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Gruff, burly American character actor. Born in 1903 in Benkelman, Nebraska (confirmed by Social Security records; sources stating 1905 or Denver, Colorado are in error.) Bond grew up in Denver, the son of a lumberyard worker. He attended the University of Southern California, where he got work as an extra through a football teammate who would become both his best friend and one of cinema's biggest stars: John Wayne. Director John Ford promoted Bond from extra to supporting player in the film Salute (1929), and became another fast friend. An arrogant man of little tact, yet fun-loving in the extreme, Bond was either loved or hated by all who knew him. His face and personality fit perfectly into almost any type of film, and he appeared in hundreds of pictures in his more than 30-year career, in both bit parts and major supporting roles. In the films of Wayne and Ford, particularly, he was nearly always present. Among his most memorable roles are John L. Sullivan in Gentleman Jim (1942), Det. Tom Polhaus in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and the Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnson Clayton The Searchers (1956). An ardent but anti-intellectual patriot, he was perhaps the most vehement proponent, among the Hollywood community, of blacklisting in the witch hunts of the 1950s, and he served as a most unforgiving president of the ultra-right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In the mid-'50s he gained his greatest fame as the star of TV's Wagon Train (1957). During its production, Bond traveled to Dallas, Texas, to attend a football game and died there in his hotel room of a massive heart attack.

Dean Jagger was born in Lima, Ohio, on November 7, 1903. He dropped out of high school twice before finally graduating from Wabash College. Working first as a school teacher, he soon became interested in acting and enrolled at Chicago's "Lyceum Art Conservatory". Mr. Jagger made his first movie and only silent film, The Woman from Hell (1929) in 1929, starring Mary Astor. During 1929 he also appeared in the film Handcuffed (1929). He quickly found his niche as a character actor and the highlight of his career was winning an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actor," in the 1949 movie Twelve O'Clock High (1949). Dean played Principal Albert Vane on TV for the 1963-1964 season of Mr. Novak (1963). Dean Jagger died in Santa Monica, California, on February 5, 1991.

Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine (Harrigan) and Harry Lincoln Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.

Although this pint-sized actor started out in films often in innocuous college-student roles in mid-1930's rah-rahs, playing alongside the likes of a pretty Gloria Stuart or a young, pre-"Oz" Judy Garland, casting directors would soon enough discover his flair for portraying intense neurotics or spineless double-dealers. Thus was he graduated from the innocuous to the noxious. In Warner's They Won't Forget (1937), for example, he plays the role of a student whose social engagement with a young Lana Turner, debuting here in a featured role, seems to have been broken by her whereas, possibly unbeknownst to him, she has quite mysteriously been murdered. Cook becomes so enraged, venting such venom, that the movie audience can only look upon him as a prime suspect in Lana's demise. In Universal's Phantom Lady (1944), he portrays a nightclub-orchestra drummer who, under the intoxicating influence of some substance or other, encounters Ella Raines during an afternoon's band practice. Thoroughly taken with her slinky allure, he enacts a drum-solo piece that is of such crescendo, and played with such innuendo, as to suggest - glaringly - nothing except his own fantasized sexual journey from cymbal foreplay through bass-drum climax.

At the age of seven, he and his family moved to Oregon. After studying at the University of Oregon, he followed in his father's footsteps and became a dentist, graduating from North Pacific Dental College. From 1929 to 1937, he practiced oral surgery in Eugene, Oregon. He then moved his practice to Altadena, CA. There he joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse, eventually giving up dentistry at the age of 36 to become an actor. He made his film debut in 1939. His chubby face and gravelly voice were featured in over 100 films, but he is perhaps best known for TV roles in Hopalong Cassidy (1952), Judge Roy Bean (1955), Petticoat Junction (1963), and Cade's County (1971).

One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette grew up, she wanted nothing more than to play to Broadway audiences (in those days, any actress or actor worth their salt went for Broadway, not Hollywood). After her formal education ended, she enrolled in the Art Students League, where she paid for her dramatic training by working in a dress shop. She made her Broadway debut in 1923 in the stage production of "The Wild Wescotts". It was during this event that she adopted the name Claudette Colbert.

When the Great Depression shut down most of the theaters, Claudette decided to make a go of it in films. Her first film was called For the Love of Mike (1927). Unfortunately, it was a box-office disaster. She wasn't real keen on the film industry, but with an extreme scarcity in theatrical roles, she had no choice but to remain. In 1929 she starred as Joyce Roamer in The Lady Lies (1929). The film was a success and later that year she had another hit entitled The Hole in the Wall (1929). In 1930 she starred opposite Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), which was a remake of the silent version of eight years earlier. A year after that Claudette was again paired in a film with March, Honor Among Lovers (1931). It fared well at the box-office, probably only because it was the kind of film that catered to women who enjoyed magazine fiction romantic stories. In 1932 Claudette played the evil Poppeia in Cecil B. DeMille's last great work, The Sign of the Cross (1932), and once again was cast with March. Later the same year she was paired with Jimmy Durante in The Phantom President (1932). By now Claudette's name symbolized good movies and she, along with March, pulled crowds into the theaters with the acclaimed Tonight Is Ours (1933).

The next year started a little on the slow side with the release of Four Frightened People (1934), where Claudette and her co-stars were at odds with the dreaded bubonic plague on board a ship. However, the next two films were real gems for this young actress. First up, Claudette was charming and radiant in Cecil B. DeMille's spectacular Cleopatra (1934). It wasn't one of DeMille's finest by any means, but it was a financial success and showcased Claudette as never before. However, it was as Ellie Andrews, in the now famous It Happened One Night (1934), that ensured she would be forever immortalized. Paired with Clark Gable, the madcap comedy was a mega-hit all across the country. It also resulted in Claudette being nominated for and winning the Oscar that year for Best Actress. IN 1935 she was nominated again for Private Worlds (1935), where she played Dr. Jane Everest, on the staff at a mental institution. The performance was exquisite. Films such as The Gilded Lily (1935), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and No Time for Love (1943) kept fans coming to the theaters and the movie moguls happy. Claudette was a sure drawing card for virtually any film she was in. In 1944 she starred as Anne Hilton in Since You Went Away (1944). Again, although she didn't win, Claudette picked up her third nomination for Best Actress.

By the late 1940s and early 1950s she was not only seen on the screen but the infant medium of television, where she appeared in a number of programs. However, her drawing power was fading somewhat as new stars replaced the older ones. In 1955 she filmed the western Texas Lady (1955) and wasn't seen on the screen again until Parrish (1961). It was her final silver screen performance. Her final appearance before the cameras was in a TV movie, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987). She did, however, remain on the stage where she had returned in 1956, her first love. After a series of strokes, Claudette divided her time between New York and Barbados. On July 30, 1996, Claudette died in Speightstown, Barbados. She was 92.

Comedian Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, London, England, the fifth of seven sons of Avis (Townes), light opera singer, and William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. His maternal grandmother was Welsh. Hope moved to Bristol before emigrating with his parents to the USA in 1908. After some years onstage as a dancer and comedian, he made his first film appearance in The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938) singing "Thanks for the Memory", which became his signature tune.

In partnership with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, he appeared in the highly successful "Road to ..." comedies (1940-52), and in many others until the early 1970s. During World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars he spent much time entertaining the troops in the field. For these activities and for his continued contributions to the industry he received five honorary Academy Awards.

John Williams was a tall, urbane Anglo-American actor best known for his role as Chief Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder (1954), a role he played on Broadway, in Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 film, and on television in 1958. Playing Hubbard on the Great White Way brought him the 1953 Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play. "Dial M for Murder" was the 27th Broadway play he had appeared in since making his New York debut in "The Fake" in 1924, which he had originally appeared in back in his native England.

Williams was born on April 15, 1903 in Buckinghamshire and attended Lancing College. He first trod the boards as a teenager in a 1916 production of Peter Pan (1924). He moved to America in the mid-1920s and was a busy and constantly employed stage actor for 30 years. After "Dial M for Murder" in the 1953-54 season, though, he appeared in only four more Broadway plays between 1955 and 1970 as he focused on movies and television.

In addition to "Dial M for Murder", he appeared in Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947) and in To Catch a Thief (1955) and in 10 episodes of the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). For Billy Wilder, he appeared in Sabrina (1954) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Beginning in the 1960s, most of his work was in television, including a nine-episode stint on Family Affair (1966) taking over Sebastian Cabot's duties as Brian Keith's butler when Cabot was waylaid by health problems.

He retired in the late '70s, his last acting gig being an appearance on Battlestar Galactica (1978) in 1979. He was known by many in the last phase of his career for his work on one of the first TV infomercials, when he served as the pitchman for a classical music record collection called "120 Music Masterpieces."

John Williams died on May 5, 1983 in La Jolla, California from an aneurysm. He was 80 years old.

British character actor of wry charm, equally at home in amused or strait-laced characters. A native of Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, he attended Marlborough College and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His stage debut came in 1922, and by 1925 he was a busy London actor. He married actress Blanche Glynne (real name: Blanche Hope Aitken) and in 1932 toured South Africa in plays. Alleged to have been spotted by George Cukor during a performance in Aldritch, Hyde-White (with or without Cukor's help) made his film debut in 1934. He often appeared under the name Hyde White in these early films. He continued to act upon the stage, playing opposite Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in "Caesar and Cleopatra" and "Antony and Cleopatra" in 1951. With scores of films to his credit, he will always be remembered for one, My Fair Lady (1964), in which he played Colonel Pickering. Active into his ninth decade, Hyde-White died six days before his 88th birthday. He was survived by his second wife, Ethel, and three children.

Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first film the next year, Sword of Penitence (1927). Ozu made thirty-five silent films, and a trilogy of youth comedies with serious overtones he turned out in the late 1920s and early 1930s placed him in the front ranks of Japanese directors. He made his first sound film in 1936, The Only Son (1936), but was drafted into the Japanese Army the next year, being posted to China for two years and then to Singapore when World War II started. Shortly before the war ended he was captured by British forces and spent six months in a P.O.W. facility. At war's end he went back to Shochiku, and his experiences during the war resulted in his making more serious, thoughtful films at a much slower pace than he had previously. His most famous film, Tokyo Story (1953), is generally considered by critics and film buffs alike to be his "masterpiece" and is regarded by many as not only one of Ozu's best films but one of the best films ever made. He also turned out such classics of Japanese film as The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Floating Weeds (1959) and An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

Ozu, who never married and lived with his mother all his life, died of cancer in 1963, two years after she passed.

A tall, distinguished-looking English character actor with aristocratic bearing and a precisely modulated voice, Alan William Napier-Clavering was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England. A cousin of the former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (graduating in 1925) and spent his formative years as an actor with Oxford Repertory and, from 1924, on the London stage. During the 1930s, he found his niche in Shakespearean roles. His characterisation of Menenius in a 1954 Boston revival of "Coriolanus" was described in the Christian Science Monitor (January 23, 1954) as imbued with "benevolent distinction and with some of the comic quality of the part". However, by that time, Napier had largely forsaken the stage for the screen.

In 1939, Alan Napier immigrated to America and, in the course of nearly five decades, appeared in film and on television as noblemen, manservants and doctors. His gaunt, suave, sometimes bespectacled characters could be kindly or nefarious. He gave good support in the supernatural thriller The Uninvited (1944) and lent gravitas to his role of Cicero in Julius Caesar (1953). Baby boomer TV audiences will remember him fondly as Bruce Wayne's ever reliable, and very English, butler Alfred Pennyworth in Batman (1966), starring Adam West. Napier's second wife, Aileen Dickens Bouchier Hawksley (nicknamed "Gypsy"), was a great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Alan Napier died at age 85 of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California on August 8, 1988.

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first name when he was hired as an art-director by Radio City Music Hall. The fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, At Home Abroad. The show was the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to work at MGM. This was his second try at Hollywood -- a short unsuccessful contract at Paramount led nowhere. He stayed at MGM for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Cabin in the Sky (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast. This was followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals -- The Band Wagon (1953) - as well as melodramas -- Some Came Running (1958) - and urban comedies like Designing Woman (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Minnelli is one of the few directors for whom Technicolor seems to have been invented. Many of his films included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.

"America's Joyboy," beefy, plump-faced comedian Jack Oakie, was one of the funniest top and second banana jokesters of stage, radio and especially film's "Golden Age." He would accomplish so much despite the fact that he was "functionally deaf" throughout his career and performed primarily with the aid of lip reading or vibrations.

The stories vary on how he became deaf -- scarlet fever at age 9, a Wall Street building explosion where he worked -- but, whatever the case, it seems a minor miracle that he managed to become a performing success not only for his famous "triple take" comedy but also for his work in Broadway and Hollywood musicals, which could not have been an easy task! A slapstick inspiration to future comedians like Jackie Gleason, Oakie's lightweight foolery and participation in films was pretty much standard cornball with a lot of mugging to boot, but then he surprised audiences by topping it all off in the hands of the legendary Charles Chaplin with a scene-stealing Oscar-nominated support role in a political satire masterpiece.

Jack was born Lewis Delaney Offield in Sedalia, Missouri on November 12, 1903, the son of a grain dealer (who died while Jack was quite young) and a teacher of psychology (Mary Evelyn Oakie Offield). His family moved to moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma. He was raised at times with his grandmother in Kansas City, Missouri, and made extra money there as a paperboy for The Kansas City Star.

Moving eventually to New York, Jack first worked as a runner for a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and nearly lost his life when a nearby Wall Street building was bombed on September 16, 1920. Interested in comedy and mime by this point, he began building up confidence on the amateur stage and giving himself a new name, Jack Oakie, which was comprised of the first character he ever played on stage and his mother's maiden name.

Jack took his first professional curtain call on Broadway in 1923 as a chorus boy in George M. Cohan's production of "Little Nellie Kelly." From there he found employment in a number of comedies, as well as musicals throughout the mid to late 1920s, including "Sharlee" (1923), the revues "Innocent Eyes" (1924) and "Artists and Models" (1925), and the musical "Peggy-Ann" in 1926. He also appeared in a couple of unbilled film parts in 1923 and 1924.

Films came calling toward the end of the silent era in 1927, and he relocated to Los Angeles where he made several non-talkies on his arrival, including Finders Keepers (1928) starring Laura La Plante and John Harron (Bobby's little brother) and directed by Wesley Ruggles; Clara Bow's The Fleet's In (1928); and the western Sin Town (1929). With the advent of sound, Oakie was signed, with the help of director Ruggles, to a contract by Paramount and appeared in his first talkie, the Ruth Chatterton/Fredric March starrer The Dummy (1929). Jack went on to support Wallace Beery in Chinatown Nights (1929); Dorothy Mackaill in Hard to Get (1929); Betty Compson and John Harron in Street Girl (1929); and Nancy Carroll in the musical Sweetie (1929). Settling in, he never returned to the Broadway stage.

Jack finally shared top billing with Evelyn Brent in the comedy film Fast Company (1929) as Elmer Kane, a character based on the George M. Cohan Broadway show "Elmer the Great." This led to top billing in the film version of the Broadway hit musical Hit the Deck (1929), as well as the early talking comedy vehicles The Social Lion (1930), The Sap from Syracuse (1930), Let's Go Native (1930), Sea Legs (1930), The Gang Buster (1931), June Moon (1931), Dude Ranch (1931), Once in a Lifetime (1932), Madison Square Garden (1932), Uptown New York (1932), Sitting Pretty (1933) and Shoot the Works (1934). Occasional dramas came his way with Dancers in the Dark (1932) co-starring Miriam Hopkins and Sky Bride (1932) co-starring Richard Arlen.

Throughout the 1930s, the 30-year-old plus actor appeared in a host of light college-themed comedies and was lovingly dubbed "The World's Oldest Freshman" while adding to the humor of such films as College Humor (1933), College Rhythm (1934) and Collegiate (1935). Elsewhere, in Too Much Harmony (1933), his mother Evelyn was featured as his mother, and he played Tweedledum to Roscoe Karns' Tweedledee in the all-star version of Alice in Wonderland (1933).

Oakie's contract ended with Paramount in 1934 and he continued as a freelancing agent until an RKO contract came his way a couple of years later. Starting to now gain a bit in girth, Oakie went back into support roles in musicals, adventures and comedies. Among the better known films were Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable and Loretta Young; Colleen (1936) with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler; The Toast of New York (1937) with Edward Arnold and Frances Farmer; Tin Pan Alley (1940) with Alice Faye and Betty Grable and Iceland (1942) with Sonja Henie and John Payne.

In the late 1930s, Jack traveled to Europe for some work and suffered a huge career setback when he returned to Hollywood and found himself unwanted. The draught lasted nearly two years until a major comeback thanks to Charles Chaplin. While such film highlights must include Million Dollar Legs (1932), King of Burlesque (1936), The Affairs of Annabel (1938) and Rise and Shine (1941), Oakie will in all probability be best remembered for his lip-smacking parody of Benito Mussolini ("Il Duce")in Chaplin's classic The Great Dictator (1940). As Benzino Napaloni, the dictator of the fictional country of Bacteria, Jack earned his only Oscar nomination in the "Supporting Actor" category. Throughout his lead career, he worked with a quality number of diverse leading ladies on film from Carole Lombard to Lily Pons.

Oakie also found work on radio, hosting his own show, "Jack Oakie's College," between 1936 and 1938. His deafness did not affect the output of his work, and, as a pro, seldom were there problems in accommodating his disability. Director Jules Dassin, in fact, once made it a point to state that Oakie never caused any delays in the filming of his film noir Thieves' Highway (1949).

Into the 1950s and 1960s, his career slowed down quite a bit, primarily due to his disability. He appeared to good advantage in the films The Rat Race (1960) and Lover Come Back (1961) and with TV comedy and drama on such popular shows as "The Real McCoys," "Daniel Boone," "Bonanza" and, his last, "Night Gallery" in 1972.

Jack Oakie was married twice. His first marriage (1936-1945) was to Venita Varden, who perished in the 1948 air crash of United Airlines Flight 624 at Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. Oakie's second marriage was to actress Victoria Horne in 1950; they moved to an estate in Northridge and lived there until his death. The USC School of Cinematic Arts continues its durable ties with Hollywood history in the form of The Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Charitable Foundation, which provides scholarships.

The comic actor died on January 23, 1978, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 74 from an aortic aneurysm. His remains were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in the Los Angeles area.

As a child she studied at Seattle's Cornish School. Still in her early twenties, after several years of stock work in New York, she joined Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theater where she won critical praise for her title role in "Alice in Wonderland." She came to Hollywood in 1934 under contract with Warners, debuting in Happiness Ahead (1934). She co-starred with Paul Muni in The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) and played in many small roles, both in films - e.g., the phony U.N. ambassador's wife in North by Northwest (1959) - and television: The Twilight Zone (1959), Gunsmoke (1955), and Perry Mason (1957) in the fifties and sixties. She died at Manhattan's Florence Nightingale Nursing Home, aged 94.

Jerome "Curly" Howard, the rotund, bald Stooge with the high voice was the most popular member of The Three Stooges. His first stage experience was as a comedic conductor for the Orville Knapp Band in 1928. Curly joined The Three Stooges in 1932, replacing his brother Shemp Howard. He made more than 100 film appearances with the team before a massive stroke on the set of Half-Wits Holiday (1947) forced him to retire. He recuperated enough to appear in Hold That Lion! (1947) and hoped to eventually return to the team. But another series of strokes deteriorated his health until he died at the age of 48.

Frank McGrath was born on 2 February 1903 in Mound City, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), Wagon Train (1957) and Tammy and the Millionaire (1967). He was married to Libby Quay Buschlen. He died on 13 May 1967 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Leonid Kinskey, originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, performed across Europe and much of Latin America before his arrival in the United States. By 1932 he landed a small role as a radical in Ernst Lubitsch's comedy, Trouble in Paradise (1932). The next year he played an agitator in Duck Soup (1933). He went on to play small parts, nearly always foreigners and often comedic, in over sixty films, including Genflou in Les Misérables (1935), the snake charmer in the well-known scene from The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), an Arab in The Garden of Allah (1936), Ivan in The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938), and Pierre in That Night in Rio (1941). His final film role was Dominiwski in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Kinskey's most famous role was as Sascha, the humorous bartender at Rick's Cafe Americaine, in Casablanca (1942). The part had originally been given to Leon Mostovoy; Kinskey replaced him because (1) he was funnier than Mostovoy, and (2) by his own testimony, he was a drinking buddy of the star Humphrey Bogart. His contract guaranteed him two weeks at $750 a week. He died on 8 September 1998, in Fountain Hills, Arizona, aged 95.

Prolific, sharp-featured American character actor of somewhat skeletal and dishevelled appearance, accentuated later in his career by thinning hair and a scraggly goatee. A former theology student, Brocco began his career playing leading roles in stock theatre. He subsequently honed his craft touring France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, before returning to the U.S. in 1947, eventually joining the Federal Theater Group. On films from as early as 1932, he was at his most effective portraying eccentrics, scientists, small-time crooks, alcoholics, or nervous, downtrodden little men. His particular forte lay in the genre of science-fiction, where he graced the small screen on numerous occasions as assorted victims (The Outer Limits (1963), The Time Tunnel (1966), The Invaders (1967)) or aliens (Lost in Space (1965), Star Trek (1966), The Twilight Zone (1959)). His occasional film appearances include a dementia patent in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and a rare starring role in the black comedy Homebodies (1974), late in his career. As a liberal-minded individual, Brocco was briefly blacklisted during the McCarthy era, but this did not prove detrimental to his career in the long run.

Katherine Squire was born on 9 March 1903 in Defiance, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for When Harry Met Sally... (1989), The Story on Page One (1959) and Studs Lonigan (1960). She was married to George Mitchell and Byron McGrath. She died on 29 March 1995 in Lake Hill, New York, USA.

Ona Munson was born Owena Elizabeth Wolcott on June 16, 1903 in Portland, Oregon. She took singing and dancing lessons when she was a child. At the age of fourteen, Ona moved to New York City with her mother. She began her career performing in vaudeville. In 1919 she made her Broadway debut in George White's Scandals. She appeared in several hit Broadway shows including No, No, Nanette and Hold Everything. Ona married stage actor Edward Buzzell in 1926. She went to Hollywood in 1930 to make the comedy Going Wild (1930). Soon after, she divorced her husband and started dating director Ernst Lubitsch. She starred in The Hot Heiress (1931) with Ben Lyon and in Broadminded (1931) with Joe E. Brown. Ona returned to Broadway in 1933 for a production of Hold Your Horses. While appearing in the show Ghosts she had a brief romance with actress Alla Nazimova. She also had relationships with Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, and director Dorothy Arzner. In 1939 she was cast as Belle Watling, a Southern madam, in Gone with the Wind (1939). The movie was a huge success but Ona ended up being typecast in similar roles. She got rave reviews playing a madam again in the film The Shanghai Gesture (1941).

Ona had a passionate love affair with playwright Mercedes de Acosta. She said they shared "the deepest spiritual moment that life brings". Worried about being outed as a lesbian she ended the romance and married Stewart McDonald, a loan administrator, in 1941. Their marriage was an arrangement since Stewart was also gay. During World War 2 she was chosen to be "Hollywood's official hostess" and acted as a godmother to hundreds of soldiers. She made some movies at Warner Brothers but her career stalled. Her final film was the thriller The Red House (1947). Ona divorced Stewart and married French painter Eugene Berman in 1950. This was another lavender marriage to a gay man. The couple moved to an apartment in The Belnord on Manhattan's Upper West Side. During the early 1950s Ona appeared in a few television shows. Unfortunately she was plagued by health problems and became very depressed. On February 1955 she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was fifty-one years old. Ona left a note that said "This is the only way I know to be free again ... Please don't follow me." She is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Kathryn McGuire was born on 6 December 1903 in Peoria, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924) and The Big Diamond Robbery (1929). She was married to George Landy. She died on 10 October 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Una Merkel began her movie career as stand-in for Lillian Gish in the movie The Wind (1928). After that, she performed on Broadway before she returned to movies for the D.W. Griffith film Abraham Lincoln (1930). In her early years, before gaining a few pounds, she looked like Lillian Gish, but after Abraham Lincoln (1930) her comic potential was discovered. She mostly played supporting roles as the heroine's no-nonsense friend, but with her broad Southern accent and her peroxide blond hair, she gave one of her best performances as a wisecracking but not-so-bright chorus girl in 42nd Street (1933). Perhaps she is best remembered for her hair-pulling fight with Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again (1939). In 1962, she was nominated for the Academy Award as best supporting actress in Summer and Smoke (1961).

Paul Newlan was born on 29 June 1903 in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, USA. He was an actor, known for Down Rio Grande Way (1942), Dragnet (1947) and The Twilight Zone (1959). He was married to Hazel Bokarney Newlan. He died on 23 November 1973 in Studio City, California, USA.

She was the third daughter of Daniel and Anne MacDonald, younger sister to Blossom (MGM's character actress Marie Blake), whom she followed to New York and a chorus job in 1920. She was busy in a string of musical productions. In 1928 Paramount tested and rejected her, but a year later Ernst Lubitsch saw her test and picked her to play opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade (1929). Musicals went into decline and Paramount dropped her in 1931; her next pictures with Chevalier went nowhere. She went to Europe where she met Irving Thalberg and his wife Norma Shearer (whom she loaned both her hairdresser and chauffeur). She got the lead in Thalberg's property The Merry Widow (1934), and her next MGM vehicle, Naughty Marietta (1935) brought her together with Nelson Eddy. For her next project she insisted Clark Gable should co-star. He at first refused - "I just sit there while she sings. None of that stuff for me." - the movie, of course, was San Francisco (1936). During World War II she often did USO shows. She hoped to enter grand opera; she did take lessons and gave concert recitals. Her last public appearance, singing "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life", was at the funeral of Louis B. Mayer. She suffered heart ailments and, after an arterial transplant in 1963, died of a heart attack in Houston in 1965. Emotionally tearful, but polite crowds listened to a recording of "Ah, Sweet Mystery" at her Forest Lawn funeral, which was attended by Hollywood celebrities ranging from Mary Pickford and Charles (Buddy) Rogers to Nelson Eddy, Irene Dunne, and Ronald Reagan.

Millard Mitchell was born to American parents in Havana, Cuba. He was a popular stage and radio actor in the 1930's in New York, where he also filmed his first cinema appearances (industrial short features). His first Hollywood role was in Mr. and Mrs. North (1942). After World War II, Mitchell acted in a several movies, often cast as sardonic, yet stolid characters. He was in the highest-grossing movie of 1953, Anthony Mann Western, The Naked Spur (1953), adding his unique style playing an old prospector who falls in with James Stewart. He received top billing in 1952's My Six Convicts (1952), but fans of movie musicals most admired his screen role as movie mogul 'R. F. Simpson' in the classic film Singin' in the Rain (1952). A heavy smoker, Millard died too young - lung cancer ended his life at the age of 50.