Trivia: Canadian-born actor Hume Cronyn was the son of a well-known Ontario politician. At his father's insistence, young Cronyn studied law at McGill University, but had by then already decided he wanted to be an actor; he made his stage bow with the Montreal Repertory Company at 19, while still a student. After taking classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and working with regional companies in Washington, DC and Virginia, Cronyn made it to Broadway in 1934. His first important role was as the imbibing, jingle-writing hero of Three Men on a Horse, directed and co-written by George Abbott. He remained with Abbott to work in Room Service and Boy Meets Girl - not only establishing himself as a versatile stage actor but also gleaning a lifelong appreciation of strict artistic discipline from the authoritarian Mr. Abbott. Cronyn went from one taskmaster to another when he made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. The 32-year-old Cronyn quietly stole several scenes in the film as a fiftyish mystery-novel fanatic. Cronyn would remain beholden to Hitchcock for the rest of his career: He acted in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) and worked several times thereafter on the director's TV series; he adapted the stage play Rope and the novel Under Capricorn for Hitchcock's filmizations; and he sprang to the late director's defense when a dubious biography of Hitchcock was published in the mid-1980s. Though well-versed in Shakespeare and Moliere on stage, Cronyn was often limited to unpleasant, weasely and sometimes sadistic characters in films; one of his nastiest portrayals was as the Hitleresque prison guard Munsey in Brute Force (1947). A somewhat less hissable Cronyn appeared in The Green Years (1946), wherein he portrayed the father of his real-life wife Jessica Tandy, who was in fact two years older than he. Cronyn had married Tandy in 1942, a union that was to last until the actress' death in 1994. They worked together often on stage (The Fourposter, The Gin Game) and in films (Batteries Not Included), and delighted in giving joint interviews where they'd confound and misdirect the interviewer. Their daughter, Tandy Cronyn, matured into a fine actress in her own right. Seemingly indefatigable despite health problems and the loss of one eye, Cronyn remained gloriously active in films, television and stage into the 1990s, encapsulating many of his experiences in his breezy autobiography A Terrible Liar.

Trivia: For about 20 years from the mid-'50s until the mid-'70s, David Frankham was one of the most visible villains and second male leads on television -- and one of the more interesting British actors working in American horror and science fiction movies. Born in Kent, England, in 1926, Frankham studied architecture and served in the Far East as an army draftee for three years in the late '40s. It was while posted in Malaya that he won a contest in which the prize included a brief stint on radio as an announcer; he proved a natural at the microphone and, after an apprenticeship on Radio Malaya, landed a job with the BBC after returning to civilian life. By age 25, he was back in England making a comfortable living as an announcer, news reader, and radio talk-show host; but he also wanted to try his hand at acting and moved to the U.S. in 1955. Frankham landed a role on an NBC drama a few weeks after his arrival, and spent the next few years doing lots of television work, including live dramatic anthology shows and appearances on filmed syndicated series such as Ziv TV's Men Into Space. Frankham landed his first movie role when he was selected to play the principal villain in Edward Bernds' Return of the Fly (1959). This launched him on a career in which he mostly portrayed morally compromised leading characters in movies such as Disney's Ten Who Dared and American International Pictures' Master of the World (in which his character turns upon Charles Bronson -- the hero of the piece -- in betrayal). In addition to his film work, Frankham did some voice acting during this period: In the original 101 Dalmatians (1961), he voiced Sgt. Tibs, and he dubbed many of the voices in William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959). Although he was born and raised in England, Frankham was able to do a credible American accent, which greatly expanded the roles he could play. He made the rounds of the studios, working in everything from low-budget horror (Tales of Terror [1962]) to big studio productions such as Columbia's King Rat (1965), and remained very active on television in such series as The Gallant Men, Thriller, Twelve O'Clock High, The Beverly Hillbillies, Dr. Kildare, The F.B.I., and The Outer Limits. In the latter -- in one of the creepiest shows ever done on the program -- he had an unusually upright and heroic role as the stubbornly uncorruptable Harvey Kry Jr. in "Don't Open Till Doomsday" (the show with the "box creature"), in which his would-be bride, separated by time and space, ages into the scary Miriam Hopkins. His other memorable appearance was in the third season Star Trek episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty?," playing Lawrence Marvick, a man who is destroyed by his jealousy of an alien visitor (oddly enough, another "box creature," and one so hideous that the mere sight of it drives humans insane). From the early '60s into the '70s, the actor did numerous commercials, though his most lasting public impression came from the work he did on science fiction, horror films and television shows. Frankham quit acting on a regular basis in 1976, though there were periodic roles in the decade that followed, including a stint on a CBS soap opera and appearances in the movies The Great Santini and Wrong Is Right.

Trivia: After two years' study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, British actor Robert Douglas ascended to leading-man status on the London stage. Among his earliest film appearances was a co-starring stint with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in the Technicolor Alexander Korda production Over the Moon (1936). He spent six years as a pilot in the British Navy, then began his Hollywood career, playing dark-purposed, humorless villains opposite such swashbuckling leading men as Errol Flynn in 1949's The Adventures of Don Juan, Burt Lancaster in 1950's Flame and the Arrow, and Stewart Granger in 1952's The Prisoner of Zenda. He was starred as Benedict Arnold in The Scarlet Coat (1954) and as Agamemnon in Helen of Troy (1955). Rechanneling his energies into directing, Robert Douglas helmed several British and American TV productions, including 18 episodes of the 1960s series 12 O'Clock High. Robert Douglas' only big-screen directorial credit was 1964's Night Train, which starred Sean Flynn, the son of Douglas' Don Juan duelling opponent Errol Flynn.

Trivia: Formidable stage leading lady Doris Lloyd transferred her activities from British repertory to Hollywood in 1925. She was prominently cast as an alluring spy in George Arliss' first talkie Disraeli (1929); one year later, at the tender age of 30, she was seen as the matronly Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez in Charley's Aunt. Swinging back to younger roles in 1933, Lloyd was cast as the tragic Nancy Sykes in the Dickie Moore version of Oliver Twist. By the late 1930s, Lloyd had settled into middle-aged character roles, most often as a domestic or dowager. Doris Lloyd remained active until 1967, with substantial roles in such films as The Time Machine (1960) and The Sound of Music (1965).

Trivia: British actress Gwendolyn Watts has played character roles on stage and screen. She left films in the early '70s to raise her children, but returned to acting a few years later. She was typically cast as a working-class woman. Her sister, Sally Watts, is also an actress.

Trivia: Bespectacled, dignified British stage actor Frederick Worlock came to Hollywood in 1938. During the war years, Worlock played many professorial roles, some benign, some villainous. A semi-regular in Universal's Sherlock Holmes series, he essayed such parts as Geoffrey Musgrave in Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943). Active until 1966, Frederick Worlock's final assignments included a voice-over in the Disney cartoon feature 101 Dalmations (1961).