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Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's image of the Frankenstein Monster from the classic 1818 Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, UK, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard.

He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909, joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff." He toured back and forth across the U.S. for over 10 years in a variety of low budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name. Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such films as The Deadlier Sex (1920), Omar the Tentmaker (1922), Dynamite Dan (1924) and Tarzan et le lion d'or (1927), in addition to a handful of film serials (the majority of these, sadly, are all lost films). Karloff supplemented his meager film income by working as a truck driver in Los Angeles, which allowed him enough time off to continue to pursue acting roles.

His big break finally came when he was cast as the Frankenstein Monster in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), which was directed by James Whale, one of the studio's few remaining auteur directors. The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?". The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), as the black-humored Une soirée étrange (1932), as the titular Chinese villain of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu novels in Le Masque d'or (1932), as the living mummy Im-ho-tep in La Momie (1932) and as the misguided Prof. Morlant in Le Fantôme vivant (1933). He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's film La Patrouille perdue (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting.

He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots to play the Frankenstein Monster twice more, the first time in the sensational La Fiancée de Frankenstein (1935) and the second time in the less thrilling Le fils de Frankenstein (1939). Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Charlie Chan à l'opéra (1936), before beginning his own short-lived detective film series as Mr. Wong. He was a wrongly condemned doctor in L'île du diable (1938), the shaven-headed executioner Mord the Merciless in La tour de Londres (1939), another misguided scientist in The Ape (1940), a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in La Maison de Frankenstein (1944), a murderous cab-man in Le Récupérateur de cadavres (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampires in the Val Lewton thriller L'île des morts (1945).

While Karloff continued to appear in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including his appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster films (he had appeared with both of them in an earlier, superior film, Deux nigauds chez les tueurs (1949), of which theater owners often added his name to the marquee) at the low point of the Universal-International horror film cycle. During the 1950s he was a regular guest on many high-profile TV shows, including Texaco Star Theatre Starring Milton Berle (1948), Tales of Tomorrow (1951), The Veil (1958), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954), The Red Skelton Show (1951) and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), just to name a few, and he appeared in a mixed bag of films, including Sabaka (1954) and Voodoo Island (1957). On Broadway, he appeared as the murderous Jonathan Brewster in the hit play "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or rather the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the play's 1944 film version) and 10 years later he enjoyed a long run in another hit play, "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as Captain Hook.

His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and independent film director Roger Corman, with Karloff contributing wonderful performances in Le corbeau (1963), L'Halluciné (1963), the ultra-eerie Les Trois Visages de la peur (1963) and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Le messager du diable (1965). Karloff's last great film role before his death was as Byron Orlok, an aging and bitter horror film star on the brink of retirement who confronts a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed film La Cible (1968). After this, he played Professor John Marsh in La Maison ensorcelée (1968), in which he co-starred with Sir Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele; it was the last film that he starred in that was released in his lifetime. Before these two films, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Le chaudron de sang (1968) which was produced, directed and written by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from the stage and the theater; it was released in the U.S. in 1971 after his death. His TV career was topped off by achieving Christmas immortality as both the voices of the titular character and the narrator of Chuck Jones' perennial animated favorite, Comment le Grinch a volé Noël ! (1966). Four low budget horror films that were made in Mexico and starred an ailing Karloff, whose scenes for all four of them were shot on a soundstage in Hollywood, were released theatrically in Mexico in 1968 and then were released directly to television in the U.S. after his death between 1971 and 1972; however, they do no justice to this great actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments. Renowned as a refined, kind and warm-hearted gentleman with a sincere affection for both children and their welfare, Karloff passed away on February 2, 1969 from pneumonia. Respectful of his Indian roots and in true Hindu fashion, he was cremated at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, England, UK, where he is commemorated by a plaque in Plot 2 of the Garden of Remembrance.

Born August 5th, 1887 in England, Reginald Owen was among Hollywood's busier character actors, making more than 80 films. He was educated in England at Sir Herbert Tree's Academy of Dramatic Arts. Owen excelled and made his professional debut also in England at the age of 18. He came to New York in the early 1920s and started working on Broadway by 1924. He left New York in 1928 and moved to Hollywood, hoping to make it in films. In 1929, he landed his first role in The Letter. In 1932 he played Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes. Although, he didn't get many leading roles, he did get to work with some of Hollywood's most beautiful leading ladies like, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Jeanette MacDonald (Owen's personal favorite), Barbara Stanwyck and Elizabeth Taylor. Owen continued to work into his 70s and 80s making family classics, such as Mary Poppins (1964) and L'Apprentie sorcière (1971). He died in 1972 at the ripe age of 85 of natural causes.

William Frawley was born in Burlington, Iowa. As a boy he sang at St. Paul's Catholic Church and played at the Burlington Opera House. His first job was as a stenographer for the Union Pacific Railroad. He did vaudeville with his brother Paul, then joined pianist Franz Rath in an act they took to San Francisco in 1910. Four years later he formed a light comedy act with his new wife Edna Louise Broedt, "Frawley and Louise", touring the Orpheum and Keith circuits until they divorced in 1927. He next moved to Broadway and then, in 1932, to Hollywood with Paramount. By 1951, when he contacted Lucille Ball about a part in her TV show I Love Lucy (1951), he had performed in over 100 films. His Fred Mertz role lasted until the show ended in 1960, after which he did a five-year stint on My Three Sons (1960). Poor health forced his retirement. He collapsed of a heart attack on March 3, 1966, aged 79, walking along Hollywood Boulevard after seeing a movie. He is buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery.

The first actress to sign a contract with Universal in 1915, Gertrude Astor (born in Ohio as Gertrude Irene Astor) began her career playing trombone and saxophone on a riverboat. Towering over most of her leading men at 5'11", she often played golddiggers, rich socialites or a leading lady's best friend in such one-reeled films and feature length silents as Polly Redhead (1917), Le contraste (1917), The Girl Who Wouldn't Quit (1918), Le fauve de la Sierra (1919), Mary Pickford's Par l'entrée de service (1921), The Wall Flower (1922), Alice Adams (1923), L'horrible méprise (1923), Vedette (1925), The Boy Friend (1926), Kiki (1926), The Strong Man (1926), Shanghaied (1927), La volonté du mort (1927) and La case de l'oncle Tom (1927) (as Little Eva's mother). The popular female stars she bolstered included Pickford, Norma Talmadge, Gloria Swanson, Patsy Ruth Miller, Colleen Moore, Shirley Mason, Olive Borden and Laura La Plante

With the advent of sound, Astor's career continued, landing her in a number of two-reel comedies, mostly with the Hal Roach studio and occasionally with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the "Our Gang" gang and Charley Chase. "I've never been so embarrassed in all my life!" seemed to be one of her most used lines in films. Acting until the 1960s and often in bit parts (she once played a corpse in La griffe sanglante (1944), her last movie bit was for John Ford in L'homme qui tua Liberty Valance (1962). Astor often relayed her film memories to friends, fans and historians. At one point in her career she and actress Lilyan Tashman, were known as the most elegant and best dressed women in Hollywood. Astor died following a stroke on her 90th birthday at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills.

Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Faiblesse humaine (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona (1928) if an errant jackrabbit hadn't cost him his right eye by leaping through the windshield of his automobile. Warner Baxter filled the role and won an Oscar. Before John Ford and Nicholas Ray, it was Raoul Walsh who made the eye-patch almost as synonymous with a Hollywood director as Cecil B. DeMille's jodhpurs.

He interned with the best, serving as assistant director and editor on D.W. Griffith's racist masterpiece, The Clansman, better known as Naissance d'une nation (1915), a blockbuster that may have been the highest-grossing film of all time if accurate box office records had been kept before the sound era. He pulled triple duty on that picture, playing John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater and ranked as the most notorious American actor of all time until Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens).

The year before The Clansman, Walsh was second unit director on The Life of General Villa (1914), also playing the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa as a young man. Walsh got his start in the business as co-director of another Pancho Villa flick, The Life of General Villa (1914), in 1912. The movie featured footage shot of an actually battle between Villa's forces and Mexican federal troops.

In 1915, in addition to helping out the great Griffith, Walsh directed no less than 14 films, including his first feature-length film, The Regeneration (1915), which he also wrote. The movie starred silent cinema superstar Anna Q. Nilsson as a society woman turned social worker who aids the regeneration of a Bowery gang leader. It was a melodrama, but an effective one. In his autobiography, Walsh credited D.W. Griffith with teaching him about the art of filmmaking and about production management techniques. The film is memorable for its shots of New York City, where Walsh had been born 28 years earlier on March 11, 1887.

Raoul Walsh would continue to be a top director for 40 years and would not hang up his director's megaphone (if he still had one at that late in the game) until 1964. As a writer, his last script was made in 1970, meaning his career as a whole spanned seven decades and 58 years.

He introduced the world to John Wayne in La piste des géants (1930) in 70mm wide-screen in 1930. It would take nine more years and John Ford to make the Duke a star. In one three-year period at Warner Bros., he directed Les fantastiques années 20 (1939), Une femme dangereuse (1940), La Grande Évasion (1941), La blonde framboise (1941), L'Entraîneuse fatale (1941), La Charge fantastique (1941), and Gentleman Jim (1942), among other films in that time frame. He helped consolidate the stardom of Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn while directing the great James Cagney in one of his more delightful films, La blonde framboise (1941). This was the same director that would elicit Cagney's most searing performance since L'ennemi public (1931) in the crime classic L'enfer est à lui (1949).

Novelist Norman Mailer says that Walsh was dragged off of his death bed to direct the underrated film adaptation of Mailer's Les nus et les morts (1958). The movie is as masculine and unsentimental as the book, an exceedingly harsh look at the power relations between men at war on the same side that includes the attempted murder of prisoners of war and the "fragging" of officers (Sergeant Croft allows his lieutenant to walk into an ambush). Walsh was at his best when directing men in war or action pictures.

Raoul Walsh seemingly recovered from Mailer's phantasmagorical death bed, as he lived another 22 years after Les nus et les morts (1958). He died on December 31, 1980, in Simi Valley, California, at the age of 93.

Burly, stentorian-voiced John Hamilton, worked on Broadway and in touring theatrical companies for many years prior to his 1930 film debut. He was in the original Broadway company of "Seventh Heaven" and would appear in the film remake (L'heure suprême (1937)) in 1937. For Warner Bros, he starred with Donald Meek in a series of short mysteries based on S.S. Van Dine stories. He was often typecast as prison wardens, judges and police chiefs, but played various types of characters in an almost limitless number of films from the 1930s to the 1950s. He became famous when he was cast as Daily Planet newspaper editor Perry White in the 1950s TV classic, Superman (1952). He died of a heart attack in 1957 and is survived by a son. Hamilton is often confused with John F. Hamilton, an American actor whose career began in the 1920s, John Hamilton, a British actor who worked during the same period but exclusively in the UK, and with several other actors of the same name.

Irene Fenwick was born Irene Frizzel in Chicago, Illinois on September 5, 1887. She was predominately a stage actress and a fine one at that. Her first film was THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR in 1915. She was to make three more that year, but one in 1916 called A CONEY ISLAND PRINCESS. Her services were, unfortunately, not in high demand. After A GIRL LIKE THAT and THE SIN WOMAN in 1917, Irene retired from the screen. She had made only seven films. She was much more comfortable on the stage in which she returned. That work really meant something to her in a way films couldn't. At one time she was married to the great actor, Lionel Barrymore. Irene died in Beverly Hills, California on Christmas Eve in 1936. She was 49 years old.

The son of a physician, Raymond Hatton entered films in 1909, eventually appearing in almost 500 other pictures. In early silents he formed a comedy team with big, burly Wallace Beery. He was best known as the tobacco-chewing, rip-snorting Rusty Joslin in the Three Mesquiteers series. He was also in the Rough Riders series and appeared as Johnny Mack Brown's sidekick as well. His last Western was, fittingly, Le glas du hors-la-loi (1965).

Born in London, Eric Blore came out of college and started his working life as an insurance agent. But while touring in Australia he took an interest in the stage and theater. He gave up his insurance job and turned to acting after returning to England. With his elfish long, straight nose, squint-eyed demeanor and a crisp voice, he successfully began a career starring in many shows and revues, focusing on traditional British comedy. Encouraged further, in 1923 he came to New York and was almost immediately using his London stage experience on Broadway. Though there were a few dramatic parts, he inevitably played comic roles in musical comedies and revues (in some of which he also received billing as a lyricist) regularly from 1923 to 1933. He would return once again some ten years later to take on multiple roles for Ziegfeld Follies of 1943. No stranger to film, as early as 1920 he had tried his hand in British cinema. And in 1926 he did the US silent version of The Great Gatsby (1926) that starred Warner Baxter. His familiar role as a head waiter began with his first Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film, Carioca (1933). With a foot still on Broadway, in 1933 he played the waiter in the stage version of The Gay Divorcee and was then tapped to reprise the role in the film version with Fred and Ginger. Blore had been perfecting his basic comic characters since his London days -- a leering English gentlemen, brusque/wise-acre butler or waiter or other service provider -- with a lockjawed British accent. These characters accompanied by Blore's flawlessly timed delivery were thoroughly applicable and effective as he moved permanently to Hollywood character acting. He played a fair spectrum of other roles, even in a few rare dramas, such as the adventure Michel Strogoff (1937) and Island of Lost Men (1939).

Blore was very busy with movies from 1934 through most of the 1940s. He appeared in five of the nine Fred and Ginger dance musicals. Some of his best mugging and scripted lines were in Le Danseur du dessus (1935) and L'entreprenant Mr Petrov (1937) of that series. He was also cast very effectively as valet/butler Jamison in the screen adaptations of the Wolfe Kaufman Lone Wolf mystery novel series. There were eleven films between 1940 and 1947, with all but the last three starring the dashing, sonorous-voiced Warren William (who had a greater profile than 'The Great Profile', John Barrymore) as Michael Lanyard. This was a popular series with first-rate scripts and good production values to keep the public coming back for more. Blore was also invited into the company of stock players ruled over by zany comedy director Preston Sturges. Though Blore only did two films for Sturges, his role in the first of these, Un coeur pris au piège (1941), was a Blore tour de force. Playing the suave confidence man, Pearly, to his old bunko acquaintances Barbara Stanwyck and Charles Coburn, he took the role of pseudo-wealthy Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith out to fleece the local American business gentry. His scene with a gullible Henry Fonda taking in Sir Alfred's concocted story of Stanwyck's being a twin daughter of the lady of the manor by way of her coachman is a delight, punctuated with Blore interrupting perplexed Fonda's questions with a loud shhhhhhh of silence at each.

Inevitably, the parts started to become less frequent. Several of Blore's 1940s movies were with lesser known up-and-comers or older stars such as himself. Still, he enjoyed a variety of roles, including the opportunity of animation immortality when Disney chose him for the voice of Mr. Toad in the classic short La mare aux grenouilles (1949). But for two widely spaced appearances, Blore essentially retired by 1955.

And as sometimes is the case when personalities move into obscurity, their deaths are prematurely announced. Such was the case with Blore when the New Yorker journalist Kenneth Tynan reported him as having already passed on. Blore's lawyer raised a flurry, as did the editor of the New Yorker, who claimed the periodical had never had to print a retraction. The night before the highly profiled retraction appeared, Blore indeed passed away. And the next morning the New Yorker was the only publication with the wrong information. It seems likely Blore would have been particularly tickled with the irony of this last comedic bit in honor of his passing.

Billy Bevan's show-business career began in his native Australia, with the Pollard theatrical organization. The company had two theater troupes, one which toured Asia and the other traveling to North America. Bevan wound up in the latter, performing in skits and plays all over Canada and Alaska then down into the continental US. While in a road company of the play "A Knight for a Day", Bevan was noticed by comedy pioneer Mack Sennett, who hired him on the spot. Bevan made many one- and two-reel shorts for Sennett over a ten-year period, and then transitioned into a reliable comic actor in many Hollywood comedies over the next 20 years or so (even doing voice-overs for cartoons). He made his last film in 1950, then retired. He died in Escondido, CA, in 1957.

Fondly remembered for his many deceptively meek, erudite characters played on film -- think Cosmo Topper, of the screwball classic Le couple invisible (1937) -- this short (5'6"), balding, highly distinguished actor was born in London, England on November 11,1887, to an architect and his wife. Young was educated at Sherborne College and University College London and trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).

Taking his first professional London stage bow in 1908, Roland moved to the United States a few years later, made his New York debut (in "Hindle Wakes") in 1912, and became a fixture on Broadway. Young performed equally well in droll farces and classic drama. His standout credits included productions of "John Gabriel Borkman" (1915), "The Seagull" (1916), "A Doll's House" (1918), "Rollo's Wild Oat," "Hedda Gabler" (1923), and "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" (1927). He also joined the the Washington Square Players for a time.

Young became a U.S. citizen in 1918 and served in the Army during WW I. He appeared in a few silent films after his discharge, including Sherlock Holmes contre Moriarty (1922), in which he played an amusingly hesitant Dr. Watson to John Barrymore's super-sleuth. His first talking film was the second male lead, Lord Montague, a near strangler victim, in the murder mystery Le spectre vert (1929) starring Ernest Torrence and directed by Lionel Barrymore. Young didn't come into his own in Hollywood until his presence in screwball comedies of the 1930s, for which he seemed tailor-made.

With his patrician air, tidy mustache, and fumbling-yet-dry delivery, Young did his share of restrained scene-stealing in New Moon (1930) as Count Strogoff; Le mari de l'indienne (1931) as Sir John Applegate; David Copperfield (1935) as the villainous Uriah Heap; L'Homme qui pouvait accomplir des Miracles (1936) as the timorous clerk with God-like powers; and L'extravagant Mr Ruggles (1935), as the inebriated Earl of Burnstead who loses his valet Charles Laughton in a poker game. So good was he in Le couple invisible (1937), as the humorously beleaguered fall guy for ghostly duo Cary Grant and Constance Bennett, that he earned a supporting Oscar nomination, somewhat rare for comic outings.

Young moved fluidly between stage, film and radio assignments during the war-era years. While starring in a mid-1940s radio broadcast of "Topper" and appearing with Cornelia Otis Skinner in the 1945 serial "William and Mary," he also graced such theatre productions as "Ask My Friend Sandy" and "Another Love Story" and such films as Star Dust (1940), Indiscrétions (1940) (as lecherous rascal Uncle Willie), Greta Garbo's last film La femme aux deux visages (1941), La belle ensorceleuse (1941), Et la vie recommence (1943) and the classic whodunnit Dix petits indiens (1945).

He ended his career in a few TV anthologies ("The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre," "Studio One in Hollywood," "Lux Video Theatre" and "Betty Crocker Star Matinee"). His last few films were comedies and included a villainous role in the Bob Hope romantic musical Don Juan de l'Atlantique (1949), a conman in the sentimental crimer St. Benny the Dip (1951) and the wealthy father of a newly-married countess whose husband/count quickly disappears in the romantic adventure Aquel hombre de Tánger (1953).

Married twice, Young died of natural causes at age 65, in New York City, on June 5, 1953, and was survived by his second wife, Patience DuCroz. In 1960, he was posthumously honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his TV and film work.

Peter Malberg was born on 21 September 1887 in Aarhus, Denmark. He was an actor, known for L'ami commun (1921), Ingen tid til kærtegn (1957) and David Copperfield (1922). He died on 23 June 1965 in Denmark.

Roscoe Arbuckle, the youngest of nine children, reportedly weighed 16 pounds at birth in Smith Center, Kansas on March 24, 1887. His family moved to California when he was one year old. At age 8 he first appeared on the stage. His first part was with the Webster-Brown stock company. From then until 1913, Roscoe was on the stage, performing as an acrobat, a clown, and a singer. His first real professional engagement was in 1904, singing illustrated songs for Sid Grauman at the Unique Theater in San Jose, California at $17.50 a week. He later worked in the Morosco Burbank stock company and traveled through China and Japan with Ferris Hartman. His last appearance on the stage was with Hartman in Yokahama, Japan in 1913, where he played the Mikado.

Back in Hollywood, Arbuckle went to work at Mack Sennett's Keystone film studio at $40 a week. For the next 3-1/2 years he never starred or even featured, but appeared in hundreds of one-reel comedies. He would play mostly policemen, usually with the Keystone Cops, but he also played different parts. He would work with Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Charles Chaplin, among others, and would learn about the process of making movies from Henry Lehrman, who directed all but two of his pictures. Roscoe was a gentle and genteel man off screen and always believed that Sennett never thought that he was funny.

Roscoe never used his weight to get a laugh. He would never be found stuck in a chair or doorway. He was remarkably agile for his size and used that agility to find humor in situations. By 1914 he had begun to direct some of his one-reels. The next year he moved up to two-reels, which meant that he would need to sustain the comedy to be successful; as it turned out, he was. Among his films were Fatty Again (1914), Mabel, Fatty and the Law (1915), La lessive de Mabel (1915), Mabel et Fatty à l'Exposition (1915), Les tribulations de Fatty (1915), and many more. For "Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco", Keystone took the actors to the real World's Fair to use as background; the studio's cost was negligible, while the San Francisco backgrounds made the picture look expensive.

By 1917 Roscoe formed a partnership with Joseph M. Schenck, a powerful producer who was also the husband of Norma Talmadge. The company they formed was called Comique and the films that Roscoe made were released through Famous Players on a percentage basis, and soon Arbuckle was making over $1,000 a week. With his own company Roscoe had complete creative control over his productions. He also hired a young performer he met in New York by the name of Buster Keaton. Keaton's film career would start with Roscoe in Fatty garçon boucher (1917). Roscoe wrote his own stories first, tried them out and then devised funny twists to generate the laughs. His comedy star was second only to Charles Chaplin. With the success of Comique, Paramount asked Roscoe to move from two-reel shorts to full-length features in 1919. Roscoe's first feature was Fatty, l'intrépide shérif (1920) and it was successful. It was soon followed by other features, including Les millions de Fatty (1921) and Fatty fait de l'auto (1921).

Unfortunately, tragedy struck on Labor Day on September 5, 1921 with the arrest and trial of Roscoe Arbuckle on manslaughter charges. Roscoe with friends Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback drove to San Francisco where they checked into the St Francis Hotel threw a lavish party, complete with drinking, drugs and carousing, which was crashed by a "starlet" named Virginia Rappe, who fell seriously ill and died three days later from a ruptured bladder. Rappe had accused Arbuckle of raping her prior to passing away, but Rappe had a history of accusing men of rape. The newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst, used this incident to generate Hollywood's first major scandal. Roscoe was tried not once but three times for the criminal charges; the trials began in November 1921 and lasted until April 1922; the first two ended with hung juries (the mistrial decision in the second trial was reached on February 3, 1922, the day after Arbuckle's friend and fellow Paramount director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered, and Arbuckle was visibly affected by the news). At his third and final trial in April of 1922, the jury not only returned a "not guilty" verdict but excoriated the prosecution for pursuing a flimsy case with no evidence of Arbuckle having committed any crime; it was at this final trial that the jury went further, writing a personal letter of sympathy and apology to Arbuckle for putting him through this ordeal. He kept it as a treasured memento for the rest of his life.

However, Arbuckle's acquittal marked the end of his comedic acting career. Unable to return to the screen, he later found work as a comedy director for Al St. John, Buster Keaton and others under the pseudonym "William Goodrich" (he was inspired to use this pseudonym by Keaton, who suggested Arbuckle use the name "Will B. Good"). In 1932 producer Samuel Sax signed Roscoe to appear in his very first sound comic short films for Warner Brothers, starting with Hey, Pop! (1932). He completed six shorts and showed the magic and youthful spirit that he had a decade before. With the success of the shorts, Warner Brothers signed Roscoe to a feature film contract, but he died in his sleep on June 29, 1933 , at age 46, the night after he signed the contract.

As a kid trying to negotiate his way through various gang territories to a floating crap game or a new pool hall where he was not yet known as a hustler, Leonard (Chico) Marx learned to fake several accents. Because he later employed an Italian accent in the Marx Brothers' act, people assumed his name was pronounced "Cheeko." Instead, Leonard was dubbed "Chicko" for his other consuming passion, women (or "chicks"), at which he was more successful than gambling, but when a typesetter dropped the "k" out of his name, the brothers let it stay as Chico. Chico was the brother who guided the Marxes to stardom. He took over the act's managment (amicably) from their mother, Minnie, and through audacity and charm, Chico secured the Brothers their first international (London) booking, their first Broadway show and their MGM contract with Irving Thalberg, among other successes.

Prolific "heavy" in American films of the silent and early talkie eras. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Kohler left home as a teenager, working various jobs while trying to establish a career in vaudeville. During this time, according to his son, actor Fred Kohler Jr., Kohler worked in a mine and lost part of his right hand in a dynamite accident. Eventually he fell in with a touring theatrical company and worked onstage around the U.S. for several years. In his mid-twenties, he ended up in California and found roles in silent films. He quickly found a niche as a villain, by virtue of his imposing size and his fearsome features, typically and most memorably in Le Cheval de fer (1924). He worked primarily in Westerns, but films of all sorts benefited from his skill at screen nastiness. In a series of silent Paramount Westerns based on Zane Grey novels, Kohler not only played the heavy, but also repeated some of those roles when these films were remade as talkies a decade later. His career lasted without let-up until his sudden death due to a heart attack at 51 in 1938.

Pierre Watkin was one of a stable of tall, distinguished-looking and sophisticated character actors (such as Russell Hicks, Jonathan Hale, Selmer Jackson and Samuel S. Hinds) whom Hollywood kept steadily employed playing political leaders, army officers, lawyers, wealthy businessmen and the like. Unlike many of his colleagues in that category, however, Watkin is notable for his (relatively) soft voice and precisely articulated speech. He is probably best remembered by film enthusiasts as Mr. Skinner, the unctuous, self-important bank president, in the W.C. Fields comedy Mines de rien (1940), in which he uttered the now-classic line, "Allow me to give you a hearty handclasp".

He was the third of four sons of C.H. and Elizabeth J. Watkin, who operated a lodging house for "theater people" in Sioux City, IA. After completing high school he entered the acting profession, and by the time he registered for the draft in WWI he was working with an acting troupe--headed by Sidney Toler--and married. He requested a deferment from military service because he was the sole support of his wife. His wife's name is unknown, however, and it's also unknown if they had any children; this information does not appear in the draft registration, and the name Pierre Watkin(s) is completely missing from both the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses.

Alongside Ben Turpin, diminutive Scots-born Jimmy Finlayson was, arguably, the most instantly recognisable of the many clowns of silent screen slapstick who made their living as comic foil to stars like Laurel & Hardy, or Harold Lloyd. The perpetually exasperated, squinting, bald-pated master of the 'double-take and fade' with the walrus (fake) moustache began his working life as an apprentice in his father's iron foundry. Not finding this much to his liking he decided on a mercantile career and enrolled at Edinburgh University. There, he befriended the actor John Clyde, who, before long, talked him out of business and into acting. So, Jimmy quit university and found a job as small part character player with the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh. Soon after, he began to work in comedy with a local repertory company and in music hall, appearing in plays written by Harry Lauder's brother - and fellow Scotsman - Alec.

A year later (in 1911), Jimmy crossed the Atlantic to appear on Broadway in the West End cast of "Bunty Pulls the Strings", followed in 1912 by "The Great Game". Buoyed by success, he decided to stay in America and embarked on a nationwide tour in vaudeville, again accompanied by Alec Lauder. Ending up in California after four years on the road, Jimmy decided to settle in Hollywood. He was joined there by his younger brother Bob who eventually became a camera technician. In 1916, Jimmy was given a few minor roles at L-KO, but it was not until 1920 that he signed a three-year contract with Mack Sennett. It is by no means certain that Finlayson was ever one of the original Keystone Kops, though he certainly donned police uniform for several of his two-reelers and appeared as a Kop in both Stout Hearts and Willing Hands (1931) and Hollywood Cavalcade (1939). In several of his early films, he was also co-starred with Ben Turpin, invariably playing the part of the villain or straight man to Turpin's cross-eyed antics.

Jimmy's prospects improved when he joined Hal Roach at Culver City in 1923. He started off as the antagonist in several of Stan Laurel's early solo efforts, but Roach -- recognising his potential -- attempted to elevate him to first billing. Stan Laurel turned director for three short films with Jimmy as the nominal lead: Yes, Yes, Nanette (1925), Le piège à maris (1925) and Should Husbands Pay? (1926). Since these failed to propel Finlayson into the first comedic echelon, he was instead briefly touted as one third of a starring trio alongside Laurel and Oliver Hardy. However, this idea was quickly abandoned, and, by 1928, Jimmy had comfortably settled into his niche as antagonist or mainstay comic support. By this time he had rather perfected his inimitable mannerisms: the long double-take, the squint, one-eyed stare and raised eyebrow, usually followed by a palpable state of near-apoplexy. Much of the joy in anarchic comedies like Oeil pour oeil (1929) is derived precisely in the anticipation of the 'civilised', well-ordered violence which is about to take place when Laurel & Hardy square off against Finlayson.

Jimmy appeared in some of the best two-reelers Roach made at MGM, and was subsequently involved as an integral part in most of Laurel & Hardy's feature films, standing out in Sous les verrous (1931), C'est donc ton frère (1936) , and, above all, as the perfidious Mickey Finn in Laurel et Hardy au Far-West (1937). He also appeared opposite other leading comics, including Charley Chase in, among others, Hasty Marriage (1931) and His Silent Racket (1933) - on occasion even without wearing his famous whiskers. It is now generally acknowledged that another of Jimmy's screen mannerisms -- his drawn-out, frustration-borne exclamation "d'ohhhhh" -- famously inspired Dan Castellaneta's Homer Simpson, uttering his suitably shortened trademark, "d'oh".

With the era of madcap comedy drawing to a close, Jimmy Finlayson continued on in movie bit parts and walk-ons, often with credits like 'loafer' or 'Scottish Farmer with Mustache'. Illness brought about his retirement in 1951. He died two years later from a heart attack at his home in Hollywood.

A prominent German film actress born on 30 September 1887 at Madiven, Java, the daughter of a forest ranger in the service of the Dutch authorities. Sent at the age of ten to Baden-Baden to study, she later entered the cinema thanks to her marriage in 1917 to the actor Fritz Dagover who was 25 years her senior. They divorced in 1919 but not before he had introduced her to director Robert Wiene and other notables of German cinema. She made her screen debut in Fritz Lang's Madame Butterfly (1919). Immediately after she appeared in Wiene's classic expressionist film, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (aka Le Cabinet du docteur Caligari (1920)). Apart from three trips -- one to Sweden in 1927, another to France in 1928-9 and one to Hollywood in 1931 -- most of Lil Dagover's career and fate was linked to that of the German cinema, where her role was usually that of the frail, menaced heroine. She continued to star in a great number of films during the Nazi era. Among her best performances were her roles in Le congrès s'amuse (1931), in Gerhard Lamprecht's Der höhere Befehl (1935) and in Veit Harlan's La sonate à Kreutzer (1937). She also acted in the Deutsches Theatre Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, at forces shows and at war theaters. At one time, she was reported to have been a close friend of Adolf Hitler. In 1944, she received the War Merits Cross. Dagover continued her career in post-war Germany, playing many supporting parts until the late 1970s.

Stalwart, durable Monte Blue, a romantic leading man of the silent days, was born January 11, 1887, as Gerard Monte Blue (some sources indicate 1890, but his mother's application for his admission to the Soldier's and Sailor's Orphan's Home lists his birth date as January 11, 1887). Various sources have reported his first name as George or Gerald, but, again, in his mother's application, it is spelled Gerard. His father was killed in a railroad accident when Monte was eight and his mother could not support four children. He was admitted (along with another brother, Morris) to the orphanage at that time. There he built up his physique playing football. At one time or another the able-bodied gent was a railroader, a fireman, a coal miner, a cowpuncher, a ranch hand, a circus rider, a lumberjack and, finally, trekking west, he became a day laborer for D.W. Griffith's Biograph Studios.

Blue eventually became a stuntman for Griffith and an extra in Naissance d'une nation (1915), which was his first film. Griffith took him in and made him an assistant on his classic epic Intolérance (1916), where he earned another small part. Gradually moving to support roles for both Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, Blue earned his breakthrough role as "Danton" in Griffith's Les Deux Orphelines (1921) with sisters Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. He rose to stardom as a rugged romantic lead opposite Hollywood's top silent stars, among them Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow and Norma Shearer. He made a relatively easy transition into talkies as he had a fine, cultivated voice, but, at the same time, lost most of his investments when the stock market crashed in 1929. By the 1930s the aging star had moved back into small, often unbilled parts, continuously employed, however, by his old friend DeMille and Warner Bros. At the end of his life he was working as an advance man for the Hamid-Morton Circus in Milwaukee. He died of a coronary attack complicated by influenza in 1963.

Doris Rankin was born on 24 August 1887 in New York, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Great Adventure (1921), Society Smugglers (1939) and Love at First Sight (1929). She was married to Roger Malcolm Mortimer and Lionel Barrymore. She died in 1946 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

Gus Taillon was born on 11 October 1887 in Ontario, Canada. He was an actor, known for Quand viendra l'aurore (1949). He died on 8 May 1953 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

The name may have been forgotten, especially today (seven decades later), but the portly, apoplectic, exasperated figure on the 1930s screen wasn't. While his film career, save a couple of silents, lasted a paltry seven years (1932-1939), character actor Walter Connolly certainly ran the distance. While some film historians complain that a number of his performances were annoying or overbaked, he was for the most part applauded for his zesty contributions to a number of comedy classics. Frank Capra's Grande dame d'un jour (1933), La course de Broadway Bill (1934) and New York - Miami (1934), not to mention the Carole Lombard/Fredric March screwball farce La joyeuse suicidée (1937) as news reporter March's hot-headed editor boss are sure-fire examples.

The Cincinnati, Ohio native was born on April 8, 1887 and schooled there. The son of the head of the Western Union relay office, he attended St. Xavier College and the University of Dublin in Ireland before making his New York debut in 1910 in an outdoor presentation of "As You Like It". For the next year or so he was a member of E.H. Sothern's touring company and played supporting roles in a number of Shakespearean shows on the road. After a few silent pictures left him unimpressed with film-making, he turned to the Broadway stage in the 1920s and scored quite well. Somewhat short and tubby, it was not difficult for the jowly, mustachioed actor to seize laughs and he found his share in such outings as "The Talking Parrot" (1923), "Applesauce" (1925), "The Springboard" (1927), "The Happy Husband" (1928), "Stepping Out" (1929), "Your Uncle Dudley" (1930), "Anatol" (1931), "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1931), "The Good Fairy" (1932) and "The Late Christopher Bean" (1932).

With his talents as a stage farceur firmly established, it was time to make a second attempt at a film career and Hollywood (specifically, Columbia) wisely opened their doors to him. Interestingly, his debut in a full-length talking picture came at age 45 in the form of a drama, Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), where he was third-billed as a rather benign senator. For the next seven years Connolly, often playing older than he really was, could be found everywhere giving good fluster to the greatest and glossiest of stars -- Janet Gaynor, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Paul Muni, Spencer Tracy, and Ginger Rogers, among hordes of others.

Every now and then he was asked to hold up a film, as with his leading roles in the drama Whom the Gods Destroy (1934), the Hecht/MacArthur comedy/drama Soak the Rich (1936), and the whodunnits Father Brown, Detective (1934) (as the title priest/gumshoe) and The League of Frightened Men (1937) (as supersleuth Nero Wolfe). Connolly's archetypal fuming was on full display in the comedies Gosse de riche (1935) with George Raft and Joan Bennett and Un ange en tournée (1939) with Ginger Rogers. His last role was as the great composer himself in the highly fictional The Great Victor Herbert (1939), although it wasn't the leading role.

Connolly married actress Nedda Harrigan in 1920. The two appeared together in the Broadway comedies "Treat 'Em Rough" (1926) and "Merry Andrew" (1929). They had one daughter, actress Ann Connolly (1924-2006), who also appeared on stage and played the grownup Wendy in the 'Mary Martin' /Cyril Ritchard Broadway production of "Peter Pan" in 1954. Ironically, Connolly, whose obesity was probably a contributing factor to his fatal stroke suffered on May 28, 1940, received his final divorce decree on the day he died. He was only 53.

John Wray was an American character actor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was primarily active during the 1930s.

Wray's real name was "John Griffith Malloy". He had a notable theatrical career, and appeared regularly in Broadway. In the late 1920s, there was a transition from silent films to sound films. Many stage actors headed to Hollywood, in the hope that their acting experience may help them find steady work in the new medium. Wray was one of the actors in this wave of prospective film stars.

Wray made his film debut in "New York Nights" (1929), where he played racketeer Joe Prividi. Prividi was the film's main villain, and the role helped Wray find steady work as a heavy. Among his most notable roles was sadistic drill instructor Himmelstoss in "All Quiet On The Western Front" (1930), gangster Morton Bradstreet in "The Czar of Broadway", con-artist Frog in "The Miracle Man" (1932), the starving farmer in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936), and prison warden Wheeler in "You Only Live Once" (1937).

Wray's career was seemingly in decline by the late 1930s, when he was at times reduced to the role of an uncredited extra. But he continued acting until 1940, with his last known role being a bit part in the screwball comedy "The Doctor Takes a Wife" (1940). Wray died in April 1940, at the age of 53.

Born in London, England to Charlotte Mary (opera singer) and George Alfred Brook. He was educated privately. Stage experience included: "Oliver Twist", "The Voysey Inheritance", "If I Were King", "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Fair and Warmer", "Over Sunday", "Clothes and the Woman", and many others. Screen experience with Graham-Cutts Company in London. He appeared in "Woman to Woman", and others. In 1924 he came to America.

Hank Mann was born on 28 May 1887 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Les Temps modernes (1936), Le dictateur (1940) and Les Lumières de la ville (1931). He was married to Dolly Myers Robinson, Rae Max and Estelle. He died on 25 November 1971 in South Pasadena, California, USA.