Trivia: The first male film star to be officially labelled a "hunk," Victor Mature was the son of Swiss immigrants. When he arrived in California to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, Mature was so broke that he lived in a pup tent in a vacant lot and subsisted on canned sardines and chocolate bars. There was speculation amongst his fellow students that Mature's spartan lifestyle was deliberately engineered to draw publicity to himself; if so, the ploy worked, and by 1938 he'd been signed to a contract by producer Hal Roach. Mature's first starring film role was as Tumack the caveman in Roach's One Million BC (1940), which enabled the fledgling actor to display his physique without being unduly encumbered by dialogue. While still under contract to Roach, Mature made his Broadway debut in the Moss Hart/Kurt Weill musical Lady in the Dark, playing a musclebound male model. In 1941, Mature was signed by 20th Century-Fox as the "beefcake" counterpart to the studio's "cheesecake" star Betty Grable; the two attractive stars were frequently cast together in Fox musicals, where a lack of clothes was de rigeur. Apparently because of his too-handsome features, the press and fan magazines went out of their way to make Mature look ridiculous and untalented. In truth, he had more good film performances to his credit than one might think: he was excellent as the tubercular Doc Holliday in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1948), and also registered well in Kiss of Death (1947), Cry of the City (1948), The Egyptian (1954), Betrayed (1954), and Chief Crazy Horse (1955). As the slave Demetrius in The Robe (1953), Mature is more understated and credible than the film's "distinguished" but hopelessly hammy star Richard Burton. Nonetheless, and thanks to such cinematic folderol as Samson and Delilah (1949), Mature was still widely regarded as a lousy actor who survived on the basis of his looks. Rather than fight this ongoing perception, Mature tended to denigrate his own histrionic ability in interviews; later in his career, he hilariously parodied his screen image in such films as After the Fox (1966) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976). Semi-retired from acting in the late 1970s, Victor Mature ran a successful television retail shop in Hollywood, although in 1984 he did appear in a TV remake of Samson and Delilah, effectively portraying Samson's father.

Trivia: A dark-haired, earthy beauty and a versatile actress, Anne Bancroft has actually had two film careers. The first, which took place during the 1950s, was generally undistinguished and featured her in films that usually failed to fully utilize her talents. The second, which began in the early '60s, established her as an actress of great acclaim in films like The Miracle Worker and granted her screen immortality with roles such as that of the iconic Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. A first generation Italian-American hailing from the Bronx, Bancroft (born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano) was four years old when she began taking acting and dancing lessons. Billing herself as Anne Marno, she began appearing on television in 1950. Two years later she signed a contract with Fox and launched a six-year career in second-string Westerns and crime dramas that began with Don't Bother to Knock in 1952. By 1958, Bancroft had enough of Hollywood and turned her attentions to Broadway, where she spent the next five years. She proved her mettle as a serious dramatic actress by winning a Tony for Two for the Seesaw in 1958. Two years later, she won her second Tony and a New York Drama Critics Award for her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. Armed with these triumphs, Bancroft returned to Hollywood to appear in the movie version of The Miracle Worker (1962), reprising her role opposite Patty Duke who played Helen Keller. Her performance earned her an Oscar for Best Actress; unable to attend the ceremony because she was performing on Broadway in Mother Courage, she was presented with the award by Joan Crawford a week later on the Broadway stage. Bancroft followed this victory with a string of emotional dramas that included The Pumpkin Eater, which was released in 1964, the same year she married filmmaker/comedian Mel Brooks. Just when it would look like she would be typecast in such dramas, Bancroft showed up in Mike Nichols' seminal comedy The Graduate, playing Mrs. Robinson, the ultimate "older woman," to Dustin Hoffman's confused Benjamin Braddock. Her role in the landmark film won her an Oscar nomination, to say nothing of a permanent dose of notoriety. Although Bancroft seemed destined for a stellar career and she remained one of the more well-respected actresses in Hollywood, a long string of so-so films kept her from reaching major stardom. Still, Bancroft turned in a number of memorable performances in films such as The Turning Point (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), To Be or Not to Be (her 1983 collaboration with husband Brooks), Agnes of God (1985), 84 Charing Cross Road (1986), and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). In 1980, Bancroft made her debut as a director/screenwriter in the darkly comic Dom DeLuise vehicle Fatso. Throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, Bancroft continued to be visible onscreen, appearing in films like How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Home for the Holidays (1995), and Keeping the Faith (2000). Sadly, she became stricken with uterine cancer and succumbed to the disease in 2005. Her last performance would come postumously with a voice-role in the animated adventure Delgo.

Trivia: A vital, virile, exciting Broadway performer, Preston was once called, "the best American actor -- with a voice like golden thunder," by Richard Burton. He decided to become an actor at age 15. After studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, he became a steady, dependable performer in Hollywood films from the late '30s. Preston became well-known after Cecil B. De Mille cast him as Barbara Stanwyck's gambler husband in Union Pacific (1939). He was almost strictly a second-lead actor for 20 years, finally breaking through to lead roles after becoming a star on Broadway. For his Broadway performance (his first in a musical) as ebullient con-artist Harold Hill in The Music Man he won a Tony Award; he repeated the role in the screen version (1962) and it became the work for which he is best known. Preston went on to earn another Tony Award for his performance in the 1966 musical I Do! I Do!, opposite Mary Martin. Another outstanding performance was as Julie Andrews' gay friend Toddie in Blake Edwards' Victor/Victoria (1982), a performance which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

Trivia: Ex-telephone lineman Guy Madison was serving his country in the Navy at the time he made his screen debut as an extra in David Selznick's Since You Went Away (1944). After the war, Madison was signed by RKO, where he was given the star buildup in such films as Till the End of Time (1946) and Honeymoon (1947). Unpleasant publicity surrounding his stormy marriage to actress Gail Russell very nearly put an end to Madison's burgeoning career. Salvation came in the form of a syndicated TV series, Wild Bill Hickok, which starred Madison in the title role and which ran from 1951 through 1958. Thanks to his Hickok popularity, Madison was able to secure major roles in such "A" pictures as The Charge at Feather River (1953) and On the Threshold of Space (1956). After the cancellation of Wild Bill Hickok in 1958, Guy Madison's star faded somewhat, though he went on to make a good living as a leading man in German and Italian westerns and swashbucklers of the 1960s.

Trivia: Whitmore attended Yale, where he joined the Yale Drama School Players and co-founded the Yale radio station. After serving in World War II with the Marines, he did some work in stock and then debuted on Broadway in 1947's Command Decision. He entered films in 1949, going on to play key supporting roles; occasionally, he also played leads. For his work in Battleground (1949), his second film, he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He starred in the early '60s TV series "The Law and Mr. Jones." He won much acclaim for his work in the one-man stage show Give 'Em Hell, Harry!, in which he played Harry Truman; he reprised the role in the 1975 screen version, for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. After 1980 his screen appearances were infrequent. He is the father of actor James Whitmore Jr.

Trivia: Burly character actor Peter Whitney was under contract to Warner Bros. from 1941 to 1945. Whitney spent much of that time on loan-out, playing a variety of moronic thugs and henchmen. His best-ever screen role (or roles) was as identical twin hillbilly murderers Mert and Bert Fleagle in the 1944 screwball classic Murder He Says. He enjoyed a rare romantic lead in the 1946 horror film The Brute Man (the title character was played by Rondo Hatton). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Whitney supported himself by portraying some of TV's most scurrilous and homicidal backwoods villains. Peter Whitney essayed a more comical characterization as rustic free-loader Lafe Crick in several first-season episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Trivia: Guy Williams never became a movie star despite his good looks and a charismatic screen presence, but on television he was a star twice over, in the 1960s as Professor John Robinson on the Irwin Allen-produced series Lost in Space and, for those with longer memories, in the title role of the Walt Disney-produced series Zorro; he also cut a memorable presence in a series of episodes of Bonanza during the early '60s, as a cousin of the Cartwrights from south of the border. Born Armando Catalano in New York City, he was the son of one of Italy's champion swordsmen, and he was an expert fencer himself by the time he was in his teens. His good looks made him a natural as a model, and he appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines during the early to mid-'40s. In 1946, at the age of 23, he was signed to MGM, but the studio's declining postwar period proved a dead end of tiny bit roles that went nowhere. He studied acting with Sanford Meisner and was serious about being more than a model who could read lines, but it wasn't until the 1950s that he got his chance. In 1952, Williams was signed to Universal-International, where he finally began getting some respectable screen time, once he got past his initial Universal appearance, in Bonzo Goes to College and a thankless role in Nathan Juran's swashbuckler The Golden Blade. In The Mississippi Gambler (1953), The Man From the Alamo (1953), and The Last Frontier (1956), Williams played small to medium-sized supporting roles that showed him off to good advantage as an actor. His career seems to have stalled at the point where he appeared in American International Pictures' release of I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). In 1957, however, Williams became a star on television when he was chosen to play the title role in the Disney television series Zorro. It was only in production for two seasons, but Disney's perpetual presence on television brought Williams' dashing heroic figure into households for years after the initial run had ended. Williams was subsequently pegged by the producers of Bonanza as a potential replacement for Pernell Roberts in the series, and he was tried out in the role as the Mexican-born cousin of the Cartwrights across numerous episodes. In 1963, he also starred in the German-made international film Captain Sinbad, directed by American adventure film specialist Byron Haskin. In 1964, Williams was cast in the most familiar role of his career, as Professor John Robinson on the series Lost in Space (1965-1968); although he was a co-star with June Lockhart, he came to be partly overshadowed by Billy Mumy and Jonathan Harris in the story lines. Nevertheless, he provided a firm dramatic anchor for the series. As with most of the cast of Lost in Space, work was relatively hard to come by once it was canceled, but Williams evidently had no worries about money, having done well in his own investments and various business ventures. He also discovered on a visit to South America that he was very much a pop culture hero in most of Latin America, where Zorro had been an enormous success on television and was seemingly being rerun in perpetuity. He moved to Buenos Aires, enjoying a very comfortable retirement from the mid-'70s, and died of a heart attack there in 1989.

Trivia: WWI-veteran Jack Pennick was working as a horse wrangler when, in 1926, he was hired as a technical advisor for the big-budget war drama What Price Glory? Turning to acting in 1927, Pennick made his screen bow in Bronco Twister. His hulking frame, craggy face, and snaggle-toothed bridgework made him instantly recognizable to film buffs for the next 35 years. Beginning with 1928's Four Sons and ending with 1962's How the West Was Won, Pennick was prominently featured in nearly three dozen John Ford films. He also served as Ford's assistant director on How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Fort Apache (1947), and as technical advisor on The Alamo (1960), directed by another longtime professional associate and boon companion, John Wayne. Though pushing 50, Jack Pennick interrupted his film career to serve in WWII, earning a Silver Star after being wounded in combat.

Trivia: American actor William Traylor played character roles on stage and screen, but he is best remembered in Hollywood for opening the Loft Studio (established 1973), an acting school where such actors as Sean Penn, Anjelica Huston, and Nicholas Cage honed their craft. Traylor received his training at the Actors' Studio in New York. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he co-founded the Actors Studio/West and the Lee Strasberg Institute.