Trivia: American actor Hugh Beaumont originally studied for the clergy, remaining busy as a lay minister throughout his acting career. After stage experience, Beaumont arrived in Hollywood in 1940. While most of the draftable leading men were away during World War II, Beaumont enjoyed a brief spell of stardom; his faint resemblance to actor Lloyd Nolan enabled Beaumont to inherit Nolan's screen role of detective Michael Shayne in a series of inexpensive programmers. After the war, Beaumont returned to character parts, contributing memorable moments to such films as The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947). He also played quite a few villains during this period; fans of Beaumont's later television work are in for a jolt as they watch the affable Hugh connive and murder his way through 1948's Money Madness. During the early 1950s, Beaumont frequently popped up in uncredited featured roles at 20th Century-Fox, most prominently in Phone Call From a Stranger (1952) as the doctor killed by drunken driver Michael Rennie, and in The Revolt of Mamie Stover as the Honolulu cop who advises goodtime girl Jane Russell to get out of town. In 1957, Beaumont was cast as philosophy-dispensing suburban dad Ward Cleaver on the popular sitcom Leave It to Beaver (he replaced Casey Adams, who played Ward in the 1955 pilot). While he despaired that the series might ruin his chances for good film roles, Beaumont remained with Beaver until its cancellation in 1963. Hugh Beaumont retired from show business in the late 1960s, launching a second career as a successful Christmas tree farmer.

Trivia: In his youth, George Reeves aspired to become a boxer, but gave up this pursuit because his mother was worried that he'd be seriously injured. Attracted to acting, Reeves attended the Pasadena Playhouse, where he starred in several productions. In 1939, Reeves was selected to play one of the Tarleton twins in the Selznick superproduction Gone With the Wind (1939). He made an excellent impression in the role, and spent the next few years playing roles of varying sizes at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. He was praised by fans and reviewers alike for his performances in Lydia (1941) and So Proudly We Hail (1943); upon returning from WWII service, however, Reeves found it more difficult to get good roles. He starred in a few "B"'s and in the title role of the Columbia serial The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949), but for the most part was shunted away in ordinary villain roles. In 1951, he starred in the Lippert programmer Superman vs. the Mole Men, playing both the Man of Steel and his bespectacled alter ego, Clark Kent. This led to the immensely popular Superman TV series, in which Reeves starred from 1953 through 1957. While Superman saved Reeves' career, it also permanently typecast him. He made an appearance as wagon train leader James Stephen in Disney's Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956), though the producer felt it expeditious to hide Reeves behind a heavy beard. While it is now commonly believed that Reeves was unable to get work after the cancellation of Superman in 1957, he was in fact poised to embark on several lucrative projects, including directing assignments on two medium-budget adventure pictures and a worldwide personal appearance tour. On June 16, 1959, Reeves died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. The official ruling was suicide -- and, since he left no note, it was assumed that Reeves was despondent over his flagging career. Since that time, however, there has been a mounting suspicion (engendered by the actor's friends and family) that George Reeves was murdered.

Trivia: Born in L.A. and raised in Pasadena, Jack Larson's ingenuous, "golly gee" screen image served him well when in 1951 he was cast as cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on the TV series Superman. He remained with the program until 1957, by which time he had become so thoroughly identified with the role that he had considerable difficulty landing other film assignments. Eventually Larson gave up acting to concentrate on writing plays and musical librettos; one of his more prestigious assignments was a collaboration with noted composer Virgil Thompson. The longtime companion of filmmaker James Bridges, Jack Larson served as the co-producer of such Bridges films as The Paper Chase (1973), Urban Cowboy (1980), and Bright Lights, Big City (1988). He made a guest appearance in a 1996 episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, playing an older version of Jimmy Olsen. Larson died in 2015, at age 87.

Trivia: After stock experience in New England and a starring role in a Broadway flop, American actor John Kellogg was selected to play the lead in the road company of the long-running service comedy Brother Rat. He continued working steadily on stage until interrupted by World War II service. After a smattering of movie exposure at other studios, Kellogg signed a Columbia contract in 1946. Good-looking and dependable enough for secondary roles but not quite star material, Kellogg was seen in such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1943), A Walk in the Sun (1945), Johnny O'Clock (1947) and 12 O'Clock High (1949).

Trivia: One of the last of the serial queens, Canadian-born Aline Towne (born Bouchard) played the female lead in no less than five chapter plays between 1950 and 1953, all for Republic Pictures. By the 1950s, however, the once so thriving genre was threatened by television, which basically offered the same kind of juvenile excitement for free; in addition, Towne was less memorable than such earlier Republic cliffhanger stars as Jungle Girl's Frances Gifford and The Leopard Woman's Linda Stirling. To compound matters, Towne's leading men were far from top caliber: Richard Webb (Invisible Monster, 1950), Ken Curtis (Don Daredevil Rides Again, 1951), George Wallace (Radar Men From the Moon, 1952), Judd Holdren (Zombies From the Stratosphere, 1952), and Harry Lauter (Trader Tom of the China Seas, 1953). In 1952, she filmed Republic's 12-episode television sci-fi Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe, also starring Judd Holdren and created by serial veterans Fred C. Brannon and Franklin Afreon. A series rather than a cliffhanging serial, the project proved a distinct failure and was dumped on the unsuspecting viewing audience as a mid-summer replacement. Undeterred, Towne continued to appear in supporting roles on television and the occasional A-movie until 1970.

Trivia: Born and educated in Pennsylvania, John Hamilton headed to New York in his twenties to launch a 25-year stage career. Ideally cast as businessmen and officials, the silver-haired Hamilton worked opposite such luminaries as George M. Cohan and Ann Harding. He toured in the original company of the long-running Frank Bacon vehicle Lightnin', and also figured prominently in the original New York productions of Seventh Heaven and Broadway. He made his film bow in 1930, costarring with Donald Meek in a series of 2-reel S.S.Van Dyne whodunits (The Skull Mystery, The Wall St. Mystery) filmed at Vitaphone's Brooklyn studios. Vitaphone's parent company, Warner Bros., brought Hamilton to Hollywood in 1936, where he spent the next twenty years playing bits and supporting roles as police chiefs, judges, senators, generals and other authority figures. Humphrey Bogart fans will remember Hamilton as the clipped-speech DA in The Maltese Falcon (1941), while Jimmy Cagney devotees will recall Hamilton as the recruiting officer who inspires George M. Cohan (Cagney) to compose "Over There" in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Continuing to accept small roles in films until the mid '50s (he was the justice of the peace who marries Marlon Brando to Teresa Wright in 1950's The Men), Hamilton also supplemented his income with a group of advertisements for an eyeglasses firm. John Hamilton is best known to TV-addicted baby boomers for his six-year stint as blustering editor Perry "Great Caesar's Ghost!" White on the Adventures of Superman series.

Trivia: The son of a wholesale grocer who later became one of the founders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Robert Shayne studied business administration at Boston University. Intending to study for the ministry, Shayne opted instead to work as field secretary for the Unitarian Layman's League. He went on to sell real estate during the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s before heading northward to launch an acting career. After Broadway experience, Shayne was signed to a film contract at RKO radio in 1934. When this led nowhere, Shayne returned to the stage. While appearing with Katharine Hepburn in the Philip Barry play Without Love, Shayne was again beckoned to Hollywood, this time by Warner Bros. Most of his feature film roles under the Warner banner were of the sort that any competent actor could have played; he was better served by the studio's short subjects department, which starred him in a series of 2-reel "pocket westerns" built around stock footage from earlier outdoor epics. He began free-lancing in 1946, playing roles of varying size and importance at every major and minor outfit in Hollywood. In 1951, Shayne was cast in his best-known role: Inspector Henderson on the long-running TV adventure series Superman. He quit acting in the mid-1970s to become an investment banker with the Boston Stock Exchange. The resurgence of the old Superman series on television during this decade thrust Shayne back into the limelight, encouraging him to go back before the cameras. He was last seen in a recurring role on the 1990 Superman-like weekly series The Flash. Reflecting on his busy but only fitfully successful acting career, Robert Shayne commented in 1975 that "It was work, hard and long; a terrible business when things go wrong, a rewarding career when things go right."

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: Diminutive, baby-faced actress Noel Neill entered films as a Paramount starlet in 1942. Though she was showcased in one of the musical numbers in The Fleet's In (1944) and was starred in the Oscar-nominated Technicolor short College Queen (1945), most of her Paramount assignments were thankless bit parts. She fared better as one of the leads in Monogram's Teen Agers series of the mid- to late '40s. In 1948 she was cast as intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane in the Columbia serial The Adventures of Superman, repeating the role in the 1950 chapter play Atom Man vs. Superman. At the time, she regarded it as just another freelance job, perhaps a little better than her cameos in such features as An American in Paris (in 1951 as the American art student) and DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1953). But someone was impressed by Neill's appealingly vulnerable interpretation of Lois Lane, and in 1953 she was hired to replace Phyllis Coates as Lois in the TV version of Superman. She remained with the series for 78 episodes, gaining an enormous fan following (consisting primarily of ten-year-old boys) if not a commensurately enormous bank account. Retiring to private life after the cancellation of Superman in 1958, she was brought back into the limelight during the nostalgia craze of the 1970s. She made countless lecture appearances on the college and film convention circuit, and in 1978 returned to films as Lois Lane's mother in the big-budget Superman: The Movie: alas, most of her part ended up on the cutting-room floor, and neither she nor fellow Adventures of Superman alumnus Kirk Alyn received billing. Noel Neill's last TV appearance to date was a guest spot in a 1991 episode of the syndicated The Adventures of Superboy; she made a cameo appearance in 2006's Superman Returns. Neill died in 2016, at age 95.

Trivia: One of several male models to achieve some success in action films of the '20s, Hermon Reed Howes was forever saddled with the tag "Arrow Collar Man," despite the fact that he had been only one of several future luminaries to have posed for famed artist J.C. Leyenecker's memorable Arrow ads. (Future screen actors Fredric March and Brian Donlevy also did yeoman duty for the company.)A graduate of the University of Utah and the Harvard Graduate School, Howes had served two and a half years in the navy prior to entering onto the stage. He became a leading man for the likes of Peggy Wood and Billie Burke, and entered films in 1923, courtesy of low-budget producer Ben Wilson, who cast the handsome newcomer as the lead in a series of breathless melodramas released by Rayart. Howes reached a silent screen pinnacle of sorts as Clara Bow's leading man in Rough House Rosie (1927), but his starring days were over with the advent of sound. There was nothing inherently wrong with Howes voice, but it didn't do anything for him either. His acting before the microphone seemed too stiff. He was still as handsome as ever, but his good looks were often hidden behind a scruffy beard or mustache. The veteran actor then drifted into supporting roles in B-Westerns and serials, his appearances sometimes devoid of dialogue, and more often than not, he was unbilled. Howes did his fair share of television in the '50s as well, but ill health forced him to retire after playing a police inspector in Edward D. Wood Jr.'s The Sinister Urge, filmed in July of 1960 and a guest spot on television's Mr. Ed. He died of cancer at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.