Trivia: The most well-known filmmaker to the public this side of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles was the classic example of the genius that burns bright early in life only to flicker and fade later. The prodigy son of an inventor and a musician, Welles was well-versed in literature at an early age -- particularly Shakespeare -- and, through the unusual circumstances of his life (both of his parents died by the time he was 12, leaving him with an inheritance and not many family obligations), he found himself free to indulge his numerous interests, which included the theater. He was educated in private schools and traveled the world, even wangling stage work with Dublin's Gate Players while still a teenager. He found it tougher to get onto the Broadway stage, and traveled the world some more before returning to get a job with Katharine Cornell, with help from such notables as Alexander Woollcott and Thornton Wilder. He later became associated with John Houseman, and, together, the two of them set the New York theater afire during the 1930s with their work for the Federal Theatre Project, which led to the founding of the Mercury Theater. The Mercury Players later graduated to radio, and their 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast made history when thousands of listeners mistakenly believed aliens had landed on Earth. In 1940, Hollywood beckoned, and Welles and company went west to RKO, where he began his short-lived reign over the film world. Working as director, producer, co-author, and star, he made Citizen Kane (1941), the most discussed -- if not the greatest -- American movie ever created. It made striking use of techniques that had been largely forgotten or overlooked by other American filmmakers, and Welles was greatly assisted on the movie by veteran cinematographer Gregg Toland. Kane, himself, attracted more attention than viewers, especially outside the major cities, and a boycott of advertising and coverage by the newspapers belonging to William Randolph Hearst -- who had served as a major model for the central figure of Charles Foster Kane -- ensured that it racked up a modest loss. Welles second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, ran into major budget and production problems, which brought down the studio management that had hired him. With the director overextending himself, the situation between Welles and RKO deteriorated. Faced with a major loss on a picture that was considered unreleasable, RKO gained control of the film and ordered it recut without Welles' consent or input, and the result is considered a flawed masterpiece. However, it was a loss for RKO, and soon after the Mercury Players were evicted from RKO, word quickly spread through the film community of Welles' difficulty in adhering to shooting schedules and budgets. His career never fully recovered, and, although he directed other films in Hollywood, including The Stranger (1946), Macbeth (1948), and Touch of Evil (1958), he was never again given full control over his movies. European producers, however, were more forgiving, and with some effort and help from a few well-placed friends, Welles was able to make such pictures as Othello (1952), Chimes at Midnight (1967), and The Trial (1963). He also remained highly visible as a personality -- he discovered in the mid-'40s that, for 100,000 dollars a shot, he could make money as an actor to help finance his films and his fairly expensive lifestyle, which resulted in Welles' appearances in The Third Man (1949), The Roots of Heaven (1958), and Catch-22 (1970), among other pictures. He also made television appearances, did voice-overs and recordings, and occasional commercials until his death in 1985. Despite his lack of commercial success, Welles remains one of the most well-known, discussed, and important directors in the history of motion pictures.

Trivia: Fans of the science fiction television series Quantum Leap will know supporting and character actor Dean Stockwell as the scene-stealing, cigar chomping, dry-witted, and cryptic hologram Al. But to view him only in that role is to see one part of a multi-faceted career that began when Stockwell was seven years old.Actually, his ties with show business stretch back to his birth for both of his parents were noted Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Nina Olivette. His father also provided the singing voice of the prince in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1931). Stockwell was born in North Hollywood and started out on Broadway in The Innocent Voyage (1943) at age seven. Curly haired and beautiful with a natural acting style that never descended into cloying cuteness, he made his screen debut after contracting with MGM at age nine in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and continued on to play sensitive boys in such memorable outings as The Mighty McGurk (1946), The Boy With Green Hair (1948), and The Secret Garden (1949). He would continue appearing in such films through 1951 when he went into the first of several "retirements" from films. When Stockwell resurfaced five years later it was as a brooding and very handsome 20-year-old who specialized in playing introverts and sensitive souls in roles ranging from a wild, young cowboy in Gun for a Coward (1957) to a murderous homosexual in Compulsion (1958) to an aspiring artist who cannot escape the influence of his domineering mother in Sons and Lovers (1960). Stockwell topped off this phase of his career portraying Eugene O'Neill in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Stockwell would spend the next three years as a hippie and when he again renewed his career it was in such very '60s efforts as Psych-Out (1968) and the spooky and weird adaptation of a Lovecraft story, The Dunwich Horror. During this period, Stockwell also started appearing in television movies such as The Failing of Raymond (1971). In the mid-'70s, the former flower child became a real-estate broker and his acting career became sporadic until the mid-'80s when he began playing character roles. It was in this area, especially in regard to comic characters, that Stockwell has had his greatest success. Though he claims it was not intentional, Stockwell has come to be almost typecast as the king of quirk, playing a wide variety of eccentrics and outcasts. One of his most famous '80s roles was that of the effeminate and rutlhess sleaze, Ben, in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986). Stockwell had previously worked with Lynch in Dune and says that when the director gave him the script for Velvet, his character was not specifically mapped out, leaving Stockwell to portray Ben in any way he felt appropriate. The actor's intuition has proven to be one of his greatest tools and helped create one of modern Hollywood's most creepy-crawly villains. Whenever possible, Stockwell prefers working by instinct and actively avoids over-rehearsing his parts. His career really picked up after he landed the part of Al in Quantum Leap. Since the show's demise, Stockwell has continued to appear on screen, starring on series like Battlestar Galactica.

Trivia: Yale graduate Bradford Dillman began his career in the sort of misunderstood-youth roles that had previously been the province of Montgomery Clift and James Dean. His first significant stage success was as the younger son in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Eugene O'Neill play Long Day's Journey Into Night. Signed by 20th Century-Fox in 1958, Dillman at first played standard leading men; his subtle shift to villainy occurred after he was cast as a wealthy psychopath in Compulsion, the 1959 drama based on the Leopold-Loeb case. Compulsion won Dillman an award at the Cannes Film Festival, and also threatened to typecast him for the rest of his film career, notwithstanding his leading role in Fox's Francis of Assisi (1961). It was during his Fox years that Dillman married popular cover girl Suzy Parker. Bradford Dillman has remained much in demand as a television guest star, and in 1965 was the lead on the filmed-in-Britain TV drama series Court-Martial.

Trivia: Diane Varsi started her show-business career by playing the coffee-house circuit as a folksinger. She finally found her true calling when she began taking acting lessons under the aegis of acting coach Jeff Corey. In a twinkling, Varsi was signed to a 20th Century-Fox contract and was cast as Alison McKenzie in the 1957 film version of Grace Metalious' Peyton Place, a performance that earned the 20-year-old novice actress an Oscar nomination. After two years of important roles in major Fox productions, she impulsively ran out on her studio contract, insisting that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown (which proved to be the case). After several years' retirement in Vermont with her third husband, Varsi decided to give acting a second try. Unfortunately, 20th Century-Fox, still smarting over Varsi's violation of her contract, effectively blocked her chances at renewing her stardom. She was able to pick up roles in low-budget and independent productions, notably as wigged-out Sally LeRoy in the cult favorite Wild in the Streets (1968). After several years of off-and-on screen activity, Varsi retired for good in 1977. Diane Varsi died at the age of 54, of complications ensuing from a respiratory ailment and Lyme Disease.

Trivia: Actor E. G. Marshall started out on radio in his native Minnesota, then headed for New York and Broadway. After several years' solid stage service, Marshall began accepting small roles in such films as 13 Rue Madeline (1945) and Call Northside 777 (1947). A mainstay of television's so-called Golden Age, Marshall excelled in incisive, authoritative roles. Long before winning two Emmy awards for his portrayal of lawyer Lawrence Preston on TV's The Defenders (1961-65), Marshall was associated with fictional jurisprudence as the military prosecutor in The Caine Mutiny (1954) and as Juror #4 in Twelve Angry Men (1957). In contrast to his businesslike demeanor, Marshall is one of Hollywood's most notorious pranksters; he was never more impish than when he ad-libbed profanities and nonsequiturs while his lips were hidden by a surgical mask in the 1969-73 TV series The Bold Ones. The best of E.G. Marshall's work of the 1970s and 1980s includes the role of the straying husband in Woody Allen's Interiors (1977), the U.S. President in Superman II (1978) and General Eisenhower in the 1985 TV miniseries War and Remembrance. Continuing to flourish into the 1990s, Marshall was seen in the 1993 TV adaptation of Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, and was cast as Arthur Thurmond on the 1994 medical series Chicago Hope. Radio fans will remember E.G. Marshall as the unctuous host ("Pleasant dreeeaaammms") of the 1970s anthology The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre.

Trivia: Red-headed, freckle-faced Martin Milner was only 15 when he made his screen debut in Life With Father (1947), and would continue to play wide-eyed high schoolers and college kids well into the next decade. His early film assignments included the teenaged Marine recruit in Lewis Milestone's The Halls of Montezuma (1951) and the obnoxious suitor of Jeanne Crain in Belles on Their Toes (1952). His first regular TV series was The Stu Erwin Show (1950-1955), in which he played the boyfriend (and later husband) of Stu's daughter Joyce. More mature roles came his way in Marjorie Morningstar (1957) as Natalie Wood's playwright sweetheart and in The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) as the jazz musician targeted for persecution by Winchell-esque columnist Burt Lancaster. Beginning in 1960, he enjoyed a four-year run as Corvette-driving Tod Stiles on TV's Route 66 (a statue of Milner and his co-star George Maharis currently stands at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY). A longtime friend and associate of producer/director/actor Jack Webb, Milner was cast as veteran L.A.P.D. patrolman Pete Malloy on the Webb-produced TV weekly Adam-12, which ran from 1968 to 1975. His later TV work included a short-lived 1970s series based on Johan Wyss' Swiss Family Robinson. Later employed as a California radio personality, Martin Milner continued to make occasional TV guest appearances; one of these was in the 1989 TV movie Nashville Beat, in which he was reunited with his Adam-12 co-star Kent McCord. He made an appearance on the short-lived series The New Adam-12 and had recurring roles on shows like Life Goes On and Murder, She Wrote. Milner died in 2015, at age 83.

Trivia: Following his screen debut in 1949's Twelve O'Clock High, Richard Anderson was groomed for stardom at MGM. His stature in Hollywood seemed assured when he married the daughter of former MGM luminary Norma Shearer. But Anderson was -- by his own admission -- a less-than-noble figure in his younger days, losing both prestige and several plum film roles through his arrogance, his explosive temper, and his after-hours carousing. A kinder, mellower Richard Anderson resurfaced on television in the 1970s, gaining a modest but loyal fan following thanks to his weekly appearances as Oscar Goldman in The Six Million Dollar Man. Anderson also played Goldman on the spin-off series The Bionic Woman -- the result being that, for several years in the mid-1970s, he was simultaneously co-starring on two different TV series in the same role. Richard Anderson's additional TV-series stints included Mama Rosa (1950), Bus Stop (1961), Dan August (1970), Cover-Up (1984) and Dynasty (1986-87 season).

Trivia: Actor Edward Binns possessed two qualities that many of his contemporaries lacked: he was always reliable, and always believable. On Broadway, he was shown to good advantage in such hit productions as Command Decision, The Lark, A View From the Bridge, and Caligula. In films from 1951's Teresa, Binns' roles ranged from the vacillating Juror #6 in 12 Angry Men (1957) to the authoritative Major General Walter Bedell Smith in Patton (1970). On television, Binns played the title role in the 1959 cop drama Brenner, Dr. Anson Kiley in The Nurses (1962-1964), and secret-service contact man Wallie Powers in It Takes a Thief (1969-1970 season). Edward Binns died suddenly at the age of 74, while traveling from New York to his home in Connecticut.

Trivia: For over six decades, Louise Lorimer played character roles on stage, screen and television. She launched her career on Broadway, appearing in I Remember Mama opposite Marlon Brando. Lorimer later worked on My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison. Lorimer made her feature-film debut in Gangster's Boy (1938). She subsequently appeared steadily in feature films through the late 1970s. Her television work includes appearances on Profiles in Courage and Marnie. She also frequently appeared on the Alfred Hitchcock anthology series Hitchcock Presents and on the sitcom Dennis the Menace. On Hopalong Cassidy, Lorimer occasionally played "Stagecoach Sal." Lorimer graduated from the Leland Powers School of Drama in Boston. She served in the USO during WW II. Later in her career, Lorimer became a teacher at the Martha's Vineyard branch of the Leland Powers School of Drama.

Trivia: In films from 1945, Wilton Graff carved a screen career out of playing judges, doctors, DAs and the like. Graff's movie assignments ranged from bits in "A" pictures to sizeable supporting roles in programmers. He could be seen as the maitre d' in the crucial Gregory Peck-John Garfield restaurant scene in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and as Baron Fitzwalter, Robin Hood's father-in-law, in Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950). Wilton Graff's only starring role was as Dr. Belleau, the crazed sportsman who hunted human quarry in the 1961 Most Dangerous Game knock-off Bloodlust.

Trivia: Best remembered for his high-profile acting roles on two 1970s television sitcoms -- that of genial news writer Murray Slaughter on CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) and that of sweet-natured Captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat (1977-1986), stage-trained actor Gavin MacLeod in fact began his career typecast as a villain. He landed parts in Hollywood features including The Sand Pebbles (1966), Deathwatch (1966), and The Comic (1969), and enjoyed a tenure as Joseph "Happy" Haines on the sitcom McHale's Navy from 1962 through 1964. After The Love Boat permanently laid anchor in the mid-'80s, MacLeod signed on as a spokesperson and pitchman for Princess Cruises and returned to regional theatrical work. He also tackled guest spots on programs including Touched by an Angel and (in a move that surprised everyone) the HBO prison drama Oz. Off-camera, MacLeod is an outspoken born-again Christian. He hosted a popular talk show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, along with his wife, Patti (whom he divorced in 1982 and remarried three years later), called Back on Course, and personally funded many of the Greatest Adventure Stories from the Bible animated videos for children.

Trivia: Actor, director, producer, and writer Terry Becker has been a familiar figure on television since the 1950s, on series such as The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Becker was born in New York City in 1930, and he discovered as early as elementary school that acting in plays helped keep him out of trouble. He later attended Morris High School in the Bronx (where his classmates included future actor Ross Martin, a close friend); it was there that he tried directing and discovered that he enjoyed it as well. Becker turned to drama after he graduated, studying at the American Theater Wing. His teachers included Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, and he also made the acquaintance of playwright Paddy Chayefsky, who was to become a giant in the world of television in the 1950s. As an aspiring young actor in post-World War II New York, he crossed paths with such up-and-coming players as Marlon Brando, Ben Gazzara, and Tony Franciosa. Becker made his television debut on the same installment of Philco Playhouse that saw the debut of Ernest Borgnine. Becker went on to appear in parts of varying sizes, from bits to starring roles, in dozens of early live-television dramas. He never made the jump to series work, though, preferring instead his one-off performances on the small screen, interspersed with occasional film work and stage productions. Becker wanted to direct for television as well as the stage, but in those years he was getting far more offers as an actor. One of the few directing jobs that he did procure backfired: He went out to Hollywood to direct a pilot that was never made and was forced to turn back to acting in order to survive in the movie capital. Becker often played highly motivated characters, such as earnest villains, dedicated, selfless heroes, or victims; in the Twilight Zone episode "I Am the Night -- Color Me Black," he portrayed a man due to be hanged in a matter of hours for what even the sheriff conceded was a justifiable homicide. He also appeared in two feature films, Teacher's Pet (as Mr. Appino) and Compulsion (as Benson), during the late '50s. In 1965, Becker joined the cast of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea as Chief Francis Sharkey, the top noncommissioned officer aboard the submarine Seaview. Producer Irwin Allen gave Becker very little to do (and very little money) during his first season on the show, preferring that the actor find his own niche or leave the cast. Ironically, once Becker had established a rapport with the series' star, Richard Basehart, and turned his role into something more substantial, Allen tried to renege on his promise of more money. Becker vowed to leave the show, insisting that a death scene be written for his character, but Allen was unable to find a replacement actor and finally resigned Becker for more money. Becker brought an authentic working-class New York element to the role and his work with Basehart over the next two seasons was one of the highlights of the program; the two always made sure they had at least one good, interesting dialogue scene together on each show. Although he never directed any episodes of Voyage, Becker moved out of acting and into producing, writing, and directing following the series' cancellation in 1968. In collaboration with Gene Reynolds and James L. Brooks, Becker developed and later directed several episodes of the series Room 222, which won him an Emmy Award for directing during the 1969-1970 season; he subsequently helmed episodes of Mission: Impossible, M*A*S*H (which was co-produced by Reynolds) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Becker also went into partnership with Carroll O'Connor, an old friend from his days acting in New York, to form a production company. He wrote and directed the horror movie The Thirsty Dead (1975), but spent most of his time in the '70s shepherding various series into production, including Bronk (with Jack Palance). Becker continues to write, direct, and produce, and he makes occasional appearances at conventions devoted to '60s television and science fiction.

Trivia: Over his 14-year film career, actor Russ Bender appeared almost exclusively in low-budget horror films: The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), It Conquered the World (1957), Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1965), etc. One of his few "mainstream" assignments was the role of Edgar Llewellyn in 20th Century-Fox's Compulsion (1959). Russ Bender is also listed as screenwriter on such pinchpenny projects as Voodoo Woman.

Trivia: Not to be confused with the later 20th Century-Fox contract player of the same name, silent screen actor Harry Carter had appeared in repertory with Mrs. Fiske and directed The Red Mill for Broadway impresario Charles Frohman prior to entering films with Universal in 1914. Often cast as a smooth villain, the dark-haired Carter made serials something of a specialty, menacing future director Robert Z. Leonard in The Master Key (1914); playing the title menace in The Gray Ghost (1917); and acting supercilious towards Big Top performers Eddie Polo and Eileen Sedgwick in Lure of the Circus (1918). In addition to his serial work, Carter played General Von Kluck in the infamous propaganda piece The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin (1918). It was back to chapterplays in the 1920s, where he menaced Claire Anderson and Grace Darmond in two very low-budget examples of the genre: The Fatal Sign (1920) and The Hope Diamond Mystery (1921).

Trivia: Stage actor Peter Brocco made his first film appearance in 1932's The Devil and Deep. He then left films to tour in theatrical productions in Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Returning to Hollywood in 1947, Brocco could be seen in dozens of minor and supporting roles, usually playing petty crooks, shifty foreign agents, pathetic winos and suspicious store clerks. His larger screen roles included Ramon in Spartacus (1960), The General in The Balcony (1963), Dr. Wu in Our Man Flint (1963), and the leading character in the Cincinnati-filmed black comedy Homebodies (1974). The addition of a fuzzy, careless goatee in his later years enabled Brocco to portray generic oldsters in such films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1977), The One and Only(1977), Throw Momma From the Train (1989) and War of the Roses (1983). In 1983, Peter Brocco was one of many veterans of the Twilight Zone TV series of the 1950s and 1960s to be affectionately cast in a cameo role in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Trivia: Chubby, rubber-faced comedian Alan Carney knocked around vaudeville for years as a comic dialectician. After making his first film, 1941's Convoy, Carney signed a contract at RKO, appearing in choice supporting roles in such films as Mr. Lucky (1943). In 1943, Carney was teamed with Wally Brown (see entry 9048) as RKO's answer to Abbott and Costello. In addition to their inexpensive starring vehicles, Brown and Carney co-starred in Step Lively (1943), a musical remake of the Marx Bros.' Room Service (1938) (Wally played Chico's part, while Carney filled in for Harpo; the "Groucho" role was essayed by, of all people, Adolphe Menjou). Brown and Carney were also featured on a live USO tour arranged by the studio. After 1946's Genius at Work, RKO terminated the team's contracts. Alan Carney continued in films and TV as a supporting player, working prolifically at Disney Studios in the 1960s and 1970s; one of Carney's best latter-day roles was as Mayor Dawgmeat in the 1959 film musical Li'l Abner.

Trivia: Born Ina Rosenberg, Balin is a tall, slim brunette with the looks of a warm-hearted runway model. She debuted in the '50s on the Perry Como TV show, leading to work on Broadway in Compulsion and A Majority of One. Discovered by Hollywood producers, she made her film debut as Anthony Quinn's daughter in The Black Orchid (1959). In 1961 Balin was voted International Star of Tomorrow by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, by which time she was considered one of 20th Century Fox's most promising young talents. She later left the studio; her career never achieved the heights of her early promise. Balin toured Vietnam in 1970 with a U.S.O. show; there she visited An Lac, a Saigon orphanage. Her association with An Lac led her to be among the ground personnel helping to evacuate Vietnamese and Asian-American orphans at war's end in 1975, after which she adopted three of the children. This experience was dramatized in The Children of An Lac (1980), a TV movie in which Balin played herself.

Trivia: The embodiment of corporate dignity, British actor Frank Conroy nonetheless gave the impression of being a long-trusted executive who was about to abscond with the company funds. During his Broadway career, Conroy frequently achieved above-the-title billing; he never quite managed this in Hollywood, but neither was he ever without work. Conroy made his first film, Royal Family of Broadway, in 1930; uncharacteristically, he plays the ardent suitor of the leading lady (Ina Claire), and very nearly wins the lady before she decides that her stage career comes first. Conroy's respectable veneer allowed him to play many a "hidden killer" in movie mysteries like Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935). He left films periodically for more varied assignments on stage; in 1939, he originated the role of dying millionaire Horace Giddens in Lillian Hellmans The Little Foxes. Returning to Hollywood in the 1940s, it was back to authoritative villainy, notably his role in The Ox-Bow Incident as a martinet ex-military officer who rigidly supervises a lynching, then kills himself when he realizes he's executed three innocent men. More benign roles came Conroy's way in All My Sons (1948), in which he plays an industrialist serving a prison sentence while the guilty man (Edward G. Robinson) walks free; and in Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), wherein Conroy has a lengthy unbilled role as the American diplomat who listens to the demands of outer-space visitor Michael Rennie. Frank Conroy remained a top character player until his retirement in 1960, usually honored with "guest star" billing on the many TV anthologies of the era.

Trivia: A rotund, balding supporting actor, Henry Kulky began his show business career wrestling professionally under the alarming name of "Bomber Kulkovich." Fellow wrestler-turned-screen actor Mike Mazurki arranged for Kulky to make his acting debut in Call Northside 777 (1947), and the die was cast. Because of his rather off-putting appearance, Kulky became typecast as thugs, gangsters, and bartenders, who were at times quite lovable characters. He even showed up in a Western or two, including a 1949 Durango Kid entry. Like many supporting players of his generation, Kulky would enjoy his greatest popularity on television, including a five-year stint on Life of Riley and as Chief Curly Jones on The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The latter was his final role; he died of a heart attack while studying a script during the show's second season.

Trivia: American actor Dayton Lummis was born in New York, but studied theatre in Los Angeles at the Martha Oatman School. His first professional engagement, at age 24, was with the Russell Stock Company, of Redlands, California; Lummis remained a regional actor until his Broadway bow in 1943. One of those actors whose face everyone remembers but whose name everyone forgets (one of his few billed roles was in Hitchcock's The Wrong Man [1956]), Lummis worked steadily if not prominently in films, most often in authoritative roles as aristocrats or politicians. The actor was better served by television, where he appeared in over 400 programs. Dayton Lummis was fairly anonymous when in modern dress, but came to life whenever decked out in a powdered wig or 19th century waistcoat; his adeptness at period roles made him indispensible during TV's western boom of the late '50s, and in fact Lummis had a regular costarring role as Marshal Andy Morrison on the 1959 oater Law of the Plainsman.