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Linda Darnell, one of five children of a postal clerk, grew up fast. At 11, she was modeling clothes, giving her age as 16. At 13, she was appearing on the stage with little theater groups. Her mother encouraged her to audition when Hollywood talent scouts came to Dallas. She went to California and when the studio found out how young she really was, she was sent home and told to come back when she was 15. Her fourth film, Star Dust (1940), was based on this real life experience. It was Star Dust (1940) that Darnell was watching the night of April 9, 1965, at the home of her former secretary, located in Glenview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The house caught on fire in the early hours of the next morning and Darnell died that afternoon in Cook County Hospital. The character she played in one of her best known roles, Ambre (1947) survived the London fire, the plague and the perils of being the mistress of the English king, Charles II.

Judy Holliday was born Judith Tuvim in New York City on June 21, 1921. Her mother, a piano teacher, was attending a play when she went into labor and made it to the hospital just in time. Judy was an only child. By the age of four, her mother had her enrolled in ballet school which fostered a life-long interest in show business. Two years later her parents divorced. In high school, Judy began to develop an interest in theater. She appeared in several high school plays. After graduation, she got a job in the Orson Welles Mercury Theater as a switchboard operator. Judy worked her way on the stage with appearance in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and New York City. Judy toured on the nightclub circuit with a group called "The Revuers" founded by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. She went to Hollywood to make her first foray into the film world in Montmartre à New York (1944). Most of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Judy earned two more roles that year in Something for the Boys (1944) and La victoire des ailes (1944). In the latter, Judy had a few lines of dialogue. Judy returned to New York to continue her stage career. She returned to Hollywood after five years to appear in Madame porte la culotte (1949) as Doris Attinger opposite screen greats Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Tom Ewell. With her success in that role, Judy was signed to play Billie Dawn in Comment l'esprit vient aux femmes (1950), a role which she originated on Broadway. She was nominated for and won the best actress Oscar for her performance. After filming Je retourne chez maman (1952), Judy was summoned before the Un-American Activities Committee to testify about her political affiliations. Fortunately for her, she was not blacklisted as were many of her counterparts, but damage was done. Her film career was curtailed somewhat, but rebounded. She continued with her stage and musical efforts, but with limited time on the screen. After filming Une cadillac en or massif (1956), she was off-screen for four years. Her last film was the MGM production of Un numéro du tonnerre (1960) with Dean Martin and it was one of her best. Judy died two weeks before her 44th birthday in New York City on June 7, 1965.

Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio and television. One of his best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason (1957). Collins was born in Sacramento, California, to Lillie Bidwell and William C. Collins, a newspaper drama editor. He started acting on stage at the age of 14. In the mid 1930s, now an established stage and radio actor, Collins began working with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre (Welles himself called Collins "the finest actor I've ever worked with"), leading to some of his most memorable roles. Having already appeared on radio with Welles in "The Shadow" (a regular as Commissioner Weston) and in Welles' serial adaptation of "Les Miserables" from 1937, Collins became a regular on "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" program; through the run of the series, he played many roles in literary adaptations, from Squire Livesey from "Treasure Island" and Dr. Watson in "Sherlock Holmes" to Mr. Pickwick in an adaptation of "The Pickwick Papers". Collins' best known (albeit uncredited) work on this series, however, was in the infamous "The War of the Worlds" broadcast, playing three roles, including Mr. Wilmuth (on whose farm the Martian craft lands) and the newscaster who describes the destruction of New York. Along with other Mercury Theatre players, Collins made his first notable screen appearance in Citizen Kane (1941), as ruthless Boss Jim Gettys. He would also play key roles in Welles' La splendeur des Amberson (1942) and La Soif du mal (1958). Collins appeared in over 90 films in all, including Péché mortel (1945), Les Plus Belles Années de notre vie (1946) and Crack-Up (1946), Othello (1947), two entries in the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series (as in-law Benjamin Parker), and Le Nouveau Chant du Désert (1953), in which he played the non-singing role of Kathryn Grayson's father. He displayed comic ability in Deux soeurs vivaient en paix... (1947) and La peine du talion (1948). He may be best remembered for his work on television. He was also a regular as John Merriweather on the television version of The Halls of Ivy (1954) starring Ronald Colman.

Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming an actress. Bow, nonetheless, won a photo beauty contest which launched her movie career that would eventually number 58 films, from 1922 to 1933.

The movie Le coup de foudre (1927) defined her career. The film starred Clara as a shopgirl who was asked out by the store's owner. As you watch the silent film you can see the excitement as she prepared for her date with the boss, her friend trying hard to assist her. She used a pair of scissors to modify her dress to try to look "sexier." The movie did much to change society's mores as there were only a few years between World War I and Clara Bow, but this movie went a long way in how society looked at itself. Clara was flaming youth in rebellion. In the film she presented a worldly wisdom that somehow sex meant having a good time. But the movie shouldn't mislead the viewer, because when her boss tries to kiss her goodnight, she slaps him. At the height of her popularity she received over 45,000 fan letters a month. Also, she was probably the most overworked and underpaid star in the industry. With the coming of sound, her popularity waned. Clara was also involved in several court battles ranging from unpaid taxes to being in divorce court for "stealing" women's husbands. After the court trials, she made a couple of attempts to get back in the public eye. One was Fille de feu (1932) in 1932. It was somewhat of a failure at the box office and her last was in 1933 in a film called Houp là (1933).

She then married cowboy star Rex Bell at 26 and retired from the film world at 28. She doted on her two sons and did everything to please them. Haunted by a weight problem and a mental imbalance, she never re-entered show business. She was confined to sanitariums from time to time and prohibited access to her beloved sons. She died of a heart attack in West Los Angeles, on September 26, 1965 at age 60. Today she is finding a renaissance among movie buffs, who are recently discovering the virtues of silent film. The actress who wanted so much to be like the wonderful young lady in Le coup de foudre (1927) has the legacy of her films to confirm that she was a wonderful lady and America's first sex symbol.

Stan Laurel came from a theatrical family, his father was an actor and theatre manager, and he made his stage debut at the age of 16 at Pickard's Museum, Glasgow. He traveled with Fred Karno's vaudeville company to the United States in 1910 and again in 1913. While with that company he was Charles Chaplin's understudy, and he performed imitations of Chaplin. On a later trip he remained in the United States, having been cast in a two-reel comedy, Nuts in May (1917) (not released until 1918). There followed a number of shorts for Metro, Hal Roach Studios, then Universal, then back to Roach in 1926. His first two-reeler with Oliver Hardy was Scandale à Hollywood (1926). Their first release through MGM was Poursuite à Luna-Park (1927) and the first with star billing was De la soupe populaire au caviar (1928). Their first feature-length starring roles were in Sous les verrous (1931). Their work became more production-line and less popular during the war years, especially after they left Roach and MGM for Twentieth Century-Fox. Their last movie together was Laurel et Hardy toréadors (1945) except for a dismal failure made in France several years later (Atoll K (1951)). In 1960 he was given a special Oscar "for his creative pioneering in the field of cinema comedy". He died five years later.

Born Robert Alexander Cochran, son of a California lumberman, he worked mostly in the theatre before landing a contract with Samuel Goldwyn in 1945. His debut was Le joyeux phénomène (1945) with Virginia Mayo and Danny Kaye. From 1949 to 1952, he was signed to Warner Brothers, then started up his own production company. In 1965, he sailed off in his yacht to Guatemala to look for suitable filming locations but died of a lung infection before reaching land.

Everett Sloane, the actor most known for playing Mr. Bernstein in Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane (1941) as a member of Welles' Mercury Players, was born in New York, New York on October 1, 1909. Sloane was bitten by the acting bug quite early, and first went on-stage when he was seven years old. After high school, he attended the University of Pennsylvania but soon dropped out to pursue an acting career, joining a theatrical stock company. However, he was discouraged by poor personal reviews and returned to New York City, where he worked as a runner on Wall Street.

After the Stock Market Crash of October 1929, Sloane turned to radio for employment as an actor. His voice won him steady work, and he even became the voice of Adolf Hitler on "The March of Time" serials. He made his Broadway debut in 1935 as part of George Abbott's company, in "Boy Meets Girl," which was followed by another play for Abbott, "All That Glitters" in 1938. Eventually, he joined Welles' Mercury Theatre, appearing in the 1941 stage production of Richard Wright's "Native Son," directed by Welles. However, before that Broadway landmark, Welles had cast Sloane as Mr. Bernstein in his first feature film, which ensured Sloane's immortality in the cinema. (Sloane would remain a Mercury Player until 1947, when he appeared as Bannister in Welles' La dame de Shanghai (1947).)

Outside his two memorable supporting roles for Welles, Sloane's reputation rests on his portrayal Walter Ramsey, a ruthless corporate executive trying to crush another executive, in the TV and screen versions of Rod Serling's Rapaces (1956). According to Jack Gould's January 17, 1955, "New York Times" review of the TV program, which debuted on Kraft Television Theatre (1953): "In the role of Ramsey, Mr. Sloane was extraordinary. He made a part that easily might have been only a stereotyped 'menace' a figure of dimension, almost of stature. His interpretation of the closing confrontation speech was acting of rare insight and depth." Sloane was nominated for an Emmy in 1956 for the performance.

In addition to his movie work, Sloane appeared extensively on TV as an actor, directed several episodic-TV programs, and did voice over work for the cartoon series The Dick Tracy Show (1961) and Jonny Quest (1964). Plagued with failing eye sight, a depressed Sloane quit acting and eventually took his life at the age of 55.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruby Dandridge (née Ruby Jean Butler), an entertainer, and Cyril H. Dandridge, a cabinet maker and minister. Under the prodding of her mother, Dorothy and her sister Vivian Dandridge began performing publicly, usually in black Baptist churches throughout the country. Her mother would often join her daughters on stage. As the depression worsened, Dorothy and her family picked up and moved to Los Angeles where they had hopes of finding better work, perhaps in film. Her first film was in the Marx Brothers comedy, Un jour aux courses (1937). It was only a bit part but Dandridge hoped it would blossom into something better. She only appeared in another film in 1940, in Four Shall Die (1940).

Meanwhile, she dropped out of high school and became part of a musical trio which performed with the orchestra of Jimmie Lunceford. During the late 30s, she dated music composer Phil Moore, who was instrumental in launching her career as a nightclub singer and big band vocalist.

Her next few screen roles in the early 1940s tended to be small stereotypical roles of black girls or princesses - such as Sous le ciel de Polynésie (1941) and La jungle qui rugit (1942), She was the singing star of the western themed all-black-cast "soundie" (short musical) Cow-Cow Boogie (1942) and appeared in movies that showcased her talents as actress and singer, like Hit Parade of 1943 (1943) as the vocalist of Count Basie's Band, and twice as the vocalist of Louis Armstrong's Band in Pillow to Post (1945) and Atlantic City (1944).

Those brought her headline acts in the nation's finest hotel nightclubs in New York, Miami, Chicago and Las Vegas. She may have been allowed to sing in these fine hotels but, because of racism, she couldn't have a room in any of them. It was reported that one hotel drained its swimming pool to keep her from enjoying that amenity.

In 1954, she appeared in the all-black production of Carmen Jones (1954) in the title role. She was so superb in that picture that she garnered an Academy Award nomination but lost to Grace Kelly in Une fille de la province (1954). She did not get another movie role until Tamango (1958), an Italian film. She did six more films, including, most notably, Une île au soleil (1957) and Porgy and Bess (1959). The last movie in which she would ever appear was The Murder Men (1962) (1961).

Dandridge faded quickly after that, due to an ill-considered marriage to Jack Dennison (her first husband was Harold Nicholas), poor investments, financial woes, and alcoholism.

She was found dead in her apartment at 8495 Fountain Avenue, West Hollywood, on September 8, 1965, aged 42, from barbiturate poisoning. She left $2.14 in her bank account, and a handwritten letter: "In case of my death - whoever discovers it - Don't remove anything I have on - scarf, gown, or underwear. Cremate me right away - if I have any money, furniture, give it to my mother, Ruby Dandridge - She will know what to do.". She was cremated and her ashes were interred in the Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

She was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6719 Hollywood Blvd. on January 18, 1983.

British-born Henry Travers was a veteran of the English stage before emigrating to the U.S. in 1917. He gained more stage experience there on Broadway working with the Theatre Guild, and began his long film career with Une soirée à Vienne (1933). Travers' kindly, grandfatherly demeanor became familiar to filmgoers over the next 25 years, especially in films like La Grande Évasion (1941), where he played Joan Leslie's kindly but slyly observant uncle, and the generous Mr. Bogardus in Les cloches de Sainte-Marie (1945), but it's as the somewhat befuddled angel Clarence Oddbody assigned to James Stewart in the classic La vie est belle (1946) that Travers will forever be known. After a long and successful career, he retired from the screen in 1949, and died in Hollywood in 1965.

Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett, the first of the Bennett sisters to enter films, appeared in New York-produced silents before a chance meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in Cytherea (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in 1925; after they divorced, she achieved stardom in talkies from 1929. The hit Terre commune (1930) launched her in a series of loose lady and unwed mother roles, but she really excelled in such sophisticated comedies as Les amours de Cellini (1934), Quatre femmes à la recherche du bonheur (1936), Le couple invisible (1937) and Madame et son clochard (1938). Her classy blonde looks, husky voice and unerring fashion sense gave her a distinctive style. In the 1940s she made fewer films, working in radio and theatre; shrewd in business, she invested wisely and started businesses marketing women's wear and cosmetics. Loving conflict, she feuded with the press and enjoyed lawsuits. Her last marriage, to a U.S. Air Force colonel, was happy and gave her a key role coordinating shows flown to Europe for occupying troops (1946-48) and the Berlin Airlift (1948-49), winning her military honors. Still young-looking, she died suddenly at age 60 shortly after completing the last of her 57 films.

Russell Collins was born on 11 October 1897 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Torpilles sous l'Atlantique (1957), Point limite (1964) and Un homme est passé (1955). He died on 14 November 1965 in West Hollywood, California, USA.

John Larkin was born on 11 April 1912 in Oakland, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Calloway le trappeur (1965), The Dick Powell Show (1961) and Station 3: Ultra secret (1965). He was married to Audrey Larkin, Teri Keane, Sibyl Genelle Gibbs and Helen Adele Sweeney. He died on 29 January 1965 in Studio City, California, USA.

American leading man of suave or sinister roles. A collateral relative of George Washington and William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson, Scott was the son of a wealthy surgeon. Intending to follow his father into medicine, Scott studied at the University of Texas, but found he preferred the theater. He dropped out of college and signed on as a cabin boy on a freighter bound for England. There he found work in provincial repertory, gaining confidence and skill. Returning to Texas, he married actress Elaine Anderson and became active in local theater in Austin. He and his wife were spotted in a play there by Alfred Lunt, who recommended them to the producers of New York's Theatre Guild. Thus, Scott made a successful entry into the Broadway stage, appearing in several successes. In one of them he was noticed by Jack L. Warner, who signed him to a film contract and introduced him to film audiences in the title role of Le masque de Dimitrios (1944). He was well received in the part of the mysterious and debonair scoundrel and seemed destined for a top-level career in movies. Jean Renoir next cast the Texan in a touching and sensitive role in his classic L'homme du Sud (1945). Though he received great acclaim for his performance, Scott was not particularly well promoted by Warners. His profile was immediately reversed by his well-received performance as the cad in Le roman de Mildred Pierce (1945), which seemed likely to cement him as a star. However, it also led to his typecasting as a portrayer of amoral characters, and his subsequent films declined in prestige. In 1950, a divorce and a rafting accident, in which he was badly injured, sent him into a depression. Subsequently, he married actress Ruth Ford and began to concentrate more on stage and television work. Although he continued to work in films, including one for director Luis Buñuel, Scott never quite reclaimed the level of stardom that he'd achieved in the mid-1940s. In 1965, he was stricken with a brain tumor. Despite surgery, he succumbed in October of that year, at 51. He was buried in Austin, Texas.

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

John Kitzmiller was born on 4 December 1913 in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for James Bond 007 contre Dr. No (1962), Sans pitié (1948) and La vallée de la paix (1956). He was married to Dusia Bejic. He died on 23 February 1965 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Margaret Dumont would not consider it a tragedy that she is best-known for her performances as the ultimate straight woman in seven of the Marx Brothers' films (including most of their best). It is a popular myth that she never understood their jokes (offscreen and on); restored footage of Groucho's "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" shows her laughing at his ad libs. Apart from a small role in a 1917 Dickens adaptation, she spent her early career on the stage, ending up with the Marxes in the late 1920s in the stage versions of Noix de coco (1929) and L'explorateur en folie (1930), and was given a Paramount contract at the same time they were. She played similar roles alongside other great comedians, including W.C. Fields, Laurel & Hardy and Jack Benny and also played straight dramatic parts (her chief love), but few of them made much impact - it is as Groucho Marx's foil that she ranks among the immortals, and she died shortly after being reunited with him on The Hollywood Palace (1964).

David O. Selznick was a son of the silent movie producer Lewis J. Selznick. David studied at Columbia University until his father lost his fortune in the 1920s. David started work as an MGM script reader, shortly followed by becoming an assistant to Harry Rapf. He left MGM to work at Paramount then RKO. He was back at MGM in 1933 after marrying Irene Mayer Selznick the daughter of Louis B. Mayer. In 1936, he finally set up his own production company, Selznick International. Three directors and fifteen scriptwriters later, Autant en emporte le vent (1939) was released.

A minor character actor who appeared in literally hundreds of films, actor Irving Bacon could always be counted on for expressing bug-eyed bewilderment or cautious frustration in small-town settings with his revolving door of friendly, servile parts - mailmen, milkmen, clerks, chauffeurs, cab drivers, bartenders, soda jerks, carnival operators, handymen and docs. Born September 6, 1893 in the heart of the Midwest (St. Joseph, Missouri), he was the son of Millar and Myrtle (Vane) Bacon. Irving first found work in silent comedy shorts at Keystone Studios usually playing older than he was and, for a time, was a utility player for Mack Sennett in such slapstick as A Favorite Fool (1915). Irving made an easy adjustment when sound entered the pictures and after appearing in the Karl Dane and George K. Arthur two-reel comedy shorts such as Knights Before Christmas (1930), began to show up in feature-length films. He played higher-ups on occasion, such as the Secretary of the Navy in Folies olympiques (1932), police inspector in House of Mystery (1934), mayor in Cette sacrée famille (1952), and judge in Le Cri de guerre des Apaches (1958), but those were exceptions to the rule. Blending in with the town crowd was what Irving was accustomed to and, over the years, he would be glimpsed in some of Hollywood's most beloved classics such as Capra's L'extravagant Mr. Deeds (1936), San Francisco (1936), Vous ne l'emporterez pas avec vous (1938) and Une étoile est née (1954). Trivia nuts will fondly recall his beleaguered postman in the Blondie (1938) film series that ran over a decade.

Irving could also be spotted on popular '50s and '60s TV programs such as the westerns Laramie (1959) and La grande caravane (1957), and "comedies December Bride (1954) and The Real McCoys (1957). He can still be seen in a couple of old codger roles on I Love Lucy (1951). One was as a marriage license proprietor and the other as Vivian Vance's doting dad from Albuquerque, to whom she paid a visit on her way to Hollywood with the Ricardos. Irving died on February 5, 1965, having clocked in over 400 features.

Katherine Warren was born on 12 July 1905 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She was an actress, known for Ouragan sur le Caine (1954), Le Rôdeur (1951) and Inside Detroit (1956). She was married to Clark Chesney. She died on 17 July 1965 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Dorothy Kilgallen was the daughter of James Kilgallen, a colorful and popular newspaperman with the Hearst Corporation. She followed her father into the newspaper business and made her early reputation as a crime reporter (a novelty for women in those days) and for her participation in an around-the-world race using transportation that was available at the time (1936) to ordinary people, not aviators. Kilgallen finished second out of the three newspaper reporters who participated in the race. Her fame (she was the only woman) and her subsequent book about the race, "Girl Around the World," established her as a presence in the journalism profession. The book became the basis of the movie Police judiciaire (1937).

In 1938, Kilgallen become a powerful and influential Broadway columnist. Starting in 1945, Kilgallen and husband Richard Kollmar hosted a long-running early morning radio talk show called "Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick." Although the couple had two children who sometimes joined them talking on the radio, Dorothy and Dick "lived an early version of an open marriage," according to a biographer. Their arrangement allowed both to carry on affairs as long as they did so outside of the expensive five-story neo-Georgian brownstone on Manhattan's East 68th Street that they both loved to decorate and furnish.

Millions of Americans came to know and admire Kilgallen through the TV quiz show What's My Line? (1950). She took the game more seriously than her more lighthearted colleagues did. It allegedly bothered her that she was never as popular with the show's viewers as were her fellow panelists, especially Arlene Francis. NBC News B-roll footage of Kilgallen's February 1964 visit to Dallas, Texas shows, however, that she was delighted when autograph seekers gathered around her. Game show viewers (Kilgallen was seen playing other games besides What's My Line?) seemed to have strong feelings about her. Either they loved her and rooted for her or hated her and enjoyed watching another participant outsmart her.

Kilgallen's relationship with singer Johnnie Ray started out as fun and secretive but later became disastrous when she competed with Ray's male lovers for his attention. Eventually, Kilgallen and Ray drank heavily together in public, a problem that may or may not have affected her performance on What's My Line? and her functioning with a typewriter. Kilgallen's newspaper work consisted of much more than her "gossipy" syndicated Broadway column. Her knowledge of the judge's misconduct during the 1954 murder trial of Samuel Sheppard (his case was the basis for the TV series Le fugitif (1963)) helped F. Lee Bailey secure a new trial for Sheppard. Upon Sheppard's release from the penitentiary that was then located in Columbus, Ohio in July 1964, Bailey helped arrange for a "late-night champagne party" in Cleveland, according to a book the lawyer published in 1971. Kilgallen, who was among the guests, had her first conversation with the wrongly convicted Sheppard.

Several months earlier, Kilgallen had visited Dallas, Texas to cover the murder trial of Jack Ruby. She secured two exclusive interviews with the defendant, who was being tried for the murder of alleged John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. One of Ruby's lawyers, Joe Tonahill, said years later that in the courtroom Kilgallen and Ruby made eye contact with each other in a way that suggested they may have met before his arrest. Tonahill and other lawyers including Melvin Belli were busy trying to save Ruby from the electric chair and had no time to investigate that. Kilgallen's first conversation with Ruby after his arrest occurred while he sat at the defense table during a recess. It resulted in the headline "Nervous Ruby Feels Breaking Point Near" in the New York Journal-American. (The newspaper was owned by the Hearst Corporation.) She never published anything from or even acknowledged (to her readers) her second conversation with Ruby. It occurred inside a small office behind the judge's bench out of earshot of the deputy sheriffs who were guarding Ruby and out of earshot of his lawyers and everyone else in the courthouse. It lasted approximately eight minutes, according to Joe Tonahill.

Possibly as a result of what Kilgallen learned from Ruby, she became a vocal critic of the Warren Commission investigation of the president's assassination. She allegedly told friends and her lawyer, but not her newspaper readers, that she soon was going to reveal important new information on the murder of JFK. Although Kilgallen's reactions to the Warren Commission report remain accessible, her theory about who shot the president will never be known. She died under mysterious circumstances (suicide or an accidental overdose according to some, murder according to others) soon after the advance notice she allegedly had given her friends and lawyer.

The notebooks containing the information Kilgallen was about to publish disappeared. They were never seen again. Some felt that assassination researchers should have questioned Ron Pataky, an obscure newspaper critic based in Columbus, Ohio whom she befriended a few months after her encounters with Jack Ruby. The Columbus newspaper sometimes mentioned Pataky's travels to New York City, and in June 1964 Kilgallen's column had them riding together in a London taxicab. A month after her death, widower Richard Kollmar refused to cooperate with conspiracy theorist Mark Lane when Lane tried to find her notes. Ten years later other loved ones, including her journalist father who was by then in his late eighties and still working for the Hearst Corporation, refused to discuss her career or the assassination with a biographer.

As the 50th anniversary of her death approaches, only recently did a researcher discover at Syracuse University a long audio recording of Richard Kollmar's 1967 appearance on a locally broadcast New York City radio show that was hosted by John Nebel, better known as "Long John Nebel." Kollmar was promoting the book Murder One that was credited to his late wife. It sold well enough in 1967 to warrant more than one printing and was reissued in paperback. Nebel, who had been a fan of the breakfast radio show that "Dorothy and Dick" had done, and who had known Kilgallen, encouraged Kollmar to discuss publicly many aspects of his late wife's life and career, including the Sheppard murder case.

Throughout the long radio broadcast, you notice that Johnnie Ray, Ron Pataky and events surrounding the assassination are off limits. Kollmar never gets near any of those topics. Neither does Nebel or the other two people who are heard talking with them on the 1967 aircheck. (The book Murder One omitted a chapter on the Jack Ruby murder trial that Ruby's lawyer Joe Tonahill said years later that Kilgallen had planned to include.) Long John Nebel and his guests do discuss Kilgallen's feud with Frank Sinatra, but they avoid the detail that Sinatra had drawn the public's attention to Kilgallen's chin that had prevented her from being photogenic.

Kilgallen's only relative who ever talked publicly about any mysteries surrounding her was her youngest child who had been eleven-and-a-half years old when she died. At age 21, he told the biographer that his family was keeping him, too, in the dark about what had happened ten years earlier.

Joseph Hamilton was born on 1 January 1899 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was an actor, known for Git! (1965), Bat Masterson (1958) and La quatrième dimension (1959). He was married to Ruth Green. He died on 20 February 1965 in Orange, California, USA.

Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles (he later dropped the "s" in his surname) in Montgomery, Alabama. He received music lessons from his mother and his family moved to Chicago when he was only five, where his father, Edward James Coles, was a minister at the True Light Baptist Church and later Pastor of the First Baptist Church. At 12, he was playing the church organ. At age 14, he formed a 14 piece band called the Royal Dukes. Nat was a top flight sandlot baseball player at Wendell Phillips high school in Chicago.

His three brothers, Ike, Frankie, and Eddie Cole, also played the piano and sang professionally. Nat was an above-average football player in high school. His sister, Evelyn Cole, was a beautician in nearby Waukegan, Illinois. In 1939 he formed the King Cole Trio after his publicist put a silver tin-foiled crown on his head and proclaimed him "King". He later toured Europe and made a command performance before Queen Elizabeth II.

He had a highly-rated TV show in the 1950s but it was canceled (by Cole himself) as no companies could be found that were willing to sponsor the show. He was a big baseball fan and had a permanent box seat at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He met his wife Maria Cole (a big-band singer) at the Zanzibar nightclub in Los Angeles through Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson show. Her parents opposed her decision to marry Cole, claiming he was "too black". They married, nonetheless, in 1948, and had two daughters, Caroline and Natalie Cole. On April 10, 1956, at Birmingham, Alabama, he was attacked by six white men from a white supremacist group called the White Cizizens Council during a concert and sustained minor injuries to his back. Cole appeared in several movies, the last of which was Cat Ballou (1965), starring Lee Marvin.

Cole received 28 gold record awards for such hits as "Sweet Lorraine", "Ramblin' Rose" in 1962, "Too Young" in 1951, "Mona Lisa" in 1949 and Mel Tormé's "Christmas Song". His first recordings of the Christmas Song included the lyrics, "Reindeers really know how to fly" instead of "reindeer really know how to fly", a mistake later corrected by Capitol Records. He was also a composer and his song "Straighten Up and Fly Right" was sold for $50.00. A heavy smoker, he died of lung cancer.

Born in Blenheim Palace, the residence of his grandfather, the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His father was the Duke's third son, Lord Randolph Churchill. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of an American financier.

After passing through famous English public schools such as Harrow, he went on to fulfill his ambition for a life in the army. He fought in various parts of the British Empire until in 1900 when he won the Conservative seat in Oldham in the general election. From here until 1929 he held various offices in British Parliament.

The 1930s saw fascism grow in strength throughout Europe with dictators such as Italy's Benito Mussolini, Germany's Adolf Hitler and Spain's Francisco Franco. When the UK and France declared war on Germany in 1939, Neville Chamberlain was British Prime Minister. On May 10, 1940 Hitler's forces invaded Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg in order to invade France. Chamberlain was widely blamed for the failed British invasion of Norway, although realistically Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty was largely to blame for the failure of the Norwegian Campaign. Chamberlain recommended the King should ask Churchill to succeed him as Prime Minister. He made a speech on 13 May: "You ask: 'What is our policy?' I will say: 'It is to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalog of human crime.' That is our policy. You ask: 'What is our aim?' I can answer in one word: 'Victory! Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.'"

The United States officially entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The US's participation was excellent news to Churchill and after success on D-Day and as the Nazi forces were gradually forced back, the war in Europe gradually drew to a close. He lost the 1945 General Election by a landslide, lost again in 1950, but was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1951 despite receiving fewer votes than Labour. Due to deteriorating health he retired in 1955. He died at Hyde Park Gate, London, on January 24, 1965 at the age of 90. He had succeeded in the uniting of thought and deed. He had succeeded in uniting everyone in the common purpose, inspiring them with fortitude and strength to face whatever hardships that would have to be incurred in the process of first surviving and ultimately winning the war. His daughter Mary wrote to him on his death bed: "I owe you what every Englishman, woman, and child owes you - liberty itself."

As one of the most significant British politicians of the 20th century, Churchill remains one of the country's most widely recognized figures. He has been played by an almost incalculable number of actors on screen, but three of the most notable and acclaimed screen portrayals were by Robert Hardy in Winston Churchill (1981) (which covers Churchill's life from 1929 to 1939), Albert Finney in La tempête qui se prépare (2002) (also set in the 1930s before he became Prime Minister) and Gary Oldman in Les Heures sombres (2017) (set in May 1940).

As well as a politician, Churchill was also an author and a prolific artist, who painted over 500 canvases, exhibited at the Royal Academy and at Paris, and sold paintings.

Henry Kulky was born on 11 August 1911 in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Voyage au fond des mers (1964), Nid d'amour (1951) and La Charge sur la rivière rouge (1953). He died on 12 February 1965 in Oceanside, California, USA.

Leila Bennett was an American character actress from Newark, New Jersey. She was reportedly of working-class background, the daughter of a newspaper editor and a stenographer. She made her theatrical debut in 1919, playing a prominent role in the comedy play "Thunder". She continued regularly appearing on stage until making her film debut in 1931. Between 1932 and 1936, Bennett was a freelance actress in Los Angeles. She appeared in various supporting roles in the films of Warner Bros., RKO Radio Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She was typecast in playing comic relief sidekicks, mousy maids, and scatterbrains.

In 1934, Bennett married the restaurant manager Francis M. Keough. He was the main manager of the "Beach Club Restaurant and Casino" in Palm Beach, Florida. She spend the following decade or so main dividing her time between New York City and Florida, eventually retiring as a film actress. She was widowed in 1945 and then faded into obscurity. Bennett died in January 1965. She was buried at Fairmount Cemetery in her native Newark, New Jersey. She shares a family grave with her parents at Section F, Lot 157 of the cemetery.