Trivia: The celebrated "pin-up girl" of World War II, American actress Betty Grable was the daughter of a stockbroker and an aggressive "stage mother." When her older sister Marjorie balked at a show business career, Grable was taken in hand by her mother and trained to sing, dance, tell jokes and play the ukulele and saxophone. Despite her father's objections, Grable begged her mother to take her to Los Angeles for a movie career, preparing herself with a two-girl musical act while attending Hollywood Professional School. Lying about her age, 13-year-old Grable was hired as a chorus girl for short subjects, getting her first important exposure as the energetic blonde "cowgirl" who sings the first chorus of the first song in the Eddie Cantor film musical Whoopee! (1930). Grable played supporting parts in two-reelers and bits in features for the next couple of years, attaining her first major role in Hold 'Em Jail (1932), a comedy starring the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey. Bert Wheeler had promised Grable's mother several years earlier that he'd get the girl a break in pictures if she came to Hollywood, and with this film, Wheeler kept his word. More bits and indifferent supporting roles followed until Grable was signed by Paramount, who loaned her to 20th Century-Fox for Pigskin Parade (1936), which established her with the public. Grable finally landed top billing in Paramount's Million Dollar Legs (1939)--the title referred not to the star but to a college athletic team--which co-starred her first husband, Jackie Coogan. Grable's career stalled at Paramount, but a Broadway appearance in the Cole Porter musical DuBarry Was a Lady led to a contract with 20th Century-Fox, where she remained a number-one box-office attraction from 1940 through 1955. Fox wisely allowed Grable to shed her "college co-ed" image for a more salable screen persona as a wholesomely sexy musical comedy star, emphasizing her greatest attributes: her shapely figure and shapelier legs. After a misfire attempt at heavy dramatics in I Wake Up Screaming (1941), Grable insisted that she be required only to sing and dance, not act, and Fox complied with a string of nonsensical but lavish Technicolor musicals. Grable was enormously popular with American GIs during the war, most of this popularity resting on her famous "pin-up" picture in which, dressed in a one-piece bathing suit and with her back to the camera, Grable glanced saucily over one shoulder. This rear-view image was borne not out of a desire to titillate but from necessity: she was several months pregnant when the picture was taken! Grable furthered her acceptance with the overseas troops when she married trumpeter-bandleader Harry James in 1943. Her popularity undimmed by war's end, Grable continued making Technicolor frolics, though her frequent tiffs with the Fox executives led the studio to try out any number of potential replacements, including Vivian Blaine, June Haver, and even Marilyn Monroe. A few miscalculated breakaways from her accepted screen image--Mother Wore Tights (1947), The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949) and The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1949)--hurt Grable's box-office status, even though these films hold up better than some of her wartime hits. Free-lancing after her last film, the lackluster How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955), Grable inadvertently offended producer Sam Goldwyn, thereby losing out on the chance of playing the plum role of Adelaide in Goldwyn's Guys and Dolls (1955); this and a few disappointing TV appearances prompted the actress into semi-retirement, save for a few nightclub appearances. After divorcing Harry James in 1965, Grable made a triumphal return to Broadway as Carol Channing's replacement in Hello, Dolly. Her later foray into musical comedy, Belle Starr, was less satisfying, closing its London run after two weeks. Shortly before her death, Grable appeared in advertisements for a number of low-calorie food products, her alluring figure and beautiful "gams" belying her age.

Trivia: The son of a hotelier, Dan Dailey began taking dancing lessons at the age of 14. He worked in minstrel shows, vaudeville and burlesque, taking many "joe jobs" during fallow periods. Graduating to Broadway, Dailey was featured in Babes in Arms, Stars in Your Eyes and I Married an Angel. He came to Hollywood in 1940 when he was signed as an MGM contract player. After serving as an officer in World War II, Dailey rose to film stardom in such 20th Century-Fox productions as Mother Wore Tights (1947), A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950) and When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948), for which he won an Oscar nomination. Other top-rank Dan Dailey musical performances can be seen in Universal's Meet Me at the Fair (1952) and MGM's It's Always Fair Weather (1953). The actor's athletic physique and remarkable dexterity won him leading roles in two baseball films, Pride of St Louis (1953) (in which he played Dizzy Dean) and The Kid From Left Field (1953). On television, Dailey starred in three series: Four Just Men (1959), The Governor and JJ (1970), and Farraday and Company (1974). In 1977, Dan Dailey broke his hip while appearing in a touring production of The Odd Couple; he died of acute anemia one year later.

Trivia: Born Monica Freeman, Mona Freeman was a tiny (5' 1"), spunky, blond actress with an ever-youthful face. While still in high school she became a professional model and soon was signed to a movie contract by Howard Hughes, who then sold her contract to Paramount. She began appearing in films in 1944, becoming one of movie's most popular teenage stars; as the years passed, she slowly matured on the screen from teens and ingenues to leading-lady roles. In adult roles she had less success, appearing mostly in "B"-movies. Her screen career came to an end in the late '50s, but she went on to act in over 80 TV shows. Her daughter, Monie Ellis, had a brief career as a TV actress in the mid '70s. She died in 2014 at age 97.

Trivia: Austrian-born actress Vanessa Brown was on the Broadway stage from age 13 in Watch on the Rhine, and at the same time was featured as a contestant on the popular radio series Quiz Kids. Billed as Tessa Brind, Vanessa made her screen bow in the Val Lewton-produced study of wartime juvenile delinquency Youth Runs Wild (1944). She became "Vanessa Brown" for good with 1946's I've Always Loved You, spending the next six years as a popular film ingenue. In 1950 Brown joined the ever-growing ranks of movie "Janes" in Tarzan and the Slave Girl. She also appeared in the 1955 sitcom My Favorite Husband, replacing the series' original star, Joan Caulfield. Brown retired from films to marry director Mark Sandrich Jr. in the mid-'50s, returning briefly before the cameras in 1967. Vanessa worked on the 1977 satirical TV soap opera All That Glitters, and also had a recurring role on the still-thriving real soap opera General Hospital. Back in radio in the early '70s, Vanessa was an occasional guest speaker on the short-wave Voice of America service. In her later years, Vanessa Brown added writing to her accomplishments, penning two books and several magazine articles.

Trivia: Born to a middle-class Irish family and educated at the Marlborough Street Training College, 19-year-old Sara Allgood joined the Irish National Theatre Society, obtaining her first speaking role in a 1903 production of W.B. Yeats' The King's Threshold. She became a member of Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1904; within a few years she was lauded as Ireland's foremost actress. While touring Australia in 1918, she made her film bow in Just Peggy. She didn't like the experience, and it would be eleven years before she would face the cameras again, this time in the role of Anna Ondra's mother in Blackmail (1929), Alfred Hitchcock's (and the British film industry's) first talkie. One year later, Hitchcock cast Sara in the demanding title role in the cinematic adaptation of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, a role she had created on stage with the Abbey Players in 1924. After a decade of worthwhile stage assignments and forgettable film roles, Sara came to Hollywood in 1940, where she was cast by John Ford in a strong role in the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941). This led to a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox, which was financially satisfying but dramatically unrewarding; after years of incisive, commanding stage roles, Sara was compelled to play cliched Irish mothers and servants. Sara Allgood's final screen appearance was in Fox's Cheaper By the Dozen (1950), in which she received prominent billing--and approximately five lines of dialogue.

Trivia: American actor William Frawley had hopes of becoming a newspaperman but was sidetracked by a series of meat-and-potatoes jobs. At 21, he found himself in the chorus of a musical comedy in Chicago; his mother forced him to quit, but Frawley had already gotten greasepaint in his veins. Forming a vaudeville act with his brother Paul, Frawley hit the show-business trail; several partners later (including his wife Louise), Frawley was a headliner and in later years laid claim to having introduced the beer-hall chestnut "Melancholy Baby." Entering films in the early 1930s (he'd made a few desultory silent-movie appearances), Frawley became typecast as irascible, pugnacious Irishmen, not much of a stretch from his off-camera personality. Though he worked steadily into the late 1940s, Frawley's drinking got the better of him, and by 1951 most producers found him virtually unemployable. Not so Desi Arnaz, who cast Frawley as neighbor Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy TV series when Gale Gordon proved unavailable. Frawley promised to stay away from the booze during filming, and in turn Arnaz promised to give Frawley time off whenever the New York Yankees were in the World Series (a rabid baseball fan, Frawley not only appeared in a half dozen baseball films, but also was one of the investors of the minor-league Hollywood Stars ball team). Frawley played Fred Mertz until the last I Love Lucy episode was filmed in 1960, then moved on to a five-year assignment as Bub, chief cook and bottle-washer to son-in-law Fred MacMurray's all male household on My Three Sons.

Trivia: Essentially a stage actress, Michigan-born Ruth Nelson appeared sporadically in films from her first movie appearance in Of Human Bondage (1934) to her last in Awakenings (1990). Few of Ms. Nelson's roles were large enough to afford attention from critics -- notable exceptions were the 1943 wartime drama North Star and the 1947 Tracy /Hepburn vehicle Sea of Grass -- and unfortunately she made few TV appearances, so it's hard to provide anyone unfamiliar with her work a frame of reference. She did, however, pop up frequently as a peripheral interview subject during the late-'70s heyday of director Robert Altman. Ms. Nelson had married another director, John Cromwell, in 1946, and both Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell acted together in Altman's 1978 film A Wedding. Fans who tried to grill Cromwell on his own film accomplishments (Anna and the King of Siam, Dead Reckoning, et al.) were obliged to filter their request through Ruth Nelson, who was able to "interpret" her husband's nods, shrugs and snorts of disapproval.

Trivia: A master at abrasive and intrusive old-codger roles, George Cleveland enjoyed a 58-year career in vaudeville, stage, movies and television. Spending his earliest professional days in his native Canada, Cleveland barnstormed around the U.S. with his own stock company until settling in New York. He came to Hollywood in 1934 for an assignment in the Noah Beery Sr. programmer Mystery Liner and remained in Tinseltown for the next two decades. At first appearing in small roles in serials and westerns, Cleveland's screen time increased when he signed with RKO in the early 1940s. In the Fibber McGee and Molly feature Here We Go Again, Cleveland essayed the "Old Timer" role played on radio by Bill Thompson (who also showed up in Here We Go Again in another of his radio characterizations, Wallace Wimple). Other choice '40s assignments for Cleveland included the role of Paul Muni's faithful butler in Angel on My Shoulder (1946), and featured parts in two Abbott and Costello comedies, 1946's Little Giant (as Costello's uncle) and 1947's Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (as a corrupt western judge). George Cleveland appeared on TV as a befuddled postman on the forgettable 1952 sitcom The Hank McCune Show; a far more memorable assignment was his three-year gig as Gramps on the Lassie series, which kept Cleveland busy until his sudden death in the spring of 1957.

Trivia: Yes, that was her real name. Born in Massachussetts, Veda Ann Borg established herself as a model in New York in the early 1930s. Though she'd never had any previous acting experience, Veda was given a secret screen test by Paramount in 1936 and signed on the spot. After a few years of nondescript roles, Veda was nearly killed in a serious automobile accident in 1939. Her face completely reconstructed by plastic surgery, Veda emerged from the bandages with a harder, more distinctive countenance than before--one that proved ideal for the many brassy chorus girls, gun molls and "kept women" that she would portray over the next twenty years. Usually laboring away in B pictures, Veda began picking up some impressive "A" credits in the 1950s, notably as Vivian Blaine's showgirl pal in the mammoth musical Guys and Dolls (1955). Her last appearance was as an bedraggled Indian woman in the John Wayne-directed The Alamo (1960). For eleven years, Veda Ann Borg was the wife of director Andrew V. McLaglen.

Trivia: Born in Germany, actor Sig Rumann studied electro-technology in college before returning to his native Hamburg to study acting. He worked his way up from bits to full leads in such theatrical centers as Stettin and Kiel before serving in World War I. Rumann came to New York in 1924 to appear in German-language plays. He was discovered simultaneously by comedian George Jessel, playwright George S. Kaufman, and critic Alexander Woollcott. He began chalking up an impressive list of stage roles, notably Baron Preysig in the 1930 Broadway production of Grand Hotel (in the role played by Wallace Beery in the 1932 film version). Rumann launched his film career at the advent of talkies, hitting his stride in the mid 1930s. During his years in Hollywood, he whittled down his stage name from Siegfried Rumann to plain Sig Ruman. The personification of Prussian pomposity, Rumann was a memorable foil for the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937), and A Night in Casablanca (1946). He also was a favorite of director Ernst Lubitsch, appearing in Ninotchka (1939) as a bombastic Soviet emissary and in To Be or Not to Be (1942) as the unforgettable "Concentration Camp Ehrardt." With the coming of World War II, Ruman found himself much in demand as thick-headed, sometimes sadistic Nazis. Oddly, in The Hitler Gang (1944), Rumann was cast in a comparatively sympathetic role, as the ailing and senile Von Hindenburg. After the war, Rumann was "adopted" by Lubitsch admirer Billy Wilder, who cast the actor in such roles as the deceptively good-natured Sgt. Schultz in Stalag 17 (1953) and a marinet doctor in The Fortune Cookie (1966); Wilder also used Rumann's voice to dub over the guttural intonations of German actor Hubert von Meyerinck in One, Two, Three (1961). In delicate health during his last two decades, Rumann occasionally accepted unbilled roles, such as the kindly pawnbroker in O. Henry's Full House (1952). During one of his heartier periods, he had a recurring part on the 1952 TV sitcom Life with Luigi. Rumann's last film appearance was as a shoe-pounding Russian UN delegate in Jerry Lewis' Way... Way Out (1967).

Trivia: At age 13 she debuted on Broadway and went on to do much work onstage. She appeared in one film in 1929, then went back to Broadway and was not in another film until 1937; after that she was in numerous movies, usually in character roles but occasionally playing leads. In the '50s she costarred in such TV series as Topper and Mr. Adams and Eve. After retiring from the screen in 1964 she returned once more: she portrayed Sam Spade's secretary Effie in The Black Bird (1975), a comic remake of The Maltese Falcon; she had played Effie in the 1941 Humphrey Bogart version.

Trivia: Canadian character actress Maude Eburne studied elocution in Toronto, gleaning a talent for dialects. She carried over this skill into her earliest stage work in Ontario and upstate New York. Eburne's first Broadway appearance was as a love-hungry cockney maid in the 1914 stage farce A Pair of Sixes; she spent the next fifteen years specializing in comic servants on stage. She came to films in 1931, as the eternally frightened companion of mystery authoress Grayce Hampton in The Bat Whispers (1931). Most of her film roles can best be described as "eccentric," ranging from dotty aristocrats to pipe-smoking harridans. Among her more prominent roles were Fay Wray's tremulous aunt in Vampire Bat (1933), a rambunctious frontierswoman in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), half-mad recluse Borax Betty in Glamour Boy (1941), Susan Hayward's slatternly mother in Among the Living (1942), and Jean Hersholt's housekeeper in six Dr. Christian (all "B "films of the 1930s and 1940s). Maude Eburne retired from the screen after appearing in the religious semi-epic The Prince of Peace (1951).

Trivia: Baby boomers will recall silver-maned actor William Forrest as Major Swanson, the brusque but fair-minded commander of Fort Apache in the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. This character was but one of many military officers portrayed by the prolific Forrest since the late 1930s. Most of his film appearances were fleeting, and few were billed, but Forrest managed to pack more authority into 30 seconds' film time than many bigger stars were able to manage in an hour and a half. Outside of Rin Tin Tin, William Forrest is probably most familiar as the sinister fifth-columnist Martin Crane in the 1943 Republic serial The Masked Marvel.

Trivia: British stage actress Kathleen Lockhart made infrequent American film appearances between 1936 and 1954. She was occasionally cast opposite her more famous husband, character actor Gene Lockhart; in 1938 the Lockharts portrayed Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cratchit in MGM's A Christmas Carol (1938). One of her better-known film roles was as the wife of magazine editor Albert Dekker in the Oscar-winning Gentleman's Agreement. After the death of her husband in 1957, Lockhart made no further acting appearances. Kathleen Lockhart was the mother of actress June Lockhart and the grandmother of actress Anne Lockhart.

Trivia: American actor Chick Chandler was an army brat, the son of a much-travelled military surgeon. Chandler was groomed for a career in uniform, but he dropped out of military school and headed for Hollywood. He worked as a prop man and gopher before making his first film appearance in 1925's Red Love. Polishing his craft in vaudeville and legitimate theatre, Chandler was much in demand once the movies began to talk in 1929. He starred in his own series of two-reelers at RKO, and also made feature-film appearances in such RKO features as Melody Cruise and Murder on a Honeymoon. By the mid-1930s, Chandler was an accomplished monologist and hoofer, enabling him to attain a 20th Century-Fox contract. Perhaps too brash and abrasive to make it as a leading man, Chandler nonetheless thrived as a supporting actor. Once in a while he'd play the romantic lead, but it was usually in poverty-row items like PRC's Seven Doorways to Death (1943). While he remained in films until the late 1960s, it was television that afforded Chick Chandler his most substantial latter-day assignments: he co-starred with John Russell on the 1955 syndicated adventure weekly Soldiers of Fortune, and was a regular as the hero's father on the 1961 "newlywed" sitcom One Happy Family.

Trivia: San Franciscan Will Wright was a newspaper reporter before he hit the vaudeville, legitimate stage, and radio circuit. With his crabapple face and sour-lemon voice, Wright was almost instantly typecast as a grouch, busybody, or small-town Scrooge. Most of his film roles were minor, but Wright rose to the occasion whenever given such meaty parts as the taciturn apartment house manager in The Blue Dahlia (1946). In one of his best assignments, Wright remained unseen: He was the voice of the remonstrative Owl in the Disney cartoon feature Bambi (1942). Will Wright didn't really need the money from his long movie and TV career: His main source of income was his successful Los Angeles ice cream emporium, which was as popular with the movie people as with civilians, and which frequently provided temporary employment for many a young aspiring actor.

Trivia: Moonfaced American actor Frank Orth came to films from vaudeville, where he was usually co-billed with wife Ann Codee. Orth and Codee continued appearing together in a series of two-reel comedies in the early '30s, before he graduated to features with 1935's The Unwelcome Stranger. From that point until his retirement in 1959, Orth usually found himself behind a counter in his film appearances, playing scores of pharmacists, grocery clerks and bartenders. He had a semi-recurring role as Mike Ryan in MGM's Dr. Kildare series, and was featured as a long-suffering small town cop in Warners' Nancy Drew films. Orth was an apparent favorite of the casting department at 20th Century-Fox, where he received many of his credited screen roles. From 1951 through 1953, Frank Orth was costarred as Lieutenant Farraday on the Boston Blackie TV series.

Trivia: Handsome British stage actor Tom Stevenson had played the homicidal husband in the stage version of Gaslight before making his screen debut as the gravedigger in The Wolf Man (1941). Freelancing, Stevenson played minor supporting roles at almost every Hollywood studio, often portraying supercilious headwaiters or forbidding military officers. When MGM filmed Gaslight in 1944, Stevenson played Williams, the constable, and he was Reverend Hyslip in Bette Davis's Mr. Skeffington later that year. Stevenson, who also appeared in early television shows, returned to the legitimate stage in 1950.

Trivia: American character actor Harry Cheshire was usually billed as "Pappy," and, like S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall, he certainly lived up to his nickname, both visually and temperamentally. After a long career on stage and in radio, Cheshire came to films in 1940, appearing in many of Republic's "hillbilly" musicals and westerns. In larger-budgeted films, he was usually seen in minor roles as businessmen, ministers, justice of the peaces and the like. He played Dr. Campbell in the Yuletide classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946), the stage manager of the ill-fated Iroquois theater in The Seven Little Foys (1955) and the Elvis-hating mayor in Loving You (1957). He also showed up in a few of the Ma and Pa Kettle entries, and was afforded a rare opportunity at all-out villainy in Dangerous Mission (1954). TV western fans will remember Harry Cheshire as Judge Ben Wiley on the Gene Autry-produced weekly Buffalo Bill Jr. (1954).

Trivia: British actor Kenneth Williams preferred movies and theater to contact sports while growing up in London. Though performing appealed to him, Williams didn't want to become a professional actor. Instead, he aspired to a career in art, and to that end studied at the Bolt Court School of Lithography. His artistic talents were modest at best, but his skill and range as a comic actor were remarkable. While serving with the Royal Engineers during World War II, he regaled uniformed audiences as a performer with Combined Services Entertainment. He made his professional stage bow with the Newquay Repertory in 1948, then toured the provinces in a variety of stock companies. In 1954, he joined the cast of comedian Tony Hancock's immensely popular radio and TV series, essaying dozens of sharply etched comic characterizations. He achieved even greater fame as an ensemble player on Kenneth Hornes' BBC radio weekly Round the Horne. In 1959, he attained stardom as a member of filmdom's zany "Carry On" team, appearing in all but four of the popular Carry On comedies of the 1960s and 1970s. His standard characterization was that of the effeminate, condescending twit, given to such catchphrases as "Oh, stop messing about," "Matron!" and "Trouble with the bum, you know." During and after his tenure with the "Carry On" bunch, Williams sustained his popularity as star of his own television series, and also headlined such 1980s TVers as Willow the Wisp, Galloping Galaxies and Whizzkids Guide. A classic example of the clown with the broken heart, Williams was dissatisfied with his fame, yearning to play complex, dramatic roles. In 1988, Williams died of a barbiturate overdose, which his staunchest fans still insist was accidental. Kenneth Williams penned his autobiography, Just Williams, in 1985, but a fuller and sadder portrait of this gifted farceur can be found in The Diaries of Kenneth Williams and The Letters of Kenneth Williams, both edited by Russell Davies.

Trivia: Actor Tom Moore starred in many Hollywood silent and early sound films. Born in Ireland, Moore entered films in 1912. He and his two younger brothers, Matt and Owen Moore, all had successful careers in American films where they were usually cast in dashing, romantic leads. Tom Moore retired from starring roles in the mid-'30s. Ten years later, he returned to play small supporting roles. Moore's daughter, Alice Moore (1916-1960), was also an actress and appeared in many of his films.

Trivia: A veteran of vaudeville and Broadway, Harry Seymour came to films with extensive credits as a composer and musical-comedy star. Unfortunately, Seymour made his movie debut in 1925, at the height of the silent era. When talkies came in, he was frequently employed as a dialogue director with the Warner Bros. B-unit. From 1932 to 1958, Harry Seymour also essayed bit roles at Warners and 20th Century Fox, most often playing pianists (Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Rhapsody in Blue, A Ticket to Tomahawk, etc.).

Trivia: American character actor Alvin Hammer performed in vaudeville, on stage, in nightclubs, on television, and in many films between the '40s and the late '80s.

Trivia: Short, stout Scottish actor David Thursby came to Hollywood at the dawn of the talkie era. Thursby was indispensable to American films with British settings like Werewolf of London and Mutiny on the Bounty (both 1935). He spent much of his career at 20th Century Fox, generally in unbilled cameos. Often as not, he was cast as a London bobby (vide the 1951 Fred Astaire musical Royal Wedding, in which he was briefly permitted to sing). David Thursby remained active until the mid-60s.

Trivia: In films from 1919, Dutch vaudeville comic George Davis played one of the featured clowns in Lon Chaney's He Who Gets Slapped (1924) and was also in Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. that same year. In the sound era, Davis specialized in playing waiters but would also turn up as bus drivers, counter men, and circus performers, often assuming a French accent. When told that Davis' business as a hotel porter included carrying Greta Garbo's bags, the soviet envoy opined: "That's no business. That's social injustice." "Depends on the tip," replied Davis. He continued to play often humorous bits well into the '50s, appearing in such television shows as Cisco Kid and Perry Mason. The veteran performer died of cancer at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital.

Trivia: Italian-born Antonio Filauri became a fixture in Hollywood films from 1932 to 1953, lending his jolly visage to scores of bit parts, playing barbers, waiters, priests (often Mexican), monks, chefs, and even ambassadors. Late in life, Filauri played Papa Riccardo in Mario Lanza's The Great Caruso (1951).