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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 Greenwich Village (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 Winged Victory (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 Adam's Rib (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 Born Yesterday (1950), a role which she originated on Broadway. She was nominated for and won the best actress Oscar for her performance. After filming The Marrying Kind (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 The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), she was off-screen for four years. Her last film was the MGM production of Bells Are Ringing (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.

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, Forever Amber (1947) survived the London fire, the plague and the perils of being the mistress of the English king, Charles II.

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 It (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 Call Her Savage (1932) in 1932. It was somewhat of a failure at the box office and her last was in 1933 in a film called Hoopla (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 It (1927) has the legacy of her films to confirm that she was a wonderful lady and America's first sex symbol.

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' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and Touch of Evil (1958). Collins appeared in over 90 films in all, including Leave Her to Heaven (1945), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Crack-Up (1946), A Double Life (1947), two entries in the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series (as in-law Benjamin Parker), and The Desert Song (1953), in which he played the non-singing role of Kathryn Grayson's father. He displayed comic ability in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) and The Man from Colorado (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.

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 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926). Their first release through MGM was Sugar Daddies (1927) and the first with star billing was From Soup to Nuts (1928). Their first feature-length starring roles were in Pardon Us (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 The Bullfighters (1945) except for a dismal failure made in France several years later (Utopia (1951)). In 1960 he was given a special Oscar "for his creative pioneering in the field of cinema comedy". He died five years later.

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, A Day at the Races (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 Bahama Passage (1941) and Drums of the Congo (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 The Country Girl (1954). She did not get another movie role until Tamango (1958), an Italian film. She did six more films, including, most notably, Island in the Sun (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.

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 Wonder Man (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' The Lady from 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 Patterns (1956). According to Jack Gould's January 17, 1955, "New York Times" review of the TV program, which debuted on Ponds Theater (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.

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 The Love Parade (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 The Merry Widow (1934), and her next MGM vehicle, Naughty Marietta (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.

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 The Mask of 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 The Southerner (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 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.

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 Common Clay (1930) launched her in a series of loose lady and unwed mother roles, but she really excelled in such sophisticated comedies as The Affairs of Cellini (1934), Ladies in Love (1936), Topper (1937) and Merrily We Live (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.

Born Gordon Nance in 1904 on a farm in Pattonsburg, Missouri -- a small town about 60 miles northeast of Kansas City -- the future "Wild Bill Elliott" grew up around horses. His father was a commissioner at the Kansas City Stockyards. and at age 16 Elliott won a first-place ribbon in that city's annual "American Royal Horse and Livestock Show." After a move to California, he appeared in a few productions at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was spotted by a talent scout. He made his first movie in 1925. A steady stream of movies followed, first silents and then talkies, in which he played too great a variety of roles to be "typed." In many of these movies he was billed as "Gordon Elliott." In 1938, however, Columbia cast him as the lead in its 15-chapter serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938), and Elliott's identification with westerns began. He even began to adopt the names "Bill" or "Wild Bill." He also became famous for using the line, "I'm a peaceable man ... " (which was inevitably followed by an outburst of violence). Elliott reached his peak of popularity at Columbia when he was teamed with Tex Ritter for a series of films. In 1943 he left Columbia for Republic, where his westerns had somewhat larger budgets. This was followed by a move to Monogram (later Allied Artists) in 1951. He was now back in low-budget B-westerns, the last one appearing in 1954. There followed five other B pictures in which he played a Los Angeles police detective. He filmed "pilots" for two potential TV series, "Marshal of Trail City" and "Parson of the West," but neither of them sold. His film career over, Elliott settled in Las Vegas where he hosted a weekly TV show in which he interviewed guests and showed some of his old movies. He also became a pitchman for a cigarette company. In 1961 his 34-year marriage to Helen Josephine Meyer ended and he took Dolly Moore as his second wife. He died of lung cancer in 1965 and is buried in Las Vegas at Palm Memorial Park.

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, Gone with the Wind (1939) was released.

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 Reunion in Vienna (1933). Travers' kindly, grandfatherly demeanor became familiar to filmgoers over the next 25 years, especially in films like High Sierra (1941), where he played Joan Leslie's kindly but slyly observant uncle, and the generous Mr. Bogardus in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), but it's as the somewhat befuddled angel Clarence Oddbody assigned to James Stewart in the classic It's a Wonderful Life (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.

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 The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (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).

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.

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, one of seven children. His father, Earl Little, was a Baptist preacher who supported Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa movement. When Malcolm was four, the family moved to Lansing, Michigan, where Earl attempted opening a store while continuing his preaching. But a group of white supremacists calling themselves the Black Legion (a sub-branch of the Ku Klux Klan) became irate to him.

Two years later, Earl Little was found dead on the trolley tracks in town after a streetcar ran over him. Despite the police report that Earl's death was an accident, Malcolm strongly believed that his father was murdered by the Black Legion who placed his father's body on the tracks to make it look like an accident. Following Earl's death, Malcolm's mother, Louise Little, tried to support her eight children on her own. Malcolm started stealing food and candy from neighborhood stores to support his brothers and sisters. After being caught a few too many times, a local court ruled that Louise was unable to control Malcolm and had him removed from her care and placed in a friendly white couple's home who knew Louise. Two years later, on account of severe stress in raising her children, Louise suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to the state mental hospital where she remained for the remaining 26 years of her life.

After finishing eighth grade, Malcolm dropped out of school and traveled to Boston where his older sister, Ella, resided. After several years, Malcolm moved to New York City where, to support himself, he became a numbers runner, a drug dealer, even a pimp. He wore zoot suits and dyed his hair red, which earned him the nickname "Detroit Red". He relocated to Boston again where he organized a robbery ring that was uncovered by the police in 1946, and he was sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison. Malcolm used the time behind bars to educate himself in the prison library where he learned the fundamentals of grammar and increased his vocabulary. It was here that a few inmates introduced Malcolm to a new religion and movement, The Nation of Islam. Malcolm's younger brother, Reginald, already a member, visited him and told him about Islam and about Allah. Much of what Reginald said confused Malcolm, but two phrases took root in his head, "The white man is the devil" and "The black man is the brainwashed". Malcolm learned that if he wanted to join, he would have to accept its theology and submit completely to its founder and leader, Elijah Muhammad.

Inspired by the new direction his life was taking, Malcolm wrote Elijah Muhammad a heartfelt letter about himself and why he wanted to join. Elijah wrote back welcoming Malcolm to the faith. He instructed Malcolm to drop his last name, which his ancestors inherited from a slave owner and replace it with the letter X which symbolized that his true African name had been lost. In 1952, Malcolm was finally paroled from prison. Rather than returning to the life of crime, Malcolm committed himself to learning more about his new religion. In 1958, Malcolm married Betty Shabazz, a Muslim nurse and together they had four daughters (plus two more born after his death). Over the next several years, Malcolm became the spokesperson for the Nation of Islam and became one of its most powerful speakers attracting thousands of African-Americans into the fold with his charismatic speeches and rich and powerful words. Malcolm's charismatic personalty also attracted the attention of the white media. But unlike Dr. Martin Luther King who believed in non-violent tactics to archive equal rights for blacks, Malcolm favored the use of arms and proposed a revolutionary program that would create a separate society for blacks in America. Malcolm's relationship with the media displeased Elijah Muhammad for he felt that the Nation of Islam's messages where being overshadowed by Malcolm's newfound celebrity.

In the early 1960s, Malcolm learned of paternity suits filed by two women of the Nation of Islam who worked for Elijah Muhammad as his secretaries. Determined to get to the bottom of the rumors about Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm met with the two women and later privately with Elijah Muhammad who did not deny the accusations against him as he did publicly but justified his actions by comparing his with other Biblical figures as David and Noah who suffered from "moral lapses". Elijah's response left Malcolm dissatisfied and contributed to his growing disenchantment with the Nation of Islam.

In November 1963, Malcolm's candidness with reporters provided Elijah Muhammad with an excuse to sideline him. When asked about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm called the murder a case of "the chickens coming home to roost". The public, both black and white, was outraged by Malcolm's comment after which Elijah suspended him from his duties as spokesperson for 90 days. Feeling betrayed by the Nation of Islam, Malcolm announced in March 1964 that he was not going to return, but he was going to form his own movement called Muslim Mosque, Inc. and invited blacks everywhere to join his new crusade. In response to Malcolm's announcement, Elijah Muhammad wrote in the Nation of Islam's biweekly newspaper that "only those who wish to be led to hell or to their doom will follow Malcolm. No one ever leaves the Nation of Islam."

Over the next several months, several attempts where made against Malcolm's life. Apparently, this did not surprise him for he said, "This thing with me will only be resolved by death and violence." In April 1964, Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Mecca, the Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia. The trip had a profound affect on him when he was greeted warmly by Musilms of many nationalities. Malcolm then realized that if Muslims of all races can live together in peace, why not people of all religions? Malcolm then remarked, "My true brotherhood includes people of all races, coming together as one. It has proved to me that there is the power of one God."

Upon his return to the United States, death threats continued leading to his house in Queens, New York, being fire-bombed in February 1965, to his assassination a week later at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York City, where he held weekly meetings. Although the Nation of Islam was suspected of being behind Malcolm's murder, his three killers, who were convicted of the murder, denied being part of the Nation of Islam or knowing each other despite the fact that they were Black Musilms and later revealed to be members. When questioned about Malcolm X's murder, Elijah Muhammad maintained (as he did with a great deal of other things) that neither he nor his organization had anything to do with Malcolm X's assassination.

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 Million Dollar Legs (1932), police inspector in The House of Mystery (1934), mayor in Room for One More (1952), and judge in Ambush at Cimarron Pass (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 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), San Francisco (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1938) and A Star Is Born (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 Wagon Train (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.

Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because he seemed like 'such a nice young man'. She also made a series of popular homespun comedies under contract to Paramount, in which she co-starred opposite Charles Ruggles. She was notable as a social snob in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), the oversexed and alcoholic Countess DeLave in The Women (1939) and as Mrs. Bennet in MGM's classic Pride and Prejudice (1940). For all her scatty or matronly character roles in the movies, Mary Boland had once been a star comedienne on Broadway.

Born in Philadelphia, the daughter of traveling actor William A. Boland (who happened to be on tour at her birth), she was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in Detroit. At 25, Mary appeared in her first play, 'Strongheart', and was on Broadway two years later in 'The Ranger', with Dustin Farnum. She started in silent films in 1915, her debut being Thomas H. Ince's 'The Edge of the Abyss'. After a wartime interval, entertaining troops on the Western Front during World War I, she made a return to the stage and had notable successes with the comedies 'Clarence' (1919-20,with Alfred Lunt) as Mrs.Wheeler, 'Meet the Wife' (1923-24,with a young Humphrey Bogart) and 'Cradle Snatchers' (1925-26), starring as Susan Martin. These performances established her as one of theaters foremost comediennes, ideally cast as dithery wives and mothers, or social climbers.

Mary's film career ended in 1950 and she appeared in her last play, 'Lullaby', in 1954. She retired to live out the rest of her days in her suite at the Essex House in New York.

John Kitzmiller was born on 4 December 1913 in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for Dr. No (1962), Without Pity (1948) and Valley of Peace (1956). He was married to Dusia Bejic. He died on 23 February 1965 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Switching from Broadway to Hollywood in 1931, actress Esther Howard was an expert at portraying frumpy old crones, man-hungry spinsters and oversexed dowagers. Utilizing her wide, expressive eyes and versatile voice for both broad comedy and tense drama, Howard was equally at home portraying slatternly toss-pot Mrs. Florian in Murder, My Sweet (1944) as she was in the role of genteelly homicidal Aunt Sophie in Laurel and Hardy's The Big Noise (1944). She was a regular participant in the films of writer/director Preston Sturges, playing everything from an addled farm woman in Sullivan's Travels (1941) to the bejeweled wife of "The Wienie King" in The Palm Beach Story (1942). From 1935 to 1952, Esther Howard was a fixture of Columbia's short-subject unit, usually cast as the wife or sweetheart of comedian Andy Clyde.

Russell Collins was born on 11 October 1897 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for The Enemy Below (1957), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and Fail Safe (1964). He died on 14 November 1965 in West Hollywood, 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 Fly Away Baby (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 The Fugitive (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.

Rough-and-tumble American actor Dick Wessel had a fierce-looking scowl on a bulldog of a mug. That, coupled with a thick build and imposing stance, earned him appearances in countless Warner Bros. comedies and hard-boiled crime dramas throughout the late 1930s and 1940s. Although he made hundreds of films, he had few chances to show off, appearing uncredited in over half of them and in minor, fleeting roles when he did receive billing. He had roles in such "A" pictures as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and Strangers on a Train (1951), but his visibility in them was practically nil.

Born Richard M. Wessel in Wisconsin in 1913, the husky-framed character began his career on stage before starting in films in the mid-'30s. Getting unbilled extra roles at first, he appeared on both sides of the moral fence over the years, playing as many brutish gangsters, henchmen and convicts as he did rough-hewn cops or streetwise characters (cabbies, mailmen, bartenders, boxers, etc.) The tough-sounding names of his characters, such as "Monk," "Beans," "Moxie" and "Chopper Kane", pretty much said it all. His best showcase--and it should have worked out better for him--was menacing, bald-pated arch-villain Harry "Cueball" Lake in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946). Here he was finally given a chance to shine but it did not lead to meatier roles.

He became a stock player for Columbia and their assembly-line of short comedy subjects, essaying a slew of burglars, thieves, wrestlers, circus strongmen and lummox husbands for The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde and others. On TV he was a rugged presence on such western series as Gunsmoke (1955), Laramie (1959), Rawhide (1959) and Bonanza (1959). Close to the end of his life and career he had a regular part as a crew member on the adventure series Riverboat (1959) with Darren McGavin. Dick's final role was released posthumously, playing a bit as a frantic garbage man in The Ugly Dachshund (1966). He had died a year earlier at his Hollywood home of a heart attack on his 52nd birthday. His wife and a daughter survived him.

Nance O'Neil was born on 8 October 1874 in Oakland, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Kreutzer Sonata (1915), Princess Romanoff (1915) and Hedda Gabler (1917). She was married to Alfred Hickman. She died on 7 February 1965 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.