Think You Can Ace This 30s Actors Quiz?

Mary Boland was a stage and film actress. She debuted on Broadway in 1907 in the play The Ranger with Dustin Farnum and had appeared in eleven Broadway productions, notably with John Drew, becoming his “leading lady in New York and on the road.” She made her silent film debut for Triangle Studios in 1915.

Donald Crisp was a film actor. He was an early producer, director and screenwriter. His career lasted from the early silent film era into the 1960s. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1942 for his performance in How Green Was My Valley. With the advent of “talkies”, Crisp abandoned directing and devoted himself entirely to acting after 1930. He became a much sought after character actor.

Robert Warwick was a stage, film and television actor with over 200 film appearances. Warwick started making silent films in 1914. He made numerous productions in the 1910s primarily in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Two films, Alias Jimmy Valentine and A Girl’s Folly, both directed by Maurice Tourneur have been preserved, and showcase Warwick as a silent actor, as well as Tourneur’s directing talent, and both are available on home video.

Sylvia Sidney was an actress of stage, screen and film, with a career spanning over 70 years, who first rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s. Sidney later came to be known for her role as Juno, a case worker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton’s film Beetlejuice. She won a Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actress for this performance. She also was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973).

Jean Arthur was an actress and a film star of the 1930s and 1940s. Arthur had feature roles in three Frank Capra films: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can’t Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), films that championed the “everyday heroine”. Arthur was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1944 for her performance in The More the Merrier (1943).

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an actress known for her fierce independence and spirited personality, who was a leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years. She appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and she received a record (for either gender) four Academy Awards for Lead Acting Performances, plus eight further nominations. In 1999, Hepburn was named by the American Film Institute the greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an actress best known for playing Jane in the Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller. O’Sullivan’s film career began when she met motion picture director Frank Borzage, who was doing location filming on Song o’ My Heart for 20th Century Fox. He suggested she take a screen test. She did and won a part in the movie, which starred Irish tenor John McCormack. She traveled to the United States to complete the movie in Hollywood. O’Sullivan appeared in six movies at Fox, then made three more at other movie studios.

Una Merkel was a stage, film, radio, and television actress. Merkel was born in Kentucky and acted on stage in New York in the 1920s. She went to Hollywood in 1930 and became a popular film actress. Two of her best-known performances are in the films 42nd Street and Destry Rides Again. She won a Tony Award in 1956 and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961.

Jean Harlow was a film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. She was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Often nicknamed the “Blonde Bombshell” and the “Platinum Blonde,” she was popular for her “Laughing Vamp” movie persona.

Mary Astor was an actress. She is best remembered for her role as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s. When talkies arrived, her voice was initially considered too masculine and she was off the screen for a year.

Edward Everett Horton Jr. was a character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons. Horton began his stage career in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in vaudeville and in Broadway productions. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he began acting in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the comedy Too Much Business (1922), but he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in the drama Beggar on Horseback (1925).

Rose Joan Blondell was an actress who performed in movies and on television for half a century. She began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy, wisecracking blonde, she was a pre-Code staple of Warner Bros. pictures, and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions.

Greta Garbo was a film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. Garbo was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and received an Academy Honorary Award in 1954 for her luminous and unforgettable screen performances. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

Paul Lukas was an actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film Watch on the Rhine (1943), reprising the role he created on the Broadway stage. He was busy in the 1930s, appearing in such films as the melodrama Rockabye, the crime caper Grumpy, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, the comedy Ladies in Love, and the drama Dodsworth.

Roscoe Karns was an actor who appeared in nearly 150 films between 1915 and 1964. He specialized in cynical, wise-cracking (and often tipsy) characters, and his rapid-fire delivery enlivened many comedies and crime thrillers in the 1930s and 1940s. Though he appeared in numerous silent films, such as Wings and Beggars of Life, his career didn’t really take off until sound arrived. Arguably his best-known film role was the annoying bus passenger Oscar Shapeley, who tries to pick up Claudette Colbert in the Oscar-winning comedy It Happened One Night (1934), quickly followed by one of his best performances as the boozy press agent Owen O’Malley in Howard Hawks’ Twentieth Century.

Philip St. John Basil Rathbone was an actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films. Rathbone frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

Melvyn Douglas was an actor. Douglas came to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the 1939 romantic comedy Ninotchka with Greta Garbo. Douglas later played mature and fatherly characters, as in his Academy Award–winning performances in Hud (1963) and Being There (1979) and his Academy Award–nominated performance in I Never Sang for My Father (1970).

Myrna Loy was a film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. She was originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, but her career prospects improved greatly following her portrayal of Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934).

Sir Charles Aubrey Smith, was a Test cricketer who became a stage and film actor, acquiring a niche as the officer-and-gentleman type, as in the first sound version of The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). In Hollywood, he organised British actors into a cricket team, much intriguing local spectators. Smith began acting on the London stage in 1895. His first major role was in The Prisoner of Zenda the following year, playing the dual lead roles of king and look-alike.

George Bancroft was a historian and statesman who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state and at the national and international levels. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, he established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845. He was a senior American diplomat in Europe. Among his best-known writings is the magisterial series, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.

Beulah Bondi was an actress of stage, film and television. She began her acting career as a young child in theater and, after establishing herself as a stage actress, reprised her role in Street Scene for the 1931 film version. She played supporting roles in several films during the 1930s, and was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Stan Laurel was a comic actor, writer, and film director who was part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. Laurel began his career in music hall where he developed a number of his standard comic devices, including the bowler hat, the deep comic gravity, and the nonsensical understatement.

Charles Ellsworth Grapewin was a vaudeville performer, circus performer, writer and a stage and silent and sound actor, and comedian who was best known for portraying Uncle Henry in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Wizard of Oz (1939) as well as Grandpa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941) and California Joe in They Died With Their Boots On (1941). He usually portrayed elderly folksy-type characters in a rustic setting, in all appearing in over 100 films.

Dita Parlo was an actress. Parlo made her first film appearance in Homecoming (Heimkehr) in 1928 and quickly became a popular actress in Germany. During the 1930s she moved easily between German and French films, achieving success in several films, including, in the span of four years, two that are considered among the greatest in cinema history: L’Atalante (1934) and La Grande Illusion (1937).

Katherine Edwina “Kay” Francis was a stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio and the highest-paid American film actress. Some of her film-related material and personal papers are available to scholars and researchers in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives.

Claudette Colbert was a stage and film actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to motion pictures with the advent of Talking pictures. Initially associated with Paramount Pictures, she gradually shifted to working as a freelance actress.

Joan Geraldine Bennett was a stage, film, and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent movies, well into the sound era. She is possibly best-remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang’s movies such as Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945).

James Maitland Stewart was an actor and military officer who is among the most honored and popular stars in film history. Known for his distinctive drawl, down-to-earth persona, and authentic, everyman acting style, Stewart’s film career spanned over 55 years and 80 films. With the strong morals he portrayed both on screen and in his personal life, Stewart epitomized the “American ideal” in the 20th-century United States.

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was a film and theater actor. His performances in numerous films from the Classical Hollywood era made him a cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected him as the greatest male star of classic American cinema. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows and began his movie career in Up the River (1930). The film also starred Spencer Tracy. Bogart played the romantic role in a part as large as Tracy’s, despite Bogart’s much lower billing.

John Elmer “Jack” Carson was a film actor. Though he was primarily used in supporting roles for comic relief, his work in films such as Mildred Pierce (1945) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) displayed his mastery of “straight” dramatic actor roles as well. He worked for RKO and MGM (cast opposite Myrna Loy and William Powell in Love Crazy, 1941), but most of his memorable work was for Warner Bros.

Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an actor, noted for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Tracy won two Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations, sharing the record for nominations in the category with Laurence Olivier. Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College, and he later received a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Thomas John Mitchell was an actor. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Doc Boone in Stagecoach, Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life and Mayor Jonas Henderson in High Noon. Mitchell was the first male actor to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony Award.

Alice Brady was an actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she plays the flighty mother of Carole Lombard’s character, and In Old Chicago (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Irene Dunne was a film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress – for her performances in Cimarron (1931), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939), and I Remember Mama (1948). In 1985, Dunne was given the Kennedy Center Honors for her services to the arts.

Jean Gabin was an actor and sometime singer. Considered a key figure in French cinema, he starred in several classic films including P√©p√© le Moko (1937), La grande illusion (1937), Le Quai des brumes (1938), La b√™te humaine (1938), Le jour se l√®ve (1939), and Le plaisir (1952). Gabin was made a member of the L√©gion d’honneur in recognition of the important role he played in French cinema.

Marjorie Main was the stage name of Mary Tomlinson, who was a character actress and singer of the Classical Hollywood period, best known as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player in the 1940s and 1950s, and for her role as Ma Kettle in ten Ma and Pa Kettle movies. Main started her career in vaudeville and theatre and appeared in films classics, such as Dead End (1937), Dark Command (1940), The Shepherd of the Hills (1941), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and Friendly Persuasion (1956).

William Henry Pratt, better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an actor who was primarily known for his roles in horror films. He portrayed Frankenstein’s monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932). In non-horror roles, he is best known to modern audiences for narrating and as the voice of Grinch in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966).

Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an actress of stage and film. Sullavan began her career onstage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday. Sullavan preferred working on the stage and made only 16 movies, four of which were opposite James Stewart in a popular partnership that included The Mortal Storm and The Shop Around the Corner.

James Francis Cagney Jr. was an actor and dancer, both on stage and in film (though primarily known for the latter). Known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing, he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is best remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as The Public Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939) and White Heat (1949), finding himself typecast or limited by this reputation earlier in his career.

Leslie Howard Steiner was a stage and film actor, director, and producer. He also wrote many stories and articles for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair and was one of the biggest box-office draws and movie idols of the 1930s. Howard is probably best remembered for playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939).

William Clark Gable was a film actor who is often referred to as “The King of Hollywood”. He began his career as an extra in Hollywood silent films between 1924 and 1926, and progressed to supporting roles with a few films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1930. He landed his first leading role in 1931, and was a leading man in more than 60 motion pictures over the following three decades.

Jack La Rue was a film and stage actor. He moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in numerous films. However, Scarface was not one of them. La Rue stated in a newspaper article that, after four days, Hawks had to replace him with George Raft because La Rue was taller than Muni and had a more powerful voice.

Cary Grant was an actor, known as one of classic Hollywood’s definitive leading men. He was known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) and She Done Him Wrong (1933), but later gained renown for his performances in romantic and screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940) and The Philadelphia Story (1940), often with some of the biggest females stars of the day.

Michel Simon was an actor. He appeared in the notable films La Chienne (1931), Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), L’Atalante (1934), Port of Shadows (1938), The Head (1959), and The Train (1964). The actor Fran√ßois Simon is his son. Louis Jouvet, who had meanwhile replaced Pito√´ff, hired him at the Com√©die des Champs-√âlys√©es. Simon then gave a successful performance in Jean de la Lune, a play by Marcel Achard. His inimitable talent transformed his Cloclo supporting role to the big attraction of the play.

Helen Vinson was a film actress, who appeared in 40 films between 1932 and 1945. Vinson’s screen career often featured her in roles in which she played the part of the other woman or (pre-Code) loose women with active romantic lives. Her first film role was Jewel Robbery (1932), which starred William Powell and Kay Francis.

Chishu Ryu was an actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 TV productions. For about ten years, he was confined to walk-on parts and minor roles, often uncredited. During this time he appeared in fourteen films directed by Yasujiro Ozu, beginning with the college comedy Dreams of Youth (1928). His first big part was in Ozu’s 1936 College is a Nice Place and he made his mark as an actor in the same year in Ozu’s The Only Son, playing a failed middle-aged school-teacher in spite of the fact that he was only 32.

Leila Hyams was a film actress, model, and vaudevillian, who came from a show business family. Her relatively short film career began in the 1920s during the era of silent films and ended in 1936. Although her career only lasted around twelve years, the blonde blue-eyed ingenue and leading lady appeared in more than 50 film roles and remained a press favorite, with numerous magazine covers.

Mary Jeanette Robison known professionally as May Robson, was an actress, whose career spanned 58 years, starting in 1883 when she was 25 years of age. A major stage actress of the late 19th and early 20th century, Robson is best known today for the dozens of 1930s motion pictures she appeared in when she was well into her 70s, usually playing cross old women with hearts of gold.

Ruth Elizabeth “Bette” Davis was an actress of film, television and theater. With a career spanning 60 years and 100 acting credits, she is regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greatest successes were in romantic dramas.

Warren William was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, immensely popular during the early 1930s; he was later nicknamed the “King of Pre-Code”. William moved from New York City to Hollywood in 1931. He began as a contract player at Warner Bros. and quickly became a star during what is now known as the ‘Pre-Code’ period. He developed a reputation for portraying ruthless, amoral businessmen (Under 18, Skyscraper Souls, The Match King, Employees Entrance), crafty lawyers (The Mouthpiece, Perry Mason), and outright charlatans (The Mind Reader).

Walter Connolly was a character actor who appeared in almost 50 films between 1914 and 1939. His best known film is It Happened One Night (1934). Connolly was a successful stage actor who appeared in 22 Broadway productions between 1916 and 1935, notably revivals of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. His first film appearances came in two silent films, The Marked Woman (1914) and A Soldier’s Oath (1915), and his first talkie film came in 1930, Many Happy Returns, but his Hollywood film career really began in 1932, when he appeared in four films.

John Sidney Barrymore was an actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly attempted a career as an artist, but appeared on stage together with his father Maurice in 1900, and then his sister Ethel the following year. He began his career in 1903 and first gained attention as a stage actor in light comedy, then high drama, culminating in productions of Justice (1916), Richard III (1920) and Hamlet (1922); his portrayal of Hamlet led to him being called the “greatest living American tragedian”.

Glenda Farrell was an actress of film, television, and theater. She is best known for her role as Torchy Blane in the Warner Bros. Torchy Blane film series and the Academy Award-nominated films Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), and Lady for a Day (1933). With a career spanning more than 50 years, Farrell appeared in over 100 films and television series, as well as numerous Broadway plays. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960, and won an Emmy Award for best supporting actress for her performance in the television series Ben Casey in 1963.

Charles Sherman Ruggles was a comic character actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films, often in mild-mannered and comic roles. He was also the elder brother of director, producer, and silent film actor Wesley Ruggles (1889–1972).

Johnnie Lucille Collier, known professionally as Ann Miller, was a dancer, singer, and actress. She is best remembered for her work in the Classical Hollywood cinema musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. At age 13 in 1936, Miller became a showgirl at the Bal Tabarin. She was hired as a dancer in the “Black Cat Club” in San Francisco (she reportedly told them she was 18). There, she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout/comic Benny Rubin (although some sources say this occurred at Bal Tabarin).

Jean Dasté, born Jean Georges Gustave Dasté, was an actor and theatre director. Although Jean Dasté is best known for his career on stage as both an actor and director in a variety of works including those by Shakespeare and Molière, he made his first appearance on screen in a 1932 Jean Renoir film (Boudu sauvé des eaux), and 57 years later appeared in his final film at the age of 85.

Jane Darwell was an actress of stage, film, and television. With appearances in more than one hundred major motion pictures spanning half a century, Darwell is perhaps best-remembered for her poignant portrayal of the matriarch and leader of the Joad family in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and her role as the Bird Woman in Disney’s musical family film Mary Poppins. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Alan Hale Sr. was a movie actor and director, most widely remembered for his many supporting character roles, in particular as a frequent sidekick of Errol Flynn, as well as films supporting Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery, Douglas Fairbanks, James Cagney, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan, among dozens of others.

Hattie McDaniel was a stage actress, professional singer-songwriter, and comedian. She is best known for her role as “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first Academy Award won by a black entertainer. In addition to acting in many films, McDaniel recorded 16 blues sides between 1926‚Äì1929 (10 were issued), was a radio performer and television star; she was the first black woman to sing on radio in the United States.

Spring Dell Byington was an actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer player who appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1960s. Byington received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Penelope Sycamore in You Can’t Take It with You (1938).

Eugene William Pallette was an actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946. After an early career as a slender leading man, Pallette became a stout character actor. He had a deep voice, which some critics have likened to the sound of a croaking frog, and is probably best-remembered for comic character roles such as Alexander Bullock, Carole Lombard’s character’s father, in My Man Godfrey (1936), as Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) starring Errol Flynn, and his similar role as Fray Felipe in The Mark of Zorro (1940) starring Tyrone Power.

Virginia “Ginger”Ginger Rogers was an actress, dancer, and singer. She is known for her starring role in Kitty Foyle (1940), but is best remembered for performing in RKO’s musical films (partnered with Fred Astaire) on stage, radio and television, throughout much of the 20th century. After winning a 1925 Charleston dance contest that launched a successful vaudeville career, she gained recognition as a Broadway actress for her debut stage role in Girl Crazy.

Marie Magdalene “Marlene” Dietrich was an actress and singer. Throughout her long career, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, she continually reinvented herself. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel (1930) brought her international acclaim and a contract with Paramount Pictures.

Carole Lombard was a film actress. She was particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s. She was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s. At 12, she was recruited by the film director Allan Dwan and made her screen debut in A Perfect Crime (1921). Eager to become an actress, she signed a contract with the Fox Film Corporation at age 16, but mainly played bit parts.

Edna May Oliver was a stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters. Her film debut was in 1923 in Wife in Name Only. She continued to appear in films until Lydia in 1941. Oliver first gained major notice in films for her appearances in several comedy films starring the team of Wheeler & Woolsey including Half Shot at Sunrise, her first film under her RKO Radio Pictures contract in 1930.

Merle Oberon was an actress who began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). After her success in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), she travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel Goldwyn. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Dark Angel (1935). A traffic collision in 1937 caused facial injuries that could have ended her career, but she recovered and remained active in film and television until 1973.

Barbara Stanwyck was an actress, model, and dancer. She was a stage, film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional for a strong, realistic screen presence. A favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood before turning to television.

Clifford Porter Hall was a character actor known for appearing in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. Hall typically played villains or comedic incompetent characters. Hall began his career touring as a stage actor with roles in productions of The Great Gatsby and Naked in 1926.

Catherine Rosalind Russell was an actress, comedian, screenwriter and singer, known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in Auntie Mame (1958) and Rose in Gypsy (1962). A noted comedian, she won all five Golden Globes for which she was nominated. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town (a musical based on the film My Sister Eileen, in which she also starred).

Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke was an actress who was famous on Broadway, on radio, early silent film, and subsequently in sound film. She is best known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musical The Wizard of Oz (1939). Burke was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1938 for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live and is also remembered for her appearances in the Topper film series.

Lilian Harvey was an actress and singer, long based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell’s 1931 film Der Kongre√ü tanzt. After an engagement as a revue dancer in Vienna in 1924, Harvey received her first movie role as the young Jewish girl “Ruth” in the Austrian film The Curse directed by Robert Land.

Lionel Barrymore was an actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and remains best known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life.

Walter Andrew Brennan was an actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936, 1938, and 1940, making him one of only three male actors to win three Academy Awards. Finding himself penniless, Brennan began taking parts as an extra in films at Universal Studios in 1924, starting at $7.50 a day. He wound up working at Universal off and on for the next ten years.

Paulette Goddard was an actress, a child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl; she became a major star of Paramount Pictures in the 1940s. Her most notable films were her first major role, as Charlie Chaplin’s leading lady in Modern Times, and Chaplin’s subsequent film The Great Dictator. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque.

Dick Powell born Richard Ewing Powell was a singer, actor, voice actor, film producer, film director and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray the private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.

Karen Morley was a film actress. After working at the Pasadena Playhouse, she came to the attention of the director Clarence Brown, at a time when he had been looking for an actress to stand-in for Greta Garbo in screen tests. This led to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and roles in such films as Mata Hari (1931), Scarface (1932), The Phantom of Crestwood (1932).

William Claude Rains was a film and stage actor whose career spanned several decades. After his American film debut as Dr. Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man (1933) he appeared in classic films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Casablanca and Kings Row (both 1942), Notorious (1946), The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Edward Arnold was an actor. Interested in acting since his youth (he made his first stage appearance at the age of 12 as Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice), Arnold made his professional stage debut in 1907. He found work as an extra for Essanay Studios and World Studios, before landing his first significant role in 1916’s The Misleading Lady. In 1919, he left film for a return to the stage, and did not appear again in movies until he made his talkie debut in Okay America! (1932).

Anne Shirley was an actress. Beginning her career as a child actress under the stage name Dawn O’Day, Shirley adopted the name of the character she played in the film adaptation of Anne of Green Gables in 1934, and achieved a successful career in supporting roles. Among her films is Stella Dallas (1937), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Paul Muni was a stage and film actor who grew up in Chicago. Muni was a five-time Academy Award nominee, with one win. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theatre. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at the Warner Bros. studio, and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted.

Gary Cooper was an actor. Known for his natural, authentic, understated acting style and screen performances, Cooper’s career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, and included leading roles in 84 feature films. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era through to the end of the golden age of Classical Hollywood.

Henry Byron Warner was a film and theatre actor. He was popular during the silent era and played Jesus Christ in The King of Kings. In later years, he successfully transitioned into supporting roles and appeared in numerous films directed by Frank Capra. Warner’s most notable role to modern audiences is Mr. Gower in the perennially shown film It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Capra.

John Carradine was an actor, best known for his roles in horror films, Westerns, and Shakespearean theatre. A member of Cecil B. DeMille’s stock company and later John Ford’s company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history. He was married four times, had five children, and was the patriarch of the Carradine family, including four of his sons and four of his grandchildren who are or were also actors.

William Horatio Powell was an actor. A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and Life with Father (1947).

Charles Laughton was a stage and film actor. Laughton was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death. He played a wide range of classical and modern parts, making an impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic.

James David Graham Niven was an actor, memoirist and novelist. His many roles included Squadron Leader Peter Carter in A Matter of Life and Death, Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days, and Sir Charles Lytton (“the Phantom”) in The Pink Panther. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Separate Tables (1958).

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was an actress with a long career in theatre, film and television. Lanchester studied dance as a child and after the First World War began performing in theatre and cabaret, where she established her career over the following decade. She met the actor Charles Laughton in 1927, and they were married two years later.

Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland is a retired actress whose film career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films, was one of the leading actors of her time, and is among the last surviving movie stars of the “Golden Age” of Classical Hollywood. Her younger sister was actress Joan Fontaine. De Havilland first came to prominence as a screen couple with Errol Flynn in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

Sarah Jane Wyman was an actress, singer, dancer, and philanthropist. Her career spanned more than seven decades. She was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1948 film Johnny Belinda. She was also the first wife of actor Ronald Reagan (later the 40th president of the United States). They married in 1940 and divorced in 1949

Bonita Granville Wrather was an actress. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in the film These Three (1936). Her other notable film roles were in Cavalcade (1933), Ah, Wilderness! (1935), The Plough and the Stars (1937), Now, Voyager (1942), and Hitler’s Children (1943).

Mae Clarke was an actress. She is widely remembered for playing Henry Frankenstein’s bride Elizabeth, who is chased by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, and for being on the receiving end of James Cagney’s halved grapefruit in The Public Enemy. Both films were released in 1931. Mae Clarke started her professional career as a dancer in New York City, sharing a room with Barbara Stanwyck.

Aline Laveen MacMahon was an actress. Her career began on stage in 1921. She worked extensively in film and television until her retirement in 1975. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dragon Seed (1944). MacMahon made her professional debut in 1914. Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors says of MacMahon (in part) “She proved to be a fine, sympathetic actress with a quick wit and tart tongue who then moved into character roles with ease as she became plumper and more motherly looking.”

Mischa Auer was an actor who moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s. He first appeared in film in 1928. Auer had a long career playing in many of the era’s best known films. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936 for his performance in the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, which led to further zany comedy roles. He later moved into television and acted in films again in France and Italy well into the 1960s.

Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx was a comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television star. A master of quick wit, he is widely considered one of America’s greatest comedians. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born. He also had a successful solo career, most notably as the host of the radio and television game show You Bet Your Life.

Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an actress known for her versatility. She first signed with Paramount Pictures in 1930, working with Ernst Lubitsch and Joel McCrea, among many others. Her long-running feud with Bette Davis was publicized for effect. She later became a pioneer of TV drama, and was a distinguished Hollywood hostess who moved in intellectual and creative circles.

Oliver Norvell Hardy was a comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1927 to 1955. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. He was credited with his first film Outwitting Dad in 1914. In most of his silent films before joining producer Hal Roach, he was billed on screen as “Babe Hardy.”