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Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and Eileen Hitchcock (born 1892). Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. His first job outside of the family business was in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in movies began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals.

Hitchcock entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. It was there that he met Alma Reville, though they never really spoke to each other. It was only after the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill and Hitchcock was named director to complete the film that he and Reville began to collaborate. Hitchcock had his first real crack at directing a film, start to finish, in 1923 when he was hired to direct the film Number 13 (1922), though the production wasn't completed due to the studio's closure (he later remade it as a sound film). Hitchcock didn't give up then. He directed The Pleasure Garden (1925), a British/German production, which was very popular. Hitchcock made his first trademark film in 1927, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) . In the same year, on the 2nd of December, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock who was born on July 7th, 1928. His success followed when he made a number of films in Britain such as The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939), some of which also gained him fame in the USA.

In 1940, the Hitchcock family moved to Hollywood, where the producer David O. Selznick had hired him to direct an adaptation of 'Daphne du Maurier''s Rebecca (1940). After Saboteur (1942), as his fame as a director grew, film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's', for example Alfred Hitcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972).

Hitchcock was a master of pure cinema who almost never failed to reconcile aesthetics with the demands of the box-office.

During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralyzing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. On March 7, 1979, Hitchcock was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award, where he said: "I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen and their names are Alma Reville." By this time, he was ill with angina and his kidneys had already started to fail. He had started to write a screenplay with Ernest Lehman called The Short Night but he fired Lehman and hired young writer David Freeman to rewrite the script. Due to Hitchcock's failing health the film was never made, but Freeman published the script after Hitchcock's death. In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. On the 29th April 1980, 9:17AM, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. His funeral was held in the Church of Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Father Thomas Sullivan led the service with over 600 people attended the service, among them were Mel Brooks (director of High Anxiety (1977), a comedy tribute to Hitchcock and his films), Louis Jourdan, Karl Malden, Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh and François Truffaut.

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in preparation for medical studies at Yale. He was expelled from Phillips and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. From 1920 to 1922, he managed a stage company owned by family friend William A. Brady (the father of actress Alice Brady), performing a variety of tasks at Brady's film studio in New York. He then began regular stage performances. Alexander Woollcott described his acting in a 1922 play as inadequate. In 1930, he gained a contract with Fox, his feature film debut in a ten-minute short, Broadway's Like That (1930), co-starring Ruth Etting and Joan Blondell. Fox released him after two years. After five years of stage and minor film roles, he had his breakthrough role in The Petrified Forest (1936) from Warner Bros. He won the part over Edward G. Robinson only after the star, Leslie Howard, threatened Warner Bros. that he would quit unless Bogart was given the key role of Duke Mantee, which he had played in the Broadway production with Howard. The film was a major success and led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. From 1936 to 1940, Bogart appeared in 28 films, usually as a gangster, twice in Westerns and even a horror film. His landmark year was 1941 (often capitalizing on parts George Raft had stupidly rejected) with roles in classics such as High Sierra (1941) and as Sam Spade in one of his most fondly remembered films, The Maltese Falcon (1941). These were followed by Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), and Key Largo (1948). Bogart, despite his erratic education, was incredibly well-read and he favored writers and intellectuals within his small circle of friends. In 1947, he joined wife Lauren Bacall and other actors protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunts. He also formed his own production company, and the next year made The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Bogie won the best actor Academy Award for The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for Casablanca (1942) and as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954), a film made when he was already seriously ill. He died in his sleep at his Hollywood home following surgeries and a battle with throat cancer.

Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Johanna (Geilus) and Fritz Austerlitz, a brewer. Fred entered show business at age 5. He was successful both in vaudeville and on Broadway in partnership with his sister, Adele Astaire. After Adele retired to marry in 1932, Astaire headed to Hollywood. Signed to RKO, he was loaned to MGM to appear in Dancing Lady (1933) before starting work on RKO's Flying Down to Rio (1933). In the latter film, he began his highly successful partnership with Ginger Rogers, with whom he danced in 9 RKO pictures. During these years, he was also active in recording and radio. On film, Astaire later appeared opposite a number of partners through various studios. After a temporary retirement in 1945-7, during which he opened Fred Astaire Dance Studios, Astaire returned to film to star in more musicals through 1957. He subsequently performed a number of straight dramatic roles in film and TV.

Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on going into show business. After her formal education in the Chicago school system and elsewhere, she began work in a department store as a salesclerk. In 1915, at the age of 18, she decided to go to a Chicago movie studio with an aunt to see how motion pictures were made. She was plucked out of the crowd, because of her beauty, to be included as a bit player in the film The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). In her next film, she was an extra also, when she appeared in At the End of a Perfect Day (1915). After another uncredited role, Gloria got a more substantial role in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). In 1916, she first appeared with future husband Wallace Beery. Once married, the two pulled up stakes in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to the film colony of Hollywood. Once out west, Gloria continued her torrid pace in films. She seemed to be in hit after hit in such films as The Pullman Bride (1917), Shifting Sands (1918), and Don't Change Your Husband (1919). By the time of the latter, Gloria had divorced Beery and was remarried, but it was not to be her last marriage, as she collected a total of six husbands. By the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It has been said that Gloria made and spent over $8 million in the '20s alone. That, along with the six marriages she had, kept the fans spellbound with her escapades for over 60 years. They just couldn't get enough of her. Gloria was 30 when the sound revolution hit, and there was speculation as to whether she could adapt. She did. In 1928, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role of Sadie Thompson in the film of the same name but lost to Janet Gaynor for 3 different films. The following year, she again was nominated for the same award in The Trespasser (1929). This time, she lost out to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee (1930). By the 1930s, Gloria pared back her work with only four films during that time. She had taken a hiatus from film work after 1934's Music in the Air (1934) and would not be seen again until Father Takes a Wife (1941). That was to be it until 1950, when she starred in Sunset Boulevard (1950) as Norma Desmond opposite William Holden. She played a movie actress who was all but washed up. The movie was a box office smash and earned her a third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). The film is considered one of the best in the history of film and, on June 16, 1998, was named one of the top 100 films of all time by the American Film Institute, placing 12th. After a few more films in the 1950s, Gloria more or less retired. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared mostly on television. Her last fling with the silver screen was Airport 1975 (1974), wherein she played herself. Gloria died on April 4, 1983, in New York City at the age of 84. There was never anyone like her, before or since.

One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well). Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984), in which he played opposite Art Carney.

George Macready--the name probably does not ring any bells for most but the voice would be unmistakable. He attended and graduated from Brown University and had a short stint as a New York newspaperman, but became interested in acting on the advice of colorful Polish émigré classical stage director Richard Boleslawski, who would go on to Hollywood to direct some notable and important films, including Rasputin and the Empress (1932)--the only film in which siblings John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore appeared together--and Clive of India (1935) with Ronald Colman. Perhaps acting was meant for Macready all along--he claimed that he was descended from 19th-century Shakespearean actor William Macready.

In 1926 Macready made his Broadway debut in "The Scarlet Letter". His Broadway career would extend to 1958, entailing 15 plays--mainly dramas but also some comedies--with the lion's share of roles in the 1930s. His Shakespearean run included the lead as Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1927), "Macbeth" (1928) and "Romeo and Juliet" (1934), with Broadway legend Katharine Cornell. He co-starred with her again in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and with with Helen Hayes in "Victoria Regina" twice (1936 and 1937).

Macready's aquiline features coupled with distinctive high-brow bottom-voiced diction and superior, nose-in-the-air delivery that could be quickly tinged with a gothic menace made him perfect as the cultured bad guy. Added to his demeanor was a significant curved scar on his right cheek, remnant of a car accident in about 1919--better PR that it was a saber slash wound from his dueling days as a youth. He did not turn to films until 1942 and did not weigh-in fully committed until 1944, with a host of both well-crafted and just fair movies until the end of World War II. When he went all in, though, he excelled as strong-willed authoritarian and ambitious, murderous--but well-bred--villains. Among his better roles in that period were in The Seventh Cross (1944), The Missing Juror (1944), Counter-Attack (1945) and My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) with a young Nina Foch. Averaging six or more films per year throughout the 1940s, he appeared not only in dramas and thrillers, but also period pieces and even some westerns. His standout role, however--and probably the one he is best remembered for--was the silver-haired, dark-suited and mysteriously rich Ballin Mundson in Gilda (1946), who malevolently inserted himself into the lives of smoldering Rita Hayworth and moody Glenn Ford.

By the early 1950s he had sampled the waters of early TV. He had many appearances on such anthology series as Four Star Playhouse (1952), The Ford Television Theatre (1952) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), among others. He became a familiar presence in episodic TV series beginning in 1954. He made the rounds of most of the hit shows of the period, including a slew of westerns, including such obscure series as The Texan (1958) and The Rough Riders (1958). He was familiar to viewers of crime dramas--such as Perry Mason (1957)--and such classic sci-fi and horror series as Thriller (1960), The Outer Limits (1963) and Night Gallery (1969). He did some 200 TV roles altogether, but still continued his film appearances. He assayed what many consider his best role as the ambitious French Gen. Paul Mireau, a fanatic and martinet whose lust for fame and glory leads to the deaths of hundreds of French soldiers in a senseless frontal attack on heavily fortified German lines in Stanley Kubrick classic antiwar film Paths of Glory (1957). Macready's performance stood out in a film brimming with standout performances, from such veterans as Kirk Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Meeker and Timothy Carey. The film was even more striking when it turns out that it was based on a true incident.

Macready stayed busy into the 1960s, mainly in TV roles. He had a three-year run as Martin Peyton in the hit series Peyton Place (1964), the first prime-time soap opera and a launching pad for many a young rising star of the time. His film roles became fewer, but there were some good ones--the Yul Brynner adventure period piece Taras Bulba (1962) and a meaty role as an advisor to US Prlesident Fredric March attempting to stop a coup by a right-wing general played by Burt Lancaster in the gripping Seven Days in May (1964). His next-to-last film appearance was as a very human Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, in Universal's splashy, big-budget but somewhat uneven story of Pearl Harbor, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970).

Another role that stands out in his career is a one-in-a-kind film which you would not expect to find George Macready--Blake Edwards' uproarious comedy -The Great Race (1965) -. Macready shined in one of the film's several subplots, this one a spoof of the "Ruritanian" chestnut "The Prisoner of Zenda", in which the racers find themselves in the middle of palace intrigue in a small European monarchy. Macready played a general trying to stave off a coup by using Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon, who is a double for the drunken ruler. Macready held his own with such comedy veterans as Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and a host of others. To top it of, Macready gets involved in one of the great pie fights in film history, and takes one right in the kisser!

In real life George Macready was as cultured as he appeared to be on-screen. He was a well-regarded connoisseur of art, and he and a fellow art devotee--and longtime friend--Vincent Price, opened a very successful Los Angeles art gallery together during World War II. As far as the villain roles went, Macready was grateful for the depth they allowed him through his years as both film and television actor. "I like heavies," he once said, and to that he added with a philosophic twinkle, "I think there's a little bit of evil in all of us."

Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). His first appearance on stage was in 1926. Laughton formed own film company, Mayflower Pictures Corp., with Erich Pommer, in 1937. He became an American citizen 1950. A consummate artist, Laughton achieved great success on stage and film, with many staged readings (particularly of George Bernard Shaw) to his credit. Laughton died in Hollywood, California, aged 63.

At various times in his life a rancher, deputy sheriff and rodeo performer, this huge, towering (6' 5") beast of a man was born George Glenn Strange in Weed, New Mexico, on August 16, 1899, but grew up a real-life cowboy in Cross Cut, Texas. He taught himself (by ear) the fiddle and guitar at a young age and started performing at local functions as a teen. In the late 1920s, Glenn and his cousin, Taylor McPeters, better known later as the western character actor Cactus Mack, joined a radio singing group known as the "The Arizona Wranglers" that toured throughout the country.

They both started providing singing fillers in film westerns in the early 1930s. Glenn would play extra or bit roles for a number of years B Western and serials. One of his first roles was uncredited as a soldier, in tin armor, as part of "Ming's Army", in the science fiction classic serial "Flash Gordon"(1936/I). He would perform as a cowhand, rustler, accomplice, sidekick, or plain old warbling, harmonica-blowing cowboy. Eventually in the late 30s, his billing improved and he evolved into a full-time bad guy in hundreds of "B" westerns. He was seen (or glimpsed) in many of the popular serials of the day, including The Hurricane Express (1932), Law of the Wild (1934),

The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1939), and Riders of Death Valley (1941). It was his massive build that helped him break into the Universal horror picture genre of the 1940s. Horror star Boris Karloff had grown weary and fearful of his Frankenstein Creature typecast and abandoned the role. Glenn was the perfect replacement for the job and made his monstrous debut with House of Frankenstein (1944), quickly followed by House of Dracula (1945). It was he who played the Creature in the cult horror/comedy classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) as part of the monstrous trio of Bela Lugosi's Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolf Man.

As the "B" western started faded off into the sunset in the 1950s, Strange moseyed on over to TV work. He played the nemesis "Butch Cavendish" and later reprised the role, after a prison escape, on "The Lone Ranger" (1949). Among other TV roles, he capped off his career with a steady (12 years) role as Sam the bartender on the classic Gunsmoke (1955) series from 1962 until shortly before his death from lung cancer in 1973.

Although he came to be called "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence"--and, along with good friends James Cagney, Allen Jenkins, Frank McHugh and a few others were called "The Irish Mafia"--and he often played Irish immigrants, Pat O'Brien was US-born and -bred. As a young boy the devoutly Roman Catholic O'Brien considered entering the seminary to study for the priesthood, but although he often played a Father, Monsignor or Bishop, he never actually followed through and entered the seminary. And although never a policeman, in movies he often wore the cop's badge and, although in real life he had no discernible Irish accent, he could pour on the "brogue" when the role called for it.

Pat O'Brien excelled in roles as beneficent men but could also give convincing performances as wise guys or con artists. He was a most popular film star during the 1930s and 1940s. Over almost five decades, he co-starred in nine films with Cagney, including his own screen swansong, Ragtime (1981).

One of the best and most familiar character actors of the first four decades of sound films, although few who knew his face also knew his name, John Qualen was born in Canada to Norwegian parents. His father was a minister. The family moved to the United States and Qualen (whose real name was Kvalen) grew up in Elgin, Illinois. He won an oratory contest and was given a scholarship to Northwestern University. His interest in acting was piqued there, and he began appearing in tent shows on the Lyceum-Chautauqua circuit and in stock. He went to New York in 1929 and got his big break as the Swedish janitor in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. He repeated the role two years later in the film version. That same year he first worked for director John Ford in Arrowsmith (1931). He became a member of Ford's famed stock company and had prominent roles for Ford for the next thirty-five years. He became a most familiar character player, specializing in Scandinavians of various nationalities, but frequently playing a wide variety of other ethnicities. Perhaps his greatest work among many memorable roles was as the pitiful Muley, who recounts the destruction of his farm by the bank in Ford's masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Although plagued in his later years by failing eyesight, he continued to work steadily into his final years. He was treasurer of The Authors Club and historian of The Masquers, Hollywood's famed social group for actors. He had three children, Elizabeth, Kathleen, and Meredith. Qualen died in 1987.

Ramon Novarro was born José Ramón Gil Samaniego on February 6, 1899 in Durango, Mexico, to Leonor (Gavilan) and Dr. Mariano N. Samaniego Siqueiros, a prosperous dentist. Ramon and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1913, as refugees from the Mexican Revolution. After stints as a ballet dancer, piano teacher and singing waiter, he became a film extra in 1917. For five years he remained an extra until director Rex Ingram cast him as Rupert in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922). He was cast with Lewis Stone and Ingram's wife, Alice Terry (Ingram was also the person who suggested that he change his name to Novarro). He worked with Ingram in his next four films and was again teamed with Terry in the successful Scaramouche (1923). Novarro's rising popularity among female moviegoers resulted in his being billed as the "New Valentino". In 1925 he appeared in his most famous role, as the title character in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), and later co-starred with Norma Shearer in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927). His first talking picture was Call of the Flesh (1930), where he sang and danced the tango. He continued to appear in musicals, but his popularity was slipping. He starred with Greta Garbo in the successful Mata Hari (1931), but his career began to fade fast. In 1935 he left MGM and appeared on Broadway in a show that quickly flopped. His later career, when he was able to find work in films, consisted mostly of cameos. On October 30th, 1968, Ramon Novarro was savagely beaten in his North Hollywood home by two young hustlers. They had heard - in error - that he had thousands of dollars locked away somewhere in his home. They never found any money, and Ramon was discovered dead the next day by his servant.

George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.

In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. His parents were assistant district attorney Viktor Cukor and Helén Ilona Gross. His middle name "Dewey" honored Admiral George Dewey who was considered a war hero for his victory in the Battle of Manila Bay, in 1898.

As a child, Cukor received dancing lessons, and soon fell in love with the theater, appearing in several amateur plays. In 1906, he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick (1902-1965), who would later become a close friend.

As a teenager, Cukor often visited the New York Hippodrome, a well-known Manhattan theater. He often cut classes while attending high school, in order to attend afternoon matinees. He later took a job as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, and at times performed there in black-face.

Cukor graduated from the DeWitt Clinton High School in 1917. His father wanted him to follow a legal career, and had his son enrolled City College of New York. Cukor lost interest in his studies and dropped out of college in 1918. He then took a job as an assistant stage manager and bit player for a touring production of the British musical "The Better 'Ole". The musical was an adaptation of the then-popular British comic strip "Old Bill" by Bruce Bairnsfather (1887-1959).

In 1920, Cukor became the stage manager of the Knickerbocker Players, a theatrical troupe. In 1921, Cukor became the general manager of the Lyceum Players, a summer stock company. In 1925, Cukor was one of the co-founders the C.F. and Z. Production Company. With this theatrical company, Cukor started working as a theatrical director. He made his Broadway debut as a director with the play "Antonia" by Melchior Lengyel (1880-1974).

The C.F. and Z. Production Company was eventually renamed the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, and started recruiting up-and-coming theatrical talents. Cukor's theatrical troupe included at various times Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Bette Davis, Douglass Montgomery, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Patterson, and Phyllis Povah.

Cukor attained great critical acclaim in 1926 for directing "The Great Gatsby", an adaptation of a then-popular novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). He directed six more Broadway productions until 1929. At the time, Hollywood film studios were recruiting New York theater talent for sound films, and Cukor was hired by Paramount Pictures. He started as an apprentice director before the studio lent him to Universal Pictures. His first notable film work was serving as a dialogue director for "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930).

After returning to Paramount Pictures, he worked as aco-director. His first solo directorial effort was "Tarnished Lady" (1931), and at that time he earned a weekly salary of $1500. Cukor co-directed the film "One Hour with You" (1932) with Ernst Lubitsch, but Lubitsch demanded sole directorial credit. Cukor filed a legal suit but eventually had to settle for a credit as the film's assistant director. He left Paramount in protest, and took a new job with RKO Studios.

During the 1930s, Cukor was entrusted with directing films for RKO's leading actresses. He worked often with Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), although not always with box-office success. He did direct such box office hits as "Little Women" (1933) and "Holiday" (1938), but also notable flops such as "Sylvia Scarlett" (1935).

In 1936, Cukor was assigned to work on the film adaptation of the blockbuster novel "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell. He spent the next two years preoccupied with the film's pre-production, and with supervising screen tests for actresses seeking to play leading character Scarlett O'Hara. Cukor reportedly favored casting either Katharine Hepburn or Paulette Goddard for the role. Producer David O. Selznick refused to cast either one, since Hepburn was coming off a string of flops and was viewed as "box office poison," while Goddard was rumored to have had a scandalous affair with Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) and her reputation suffered for it.

Cukor did not get to direct "Gone with the Wind", as Selznick decided to assign the directing duties to Victor Fleming (1889-1949). Cukor's involvement with the film was limited to coaching actresses Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) and Olivia de Havilland (1916-). Similarly, the very same year, Cukor also failed to receive a directing credit for "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), though he was responsible for several casting and costuming decisions for this iconic classic.

In this same period, Cukor did direct an all-female cast in "The Women" (1939), as well as Greta Garbo's final motion picture performance in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941). Then his film career was interrupted by World War II, as he joined the Signal Corps in 1942. Given his experience as a film director, Cukor was soon assigned to producing training and instructional films for army personnel. He wanted to gain an officer's commission, but was denied promotion above the rank of private. Cukor suspected that rumors of his homosexuality were the reason he never received the promotion.

During the 1940s, Cukor had a number of box-office hits, such "A Woman's Face" (1941) and "Gaslight" (1944). He forged a working alliance with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and the trio collaborated on seven films between 1947-1954.

Until the early 1950s, most of his Cukor's films were in black-and-white, and his first film in Technicolor was "A Star Is Born" (1954), with Judy Garland as the leading actress. Casting the male lead for the film proved difficult, as several major stars were either not interested in the role or were considered unsuitable by the studio. Cukor had to settle for James Mason as the male lead, but the film was highly successful and received 6 Academy Award nominations. But Cukor was not nominated for directing.

He had a handful of critical successes over the following years, such as Les Girls (1957) and "Wild Is the Wind" (1957), and also helmed the unfinished "Something's Got to Give" (1962), which had a troubled production and went at least $2 million over budget before it was terminated.

Cukor had a comeback with the critically and commercially successful "My Fair Lady," one of the highlights of his career., for which he won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, along with the Directors Guild of America Award. However, his career very quickly slowed down, and the aging Cukor was infrequently involved with new projects.

Cukor's most notable film in the 1970s was the fantasy The Blue Bird (1976) , which was the first joint Soviet-American production. It was a box-office flop, though it received a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and was groundbreaking for its time. Cukor's swan song was "Rich and Famous" (1981), depicting the relationship of two women over a period of several decades., played by co-stars Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, Cukor's final pair of leading ladies.

He retired as a director at the age of 82, and died a year later of a heart attack in 1983. At the time of his death, his net worth was estimated to be $2,377,720. He was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA. Cukor was buried next to his long-time platonic friend Frances Howard (1903-1976), the wife of legendary studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn.

George was the son of the San Francisco Chief of Police who became a college athlete. He was the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the Pacific Fleet during World War I. In the early 1920s, George wound up in Hollywood where he worked as a stuntman and part time actor. In 1924, Director John Ford picked virtually unknown George to star in his first picture, The Iron Horse (1924). Over the next two years, he would appear in four more Ford films and would co-star with Janet Gaynor in The Blue Eagle (1926) and Sunrise (1927). "Sunrise," a winner of two Academy Awards, was the story of a simple farmer who lets another woman talk him into murdering his wife. George remained popular until sound came along. By that time, his popularity was sliding, but he did make the transition to sound. With his rugged looks and physical size, he was soon a Western Cowboy Star. He was in some of the best stories ever written, Riders of the Purple Sage (1931), and in some of the worst. But he was consistently in the Top Ten money-making Western Stars. He would appear in a few films outside the horse set, such as Ever Since Eve (1934), but those roles would be few. By the end of the 1930s, George was still a popular 'B' movie Cowboy Star, but he would not take the parts as seriously as he did a decade before. During World War II, he hung up his spurs, and he re-enlisted in the Navy where he fought in the Pacific and was decorated many times. After the war, when he would not find work in acting, John Ford, his old Director, would give him work with the cavalry in three of his films.

Sly, manipulative, dangerously cunning and sinister were the key words that best described the roles that Gale Sondergaard played in motion pictures, making her one of the most talented character actresses ever seen on the screen. She was educated at the University of Minnesota and later married director Herbert J. Biberman. Her husband went to find work in Hollywood and she reluctantly followed him there. Although she had extensive experience in stage work, she had no intention of becoming an actress in film. Her mind was changed after she was discovered by director Mervyn LeRoy, who offered her a key role in his film Anthony Adverse (1936); she accepted the part and was awarded the very first Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. LeRoy originally cast her as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but she felt she was not right for that role. Instead, she co-starred opposite Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), a film that won Best Picture in 1937. Sondergaard's most-remembered role was that of the sinister and cunning wife of a husband murdered by Bette Davis' character in The Letter (1940). Sondergaard continued her career rise in films such as Juarez (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940), The Black Cat (1941), and Anna and the King of Siam (1946). Unfortunately, she was blacklisted when she refused to testify during the McCarthy-inspired "Red Scare" hysteria in the 1950s. She eventually returned to films in the 1960s and made her final appearance in the 1983 film Echoes (1982). Gale Sondergaard passed away of an undisclosed illness at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 86.

Spouse: James Lincoln Blake (1 Child)

During World War II, she and her husband, James Lincoln Blake, worked in Utah on construction of the detonator for the atomic bomb and performed such jobs as testing equipment destined for the Manhattan Project. The couple received a citation for their work from the U.S. government.

Neil Hamilton's show business career began when he secured a job as a shirt model in magazine ads. He became interested in acting and joined several stock companies. He got his first film role in 1918, but received his big break from D.W. Griffith in The White Rose (1923).

After performing in several more Griffith films, Hamilton was signed by Paramount in the late 1920s and soon became one of that studio's most popular leading men. His rugged good looks and sophisticated demeanor kept him steadily employed, and he worked for just about every studio in Hollywood, from glittering MGM to rock-bottom PRC. Hamilton worked steadily over the years, and grew gracefully into mature supporting parts. He is probably best known to modern-day audiences, however, as Police Commissioner Gordon in the TV series Batman (1966).

Charles Boyer studied philosophy before he went to the theater where he gave his debut in 1920. Although he had at first no intentions to pursue a career at the movies (his first movie was Man of the Sea (1920) by Marcel L'Herbier) he used his chance in Hollywood after several filming stations all over Europe. In the beginning of his career his beautiful voice was hidden by the silent movies but in Hollywood he became famous for his whispered declarations of love (like in movies with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman). In 1934 he married Pat Paterson, his first and (unusual for a star) only wife. He was so faithful to her that he decided to commit suicide two days after her death in 1978.

Noel Coward virtually invented the concept of Englishness for the 20th century. An astounding polymath - dramatist, actor, writer, composer, lyricist, painter, and wit -- he was defined by his Englishness as much as he defined it. He was indeed the first Brit pop star, the first ambassador of "cool Britannia." Even before his 1924 drugs-and-sex scandal of The Vortex, his fans were hanging out of their scarves over the theater balcony, imitating their idol's dress and repeating each "Noelism" with glee. Born in suburban Teddington on 16 December 1899, Coward was on stage by the age of six, and writing his first drama ten years later. A visit to New York in 1921 infused him with the pace of Broadway shows, and he injected its speed into staid British drama and music to create a high-octane rush for the jazz-mad, dance-crazy 1920s. Coward's style was imitated everywhere, as otherwise quite normal Englishmen donned dressing gowns, stuck cigarettes in long holders and called each other "dahling"; his revues propagated the message, with songs sentimental ("A Room With A View," "I'll See You Again") and satirical ("Mad Dogs and Englishmen," "Don't Put Your Daughter On the Stage, Mrs. Worthington"). His between-the-wars celebrity reached a peak in 1930 with "Private Lives," by which time he had become the highest earning author in the western world. With the onset of World War II he redefined the spirit of the country in films such as This Happy Breed (1944), In Which We Serve (1942), Blithe Spirit (1945) and, perhaps most memorably, Brief Encounter (1945). In the postwar period, Coward, the aging Bright Young Thing, seemed outmoded by the Angry Young Men, but, like any modern pop star, he reinvented himself, this time as a hip cabaret singer: "Las Vegas, Flipping, Shouts "More!" as Noel Coward Wows 'Em in Cafe Turn" enthused Variety. By the 1960s, his reappraisal was complete -- "Dad's Renaissance", called it -- and his "Hay Fever" was the first work by a living author to be produced at the National Theatre. He was knighted -- at last -- in 1970, and died in his beloved Jamaica on 26 March 1973. Since his death, his reputation has grown. There is never a point at which his plays are not being performed, or his songs being sung. A playwright, director, actor, songwriter, filmmaker, novelist, wit . . . was there nothing this man couldn't do? Born into a musical family he was soon treading the boards in various music hall shows where he met a young girl called Gertrude Lawrence, a friendship and working partnership that lasted until her death. His early writings were mainly short songs and sketches for the revue shows popular in the 1920s, but even his early works often contained touches of the genius to come ("Parisian Pierrot" 1923). He went on to write and star (with Gertie) in his own revues, but the whiff of scandal was never far away, such as that from the drug addict portrayed in "The Vortex." Despite his obvious homosexual lifestyle he was taken to the hearts of the people and soon grew into one of the most popular writer/performers of his time.

Jay C. Flippen could probably be characterized these days as one of those craggy, distinctive faces you know but whose name escapes you while viewing scores of old 1950s and 1960s films and television series. Playing both sides of the law throughout his career, his huge cranium, distinctive bulldog mug, beetle brows, bulky features, usually scowling countenance, and silver-white hair were ideally suited for roles as criminals and rugged adventurers, while his background as a standup comedian in burlesque, vaudeville and minstrel shows.

He was born John Constantine Flippen on March 6, 1899, in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father, John (a bookkeeper), died in 1908. Flippen's older sister, Era, died a year later (in 1909). His mother, Emma L. Flippen (née Pack), earned an income as a dance and theatre instructor. His maternal grandmother, Mary Pack, lived with the family. Picking up on his mother's artistic interests, Flippen joined the Al G. Field Minstrels at age 16. He was discovered by African-American star comedian Bert Williams in the 1920s, and was Williams' Broadway black face understudy and tour replacement for the 1920 musical revue "Broadway Brevities". Between 1924-29, he recorded scores of songs for Pathé Columbia, Perfect, and Brunswick Records. A veteran radio announcer for Yankee baseball games, Flippen was a lifelong baseball fan who forged friendships with several major league baseball stars. He also appeared on Broadway throughout the mid-1920s (and after), including "June Days" (1925), "Hello, Lola" (1926), "The Great Temptation" (1926), "Padlocks of 1927" (1927), "Second Little Show" (1930), the musical "Hellzapoppin'" (1941), and "Take a Bow" (1944).

Flippen made his film debut in the short The Ham What Am (1928), which captured a vaudeville performance, followed by a few other early 1930's shorts. He didn't move strongly into feature films until post-World War II where he could be counted on to provide his patented gruff and bluster in primarily war stories, film noir, and westerns whether playing a sheriff, farmer, cop, prison warden, military high-ranker or bartender. After playing Hodges, a guard, in Brute Force (1947), he appeared in such other crime yarns as Intrigue (1947), They Live by Night (1948), A Woman's Secret (1949), The Las Vegas Story (1952), The Wild One (1953), The Killing (1956), The Midnight Story (1957), Studs Lonigan (1960) and, The Seven Minutes (1971). His also dominated in such westerns as The Lady from Texas (1951), Devil's Canyon (1953), Man Without a Star (1955), Oklahoma! (1955) (as Ike Skidmore), The Restless Breed (1957), Run of the Arrow (1957), The Deerslayer (1957), From Hell to Texas (1958), and The Plunderers (1960).

Flippen supported many a top Hollywood male star during his four-decade film career. His atmospheric characters notably supported James Stewart in several of his top-notch vehicles, including Winchester '73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952), Thunder Bay (1953), The Far Country (1954), Strategic Air Command (1955), The Restless Breed (1957), Night Passage (1957), and Firecreek (1968). He was a regular player on 1960s television as well, including Bonanza (1959), The Untouchables (1959), The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Route 66 (1960), Burke's Law (1963), Gunsmoke (1955), Rawhide (1959), That Girl (1966), and The Name of the Game (1968). He also co-starred as an Chief Petty Officer in Ensign O'Toole (1962).

In later years, Flippen was dogged by illness. While filming his sheriff role in the classic comedy western Cat Ballou (1965), he had to have his leg amputated after a minor scrape, probably aggravated by diabetes, turned into a severe infection. He continued his career often in a wheelchair. His latest television roles were on episodes of The Virginian (1962), Here Come the Brides (1968), and Ironside (1967).

Award-winning songwriter ("Stardust", "Ole Buttermilk Sky", "Georgia on My Mind"), composer, pianist, actor and singer, educated at Indiana University (LL.B). He played piano in the college bands, and later gave up a law practice for a career in songwriting. He joined ASCAP in 1931, and his chief musical collaborators included Mitchell Parish, Stuart Gorrell, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Lerner, Stanley Adams, Edward Heyman, Paul Francis Webster, Jack Brooks, Ned Washington, and Jo Trent.

His autobiographies are "The Stardust Road" and "Sometimes I Wonder". His other popular-song compositions include "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (Academy Award, 1951), "Washboard Blues", "Riverboat Shuffle", "Little Old Lady", "Lazybones", "Rockin' Chair", "One Morning in May", "Snowball", "Lazy River", "Thanksgivin'", "Judy", "Moonburn", , "Small Fry", "Ooh, What You Said", "The Rhumba Jumps", "Two Sleepy People", "Heart and Soul", "Skylark", "The Nearness of You", "When Love Walks By", "Daybreak", "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief", "Ivy", "Memphis in June", "Hong Kong Blues", "I Get Along Without You Very Well", "Blue Orchids", "The Old Music Master", "How Little We Know", "The Lamplighter's Serenade", "I Walk With Music", "Come Easy Go Easy Love", "Can't Get Indiana Off My Mind", "I Should Have Known You Years Ago", "Baltimore Oriole", "Rogue River Valley", "Who Killed 'Er (Who Killed the Black Widder?)", "Moon Country", "When Love Goes Wrong", "Mediterranean Love", "Music, Always Music", "There Goes Another Pal of Mine", "Just For Tonight" and "My Resistance is Low".

Actor, author, and musician Chief Dan George was born in present-day North Vancouver as Geswanouth Slahoot (later anglicized as 'Dan Slaholt'), the son of a tribal chief on Burrard Indian Reserve Nº. 3. He is the only Aboriginal actor in Canadian history to date with the right to use the title "Chief", serving as leader of the Squamish First Nation of Burrard Inlet from 1951-63, and retained the honorary title after his term ended. His last name was changed to George when at age 5 he entered a mission boarding school where the use of his native language was discouraged, if not forbidden.

Until 1959, he had worked as a longshoreman, logger, bus driver, and itinerant musician. After spending much of his early life as a longshoreman, a construction worker, and a school-bus driver, Chief Dan George auditioned for the role of Ol' Antoine on Cariboo Country (1960), a CBC series, and won the part. He made his screen debut at age 65. On the strength of his performance in the series, and after playing the same part in Smith! (1969), a Disney adaptation of one of the show's episodes based on "Breaking Smith's Quarterhorse", a novella by Paul St. Pierre, and starring Glenn Ford, he was asked to play "Old Lodge Skins" in Little Big Man (1970). This role led to an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1970. He continued to appear in films and became an accomplished stage actor. He died in 1981 on the same Indian reserve where he was born in North Vancouver at age 82.

Infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone was born in the tough Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, NY, the fourth of nine children of Italian immigrants from Naples. Capone was a born sociopath. In the sixth grade he beat up a teacher and promptly quit school. He picked up his education from the streets, "making his bones" when he joined the notorious James Street gang. This was run by Johnny Torrio, who later graduated Capone into the even more notorious Five Points gang. It was here that Capone became friends with Lucky Luciano, another who would become a hallmark in the '30s gangster era.

By his late teens Capone had been hired by Torrio and Frankie Yale as a bouncer at a saloon / brothel in Brooklyn. In 1918 he was involved in a bar fight over a prostitute with hoodlum Frank Galluccio. Gallucio went after Capone with a knife, resulting in Capone's picking up the moniker by which he would be known for the rest of his life--"Scarface" (although that word was NEVER used in his presence). Capone, however, would attribute the scar to wounds he received in battle while fighting with the famous "lost battalion" in France during World War I (the fact that Capone never spent one minute in the army was a minor point, apparently). By 1919 he was already suspected by New York police of at least two murders, so he moved to Chicago to work under Torrio's uncle, "Big" Jim Colosimo, a Chicago gangster who ran a string of brothels. Torrio and Colosimo had a dispute over bootlegging during the Prohibition era--Torrio was for it and Colosimo was against it. Torrio hatched a plot with Capone to have Colosimo "rubbed out" and they got their old pal Frankie Yale to do it. Over the next few years the new Torrio-Capone regime went to war with rival bootlegging gangs in Chicago. In 1924 they killed Charles Dion O'Bannion, head of the Irish North Side gang. That didn't end the war, however, which went on for several more years. Capone's younger brother Frank died in a hail of rival gangsters' bullets in 1924. In February 1925 Torrio, who had been badly wounded in a shootout, decided to retire. He told Capone, "It's all yours". At the tender age of 26, Al Capone found himself in control of a sophisticated crime organization with 1,000 gunmen at his command and a $300,000-a-week payroll. He was up to it, however, and made a smooth transition from a simple gun-toting leg-breaker, pimp and killer to a "business executive" (his business card stated that he sold "second-hand furniture"). It was estimated that at one point he had approximately half of Chicago's police department on his payroll, and his reach extended to the highest levels of Chicago's city government and even into the Illinois legislature (he was also suspected of having the Illinois governor "in his pocket"). He controlled the local political process by terrorizing voters into voting for candidates he picked. So great was his power that he claimed he "owned" Chicago, and once publicly assaulted the mayor of nearby Cicero--who was on his payroll--on the steps of City Hall for doing something without his clearance, while the local police looked the other way.

Capone was probably the first "equal-opportunity" mob boss. While many of his fellow Italian and Sicilian gangsters would only hire those from their own ethnic group, Capone hired Jews, Irish, Poles, Slovaks, blacks--as long as he considered them trustworthy, they could work for Capone. He even purged the Chicago organized crime scene of "Mustache Petes", the old-time Sicilian gangsters who he didn't think were capable of running a "modern" crime organization. Capone ran Chicago's gambling, prostitution and bootlegging empire, getting rich giving people what they wanted. He was soon wildly popular among the citizenry and was even cheered at the ballpark, while "respectable" citizens like President Herbert Hoover were not. Capone absorbed smaller gangs into his own--sometimes by negotiation, other times by gunfire--extending his reach to outside the Chicago environs and expanding his empire even further. He was, however, always concerned for his own safety and surrounded himself with trusted bodyguards (including Frank Gallucio, the man responsible for his nickname, "Scarface"). Several attempts were made on his life by rival mobsters--one time a convoy of cars full of gangster Hymie Weiss' gunmen shot up a restaurant at which Capone was dining; the place was destroyed, but Capone came through unscathed. Another time would-be assassins poisoned his soup, but his luck held out again.

On Valentine's Day in 1929 Capone ordered the bloody "St. Valentine's Day Massacre". His underlings found out the location of the warehouse of his rival George Moran (aka "Bugs" Moran) and that Moran was to attend a meeting there at a particular time. Capone sent a carload of his gunmen dressed as police officers to the address. Once there they lined up the seven men they found, but Moran wasn't among them; he was on the sidewalk heading towards the building when he saw the "police car" pull up in front and he quickly ducked into a nearby store. Nevertheless, Capone's gunmen machine-gunned them to death. Following the massacre (when Moran was later asked who he thought was responsible for the murders, he replied, "Only Capone kills like that"), public opinion about Capone began to change. He was not above killing on his own, either. When he was informed that his bodyguards John Scalise and Albert Anselmi were part of an assassination plot against him, he decided to take care of the matter himself. To put their minds at ease, he threw a banquet in their honor. While delivering a glowing testimonial to them, Capone suddenly pulled out an Indian club and beat both men to death.

Although local and state authorities had been trying to bring down Capone for years, the federal government finally managed to do it by prosecuting him for income-tax evasion. He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to 11 years in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, GA. In 1934 he was transferred to Alcatraz, a federal prison on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay that was set up to hold the nation's worst criminals. He never finished out his sentence, though. In 1939 he was paroled because of the ravages of neurosyphilis, a disease he contracted while running Torrio's and Colosimo's whorehouses. He lived the last eight years of his life as a virtual zombie at his estate in Florida, his brain almost totally destroyed by the disease.

The son of a rancher-turned-politician, Guinn Williams was given the nickname "Big Boy" (and he was, too - 6' 2" of mostly solid muscle from years of working on ranches and playing semi-pro and pro baseball) by Will Rogers, with whom he made one of his first films, in 1919. Although his father wanted him to attend West Point (he had been an officer in the Army during World War I), Williams had always wanted to act and made his way to Hollywood in 1919. His experience as a cowboy and rodeo rider got him work as a stuntman, and he gradually worked his way up to acting. He became friends with Rogers and together they made around 15 films. Additionally,in a film that has recently received critical acclaim, he appeared alongside Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor in the silent film Lucky Star (1929), playing a brute vying for the affections of Janet Gaynor in competition with a returning war veteran, played by Charles Farrell. He then easily made the transition from silents to talkies. Although he also starred in a series of low-budget westerns in the early and mid-1930s, he really came into his own as a supporting player in the late 1930s and early 1940s, especially at Warner Bros., where he appeared in such resoundingly successful westerns as Dodge City (1939) and Santa Fe Trail (1940) with his friends Errol Flynn and Alan Hale. Williams specialized in the somewhat dim and quick-tempered but basically decent sidekick, a role he would play for the next 20 years or so. He also made sound films other than westerns, and was in, for example, A Star Is Born (1937). Late in his career, he won the hearts of TV viewers in a regular role as Pete, the comedic roadie in Circus Boy (1956). In the early 1960s Williams' health began to deteriorate, which was noticeable in his last film, The Comancheros (1961), in which he had a small part and, sadly, did not look well at all. He died of uremic poisoning shortly afterwards.

An extremely versatile character actor and originator of several memorable characterizations in the horror film genre, Dwight Frye had a notable theatrical career in the 1920s, moving from juvenile parts to leads before entering film. A favorite actor of Broadway theatrical producer-director Brock Pemberton, he originated the part of "the Son" in his hit 1922 production of Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author". Pemberton would continue to employ Frye in Broadway productions throughout the decade. Cast with Bela Lugosi in a 1926 production of "The Devil and the Cheese", he ultimately appeared in at least two Lugosi films.

Despite (or perhaps because of) his memorable, impassioned portrayals of real estate agent-cum-madman Renfield in Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) and Fritz the sadistic hunchbacked lab-assistant in James Whale's Frankenstein (1931), the industry seemed determined to typecast Frye, and his film career would be marked with frustration. The Crime of Doctor Crespi (1935) offered him billing second only to that of villain Erich von Stroheim, but all too soon, he was consigned to playing a lackluster array of crazies, spies, red herrings, grasping heirs and bit parts. He occasionally returned to the stage in comedies, musicals, and thrillers such as "Night Must Fall" and a stage version of "Dracula".

Frye was perplexed to find that his versatility in the theatre went unnoticed in Hollywood, where he was relegated to lunatic roles and often had his parts severely cut. Indeed, in Son of Frankenstein (1939) his role was deemed as unnecessary when an abrupt switch was made from Technicolor to black-and-white after his scenes were shot.

Dwight Frye, a devout Christian Scientist, had concealed a heart-condition from his friends and family. After the outbreak of WWII, unable to enlist, he worked nights (between films and local theatre-productions) as a draftsman for the Lockheed Aircraft Co. An uncanny physical resemblance to then-Secretary of War Newton Baker led his to being signed to a substantial role in Wilson (1944), directed by Henry King, based on the life of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, but Frye succumbed to a heart-attack on a crowded bus a few days after being cast while returning home from a movie with his son. He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

During World War I, Richard Arlen served in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps as a pilot, but he never saw combat. After the war he drifted round and eventually wound up in Los Angeles, where he got a job as a motorcycle messenger at a film laboratory. When he crashed into the gates of Paramount Pictures and suffered a broken leg, the studio provided prompt medical attention. Impressed by his good looks, executives also gave him a contract after he had recovered. Starting as an extra in 1925, Arlen soon rose to credited roles, but the quality of his work left much to be desired. However, he continued in films, and his big break came when William A. Wellman cast him as a pilot in the silent film Wings (1927) with Charles 'Buddy' Rogers and Clara Bow. The story of fighter aces would win the Oscar for Best Picture and Arlen would continue to play the tough, cynical hero throughout his career. Arlen appeared in three more pictures directed by Wellman, Beggars of Life (1928), Ladies of the Mob (1928) and The Man I Love (1929). In "Wings" he had a scene with a young actor named Gary Cooper. In 1929, he again worked with Cooper in the western The Virginian (1929), only this time Cooper was the star and Arlen was the supporting actor. While Arlen moved easily into sound, his career just bumped along. By 1935 he was working in such "B" pictures as Three Live Ghosts (1936). It was in 1935 that he became a freelance actor and his freelance career soon waned. In 1939, he signed with Universal and began working in its action films. In 1941 he moved to the Pine-Thomas unit at Paramount, where he appeared in adventure films. With the war on, most of his earlier films included war scenarios. By the end of the 1940s Arlen was becoming deaf and this seemed to signal the end of his career. However, he had an operation in 1949 that restored his hearing and he went on making a handful of adventures and westerns through the 1950s and working more in the 1960s. He made 15 westerns for producer A.C. Lyles, who worked with the old western stars.

Besides movies, Arlen also appeared on television and in commercials. After leaving the business in the late 1960s, he was coaxed back to the screen for three small roles in films that were released the same year that he died.