Trivia: Moviedom's "Brazilian Bombshell" was actually born in Portugal, but as a child Carmen Miranda moved with her large and prosperous family to Rio de Janeiro. That she became a popular musical comedy star is all the more remarkable when one realizes that Miranda was born with deformed feet and had to wear special "lifts" for her performances. Miranda was a well-established and much beloved Brazilian radio, stage, and film personality when, at age 30, she was brought to America by the Schubert Brothers to appear in the 1939 Broadway revue The Streets of Paris (which also served as the "legit" debut of former burlesque comics Abbott and Costello). She was signed to a long-term 20th Century-Fox contract in 1940, which proved a wise move when World War II dried up the European movie market, leaving South America as practically the only foreign outlet for Hollywood films. A flamboyant exponent of the "good neighbor" policy, Miranda sang and danced her way through a series of garish Fox musicals, the most outrageous of which was The Gang's All Here (1943), in which she sang "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" while adorned with a seemingly gargantuan piece of fruit-laden headgear. When the demand for South-of-the-Border musicals petered out during the postwar era, Miranda began limiting her screen performances, spending more of her professional time with successful nightclub engagements. Off-screen, Miranda was a talented sketch artist and costume designer; she was also very active in charitable work, seeing to it that a generous percentage of her earnings were sent to the destitute in South America. After completing a strenuous dance number for a 1955 episode of TV's The Jimmy Durante Show, Miranda suffered a fatal heart attack; her death touched off widespread mourning throughout all of Latin America. The actress' memory is kept alive by the Carmen Miranda Museum in Rio De Janeiro.

Trivia: Band singer Vivian Blaine was signed by 20th Century-Fox in 1942 as yet another of that studio's potential Betty Grable replacements. Vivian was given a major boost when assigned the female lead in the Laurel and Hardy comedy Jitterbugs (1943), which showcased her talents in three well-mounted production numbers. She went on to bigger and better screen assignments in such lavish Fox musicals as Something for the Boys (1944), State Fair (1945) and Three Little Girls in Blue (1947). She left Fox in 1947 to pursue a nightclub career, which turned into a nightmarish experience when she was booed off the stage by fanatical fans of her opening act, Martin and Lewis. Vivian survived this setback by creating the role of Miss Adelaide in the blockbuster 1950 Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, repeating this triumph in the London production and the 1955 film version. In 1951, Vivian co-starred with Pinky Lee on the popular musical comedy TV series Those Two. Active in film character roles into the 1980s, Vivian Blaine also played a recurring part on the satirical TV soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976-77).

Trivia: Growing up in the squalid Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Phil Silvers used his excellent tenor voice and facility for cracking jokes to escape a life of poverty. He was discovered as a young teen by vaudevillian Gus Edwards who hired him to perform in his schoolroom act. Silvers' singing career ended when his voice changed at 16, whereupon he took acting jobs in various touring vaudeville sketches. During his subsequent years in burlesque, he befriended fellow comic Herbie Faye, with whom he would work off and on for the rest of his career. While headlining in burlesque, Silvers was signed to star in the 1939 Broadway musical comedy Yokel Boy. This led to film work, first in minor roles, then as comedy relief in such splashy 1940s musicals as Coney Island (1943) and Cover Girl (1944). Silvers became popular if not world famous with his trademark shifty grin, horn-rimmed glasses, balding pate, and catchphrases like "Gladda see ya!" He returned to Broadway in 1947, where he starred as a turn-of-the-century con man in the Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn musical High Button Shoes. In 1950, he scored another stage success as a Milton Berle-like TV comedian in Top Banana, which won him the Tony and Donaldson Awards. From 1955 through 1959, Silvers starred as the wheeling-dealing Sgt. Ernie Bilko on the hit TV series You'll Never Get Rich, for which he collected five Emmy awards. Upon the demise of this series, Silvers stepped into another success, the 1960 Styne-Comden-Green Broadway musical Do Re Mi. The failure of his 1963 sitcom The New Phil Silvers Show marked a low point in his career, but the ever scrappy Silvers bounced back again to appear in films and TV specials. In 1971, he starred in a revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (nine years after turning down the original 1962 production because he felt the show "wouldn't go anywhere."). He collected yet another Tony for his efforts -- then suffered a severe stroke in August of 1972. While convalescing, Silvers wrote his very candid autobiography, The Laugh Is on Me. He recovered to the extent that he could still perform, but his speech was slurred and his timing was gone. Still, Silvers was beloved by practically everyone in show business, so he never lacked for work. Phil Silvers was the father of actress Cathy Silvers, best known for her supporting work on the TV series Happy Days.

Trivia: Pressured by his father to become a policemen like all five of his brothers, American actor Michael O'Shea defied his dad by dropping out of school at age 12, then entered vaudeville in an act with his idol, boxer Jack Johnson. Working the Prohibition years as a comic and emcee in speakeasies, O'Shea organized his own dance band, Michael O'Shea and His Stationary Gypsies. Adopting the professional name Eddie O'Shea, the actor spent the '30s in stock companies and in radio, until accruing good reviews for his 1942 Broadway appearance in The Eve of St. Mark. Somewhat reluctantly, O'Shea entered movies on the strength of his stage work; the one Michael O'Shea film that seems to get the most circulation today is Lady Of Burlesque (1943) in which he played a red-nosed burleyque comic who was the erstwhile boyfriend of stripper Barbara Stanwyck. Bouncing back and forth between Broadway and movies, O'Shea never quite became a star, though he did manage to marry one: Virginia Mayo, with whom he'd appeared in the 1943 film Jack London. O'Shea's film work in the '50s was acceptable, but he was shown to better advantage in the 1955 TV sitcom, It's A Great Life, which though no hit had a great second life in reruns. According to an interview given in 1972 Michael O'Shea fulfilled his father's "policeman" wishes after a fashion by working as an operative for the FBI in the mid '60s, helping to break up a gambling ring plaguing O'Shea's home turf of Ventura County, California.

Trivia: Perky brunette leading lady Sheila Ryan became a television pioneer when, in 1938, she appeared on camera in an experimental Los Angeles broadcast. In 1940, Ryan was signed by 20th Century Fox, where she played energetic if unmemorable roles in such films as The Gay Caballero (1940) and Dressed to Kill (1941). She also appeared opposite Laurel and Hardy in two of their Fox vehicles, Great Guns (1941) and A-Haunting We Will Go (1942). Her best opportunity at Fox came in The Gang's All Here (1943), in which she was not only permitted to sing, but was afforded a special-effects "curtain call" in the film's finale. By the late '40s, Ryan's career had dwindled to B-pictures at the lesser studios. While co-starring with Gene Autry in 1950s Mule Train, Ryan fell in love with Autry's sidekick, Pat Buttram; they were married shortly afterward, and remained that way until Ryan's death in 1975. Sheila Ryan retired in 1958 after a handful of TV appearances and a featured role in something called Street of Darkness.

Trivia: The son of an Italian immigrants, Perry Como worked as a barber in his Pennsylvania hometown before inagurating his singing career in 1933 with the Ted Weems Orchestra. Rapidly gaining popularity during WWII with his mellow, easygoing ballads, Como was signed to a 20th Century Fox contract, appearing in four films before deciding that the movies weren't for him. He made a successful transition from radio to TV in 1948 as star of The Chesterfield Supper Club. He remained a top-rated video attraction well into the early '60s, most memorably as host of The Kraft Music Hall (1955-1963). So relaxed that it appeared he was about to fall asleep, Como was ideal for the "cool" medium of television. He continued turning out best-selling records throughout his TV career, including Catch a Falling Star, Find a Wheel, and his signature tune Dream Along With Me. After 1963, he starred in the occasional TV special, and in 1970 made a long-overdue return to live performance. Though active into the 1990s, Perry Como never felt the need to return to films, save for his voice-over contribution to 1974's The Odessa File.

Trivia: American leading man Glenn Langan caught the eye of Hollywood after appearing opposite Luise Rainer in a 1942 Broadway revival of A Kiss for Cinderella. Signed by 20th Century-Fox, Langan was personally groomed for stardom by studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. Despite good roles in such Fox films as Margie (1946), Dragonwyck (1946), Forever Amber (1947) and The Snake Pit (1949), Langan never really became a public favorite. Free-lancing in minor films throughout the 1950s, Langan slipped into the realm of Pop Culture by virtue of his performance in the title role of the estimable The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). From 1949 onward, Glenn Langan was the husband of film actress Adele Jergens.

Trivia: The product of a broken home, Cara Williams was still a preteen when she was taken by her mother from her hometown of Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Williams' first professional acting job was supplying vocal impressions of famous movie stars for animated cartoons. At 17, Williams was signed to a 20th Century Fox contract, but few of her subsequent film roles were large enough to attract notice. Her fortunes improved when she replaced Judy Holliday in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday (1950); thereafter, her film and TV roles increased in size and prominence. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a sex-starved farm woman in The Defiant Ones (1958). By virtue of her flaming red hair and acute comic timing, Williams was touted as "the new Lucille Ball" on the CBS sitcoms Pete and Gladys (1961) and The Cara Williams Show (1964). Her TV efforts were not particularly popular, but she had a powerful ally in the form of actor/producer Keefe Brasselle -- who was the best friend of CBS programming head James Aubrey. When Brasselle fell out of favor and Aubrey's regime toppled, Williams' stardom diminished. She went on to play character roles on-stage and in films, and was briefly a regular on the late-'70s TV series Rhoda. From 1952 through 1959, Cara Williams was the wife of actor John Barrymore Jr., by whom she had a son.

Trivia: The living image of the man on the Monopoly cards, Thurston Hall began his six-decade acting career on the New England stock-company circuit. Forming his own troupe, Hall toured America, Africa and New Zealand. On Broadway, he was starred in such venerable productions as Ben-Hur and Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. In films from 1915, Hall appeared in dozens of silents, notably the 1917 Theda Bara version of Cleopatra, in which he played Mark Antony. After 15 years on Broadway, Hall returned to films in 1935, spending the next 20 years portraying many a fatuous businessman, pompous politician, dyspeptic judge or crooked "ward heeler." From 1953 through 1955, Hall was seen as the choleric bank president Mr. Schuyler on the TV sitcom Topper. Towards the end of his life, a thinner, goateed Thurston Hall appeared in several TV commercials as the Kentucky-colonel spokesman for a leading chicken pot pie manufacturer.

Trivia: American actor Clarence Kolb came to prominence in the very early 1900s, as one half of the stage comedy team of Kolb and Dill. Kolb and his partner Max Dill were Dutch-dialect comics, their act patterned after the more famous Weber and Fields. The team supplemented their stage appearances with a brief series of short film comedies, released between 1916 and 1917. It wasn't until Kolb struck out on his own that he developed his familiar screen persona of the bullying, excitable business tycoon with the requisite heart of gold. Playing virtually the same part in virtually the same clothes in film after film, Kolb continued his patented characterization in the role of Mr. Honeywell on the popular '50s TV sitcom My Little Margie. Clarence Kolb's final screen appearance was in Man of 1000 Faces (1957), the screen biography of Lon Chaney Sr. For this guest appearance, Kolb decked himself out in his old Dutch vaudeville costume and false beard and played "himself," while character actor Danny Beck portrayed Kolb's stage cohort Max Dill(who'd died in 1949).

Trivia: When American actor Paul Hurst became the comedy sidekick in the Monte Hale western series at Republic in the early '50s, he came by the work naturally; he had been born and bred on California's Miller and Lux Ranch. While in his teens, Hurst attained his first theatre job as a scenery painter in San Francisco, making his on-stage debut at age 19. In 1911, Hurst ventured into western films, wearing three hats as a writer, director and actor. He worked ceaselessly in character roles throughout the '20s, '30s and '40s, most often in comedy parts as dim-witted police officers and muscle-headed athletes. He also showed up in leading roles in 2-reelers, notably as a punchdrunk trainer in Columbia's Glove Slingers series. On at least two memorable occasions, Hurst eschewed comedy for villainy: in 1943's The Ox-Bow Incident, he's the lynch-mob member who ghoulishly reminds the victims what's in store for them by grabbing his collar and making choking sounds. And in Gone with the Wind, Hurst is Hell personified as the Yankee deserter and would-be rapist whom Scarlet O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) shoots in the face at point blank range. Paul Hurst kept busy into the early '50s; at the age of 65, he ended his career and his life in suicide.

Trivia: Excelling in baseball while at Phillips-Exeter academy, American comic actor Andrew Tombes determined he'd make a better living as an actor than as a ballplayer. By the time he became a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies, Tombes had performed in everything from Shakespeare to musical comedy. He received star billing in five editions of the Follies in the '20s, during which time he befriended fellow Ziegfeldite Will Rogers. It was Rogers who invited Tombes to Hollywood for the 1935 Fox production Doubting Thomas. An endearingly nutty farceur in his stage roles, Tombes' screen persona was that of an eternally befuddled, easily aggravated business executive. The baldheaded, popeyed actor remained at Fox for several years after Doubting Thomas, playing an overabundance of police commissioners, movie executives, college deans, and Broadway "angels." Tombes' problem was that he arrived in talkies too late in the game: most of the larger roles in which he specialized usually went to such long-established character men as Walter Catlett and Berton Churchill, obliging Tombes to settle for parts of diminishing importance in the '40s. Most of his later screen appearances were unbilled, even such sizeable assignments as the would-be musical backer in Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin' (1941) and the royal undertaker's assistant in Hope and Crosby's Road to Morocco (1942). Still, Tombes was given ample opportunity to shine, especially as the secretive, suicidal bartender in the 1944 "film noir" Phantom Lady. Andrew Tombes last picture was How to Be Very Very Popular (1955), which starred a colleague from his busier days at 20th Century-Fox, Betty Grable.

Trivia: Although her film career rested on portraying dumb blondes, American actress Judy Holliday scored 172 on her early IQ tests. A voracious reader and theater devotee, Holliday was determined to become a classical actress even though she was rejected for admission to Yale Drama School. She worked as a switchboard operator and a stage manager for Orson Welles' Mercury Theater, then took a job in a comedy revue at a Greenwich Village nightclub in 1938. In the company of her friends Adolph Green, Betty Comden, Alvin Hammer and John Frank, Holliday was a member of the Revuers, an aggregation specializing in wildly satirical songs and sketches. Working their way up the club date grapevine, the Revuers caught the attention of a 20th Century-Fox talent scout, who wanted to hire only Holliday. She loyally refused to enter movies without her co-workers -- to little avail, since the group's premiere performance in Greenwich Village (1944) was trimmed down to near-nonexistence. Holliday stayed at Fox for a bit in Something for the Boys (1944) and a good supporting role in Winged Victory (1944), but was dropped by the studio as having limited potential. The seriocomic role of a prostitute in the 1945 stage play Kiss Them for Me revitalized her career somewhat, but her biggest break came when Jean Arthur dropped out of the Garson Kanin play Born Yesterday. With less than three days' rehearsal, Judy stepped into the role of Billie Dawn, the dimwitted "kept girl" of crooked junk dealer Paul Douglas, and overnight became the hottest new "find" on Broadway. Columbia Pictures bought the film rights for Born Yesterday, but Columbia president Harry Cohn didn't care for Holliday, so her chances at being hired for the movie were slim. She took an excellent part as a would-be husband killer in Adam's Rib (1949), and it was this performance that convinced Columbia to allow Holliday to recreate Billie Dawn for the screen version of Born Yesterday (1950). The result was an Academy Award for Holliday and a lucrative Columbia contract. Some of her Columbia pictures tended to recast Holliday as Billie Dawn (under different names) over and over again. Though this dumb-dumb characterization was irritating to the star, it came in handy when she was called to testify for the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. By playing "stupid", Holliday managed to survive accusations of Communist activity that would have killed her career. Tired of Hollywood by 1956, she signed to star in a musical comedy written by her old Revuers companions Comden and Green. Bells Are Ringing, which cast Holliday as a "Miss Fixit" telephone operator, ran several seasons, and was ultimately adapted as a film in 1960; this time there was no question that she would repeat her stage role for the movie. Unhappily, Bells Are Ringing was Holliday's last film. Domestic problems and the debilitating failures of her 1960 play based on the life of Laurette Taylor and the bedeviled Broadway musical Hot Spot were only part of the problem; an earlier bout with cancer had recurred, and this time proved fatal. Holliday died at the age of 43 -- a brilliant, singular talent allowed to perform at only half steam in most of her Hollywood films.

Trivia: Supporting actor Murray Alper's earliest screen credit was 1930's The Royal Family of Broadway. For the next 35 years, Alper was an inescapable movie presence, playing dozens of cab drivers, bookies, cops and GIs. One of his few credited appearances in an "A" picture was in The Maltese Falcon; he plays the friendly cabbie who drives Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) on a mid-film wild goose chase. Frequently seen in comedies, Alper showed up in eight Bowery Boys farces of the 1940s and 1950s, and was prominently featured in the Three Stooges' Trick Dicks (1953) and The Outlaws is Coming (1965, as Chief Crazy Horse!). One of Murray Alper's least characteristic roles was the judo instructor in Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor (1963).

Trivia: Handsome leading man Rory Calhoun's successful film and television career spanned well over 50 years. In the mid-1940s,after a difficult childhood and adolescence, Calhoun found work as a lumberjack in Santa Cruz, California. It was while there employed that Calhoun was discovered by actor Alan Ladd, who suggested that the rugged young man give movies a try. Billed as "Frank McCown," Calhoun was signed to a brief contract at 20th Century-Fox, but most of his earliest movie scenes (including a sizeable supporting role in the Laurel and Hardy vehicle The Bullfighters) ended up on the cutting room floor. Free-lancing in the late 1940s, Calhoun first attracted a fan-following with his supporting role as a high-school lothario in 1948's The Red House. He returned to Fox in 1950, enjoying major roles in such films as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and River of No Return (1955). Established as a western player by the late 1950s, Calhoun starred on the popular TV western The Texan from 1958 through 1960. He spent his spare time writing, publishing at least one novel, The Man From Padeira. From 1949 through 1970, Calhoun was married to actress Lita Baron. Perpetuating his career into the 1980s and '90s, a more weather-beaten Rory Calhoun was seen in the lead of the satirical horror film Motel Hell (1980), was quite funny as a washed-up macho movie star in Avenging Angel (1985), and stole the show from ostensible leading-man George Strait in Pure Country (1992).

Trivia: The brother of country/western singer Roy Acuff, actor Eddie Acuff drifted to Hollywood in the early 1930s, where he almost immediately secured day-player work at Warner Bros. studios. From his 1934 debut in Here Comes the Navy onward, Acuff showed up in film after film as reporters, photographers, delivery men, sailors, shop clerks, and the occasional western comical sidekick. Acuff's most memorable acting stint occured after actor Irving Bacon left Columbia's Blondie series. From 1946 through 1949, Eddie Acuff made nine Blondie appearances as the hapless postman who was forever being knocked down by the eternally late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead (Arthur Lake).

Trivia: Redheaded Jane Nigh was a defense-plant worker when she was discovered for films in 1944. Nigh made her screen debut in the 20th Century Fox musical Something for the Boys, then went on to play both sweet young things and femme fatales for a variety of studios. In 1952, she co-starred as Lorelei on the popular TV series Big Town. The third actress to play this role, Nigh was replaced in 1953 by Beverly Tyler, who in turn was replaced by Trudy Wroe. Jane Nigh's last screen appearance was in the Bowery Boys entry Hold That Hypnotist (1957); her vivid memories of that experience have been duly recorded in David Hayes and Brent Walker's The Films of the Bowery Boys (Citadel, 1984).