Trivia: The son of a wealthy California businessman, Robert Stack spent his teen years giving skeet shooting lessons to such Hollywood celebrities as Carole Lombard and Clark Gable; it was only natural, then, that he should gravitate to films himself after attending the University of Southern California. At age 20, he made his screen debut in Deanna Durbin's First Love (1939) in which he gave his teenaged co-star her very first screen kiss. Two years later he appeared opposite his former "pupil" Carole Lombard in the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or Not to Be (1942). After serving with the navy in WWII he resumed his film career, avoiding typecasting with such dramatically demanding film assignments as The Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), The Tarnished Angels (1957), and John Paul Jones (1959). He earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a self-destructive alcoholic in Written on the Wind (1956). In 1959 he gained a whole new flock of fans when he was cast as humorless federal agent Elliot Ness in TV's The Untouchables, which ran for four seasons and won him an Emmy award. He continued playing taciturn leading roles in such TV series as Name of the Game (1969-1971), Most Wanted (1976-1977), and Strike Force (1981), and from 1987 to 2002 was the no-nonsense host of the TV anthology Unsolved Mysteries. Not nearly as stoic and serious in real life, Stack was willing to spoof his established screen image in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979) and Zucker-Abraham-Zucker's Airplane! (1980). The warmer side of Robert Stack could be glimpsed in the TV informational series It's a Great Life (1985), which he hosted with his wife Rosemarie, and in his 1980 autobiography, Straight Shooting. Though film appearances grew increasingly sporatic through the 1990s, Stack remained a familiar figure to television viewers thanks to syndicated reruns of Unsolved Mysteries well into the new millennium. Memorable film roles in 1990s included lending his voice to Beavis and Butthead Do America (1996) and appearing as himself in the 1999 comedy drama Mumford. In October of 2002 Stack underwent successful radiation treatment for prostate cancer. On May 14, 2003, Robert Stack's wife Rosemarie found the actor dead in their Los Angeles home. He was 84.

Trivia: It was his failure as a playwright that led Robert Ryan to a three-decade career as an actor. He was a unique presence on both the stage and screen, and in the Hollywood community, where he was that rarity: a two-fisted liberal. In many ways, at the end of the 1940s, Ryan was the liberals' answer to John Wayne, and he even managed to work alongside the right-wing icon in Flying Leathernecks (1951). The son of a successful building contractor, Ryan was born in Chicago in 1909 and attended Dartmouth College, where one of his fraternity brothers was Nelson Rockefeller. He was a top athlete at the school and held its heavyweight boxing title for four straight years. Ryan graduated in 1932, during the depths of the Great Depression, and intended to write plays. Finding no opportunities available in this field, he became a day laborer; he stoked coal on a ship bound for Africa, worked as a sandhog, and herded horses in Montana, among other jobs. Ryan finally had his chance to write as a member of a theater company in Chicago, but proved unsuccessful and turned to acting. He arrived in Hollywood at the end of the '30s and studied at the Max Reinhardt Workshop, making his professional stage debut in 1940. He appeared in small roles for Paramount Pictures, but Ryan's real film career didn't begin until several years later. He returned east to appear in stock, and landed a part in Clifford Odets' Clash by Night, in which he worked opposite Tallulah Bankhead and got excellent reviews. Ryan came to regard that production and his work with Bankhead as the pivotal point in his career. The reviews of the play brought him to the attention of studio casting offices, and he was signed by RKO. The actor made his debut at the studio in the wartime action thriller Bombardier. It was a good beginning, although his early films were fairly lackluster and his career was interrupted by World War II -- he joined the Marines in 1944 and spent the next three years in uniform. Ryan's screen career took off when he returned to civilian life in 1947. He starred in two of the studio's best releases that year: Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach and Edward Dmytryk's Crossfire, the latter an extraordinary film for its time dealing with troubled veterans and virulent anti-Semitism, with Ryan giving an Oscar-nominated performance as an unrepentant murderer of an innocent Jewish man. He continued to do good work in difficult movies, including the Joseph Losey symbolic drama The Boy With Green Hair (1948) and with Robert Wise's The Set-Up (1949). The latter film (which Ryan regarded as his favorite of all of his movies) was practically dumped onto the market by RKO, though the studio soon found itself with an unexpected success when the film received good reviews, it was entered in the Cannes Film Festival, and it won the Best Picture award in the British Academy Award competition. Ryan also distinguished himself that year in Dmytryk's Act of Violence and Max Ophüls' Caught, Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground in 1951, and then repeated his stage success a decade out in Fritz Lang's Clash by Night (1952). Along with Robert Mitchum, Ryan practically kept the studio afloat during those years, providing solid leading performances in dozens of movies. In the late '50s, he moved into work at other studios and proved to be one of the most versatile leading actors in Hollywood, playing heroes and villains with equal conviction and success in such diverse productions as John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Anthony Mann's God's Little Acre (1958), Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), and Peter Ustinov's Billy Budd (1962). Even in films that were less-than-good overall, he was often their saving grace, nowhere more so than in Ray's King of Kings (1961), in which he portrayed John the Baptist. Even during the late '40s, Ryan was never bashful about his belief in liberal causes, and was a highly vocal supporter of the so-called "Hollywood Ten" at a time when most other movie professionals -- fearful for their livelihoods -- had abandoned them. He was also a founder of SANE, an anti-nuclear proliferation group, and served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union. During the early '50s, he'd fully expected to be named in investigations and called by the House Select Committee on Un-American Activities or Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, but somehow Ryan was never cited, despite his public positions. In later years, he attributed it to his Irish last name, his Catholic faith, and the fact that he'd been a marine. Considering his career's focus on movies from the outset, Ryan also fared amazingly well as a stage actor. In addition to Clash by Night, he distinguished himself in theatrical productions of Shakespeare's Coriolanus in 1954 at Broadway's Phoenix Theater and a 1960 production of Antony and Cleopatra opposite Katharine Hepburn at the American Shakespeare Festival. (Hepburn later proposed him for the lead in the Irving Berlin musical Mr. President in 1962.) Ryan's other theatrical credits included his portrayal of the title role in the Nottingham (England) Repertory Theater's production of Othello, Walter Burns in a 1969 revival of The Front Page, and James Tyrone in a 1971 revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Not all of Ryan's later films were that good. His parts as the American field commander in Battle of the Bulge and Lee Marvin's army antagonist in The Dirty Dozen were written very unevenly, though he was good in them. He was also a strange choice (though very funny) for black comedy in William Castle's The Busy Body, and he wasn't onscreen long enough (though he was excellent in his scenes) in Robert Siodmak's Custer of the West. But for every poor fit like these, there were such movies as John Sturges' Hour of the Gun and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, in which he excelled. His success in Long Day's Journey Into Night was as prelude to his last critical success, as Larry in John Frankenheimer's The Iceman Cometh (1973). Ironically, at the time he was playing a terminally ill character in front of the camera, Ryan knew that he was dying from lung cancer. During this time he also filmed a hard-hitting anti-smoking public service announcement that directly attributed his condition to his long-time heavy use of cigarettes.

Trivia: The son of a Pennsylvania minister, actor Cameron Mitchell first appeared on Broadway in 1934, in the Lunts' modern-dress version of Taming of the Shrew. He served as a bombardier during World War II, and for a brief period entertained thoughts of becoming a professional baseball player (he allegedly held an unsigned contract with the Detroit Tigers until the day he died). Mitchell was signed to an MGM contract in 1945, but stardom would elude him until he appeared as Happy in the original 1949 Broadway production of Death of the Salesman. He re-created this role for the 1951 film version, just before signing a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. Throughout the 1950s, Mitchell alternated between likeable characters (the unpretentious business executive in How to Marry a Millionaire [1952]) and hissable ones (Jigger Craigin in Carousel [1956]); his best performance, in the opinion of fans and critics alike, was as drug-addicted boxer Barney Ross in the 1957 biopic Monkey on My Back. Beginning in the 1960s, Mitchell adroitly sidestepped the IRS by appearing in dozens of Spanish and Italian films, only a few of which were released in the U.S. He also starred in three TV series: The Beachcomber (1961), The High Chapparal (1969-1971), and Swiss Family Robinson (1976). Mitchell spent the better part of the 1970s and 1980s squandering his talents in such howlers as The Toolbox Murders, though there were occasional bright moments, notably his performance as a neurotic mob boss in 1982's My Favorite Year. A note for trivia buffs: Cameron Mitchell also appeared in the first CinemaScope film, The Robe (1953). Mitchell was the voice of Jesus in the Crucifixion scene.

Trivia: Born Boris Milanovich, Dexter was a square-jawed supporting player and former lead, often cast in tough character roles. As early as his first film, 1950's The Asphalt Jungle, the talented Dexter found himself overshadowed by the star power of Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore, Louis Calhern and Marilyn Monroe. Occasionally, Dexter was cast in a role that stuck in the memory banks, such as Bugsy Siegel in 1960's The George Raft Story. He also gained a degree of fame as the producer of such worthwhile films as The Naked Runner (1967) and The Lawyer (1970) and Little Fauss and big Halsy(1970); reportedly, he was able to gain a foothold as a producer thanks to Frank Sinatra, whom Dexter once saved from drowning. Brad Dexter married and divorced singer Peggy Lee.

Trivia: Relatively few people remember the name Biff Elliot today, but as an actor, he carved a special place for himself in popular culture during the '50s -- in a role that he spent years living down. Born Leon Shalek in Lynn, MA, a working-class town, he aspired to an acting career and came to New York in pursuit of that goal. He got some stage and television work, mostly playing tough, working-class characters, and then a seemingly big break in Hollywood playing the lead role in the crime thriller I, The Jury (1953), directed by Harry Essex. In the history of popular culture, Ralph Meeker might have earned a place playing Mike Hammer in the best movie ever made from one of Mickey Spillane's books; Spillane himself may have played the best Mike Hammer on the big-screen (and Brian Keith the best Mike Hammer on the small-screen); but Biff Elliot had the honor of being the first actor to portray Mike Hammer anywhere in that 1953 movie (made in 3-D) based on the first of the Hammer books. It should have been a breakthrough role, but the movie ended up being an albatross around his neck. Over the next few years, there were other offers for more roles in which, in the manner of Spillane's hero, he was mostly pummeling other characters. Elliot did get some film work in movies such as Between Heaven and Hell, Good Morning, Miss Dove, and The Enemy Below (as the ship's quartermaster) at Fox, and Pork Chop Hill for Lewis Milestone at United Artists, but mostly he worked in television. In 1959, Elliot got a seemingly good break when playwright Clifford Odets happened to see I, The Jury and offered him a role in The Story on Page One, which Odets wrote and directed. Alas, the latter movie fizzled -- mostly thanks to Odets's convoluted approach to directing -- and did nothing to help the career of anyone in it. Elliot was mostly seen on television over the next decade or so in roles of varying sizes -- in the Star Trek episode "The Devil in the Dark" as Schmitter, the mining colony crewman joking about the anticipated arrival of the Starship Enterprise who is dissolved by the title creature in the pre-credit sequence. During the '70s and '80s, he was once again seen regularly in movies, including the Jack Lemmon vehicles Save the Tiger (1973), The Front Page (1975) and That's Life (1986). Elliot died of natural causes at age 89 in 2012.

Trivia: The son of actors Harry Carey and Olive Golden, Harry Carey Jr. never answered to "Harry" or "Junior"; to his friends, family and film buffs, he was always "Dobe" Carey. Raised on his father's California ranch, the younger Carey spent his first six adult years in the Navy. While it is commonly assumed that he made his film debut under the direction of his dad's longtime friend John Ford, Carey in fact was first seen in a fleeting bit in 1946's Rolling Home, directed by William Berke. It wasn't until his third film, Three Godfathers (dedicated to the memory of his father) that Carey worked with Ford. Honoring his promise to Harry Sr. that he'd "look after" Dobe, Ford saw to it that the younger Carey was given a starring assignment (along with another of the director's proteges, Ben Johnson), in Wagonmaster (1950). Though he handled this assignment nicely, exuding an appealing earnest boyishness, Carey wasn't quite ready for stardom so far as the Hollywood "higher-ups" were concerned, so he settled for supporting roles, mostly in westerns. John Ford continued to use Carey whenever possible; in 1955's The Long Gray Line, the actor has a few brief scenes as West Point undergraduate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carey was also featured on the "Spin and Marty" segments of Walt Disney's daily TVer The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59). In later years, Carey's weather-beaten face was seen in choice character assignments in films ranging from The Whales of August (1987) to Back to the Future III (1990); he was also hired by such John Ford aficionados as Peter Bogdanovich, who cast Carey as an old wrangler named Dobie (what else?) in Nickelodeon (1976), and as an ageing bike-gang member named Red in Mask (1985). In 1994, Harry Carey Jr. published his autobiography, Company of Heroes. Carey died of natural causes at age 91 in late December 2012.

Trivia: Though his official film debut was 1955's House of Bamboo, American actor Robert Quarry had been playing bit parts since at least 1943. In his mid-forties, Quarry finally attained stardom as the leading character in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and Return of Count Yorga(1971). Touted as the "new Vincent Price" (with whom he co-starred in 1973's Dr. Phibes Rises Again), Quarry went on to play such juicy roles as the mad guru in Deathmaster (1975, which he also produced) before inexplicably fading from films in the late 1970s. Except for a one-shot as Michael Anthony in a 1978 TV-movie revival of the old series The Millionaire, Quarry virtually disappeared, returning in the mid-1980s in a smattering of low-budget "regional" thrillers.

Trivia: The son of a Baptist minister, actor DeForest Kelley was one of the lucky few chosen to be groomed for stardom by Paramount Pictures' "young talent" program in 1946. He served an apprenticeship in 2-reel musicals like Gypsy Holiday before starring as a tormented musician in Fear in the Night (47). Unfortunately, a sweeping cancellation of Paramount young talent contracts ended Kelley's stardom virtually before it began. By the mid-1950s, he was scrounging up work on episodic TV and playing bits in such films as The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (56) (this film, by the way, is the first in which Kelley uttered his now-famous line, "He's dead, captain"). Producer/writer Gene Roddenberry took a liking to Kelley and cast the actor in the leading role of a flamboyant criminal attorney in the 1959 TV pilot film 333 Montgomery. The series didn't sell, but Roddenberry was still determined to help Kelley on the road back to stardom. One of their next collaborations was Star Trek (66-69), in which (as everybody in the galaxy knows) Kelley appeared as truculent ship's doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy. Virtually all of Kelley's subsequent film appearances have been as McCoy in the seemingly endless series of elaborate Star Trek feature films. And on the pilot for the 1987 syndie Star Trek: The Next Generation, DeForrest Kelley was once more seen as "Bones" -- albeit appropriately stooped and greyed.

Trivia: Whenever actor Ed Platt blew one of his lines in his role of "The Chief" in the TV comedy series Get Smart, star Don Adams would cry out "Is John Doucette available?" Adams was kidding, of course, but he was not alone in his high regard for the skill and versatility of the deep-voiced, granite-featured Doucette. In films on a regular basis since 1947 (he'd made his official movie debut in 1943's Two Tickets to London), Doucette was usually cast in roles calling for bad-tempered menace, but was also adept at dispensing dignity and authority. He was equally at home with the archaic dialogue of Julius Caesar (1953) and Cleopatra (1963) as he was with the 20th-century military patois of 1970's Patton, in which he played General Truscott. John Doucette's many TV credits include a season on the syndicated MacDonald Carey vehicle Lock-Up (1959), and the role of Captain Andrews on The Partners (1971), starring Doucette's old friend and admirer Don Adams.

Trivia: Lead actor Barry Coe has appeared in film since 1956.

Trivia: Too often dismissed as little more than a genre filmmaker, Samuel Fuller was instead one of the earliest and most uncompromising forces in American independent cinema. Noted for his tabloid-influenced storytelling style, breathless camera work, and extreme close-ups, Fuller was a pugnacious, tough-as-nails man whose movies reflect a uniquely personal vision; obsessed with themes of falsehood and deception, his films illuminated the cultural divisions at the heart of American society, depicting a grim, immoral world far removed from the placid surface typically on display in more mainstream fare. Celebrated as a genius by his fans -- and denounced as a sensationalist by his detractors -- Fuller was a deeply patriotic man quick to criticize his country's flaws, as well as a raw, anarchic filmmaker capable of moments of inexpressible beauty; such contradictions fueled and ultimately defined both him and his body of work, which continues to exert tremendous influence over such prominent filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Jim Jarmusch. Samuel Michael Fuller was born August 12, 1911, in Worcester, MA, and raised in New York City; at the age of 13 he quit school to work as a copy boy for the New York Journal and within two years was working as the personal copy boy of the tabloid's crusading editor, Arthur Brisbane. When Brisbane quit after an explosive quarrel with his boss, the infamous William Randolph Hearst, Fuller exited as well, briefly joining the staff of the New York Evening Graphic before moving west to accept a position with the San Diego Sun, where he became one of the youngest crime reporters in the country. While honing a brash, no-nonsense style of journalism, his job led him back and forth across the United States, interviewing notorious murderers and the like; he finally quit the position to pursue his wanderlust full-time, spending much of the Depression era riding the rails throughout the American South. In 1935 Fuller finally settled down long enough to write a pulp novel, Burn Baby Burn; other titles like Test Tube Baby and Kiss and Make Up followed in the years to come, many of them published under pseudonyms.Lured to Los Angeles in 1936 by a former editor, Gene Fowler, Fuller began his film career by ghostwriting the script to the Boris Petroff picture Hats Off; a year later he collaborated on Harry Lachman's It Happened in Hollywood before earning his first screen credit for 1938's Gangs of New York. Several other projects followed, but Fuller did not receive another credit prior to 1941's war drama Confirm or Deny; the following year he enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving as a corporal in the First Infantry Division, more commonly known as "the Big Red One" on account of their distinctive shoulder patches. He was also assigned to write a series of combat reports, and was twice wounded in battle, receiving a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for his bravery. Fuller's wartime experiences proved to be a major turning point, shaping and influencing his art for the remainder of his life; upon his discharge he returned to Hollywood, where his novel The Dark Page -- published in 1944 -- had been purchased by Howard Hawks. A film adaptation was not produced until 1952, when it was released under the title Scandal Sheet and directed by Phil Karlson.Despite steady work as a script writer, Fuller became increasingly frustrated with his lack of success in Hollywood; hired as a staffer at Warner Bros., he looked on helplessly as not one of his screenplays ever reached the production stage. When Lippert Productions approached him to author a number of low-budget Westerns, Fuller offered to work for scale in order to write and direct his own material; Lippert executives agreed, and in 1949 he delivered I Shot Jesse James, introducing his distinctive, close-up intensive cinematic style. Neither the picture nor its 1950 follow-up, the Vincent Price vehicle The Baron of Arizona, earned Fuller much attention, but with his third film The Steel Helmet he began to make significant waves. Produced in less than two weeks for under $100,000, it was the first fictional film made on the subject of the Korean War, and also broke new ground by making explicit reference to the U.S.'s Japanese internment camps during World War II. Equally important, The Steel Helmet grossed an astounding six million dollars -- a particularly impressive effort for an independent feature during an era when the studios held almost total control over the nation's theaters -- and its success earned Fuller a contract with 20th Century Fox. At Fox, Fuller resurfaced in 1951 with Fixed Bayonets, another tale of the Korean War; it was not nearly as successful at its predecessor, however, and he set up his own production company for the following year's Park Row, an homage to the newspaper business set at the turn of the century. Fuller claimed it as his favorite among his films, but it was a financial disaster, and it cost him virtually all of his earnings from The Steel Helmet. He then returned to Fox to helm 1953's Pickup on South Street, a film noir cult classic which won the Bronze Lion at the Venice Film Festival but was criticized by many reviewers during its theatrical release as crass anti-Communist propaganda. Its star, Richard Widmark, also headlined Fuller's next project, Hell and High Water, a submarine drama produced at Fox's request to demonstrate the continued ability to employ conventional camera movements within an enclosed space while filming in the new CinemaScope process. After 1955's House of Bamboo, a meditation on issues of national identity and conflicted loyalties, Fuller founded a second production company, Globe Enterprises, to mount the 1957 Western Run of the Arrow, the film which first began earning him praise from the staff of the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinema. Later that same year Fuller delivered both China Gate, the first American feature to touch on the struggles beginning to sweep through Vietnam, and the bold Western Forty Guns, a major favorite among his increasing European critical fan base for its exploration of the genre's eroticism as well as its elliptical narrative and strange editing patterns. Fuller next filmed 1958's Verboten!, a denunciation of neo-Nazism composed of less than 100 shots, one of them alone clocking in at over five minutes; he followed with another meditation on racial injustice, 1959's The Crimson Kimono, which explored a Los Angeles cop's shame over his Japanese heritage. The optimism so long an integral part of Fuller's vision had virtually dissolved by the point of 1961's Underworld USA, a portrait of an American society swallowed by its own apathy; among his most brutal and harsh pictures, it was also the final production of Globe Enterprises, and he made his next film, 1962's Merrill's Marauders, under the auspices of Warner Bros. Fuller then agreed to make a pair of pictures for Leon Fromkess and Sam Firks which so polarized critics and alienated mainstream audiences that they ultimately led to his expulsion from the Hollywood system.The first was 1963's Shock Corridor, considered by many Fuller's masterpiece. The story of a reporter who commits himself to a state mental institution in order to catch a killer and win the Pulitzer Prize, the film was so over-the-top in its depiction of the grotesqueries of asylum life -- clearly intended as a portrait of American society in microcosm -- that contemporary reviewers dismissed it as pure sensationalism. The critics had even less regard for 1964's The Naked Kiss, the hallucinatory tale of a prostitute (Constance Towers) who flees the streets for the seeming comforts of the suburbs, only to discover sickness and degradation unlike anything she'd ever encountered. A grim indictment of American hypocrisy, The Naked Kiss is today regarded among Fuller's most brilliant efforts, but it was met with such hostility from the media and audiences that it crippled the director's career; with no offers from Hollywood to make films of his own, he traveled to France, appearing as himself in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou in 1965 before finally returning to the U.S. to film 1968's Shark! Again, the fates were against him, and shooting was almost abandoned after a Mexican stuntman was killed during production. Though the picture was finally released, a dispute over editing forced Fuller to disown the project, and he returned to Europe. Only in 1972 was Fuller again offered the opportunity to return to the director's chair, and in West Germany he began work on Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street; while admired by critics, it earned only limited distribution, and his career was widely considered to be finished. He spent the remainder of the decade in front of the camera, occasionally delivering cameos in films like Wim Wenders' 1977 thriller Der Amerikanische Freund. To the surprise of many, Fuller then announced the fruition of a project he'd been discussing as far back as 1956: The Big Red One, an autobiographical account of his experiences in World War II. Filming in Israel, he shot upwards of 30 hours of footage, finally handing in a four and one-half hour director's cut; reportedly against his wishes, a 120-minute version was released, and while perhaps not the story he wanted told, The Big Red One was nevertheless his first viable mainstream release since The Steel Helmet, with a cast including Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, and Robert Carradine as Zab, a proxy for Fuller himself. It was a hit, and suddenly the studios were welcoming him back with open arms.Fuller then began work on White Dog, based on a novel by his friend Romain Gary; the tale of a dog trained by its owner to attack African-Americans, its anti-racist message was widely misconstrued, and even the NAACP called for a boycott. When the studio threatened to re-cut the film, Fuller and producer Jon Davison kidnapped the negatives and ran off to Mexico; it was never released theatrically in America, appearing only in dramatically edited form on cable and in European cinemas. Fuller declared he would never work in Hollywood again, and moved to France. There he filmed 1983's Les Voleurs de la Nuit, his final directorial project for several years; apart from a few small acting roles, he did not mount another major project prior to 1989's Street of No Return, and with the 1990 television project The Day of Reckoning his career was finished. Still, Fuller remained a cult figure of much interest; in 1994, he sat down with acolyte Jim Jarmusch in Mika Kaurismäki's Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made, and in 1995 was the focus of the documentary portrait The Typewriter, The Rifle, and the Movie Camera. After suffering a stroke Fuller returned to Hollywood, where he made his final screen appearance in Wim Wenders' The End of Violence. He died on October 30, 1997, at the age of 86.