Trivia: A former accountant for the Gulf Oil Company, Dana Andrews made his stage debut with the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse in 1935. Signed to a joint film contract by Sam Goldwyn and 20th Century Fox in 1940, Andrews bided his time in supporting roles until the wartime shortage of leading men promoted him to stardom. His matter-of-fact, dead pan acting style was perfectly suited to such roles as the innocent lynching victim in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and laconic city detective Mark McPherson in Laura (1944). For reasons unknown, Andrews often found himself cast as aviators: he was the downed bomber pilot in The Purple Heart (1944), the ex-flyboy who has trouble adjusting to civilian life in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and the foredoomed airliner skipper in Zero Hour (1957), The Crowded Sky (1960), and Airport 1975 (1974). His limited acting range proved a drawback in the 1950s, and by the next decade he was largely confined to character roles, albeit good ones. From 1963 to 1965, Andrews was president of the Screen Actors Guild, where among other things he bemoaned Hollywood's obsession with nudity and sordidness (little suspecting that the worst was yet to come!). An ongoing drinking problem seriously curtailed his capability to perform, and on a couple of occasions nearly cost him his life on the highway; in 1972, he went public with his alcoholism in a series of well-distributed public service announcements, designed to encourage other chronic drinkers to seek professional help. In addition to his film work, Andrews also starred or co-starred in several TV series (Bright Promise, American Girls, and Falcon Crest) and essayed such TV-movie roles as General George C. Marshall in Ike (1979). Dana Andrews made his final screen appearance in Peter Bogdanovich's Saint Jack.

Trivia: Endearing herself to television audiences as the devoted sitcom wife of Robert Young on Father Knows Best, petite brunette actress Jane Wyatt also essayed frequent big-screen roles highlighted by memorable performances in such films as Lost Horizon (1937), in which she plays Sondra, the lover of Robert Conway (Ronald Colman). Born in Campgaw, NJ, on August 12, 1910, to an investment banker father and a drama critic mother, and raised as a Manhattanite from age three, Wyatt received her formal education at the Chapin School and -- very briefly -- at New York City's Barnard College, where she spent two listless years. Following the irresistible call of the stage, Wyatt bucked university life in favor of honing her acting skills at Berkshire Playhouse in the western Massachusetts community of Stockbridge. Shortly after this, she accepted a position as understudy to Rose Hobart in a Broadway production of Trade Winds. Universal soon took note of Wyatt's talents and offered her a film role, in Frankenstein director James Whale's One More River (1934). Wyatt embarked on a lucrative screen career following her impressive debut, and many consider the performance in Lost Horizon her crowning achievement, though additional cinematic work throughout the 1940s proved both steady and rewarding. Following memorable performances in Clifford Odets' None But the Lonely Heart (1944) (alongside Cary Grant) and Elia Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement (1947, with Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire), the now-established actress transitioned smoothly into television in the early '50s, given her standing role as the matriarch of the Anderson family (mother of Bud, Princess, and Kitten, and wife of Jim) on the long-running CBS sitcom Father Knows Best. Wyatt deservedly won three Emmys for that role, and remained with the program over the course of its six-year run of original episodes. (Riding the crest of high ratings, CBS stretched prime-time reruns into the spring of 1963.) This marked the only major recurring prime-time role of Wyatt's career, though (alongside the work of others such as Barbara Billingsley and Harriet Nelson) it did much to establish the now-iconic image of the "archetypal 1950s sitcom mother," and earned the actress a beloved spot in American pop-culture history. In addition to this, Wyatt made occasional appearances, during the Father Knows Best run, on a dramatic anthology series headlined by her small-screen husband, Robert Montgomery Presents (NBC, 1950-1957). Six years after new episodes of Father wrapped, Star Trek landed on NBC, and Wyatt turned up occasionally on that program, as Mr. Spock's mother, Amanda Spock. She also made a guest appearance, alongside the late Bob Cummings, on the early-'70s comedic anthology series Love, American Style (the two play parents who are overanxious about their daughter's decision to embark on a European "swingers' holiday" with a boyfriend). If the preponderance of Wyatt's roles in the '70s, '80s, and '90s were largely supporting turns, it certainly said nothing about the actress' talent. She remained in the public eye as a fixture of such made-for-television features as You'll Never See Me Again (1973) and Amelia Earhart (1976). Though she entered semi-retirement in the late '70s, Wyatt later appeared (very infrequently) as an occasional supporting character in television's St. Elsewhere and reprised her role as Spock's mother in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).On October 20, 2006, after years of inactivity, Jane Wyatt died of natural causes in her sleep, at her home in Bel Air, CA. She was 96.

Trivia: American character actor of stage, screen, and TV Lee J. Cobb, born Leo Jacob or Jacoby, was usually seen scowling and smoking a cigar. As a child, Cobb showed artistic promise as a virtuoso violinist, but any hope for a musical career was ended by a broken wrist. He ran away from home at age 17 and ended up in Hollywood. Unable to find film work there, he returned to New York and acted in radio dramas while going to night school at CCNY to learn accounting. Returning to California in 1931, he made his stage debut with the Pasadena Playhouse. Back in New York in 1935, he joined the celebrated Group Theater and appeared in several plays with them, including Waiting for Lefty and Golden Boy. He began his film career in 1937, going on to star and play supporting roles in dozens of films straight through to the end of his life. Cobb was most frequently cast as menacing villains, but sometimes appeared as a brooding business executive or community leader. His greatest triumph on stage came in the 1949 production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman in which he played the lead role, Willy Loman (he repeated his performance in a 1966 TV version). Between 1962-66, he also appeared on TV in the role of Judge Garth in the long-running series The Virginian. He was twice nominated for "Best Supporting Actor" Oscars for his work in On the Waterfront (1954) and The Brothers Karamazov (1958).

Trivia: American actor Arthur Kennedy was usually cast in western or contemporary roles in his films; on stage, it was another matter. A graduate of the Carnegie-Mellon drama department, Kennedy's first professional work was with the Globe Theatre Company touring the midwest in abbreviated versions of Shakespearian plays. From here he moved into the American company of British stage star Maurice Evans, who cast Kennedy in his Broadway production of Richard III. Kennedy continued doing Shakespeare for Evans and agit-prop social dramas for the Federal Theatre, but when time came for his first film, City for Conquest (1940), he found himself in the very ordinary role of James Cagney's musician brother. Throughout his first Warner Bros. contract, Kennedy showed promise as a young character lead, but films like Bad Men of Missouri (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1942) and Air Force (1943) did little to tap the actor's classical training. After World War II service, Kennedy returned to Broadway, creating the role of Chris Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1947). This led to an even more prestigious Miller play, the Pulitzer Prize winning Death of a Salesman (1948), in which Kennedy played Biff. Sadly, Kennedy was not permitted to repeat these plum roles in the film versions of these plays, but the close association with Miller continued on stage; Kennedy would play John Proctor in The Crucible (1957) and the doctor brother in The Price (1965). While his film work during this era resulted in several Academy Award nominations, Kennedy never won; he was honored, however, with the New York Film Critics award for his on-target portrayal of a newly blinded war veteran battling not only his handicap but also his inbred racism in Bright Victory (1951). The biggest box office success with which Kennedy was associated was Lawrence of Arabia (1962), wherein he replaced the ailing Edmund O'Brien in the role of the Lowell Thomas character. Working continually in film and TV projects of wildly varying quality, Kennedy quit the business cold in the mid-1980s, retiring to live with family members in a small eastern town. Kennedy was so far out of the Hollywood mainstream in the years before his death that, when plans were made to restore the fading Lawrence of Arabia prints and Kennedy was needed to re-record his dialogue, the restorers were unable to locate the actor through Screen Actor's Guild channels -- and finally had to trace him through his hometown telephone directory.

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

Trivia: Adept at playing sardonic, side-of-the-mouth urban types, Sam Levene appeared in several top Broadway productions of the early 1930s. At 29 (though looking far older and worldlier), Levene was brought to Hollywood to re-create his stage role as a superstitious gambler in Three Men on a Horse (1936). Not long afterward, he made the first of two appearances as New York police lieutenant Abrams in MGM's Thin Man series. Since Levene always seemed to have just stepped out of a Damon Runyon story, it was only natural that he create the part of crapshooter deluxe Nathan Detroit in the 1950 Broadway production Guys and Dolls; his endearingly offkey renditions of the Frank Loesser tunes "Oldest Established" and "Sue Me" can still be heard on the original cast album. When he wasn't essaying dese-dem-and-dose roles, Levene was frequently cast as a soft-spoken, philosophical Jew in such films as Action in the North Atlantic (1943) and Crossfire (1947). Though he made 36 films in his 33-year Hollywood career, Sam Levene was always happiest in front of a live audience: one of his last Broadway appearances was in the original production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys.

Trivia: Actor Taylor Holmes first made a theatrical name for himself on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. In the course of his subsequent five-decade Broadway career, Holmes starred in over 100 plays, usually in light comedy roles. Making his film debut in 1917, he played the title role in the 1918 adaptation of Ruggles of Red Gap, then made scattered screen appearances before settling down in Hollywood permanently in 1947. Most often employed by 20th Century-Fox, he showed up in such flashy roles as gullible millionaire Ezra Grindle in the Tyrone Power melodrama Nightmare Alley (1947). He also played more than his share of shyster lawyers (most memorable in 1947's Kiss of Death) and absent-minded professors. Holmes was the father of actors Phillips and Ralph Holmes. Outliving his wife and both his sons, Taylor Holmes died at the age of 85; his last assignment was the voice of King Steffan in Disney's animated feature Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Trivia: Born in Connecticut to an immigrant Irish couple, Ed Begley ran away from home several times before making a complete break from both his family and his formal education at the age of 13. For the next two decades, Begley knocked around in a variety of activities, from Naval service to working as bowling alley pin boy, before obtaining an announcer's job at a Hartford radio station in 1931. Ten years later, Begley moved to New York, where he became a prolific radio actor; from 1944 through 1948, he played the title role in the radio version of Charlie Chan. His belated Broadway debut at age 43 came in a short-lived play titled Land of Fame. In 1947, Begley created the role of benighted war profiteer Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons; that same year, he was assigned a solid supporting part in his first film, Boomerang (1947). He was a familiar figure in TV's "golden age" of the 1950s, co-starring in the original video productions of Twelve Angry Men and Patterns. In 1955, he made the first of 789 appearances as the William Jennings Bryan counterpart in the Broadway drama Inherit the Wind, co-starring first with Paul Muni and then with Melvyn Douglas. Despite his ever-increasing activity, Ed Begley was standing in the unemployment compensation line in 1961 when he was informed that he'd been Oscar-nominated for his performance in Sweet Bird of Youth. Justifiably proud of his Oscar statuette, Begley reportedly carried it with him everywhere he went, even on short airplane flights! Ed Begley died at 69 while attending a party at the home of Hollywood press agent Jay Bernstein; he was the father of popular movie and TV leading man Ed Begley Jr.

Trivia: American stage and film actor Phillip Coolidge made his first film, Boomerang, in 1948. Since much of the film was shot in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the New York-based actor didn't have to relocate to Hollywood for his brief assignment. Later film roles for Coolidge were on a par with his self-protective small-town mayor in Inherit the Wind (1960)--neither heroic nor villainous, but all too human. Seldom a leading character, Coolidge was always a reassuring presence in the supporting cast, be it as William Windom's brother on the 1960s TV series The Farmer's Daughter or in the teeny-tiny role of closet alcoholic Simon Stimson in the original 1938 Broadway production of Our Town. Phillip Coolidge's best and most recognizable film role was Ollie Higgins, the scheming silent-movie-theatre manager who literally scares his wife to death (and gets a suitable comeuppance) in William Castle's gimmicky thriller The Tingler (1959).

Trivia: Trained at the Goodman Theatre in his hometown of Chicago, the 6'4", 230-pound Barry Kelley made his professional stage bow in 1930. Seventeen years later, he appeared in his first film, director Elia Kazan's Boomerang. Kelley was most often found in crime yarns and westerns, often cast as a corrupt law officer, e.g. Lieutenant Ditrich in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle. Barry Kelley's hundreds of TV credits include the recurring roles of city editor Charlie Anderson in Big Town (1954) and Pete's boss Mr. Slocum in Pete and Gladys (1961).

Trivia: The son of Yugoslav immigrants, Karl Malden labored in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana before enrolling in Arkansas State Teachers College. While not a prime candidate for stardom with his oversized nose and bullhorn voice, Malden attended Chicago's Goodman Dramatic School, then moved to New York, where he made his Broadway bow in 1937. Three years later he made his film debut in a microscopic role in They Knew What They Wanted (1940), which also featured another star-to-be, Tom Ewell. While serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Malden returned to films in the all-serviceman epic Winged Victory (1944), where he was billed as Corporal Karl Malden. This led to a brief contract with 20th Century-Fox -- but not to Hollywood, since Malden's subsequent film appearances were lensed on the east coast. In 1947, Malden created the role of Mitch, the erstwhile beau of Blanche Dubois, in Tennessee Williams' Broadway play A Streetcar Named Desire; he repeated the role in the 1951 film version, winning an Oscar in the process. For much of his film career, Malden has been assigned roles that called for excesses of ham; even his Oscar-nominated performance in On the Waterfront (1954) was decidedly "Armour Star" in concept and execution. In 1957, he directed the Korean War melodrama Time Limit, the only instance in which the forceful and opinionated Malden was officially credited as director. Malden was best known to TV fans of the 1970s as Lieutenant Mike Stone, the no-nonsense protagonist of the longrunning cop series The Streets of San Francisco. Still wearing his familiar Streets hat and overcoat, Malden supplemented his income with a series of ads for American Express. His commercial catchphrases "What will you do?" and "Don't leave home without it!" soon entered the lexicon of TV trivia -- and provided endless fodder for such comedians as Johnny Carson. From 1989-92, Malden served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Trivia: A veteran character actor of stage and screen, George O. Petrie will be recognized by fans of the NBC sitcom Mad About You as Paul Reiser's film editor. A native of New Haven, CT, and a 1934 graduate from U.S.C., Petrie's interest in acting led him to New York where he landed a role in the Broadway production of Cafe Crown. While serving in the military during WWII, Petrie appeared in the Broadway production of The Army Play by Play, a five-part anthology comprised of vignettes penned by soldiers from as many camps. The show ran for six months and played a command performance before President Roosevelt. Upon transferring to the Air Corps, Petrie was cast in Moss Hart's inspirational Winged Victory. Following its four-month run, Petrie went on to appear in George Cukor's film version. Petrie became a radio performer after his discharge and starred in several dramas, including The Amazing Mr. Malone. He turned to television acting in the '50s and began starring in live soap operas such as As the World Turns and Edge of Night as well as playing a semi-regular part on Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners. Petrie would remain associated with Gleason on various projects through 1969. Petrie's filmography includes Hud (1963), Something in Common (1986), and Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987). Petrie died of lymphoma in his Brentwood, CA, home at the age 85.

Trivia: Originally intending to become a journalist, William Challee abandoned this dream when he began appearing in Chicago-based theatrical productions. Challee's Broadway career reached its peak in the late '30s with Wonder Boy. In films from 1943, he was usually seen as well-dressed gangsters, pushy reporters, and grim military officers. William Challee's later credits included such roles as Nicholas Duprea in the Jack Nicholson starrer Five Easy Pieces.

Trivia: While appearing on Broadway in such 1930s productions as Life with Father, James Dobson launched a lengthy career in radio. He was one of several adolescent-sounding performers to essay the role of comic-book favorite Archie Andrews. Dobson's first film, lensed in New England, was Boomerang (1947); his last efforts included The Undefeated (1969) and What's the Matter With Helen? (1970). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, James Dobson was frequently employed by television series like Hawaii 5-0 as a utility actor and dialogue director.

Trivia: Broadway-based actor Anthony Ross is best remembered by theatre buffs for originating the character of The Gentleman Caller in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. Ross also appeared in Moss Hart's morale-boosting play Winged Victory, and was set to repeat his role in the 1944 20th Century-Fox screen version, when for reasons unknown his part was recast. Even so, he remained with Fox in the postwar years, playing character roles in such films as Kiss of Death (1947) and The Gunfighter (1950). Anthony Ross made his last screen appearance in The Country Girl (1954), reprising his Broadway characterization as laconic playwright Phil Cook.

Trivia: Character actor Bert Freed prepared for his theatrical career at Penn State. Freed made his first Broadway appearance in the forgotten 1942 production Johnny 2 X 4, then went on to such long-running efforts as Counterattack, One Touch of Venus and Annie Get Your Gun. In films from 1947, he was most often cast as big-city detectives and small-town sheriffs. Some of his more memorable movie roles include Sgt. Boulanger in Paths of Glory (1957), Christopher Jones' institutionalized father in Wild in the Streets (1968), and all-around meanie Stuart Posner in Billy Jack (1969). A busy television actor, Freed settled down to a weekly-series grind only once, as Rufe Ryker on the 1966 video version of Shane. Outside of his performing activities, Bert Freed was for many years a member of the Motion Picture Academy's Committee of Foreign Films.

Trivia: The son of actor Robert Keith (1896-1966), Brian Keith made his first film appearance in 1924's Pied Piper Malone, when he was well-below the age of consent. During the war years, Keith served in the Marines, winning a Navy Air Medal; after cessation of hostilities, he began his acting career in earnest. At first billing himself as Robert Keith Jr., he made his 1946 Broadway debut in Heyday, then enjoyed a longer run as Mannion in Mister Roberts (1948), which featured his father as "Doc." His film career proper began in 1952; for the rest of the decade, Keith played good guys, irascible sidekicks and cold-blooded heavies with equal aplomb. Beginning with Ten Who Dared (1959), Keith became an unofficial "regular" in Disney Films, his performances alternately subtle (The Parent Trap) and bombastic. Of his 1970s film efforts, Keith was seen to best advantage as Teddy Roosevelt in The Wind and the Lion (1975). In television since the medium was born, Keith has starred in several weekly series, including The Crusader (1955-56), The Little People (aka The Brian Keith Show, 1972-74) and Lew Archer (1975). His longest-running and perhaps best-known TV endeavors were Family Affair (1966-71), in which he played the uncharacteristically subdued "Uncle Bill" and the detective series Hardcastle & McCormick (1983-86). His most fascinating TV project was the 13-week The Westerner (1960), created by Sam Peckinpah, in which he played an illiterate cowpoke with an itchy trigger finger. Keith's personal favorite of all his roles is not to be found in his film or TV output; it is the title character in Hugh Leonard's stage play Da. Plagued by emphysema and lung cancer while apparently still reeling emotionally from the suicide of his daughter Daisy, 75-year-old Brian Keith was found dead of a gunshot wound by family members in his Malibu home. Police ruled the death a suicide. Just prior to his death, Keith had completed a supporting role in the TNT miniseries Rough Riders.