. By the early '70s, he announced his semi-retirement from movies, but still occasionally resurfaced in pictures like the 1976 John Wayne vehicle The Shootist and 1978's The Big Sleep. By the 1980s, Stewart's acting had become even more limited, and he spent much of his final years writing poetry; he died July 2, 1997.

Trivia: Throaty-voiced, kittenish leading lady Glynis Johns was the daughter of British stage actor Mervyn Johns; she was born while her father and concert-pianist mother were on a tour of South Africa. Enrolled in the London ballet school at age 6, Johns had by age 10 progressed to the point that she was certified to teach ballet. At 12, she made her stage debut in the role of Napoleon's daughter in Saint Helena; at 13, she was cast in the pivotal role of the spiteful schoolgirl in the London production of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. This led to her first film, 1937's South Riding, in which she played another petulant, foot-stamping adolescent. Johns graduated to coquettish leading roles in the 1940s, most famously as the alluring mermaid in Miranda (1946). Her best-known Hollywood assignments include the roles of Maid Jean in Danny Kaye's The Court Jester (1956) and the suffragette Mrs. Banks in Disney's Mary Poppins (1964) (Johns was the only cast member to have the foresight to demand a portion of the royalties for the Poppins soundtrack record). In 1963, she starred in Glynis, a lukewarm TV comedy/mystery series. Eight years later, she won a Tony award for her performance in Broadway's A Little Night Music. Still active into the 1990s, Glynis Johns was recently seen as a belligerent in-law in The Ref (1994) and as a deliciously dotty aunt in While You Were Sleeping (1995).

Trivia: The archetypal sex kitten, Brigitte Bardot was the first foreign-language star ever to attain a level of international success comparable to America's most popular homegrown talents. While the vast majority of her motion pictures failed to rank even remotely close to the best of her native France's prodigious New Wave-era output, they proved a major breakthrough in establishing a market for foreign films in English-speaking countries; indeed, for all of the acclaim deservedly heaped on the more gifted actors and directors of her day, perhaps no other factor was more crucial to the far-reaching success of world cinema than Bardot's sultry allure. Born on September 28, 1934, in Paris, she was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist; while studying ballet, she was approached with the offer to begin modeling, and by 1950 her image had already graced the cover of Elle magazine. There she was spotted by director Marc Allegret, who had earlier discovered the young Simone Simon. Soon Allegret's assistant, Roger Vadim, contacted Bardot for a role in the picture Les Lauriers Sont Coupes. While Allegret did not cast the young model in his film, Vadim became immediately smitten by her pouty sensuality, and in 1952 he became her husband. That same year, Bardot made her film debut in Jean Boyer's comedy Le Trou Normand; a series of bit roles followed before she appeared in Warner Bros.' 1955 production of Helen of Troy. The studio was sufficiently impressed to offer a seven-year contract, but she refused, to accept her largest role to date opposite Jean Marais and Isabelle Pia in Futures Vedettes.After traveling to Britain to appear in 1955's Doctor at Sea, Bardot returned to France to begin work on her first starring role in 1956's La Lumiere d'en Face; the film's producer, Christine Gouze-Renal, subsequently became her mentor and handled her career for a number of years. While still largely an unknown, Bardot soon enjoyed a string of hits, including Cette Sacree Gamine, Mi Figlio Nerone, and En Effeuillant la Marguerite, which positioned her as France's top sex symbol by 1957. As Bardot's popularity continued to soar, producer Raoul J. Levy offered Vadim the opportunity to direct his wife in Et Dieu Crea la Femme, an erotic melodrama co-starring Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film made Bardot an international star, earning over four million dollars in the U.S. alone. Unfortunately, her marriage to Vadim did not last, although their respective careers remained intertwined for years to come. Bardot's popularity with American audiences was unprecedented for a non-English speaking actress, and after Levy cut a reported 225,000-dollar three-picture deal with Columbia for her services, she next starred in the sex romp Une Parisienne, followed by Vadim's Les Bijoutiers du Clair de Lune. After much deliberation, plans were finally announced for Bardot's English-language debut, Paris by Night, to be helmed by Vadim with Frank Sinatra in the lead. The project fell through, however, and she next appeared in 1960's Babette s'en va-t-en Guerre opposite Jacques Charrier, who briefly became her second husband. While filming Henri-Georges Clouzot's La Verite later that year, Bardot attempted suicide on her 26th birthday. After production resumed, the completed film rose to become France's top moneymaker for the year, but it marked the end of her Columbia deal, and in light of her cooling popularity in the States and in Britain no other deals were immediately forthcoming. In 1960, Bardot released a pop music album, Inside Brigitte Bardot; several other LPs, including 1963's Brigitte Bardot Sings and 1968's Special Bardot, were to follow, and she scored a number of hit singles in tandem with the infamous singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. After she fired the original director on the 1961 comedy La Bride Sur le Cou, she had Vadim step in to complete the picture. She next starred with Marcello Mastroianni in Louis Malle's La Vie Privée, delivering a clearly autobiographical turn as a young celebrity unable to cope with the pressures of stardom. The picture was intended as Bardot's swan song, but she was quickly coerced out of retirement to star in Jean-Luc Godard's brilliant Le Mépris. While today recognized as a classic, at the time of its release the movie was the subject of very mixed reviews, with considerable editing required for release outside of France. As a result, it was a commercial disaster, and Bardot's standing as Europe's most popular actress was usurped by Sophia Loren. After finally making an American film, 1964's family comedy Dear Brigitte, Bardot began work on Malle's comedy Viva Maria!, which paired her opposite Jeanne Moreau. When it failed to live up to international box-office expectations, few of Bardot's subsequent films were screened outside of France. Even within her native land her star continued to dim, and she did not appear in another certified hit prior to 1970's L'Ours et la Poupee. However, when the Vadim-helmed Don Juan 1973 ou Si Don Juan Etait une Femme and 1974's L' Histoire Tres Bonne et Tres Joyeuse de Colinot Trousse Chemise failed, Bardot again announced plans for retirement; this time, apart from a handful of television appearances, she made good on her promise, and consistently refused all offers to return to the screen. In later years she became something of a recluse, but continued to make occasional headlines through her ardent support of animal rights causes and inflammatory racial comments.

Trivia: A recording artist from age 14, 1950s teen-idol Fabian rose to stardom with such Doc Pomus/ Mort Shuman compositions as "Hound Dog Man" and "Turn Me Loose." Fabian functioned best under the careful tutelage of Bandstand producer Dick Clark and with the benefit of the songwriting input of Pomus and Shuman. Many of his earliest film appearances (North to Alaska [1960], Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation [1962]) indicated that Fabian could be an appealing screen personality with the proper guidance. His popularity suffered a severe setback when he guest-starred as a psychopathic killer on the 1961 TV series Bus Stop; the episode, "A Lion is in the Streets," was considered so reprehensibly violent that it prompted a congressional investigation. While he continued to make records and film appearances, Fabian's career peaked in the early 1960s and went downhill thereafter. Billing himself as Fabian Forte from 1970 onward, the singer/actor has continued to work in cheap horror films and cycle flicks, and has made a few moderately successful TV guest appearances.

Trivia: British actor John Williams is noted for his suave, perfectly-mannered characters. He is best remembered for his portrayal as Inspector Hubbard on the stage, screen and television versions of Dial M for Murder. Born in Chalfon St. Giles, England, Williams began his career on the stage at 13. By the age of 21, he was playing leads and sophisticated characters in Broadway plays. Beginning in the mid '30s, he began appearing in British films. By the '40s he was playing in Hollywood productions; he continued in film until the late '70s.

Trivia: Husky, bushy-mustached, frequently unkempt Canadian actor Jack Kruschen appeared steadily on radio from 1938 onward. He began playing small film roles in 1949, often cast as minor villains and braying bullies. He became a cult favorite after playing one of the three earliest victims (the Hispanic one) of the Martian death ray in George Pal's War of the Worlds (1953). His larger film roles included MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer in the Carol Lynley version of Harlow (1965), and the remonstrative physician neighbor of Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960); the latter assignment copped a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination for Kruschen. A tireless TV performer, Kruschen has guested in a variety of roles on most of the top video offerings, and was a regular in the 1977 sitcom Busting Loose, playing the father of Adam Arkin. Relatively inactive after 1980, Jack Kruschen made a welcome return in PBS' 1993 adaptation of Arthur Miller's The American Clock.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from 1965.

Trivia: Portly American character actor Howard Freeman was the archetypal small-town banker or businessman. With his impeccably groomed pencil mustache, finicky manners and eternal air of condescension, Freeman was ideal for such roles as bank president J. P. Norton in Laurel and Hardy's Air Raid Wardens--and equally ideal for the injuries and indignities heaped upon him by the two comedians in their efforts to administer emergency first aid. Air Raid Wardens was made in 1943, Freeman's first year in pictures after several seasons on stage. He quickly found his niche in authoritative roles, even playing a few bureaucratic Nazis during the war years: Freeman portrays a fussy Heinrich Himmler, casually targeting the Czech village of Lidice for extermination in Hitler's Madmen (1943). After nearly two decades in Hollywood, Freeman resettled in New York, remaining available for stage and TV work. One of Howard Freeman's last roles was as a peace-loving police captain mistaken for a slave-driving martinet in a 1963 episode of Car 54, Where are You?

Trivia: Short, acid-tongued character comedienne Alice Pearce built her reputation in Broadway musicals. Her first screen appearance was as Lucy Schmeeler, the girl with a really bad sneeze, in the Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra musical On the Town (1949). Preferring stage to screen work, she didn't settle down in Hollywood on a permanent basis until the early '60s. On television, Pearce starred in her own weekly, 15-minute musical program in 1949, singing such novelty tunes as "I'm in Love With a Coaxial Cable." At the time of her death from cancer, Alice Pearce was appearing as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched, a role which won her a posthumous Emmy.

Trivia: A self-described "household face," character actor Jesse White made his first stage appearance as a teenager in his adopted hometown of Akron, OH. Supporting himself with a variety of civilian jobs, White worked the nightclub circuit in Cleveland, then moved on to what was left of vaudeville in the late '30s. White's first Broadway role was in 1942's The Moon is Down; two years later he scored his biggest success as the acerbic sanitarium attendant in Mary Chase's Harvey, a role he would repeat for the 1950 film version (though Harvey is often listed as White's film debut, he can be seen in a bit role as an elevator operator in 1947's Gentleman's Agreement). While he has appeared in some 60 films, White is best known for his TV work, which allowed him to play Runyon-esque gangsters, theatrical agents, neurotic TV talk show hosts, art connoisseurs, toy manufacturers, and whatever else suited his fancy. Two of his longest professional associations were with satirist Stan Freberg (White was featured in several of Freberg's commercials and comedy albums) and comedian/TV mogul Danny Thomas (White played agent Jesse Leeds during the first few seasons of Make Room for Daddy). In the 1970s, White became established as the "lonely" Maytag repairman in a series of well-circulated TV commercials; when he stepped down from this role in the late '80s, the event received a generous amount of press coverage. Jesse White was still in harness into the 1990s. In 1992, he was memorably cast as a sarcastic, cigar-chomping theater chain owner in Joe Dante's Matinee. He passed away at age 79 following complications from surgery on January 8, 1997.

Trivia: American actor Gene O'Donnell played character roles in films of the '40s, '50s, and '60s, primarily working for Republic Studios. He got his start as a radio announcer and made his film debut in the Boris Karloff vehicle The Ape (1940). He served in the Army during WWII and afterward returned to Hollywood to resume his career in both films and television.

Trivia: Born Isaiah Edward Leopold, Wynn ran away from home at 15 to work as a utility boy for a stage company, with which he also acted. The company failed and he returned home. Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York, soon becoming a vaudeville comic headliner. In 1914, he began appearing with the Ziegfeld Follies, billed as the Perfect Fool; meanwhile, he got into a widely publicized feud with another Ziegfeld star, W.C. Fields. After organizing an actors' strike in 1919, he was boycotted by the Shuberts. At the height of his popularity as a Broadway comic star, he got around the boycott by writing and producing his own shows, which were both critical and popular successes. Having appeared in a few films, in the '30s he increased his popularity on radio as the Texaco Fire Chief. At the end of the '30s, several of his business ventures collapsed, including a radio chain; he suffered a nervous breakdown and his career seemed over. He bounced back on Broadway in the '40s. In 1949, he won the first TV Emmy Award as Best Actor in a Series. Out of work in the '50s, when his comedy style had become dated, he was encouraged by his son -- actor Keenan Wynn -- to launch a new career as a film actor. From 1957 to 1967, he was busy onscreen as a dramatic character actor, and for his work in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He also appeared in TV dramas.

Trivia: American character actor Pitt Herbert appeared on stage, screen, television and in commercials. He got his start on stage and during the '30s and '40s appeared on Broadway. He has also worked as a director and a drama instructor. Later Herbert was an active member of the Screen Actors Guild legislative committee and helped to pass Chapter 1217 of the Unemployment Compensation/Pension Refund Act.

Trivia: Character actor Harry Fleer appeared in several feature films from the late '50s through the mid-'60s, as well as in many 1960s television shows. His early film career was characterized by appearances in low-budget horror outings. Fleer's television credits include guest-starring roles on shows ranging from Superman and Bat Masterson to Twilight Zone and The Green Hornet.

Trivia: William (Bill) Henry was eight years old when he appeared in his first film, Lord Jim. During his teen years, Henry dabbled with backstage duties as a technician, but continued taking roles in student productions while attending the University of Hawaii. As an adult actor, Henry was prominently billed in such films as Geronimo (1939), Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Johnny Come Lately (1943); he also briefly starred in Columbia's "Glove Slingers" 2-reel series. In the last stages of his movie career, William Henry was something of a regular in the films of John Ford appearing in such Ford productions as Mister Roberts (1955), The Last Hurrah (1958), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

Trivia: When James Brolin was 15, his parents invited Hollywood producer/director William Castle to dinner. Impressed by Brolin's self-confidence and teen-idol looks, Castle invited him to audition for a film role at Columbia Pictures. When he failed to land the part, Brolin decided to "show 'em" by studying diligently for an acting career, eventually logging 5,000 hours of class time. While still attending U.C.L.A., he landed a small role on the Bus Stop TV series, which led to a 20th Century Fox contract. For the next five years, he marked time with bits and minor roles in such Fox features as Take Her, She's Mine (1963), Goodbye Charlie (1964), Von Ryan's Express (1965), Our Man Flint (1966), and Fantastic Voyage (1966). His first real break came with a peripheral but noticeable recurring role on the 1966 TV Western The Monroes. In 1968, Brolin finally attained stardom with his Emmy-winning characterization of Dr. Steve Kiley on the popular TV medical series Marcus Welby, M.D. During his five years with Welby, Brolin returned to films to play such choice roles as the unbalanced Vietnam vet in Skyjacked (1972) and ill-fated vacationer John Blaine in Westworld (1973). The most conspicuous of his post-Welby film assignments was 1976's Gable and Lombard, a cinematic atrocity redeemed only slightly by Brolin's earnest portrayal of Clark Gable. His most endearing screen assignment was his extended cameo as P.W. in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985), and in 1992 he had one of his strongest roles to date as a wayward father in Allison Anders' Gas Food Lodging. Periodically returning to television, Brolin has starred on the weekly series Hotel (1983), Angel Falls (1993), and Extremities (1995). James Brolin is the father of actor Josh Brolin, who co-starred with his dad in the made-for-cable Finish Line (1989). In 1998, Brolin assumed one of his most high-profile real-life roles to date as the husband of Barbra Streisand, whom he married in July of that year.He remained one of the most respected actors of his generation and continued to work steadily for directors all over the world. In 2002 he was cast in Martin Scorsese's epic historical drama Gangs of New York. In 2003 he took a cameo part in Bright Young Things. In 2004 he returned for the Bridget Jones sequel, and took a bit part in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake. He worked in a number o animated films including Doogal, Valiant, and Robots. In 2007 he had the title role in Longford, a historical drama about the infamous Moor Murders, and the next year he was part of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.He became part of the Harry Potter family with Half-Blood Prince, and played King William in the costume drama The Young Victoria, all in 2009. In 2010 he reunited with Mike Leigh and earned excellent reviews yet again for Another Year, and the next year he helped support Meryl Streep to an Oscar play the dutiful husband to The Iron Lady.

Trivia: Ted Mapes grew up on his father's wheat ranch in Nebraska. Upon attaining adulthood, Mapes took on a variety of manual-labor jobs, ending up as a furniture hauler in Los Angeles. Through a movie-studio connection, he landed a job as a grip on the 1929 Doug Fairbanks-Mary Pickford talkie Taming of the Shrew. By the mid-1930s, he'd moved away from the technical side of the business and was working as a stunt man and supporting actor. Mapes performed stunts for such major action stars as John Wayne, Charles Starrett, Joel McCrea and James Stewart. He also doubled for Gary Cooper (whom he closely resembled) in 17 different films, and essayed speaking roles in 13 Republic serials. After retiring from the stunt game, he kept active in Hollywood as an advisor for the American Humane Association, seeing to it that movie animals were properly trained and cared for on the set. In 1978, Ted Mapes was elected to the Stuntman Hall of Fame.