Jack Buetel (1915 - 1989)

Jack Buetel (September 5, 1915 – June 27, 1989) was an American film and television actor. Born in Dallas, Texas, Buetel moved to Los Angeles, California in the late 1930s with the intention of establishing a film career. Unable to find such work, he was employed as an insurance clerk when he was noticed by an […]

Jack Buchanan (1891 - 1957)

After a brief attempt to follow his late father’s profession and a failure at acting in Glasgow, Jack Buchanan came to London and became a music hall comedian under the name of Chump Buchanan and first appeared on the West End in September 1912 in the comic opera The Grass Widow at the Apollo Theatre. […]

Patty Duke (1946 - 2016)

Patty Duke Her son, actor Sean Aston (Lord of the Rings, Rudy) says he wouldn’t be the man he is today without her. “I am who I am today because of my mom. She was told not to have me. She had me anyway and together we were a team, it was us against the […]

Edgar Buchanan (1903 - 1979)

Edgar Buchanan appeared in more than one hundred films, including Penny Serenade (1941) with Cary Grant, Tombstone, the Town Too Tough to Die (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942) with Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur, The Man from Colorado (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), She Couldn’t Say No (1954), Ride the High Country […]

John Bubbles (1902 - 1986)

John Bubbles was born in Louisville, Kentucky on February 19, 1902, but soon moved with his family to Indianapolis. There, he formed a partnership with Ford L. “Buck” Washington known as “Buck and Bubbles,” with Buck playing stride piano and singing while Bubbles tapped, beginning in 1919. The two appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of […]

Nigel Bruce (1895 - 1953)

Nigel Bruce was the second son of Sir William Waller Bruce, 10th Baronet (1856–1912) and his wife Angelica, Lady Bruce (died 1917), daughter of General George Selby, Royal Artillery. Bruce was born in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, while his parents were on holiday there. His older brother was the author and adventurer Sir Michael Bruce, […]

Raymond Brown (1928 - 1998)

Raymond Brown was born in New York City, the son of Robert H. and Loretta Brown, Raymond studied at The Catholic University of America where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and a Master of Arts degree in 1949 as a Basselin scholar. In 1951 he joined the scholarly Society of Saint-Sulpice following his […]

Peter Brown (1935 - 2016)

As a contract player for Warner Brothers, Peter Brown appeared in the films Red Nightmare and Darby’s Rangers. Though his role in Onionhead was cut from the completed film, the producer Julius Schermer hired him for Deputy Johnny McKay in Lawman, an important part that lasted from 1958 to 1962. Brown was the last surviving […]

Arthur Brough (1905 - 1978)

Arthur Brough (5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m)) originally wanted to become a teacher, but failed to gain such employment, and worked in a solicitor’s office. He found this job too mundane and he began to take an interest in the theatre. After indulging in amateur theatricals, Brough attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art […]

Edward Brophy (1895 - 1960)

Edward Brophy was born in New York City, American. His screen debut was in Yes or No (1920). In 1928, with only a few minor film roles to his credit, Brophy was working as a junior production executive for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when he was chosen to appear with Buster Keaton in one sequence of Keaton’s film The […]

Bill Baird (1914 - 1978)

Bill Baird There’s little doubt Bill Baird is one of the most popular magicians in Heaven today. He certainly was on earth, with a legion of friends who were stunned by news of his death the very morning of the day many were preparing to leave for Abbott’s annual Get-Together at Colon. Bill, whose real […]

Martin Brooks (1925 - 2015)

Martin Brooks was born Martin Baum in The Bronx. When he was 10, he moved with his family to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After high school, he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army, became a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne Division and was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries received during World War II. He attended […]

John Bromfield (1922 - 2005)

John Bromfield was born in South Bend, Indiana. He played football and was a boxing champion in college. He served in the United States Navy in World War II. In 1948, he twice harpooned a whale in the documentary film Harpoon. In 1948, he was cast as a detective in the film Sorry, Wrong Number, […]

James Broderick (1927 - 1982)

James Broderick was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Elizabeth (née Martindale) (b. 1896) and James Joseph Broderick II (or Jr.) (1895-1959). He was raised Catholic. His father, a highly decorated World War I combat medic, was of Irish descent, and his mother was of English and Irish ancestry. In 1947, after […]

Carl Brisson (1893 - 1958)

Carl Brisson (24 December 1893 – 25 September 1958), born Carl Frederik Ejnar Pedersen, was a Danish film actor and singer. He appeared in thirteen films between 1918 and 1935, including two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In the 1934 film Murder at the Vanities, he introduced the popular song “Cocktails for Two”. Prior to […]

David Brian (1914 - 1993)

David Brian served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. Persuaded by Joan Crawford to try his hand at film acting, he joined her in Hollywood and, in 1949, signed a contract with Warner Brothers. The New York City native appeared in such films as The Damned Don’t Cry! and Flamingo Road […]

Robert Bray (1917 - 1983)

Robert Bray was born to homesteading parents in Kalispell, Montana. The family moved to Seattle, Washington, where Bray attended Lincoln High School. After graduation, he was for a time a lumberjack, a cowboy, and a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1942, Bray joined the United States Marine Corps and saw action in the […]

Hugh Brannum (1910 - 1987)

During World War II, Hugh Brannum enlisted in the US Marine Corps and joined a Marine band led by Bob Crosby. After the war, he joined the Four Squires, later moving to Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians; Waring’s group had a regular radio show, where Hugh met fellow Marine Bob Keeshan, an employee at the […]

Jay Marshall (1919 - 2005)

Jay Marshall his interest in magic started when he was six. As a youngster, he saw performances by Thurston and Houdini. In later years, he admitted to dozing off in the midst of Houdini’s show. After only a year at college, he went on to be a professional entertainer instead, initially working out of Boston. […]

Neville Brand (1920 - 1992)

Neville Brand started his big-screen career in D.O.A. (1950) as a henchman named Chester. His hulking physique, rough-hewn, craggy-faced looks and gravelly voice lead to him largely playing gangsters, Western outlaws and other screen “heavies,” cops and other tough-guy roles throughout his career. He became well known as a villain when he killed the character […]

Wilfrid Brambell (1912 - 1985)

Wilfrid Brambell’s television career began during the 1950s, when he was cast in small roles in three Nigel Kneale/Rudolph Cartier productions for BBC Television: as a drunk in The Quatermass Experiment (1953), as both an old man in a pub and later a prisoner in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) and as a tramp in Quatermass II […]

Scott Brady (1924 - 1985)

Scott Brady specialized in tough-guy roles in films like He Walked by Night, Canon City, and Johnny Guitar, as the “Dancin’ Kid”. From 1953 to 1956, Brady appeared four times in different roles on the anthology series, Lux Video Theatre. In 1955, he portrayed Ted Slater in “Man in the Ring” of NBC’s anthology series, The […]

Pat Brady (1914 - 1972)

Pat Brady (December 31, 1914 – February 27, 1972) was best known as cowboy Roy Rogers’ “comical sidekick.” Pat’s full name was Robert Ellsworth Patrick Aloysious O’Brady and this was shortened to “Bob Brady,” although it is not known when the “O’” was dropped from “O’Brady.” Born in Toledo, Ohio, Pat Brady first set foot on […]

Tommy Bond (1926 - 2005)

Tommy Bond got his start in 1931 at the age of five when a talent scout for Hal Roach studios approached him as he was leaving a Dallas cinema with his mother. The scout asked him if he would like to act in films because he “had a great face” and set up an appointment […]

Derek Bond (1920 - 2006)

Derek Bond was born on 26 January 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. He attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hampstead, London. He saw active service with the Grenadier Guards in North Africa during the Second World War, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He spent the last few months of the war in Stalag […]

Curt Bois (1901 - 1991)

Curt Bois (April 5, 1901 – December 25, 1991) was a German actor. He is best remembered for his performance as the Pickpocket in Casablanca (1942). Bois was born in Berlin and began acting in 1907, becoming one of the film world’s first child actors, with a role in the silent movie Bauernhaus und Grafenschloß. In […]

Melvin Burkhart (1907 - 2001)

Melvin Burkhart Was a legendary sideshow performer who billed himself as the Human Blockhead and proved it by hammering nails and spikes up his nose in front of millions of Americans in thousands of places — from the 1939 World’s Fair to countless dusty midways to the Coney Island boardwalk to an off-Broadway theater just […]

Polly Wagner (1910 - 2014)

Polly Wagner Actress. Wagner, who came to California as a young girl and graduated from Santa Monica High School, was discovered by an MGM talent scout while playing volleyball outside the Santa Monica beachfront home of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Although she had roles in ‘Lady Killer’ (1933) with James Cagney, ‘Little Miss […]

Syd Thrift (1929 - 2006)

  Major League Baseball Executive. In 1949, he began his baseball career as a minor-league pitcher for the New York Yankees. When a injury ended his playing in 1953, he remained in the Yankee system as a scout. From 1957 to 1967, he was scouting supervisor and training instructor for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was […]

Roman Bohnen (1901 - 1949)

After the failure of a play called Five Alarm Waltz in 1941, Roman Bohnen and [his daughter] Marina moved to Hollywood. His first film was the Vogues of 1938 (1937). By 1941, he was working almost exclusively in film. Among his better-known roles are Candy in Of Mice and Men (1939) and Pat Derry in […]