Marjorie Main (1890 - 1975)

Best known for her portrayal of Ma Kettle in the Ma & Pa Kettle series of movies, Marjorie Main was born in Acton, Indiana, on February 24, 1890. Her father was a minister who did not approve of dramatics as a form of entertainment. She briefly attended college in Indiana but left to attend drama school. Upon graduation, she taught dramatics for a year but eventually went into vaudeville in the 1910s. She married Dr. Stanley Krebs in 1921 and more or less gave up performing for several years. When Krebs, who was about 25 years older than Main, retired to New York later in the 1920s, she then resumed acting, this time on Broadway. Her film career began with small roles in the early 1930s. But with the death of her husband in 1935, Main threw herself into her work. She never remarried and had no children.

From 1936 through 1957, Main acted in more than 100 pictures, tackling comedy and drama with ease. She took on a variety of supporting roles in big-budget films, and she was often a star attraction in many of the B movies she made, such as the Ma and Pa Kettle series produced by Universal. She appeared in Dead End in 1937 with Humphrey Bogart, The Women in 1939 with Joan Crawford, and The Harvey Girls in 1945 with Judy Garland. Her most famous role is that of Ma Kettle, which she first played in 1947’s The Egg and I starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the part and went on to play the character in 9 more Ma and Pa Kettle films for Universal.

By the early 1950s she had appeared in a majority of the MGM musicals including Meet Me in St. Louis, The Belle of New York, and It’s a Big Country. With the release of The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm in 1957, Marjorie Main retired from films but continued to make a few television appearances in the late 1950s. In 1958 she made two appearances on Wagon Train and in 1964 she appeared on an episode of Perry Mason.

In 1974, a year before her death, Marjorie Main attended the Los Angeles premiere of the MGM compilation film That’s Entertainment. It was her first public appearance since she retired from films in 1958. At the post-premiere party, she was greeted with cheers of enthusiasm from the crowd of spectators. Marjorie Main passed away from lung cancer on April 10, 1975, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 85. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.

Mildred Natwick (1905 - 1994)

Mildred Natwick was born on June 19, 1905, in Baltimore, Maryland. After graduating from the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore she went on to earn a drama degree from Bennett College in New York. Her career in entertainment began as a stage actress. She joined the Vagabonds during the late 1920s and toured with them before made a career switch to join the University Players at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She had her Broadway debut in Carry Nation in 1932, followed by roles in such stage productions as Amourette in 1933, The Wind and the Rain in 1934, End of Summer in 1936, The Star Wagon in 1937, and Christmas Eve in 1939.

At the age of 35 she decided to take a chance and enter the film industry. Her movie debut was in the John Wayne film The Long Voyage Home. She co-starred with Wayne in 3 Godfathers in 1948, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in 1939 and the Quiet Man in 1952. Other films included The Enchanted Cottage, Sorry Wrong Number, Cheaper by the Dozen, Against All Flags, Tammy and the Bachelor and Barefoot in the Park. Although she had found success in films, Natwick never forgot her love of working as a stage actress and she managed to return to the stage numerous times throughout her career. Her first Tony nomination came in 1957 for her role in Waltz of the Toreadors.

Along with her long list of film and stage roles, Mildred Natwick also appeared on a number of TV movies and many TV series including Family, McMillan and Wife, The Love Boat, Murder She Wrote, Hardcastle and McCormick, Hawaii Five-O, Bonanza, Magnum P.I. and Alice. In 1972 she won an Emmy for her role on the Television series The Snoop Sister.

Mildred Natwick passed away at the age of 89 on October 25, 1994, in New York City, after having suffered with cancer. She is buried next to her parents at Lorraine Cemetery in Baltimore. She never married and never had any children of her own. Her last stage performance was in a Broadway production of Bedroom Farce in 1979 and her final film role was in Dangerous Liaisons in 1988.

Madge Blake (1899-1969)

Madge Blake was an American character actress most famous for her role as Larry Mondello's mother on Leave It to Beaver, as neighbor Flora McMichael on The Real McCoys, as the president of Jack Benny’s fan club on The Jack Benny Program, and as Aunt Harriet Cooper on the Batman series in the 1960s. She was born May 31, 1899, in Kinsley, Kansas.  Her father was a Methodist who discouraged her from becoming an actress. As a result of her father's feelings, she did not enter acting until later in life. During World War II, Blake and her husband worked in Utah on construction of the detonator for the atomic bomb and performed such jobs as testing equipment destined for the Manhattan Project.

Though she was five years his senior, Blake was a niece of actor Milburn Stone, who played the role of Doc Adams on Gunsmoke. She took advantage of his influence to help her land acting roles. In addition to her roles on Leave it to Beaver, The Real McCoys, and Batman, her other well-known roles include the party of gushy gossip columnist Dora Bailey in Singin’ in the Rain in 1952, Edna May Bestram in An American in Paris in 1951, and as one of the models for the fairies in Disney’s animated version of Sleeping Beauty in 1959. She guest starred in many TV series including My Favorite Martian, The Lucy Show, Dennis the Menace, I Love Lucy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bewitched, The Addams Family, and Mannix.

Declining health saw her role as Aunt Harriet reduced and with the introduction of Batgirl in the third and final season of Batman she only appeared in two episodes. Madge Blake was admitted to a hospital after falling at home and fracturing her ankle. She died of a heart attack in the hospital at Pasadena, California, at the age of 70 on February 19, 1969, a little more than a year after Batman had been cancelled. She is buried at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Jonathan Hole (1904 - 1998)

Character actor Jonathan Hole had a long and successful career in television playing guest role on many of the top TV shows of all time.

He was born in Eldora, Iowa, on August 13, 1904. His career began in vaudeville in the 1920s. He was also a radio performer active in his native Iowa as well as New York City, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Hole further honed his acting skills during the years 1924–1934 in stage productions in New York. In 1930, one of the productions he appeared in was the comedy Cinderelative. In 1951, he began acting in movies with a part in Two Dollar Bettor. Although his appearances were usually uncredited, he appeared in thirty-six feature-length films. Among those were A Man Called Peter in 1955, Beloved Infidel in 1959, 4 for Texas in 1963 and The Graduate in 1967.

Hole carved out a long career in television, beginning in 1951 with an appearance on Hollywood Theatre Time, in the episode Mr. Young's Sprouts, which starred Gale Storm and Don DeFore. He often made repeat appearances on television shows, appearing in multiple episodes playing different roles. He appeared seven times each in Dragnet, Burke’s Law, and Green Acres. He appeared in five Maverick episodes, and five times on Perry Mason. Hole appeared twice on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, with Hugh O’Brian. Twice he played the part of Elmer Clark on The Real McCoys and he guest starred on The Andy Griffith Show as Orville Monroe, the undertaker. He made 200 appearances in 121 television shows and made-for-television movies. His final television appearance was in Silhouette, a 1990 murder mystery starring Faye Dunaway.

Jonathan Hole supplemented his income as an Employment Claims Assistant for the California Employment Development Department. During the 1950s he worked in the Hollywood office, paying Unemployment checks to Hollywood's out-of-work rank-in-file. He was married to actress Betty Hanna until her death in 1976. He died at the age of 93 on February 11, 1998, in North Hollywood, California, and is buried at Westwood Memorial Park, Westwood, California.

Byron Foulger (1899-1970)

Character actor Byron Foulger was born August 27, 1899, in Ogden, Utah. He began performing with community theater, and stock and repertory companies after graduating from the University of Utah. He met his future wife, character actress Dorothy Adams, in one of these companies. The marriage lasted nearly five decades and ended with his death.

Making his Broadway debut in a 1920 production of Medea that featured Moroni Olsen as Jason of the Argonauts, he went on to appear in several other Olsen Broadway productions including The Trial of Joan of Arc, Mr. Faust, and Candida. While touring the country with Olsen's stock company, he ended up at the Pasadena Playhouse where he both acted and directed. Thereafter he and wife Dorothy decided to settle in Los Angeles. Together the acting couple tried to stake a claim for themselves in 30s and 40s Hollywood films. Both succeeded, appearing in hundreds of film parts, both together and apart, albeit in small and often unbilled bits. A man of meek, nervous countenance, Foulger's short stature and squinty stare could be used for playing both humble and shady fellows. Although predominantly employed as an owlish storekeeper, mortician, professor, or bank teller, his better parts had darker intentions. He was exceptional as a mealy-mouthed, whining henchman who inevitably showed his yellow streak by the film's end. He appeared in over 300 movies between 1934 and 1970, including Union Pacific, Ellery Queen Master Detective, The Lost Weekend, The Three Musketeers, The Long Hot Summer, Pocketful of Miracles, Who’s Minding the Store, and There Was a Crooked Man.

In the 1940s, Byron Foulger became a part of Preston Sturges’ company of players, appearing in five of his classic films - - The Great McGinty (1940), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) and The Great Moment (1944).

Foulger eased into TV roles in the 1950s and '60s, displaying a comedy side in many folksy, rural sitcoms. He appeared in over 80 television series between 1949 and 1968, including The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Bonanza, Rawhide, The Mod Squad, The Guns of Will Sonnett, The Lucy Show, The Monkees, and Gunsmoke. His final regular TV role was as train conductor Wendell Gibbs on the series Petticoat Junction.

Foulger died of a heart ailment in Hollywood on April 4, 1970, at the age of 70 and is buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Roy Roberts (1906-1975)

American character actor Roy Roberts appeared in more than 900 productions on stage and screen over his more than 40-year career.

Born Roy Barnes Jones in Dade City, Florida, on March 19, 1906, he began his acting career on the stage, first appearing on Broadway in May 1931 before making his motion picture debut in Gold Bricks, a 1936 two-reel comedy short released by 20th Century Fox. In the 1940s and 1950s, Roberts was a regular in many films, including Force of Evil (1948), He Walked by Night (1948), Nightmare Alley (1947), The Brasher Doubloon (1947), Borderline (1950), and The Enforcer (1951). In 1953 he appeared as Vincent Price's crooked business partner (and first victim) in House of Wax. He also appeared in The Outfit (1973) and Chinatown (1974). He also had a small role in the hit 1963 Stanley Kramer comedy, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as a police officer. Roberts appeared in numerous other films in secondary parts and returned to perform on Broadway in such productions as Twentieth Century, My Sister Eileen, and Carnival in Flanders until he began making guest appearances on television series.

After appearing with Gale Storm on My Little Margie in 1956, he became part of several television series for which he is best remembered. In a show that was the precursor to The Love Boat, Roberts played the ship's captain for four years in Storm's next hit, Oh! Susanna, which aired on CBS from 1956 to 1960. He guest-starred in scores of series, including Sheriff of Cochise, My Friend Flicka, The Travels of Jamie McPheeters, Perry Mason, and Brian Keith's Cold War drama, Crusader.

During the middle 1960s, Roberts was one of the most recognizable faces on television, and had recurring roles concurrently on a number of popular programs, including: bank president Mr. Cheever on The Lucy Show, newspaper publisher  J. Howard Jackson on The Andy Griffith Show, John Cushing,  president of the rival Merchants Bank on The Beverly Hillbillies, railroad president Norman Curtis on Petticoat Junction, Darrin's father Frank Stephens on Bewitched (alternating with actor Robert F. Simon depending upon availability), banker Harry Bodkin on Gunsmoke, and Admiral Rogers on McHale's Navy.

Roy Roberts died on May 28, 1975, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 69 of a heart attack and was buried at Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth, Texas.

Mary Treen (1907 - 1989)

Film and Television actress Mary Treen was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 27, 1907. Her father died while she was still an infant and she was raised in California by her mother, who once performed under the stage name Helene Sullivan, and her stepfather. She started her career as a dancer in revues and on the vaudeville circuit and formed a musical comedy duo with Marjorie Barnett, billing themselves as Treen and Barnett: Two Unsophisticated Vassar Co-eds. Mary Treen broke into the movies in 1934, signed by Warner Brothers after seeing her in a play. She starred in over 100 films, often providing comic relief as a plain-looking working-class woman, shop girl, waitress, and cashier. She is probably best remembered as Cousin Tilly in the Frank Capra classic It’s A Wonderful Life. In later years, she appeared in several films with Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley. On television she played Hilda the maid on The Joey Bishop Show. She had several guest starring roles, including playing Rose, the Taylor's former maid on the pilot episode of The Andy Griffith Show, and as Roscoe P. Coltrane's Aunt Clara on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Mary Treen died of cancer in Newport Beach, California, on July 20, 1989, at the age of 82. She was married to Herbert C. Pearson from 1945 to until his death in 1965.

Hope Summers (1896 - 1979)

Hope Summers was past fifty when she came to Hollywood to begin her career as a character actress. She is most remembered for her work on The Andy Griffith Show as Aunt Bee's best friend, Clara Edwards. Her character went through a variety of names, such as Bertha Edwards and Clara Johnson before the producers finally settled on Clara Edwards. She had earlier appeared in a 16 episodes of The Rifleman as Hattie Denton, owner of the General Store. In addition to TV appearances, she appeared in movies including Edge of Eternity, Inherit The Wind, Parrish, Spencer's Mountain, The Ghost And Mr. Chicken, and Rosemary's Baby. Her numerous  television appearances included Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Maverick, The Untouchables, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Beverly Hillbillies, Dennis the Menace, Gomer Pyle, Little House On The Prairie, Petticoat Junction, That Girl, Adam-12, The Danny Thomas Show, and Welcome Back Kotter. Her last film role was in the 1978 movie Foul Play with Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn.

Hope Summers was born June 7, 1896, in Mattoon, Illinois. She received her degree at the Northwestern School of Speech in Evanston, Illinois, and later taught speech and diction at Northwestern. She also served as the head of the speech department at Bradley University, in Peoria, Illinois. Hope Summer's father was a U.S. Representative from Washington State. She died June 22, 1979, at the age of 83 in Woodland Hills, California. She is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Walla Walla, Washington. 

Mary Wickes (1910 - 1995)

Mary Wickes was a United States film and television character actress whose long career on the stage and in films extended from The Man Who Came to Dinner to  Sister Act.

Born Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 13, 1910, she began acting in films in the late 1930s. One of her earliest significant film appearances was in The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1942. A tall, gangling woman with a distinctive voice, Wickes would ultimately prove herself adept as a comedienne, but she first attracted attention in the 1942 film Now, Voyager as the wise-cracking nurse who helped Bette Davis' character during her mother's illness. The same year she had a large part in the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy-whodunnit, titled Who Done It?. She continued playing supporting roles in films during the next decade.

In the 1950s she played regular roles in the television sitcoms Make Room for Daddy and Dennis The Menace as spinster Miss Cathcart. She appeared as Emma the housekeeper in the holiday classic White Christmas in 1954, starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen and provided her voice to the Walt Disney film 101 Dalmatians in 1961. A lifelong friend of Lucille Ball, she played frequent guest roles in each of Lucy's television series, I Love Lucy, Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show. By the 1980s her appearances in television series such as M*A*S*H, The Love Boat, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Murder, She Wrote had made her a widely recognizable character actress.

Her appearance as Shirley MacLaine's mother in the 1990 film Postcards From the Edge brought her widespread attention, however she achieved the biggest success of her career in Sister Act in 1992. As Sister Mary Lazarus, Wickes' portrayal of a gruff but vulnerable elderly nun, contributed to the film's popularity, and she reprised the role in the sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit the next year. She appeared in the 1994 film version of Little Women before she became ill. Her final film, the animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released in 1996 a few months after her death.

Mary Wickes died of cancer at age 85 on October 22, 1995 in Los Angeles, California. She is buried beside her parents at Shiloh Valley Cemetery in Shiloh, Illinois. She was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 2004. Unmarried, Mary Wickes left a large estate and made a $2 million bequest, in memory of her parents, for the Isabella and Frank Wickenhauser Memorial Library Fund for Television, Film and Theater Arts.

Dick Elliott (1986 - 1961)

In the thirties, forties, and especially the 1950's, if a director wanted a short, fat actor to play a windy storekeeper or a raucous conventioneer, he might well cast Dick Elliott. He was one of those actors who, whenever he appeared on screen, often for less than a minute, the audience would think, "Oh, it's that guy." Yet few would ever know his name. Elliott appeared in over 240 films. He was most often cast as judges, mayors, newspaper reporters, policemen, and blowhards, usually one who can't stop talking except when he'd burst into a loud laugh that bordered on a cackle.

 He was born Richard Damon Elliott on April 30, 1886, in Salem, Massachusetts.He began performing in stock in 1931 and was on stage for nearly thirty years before his film debut in 1933's Central Airport. He played Ned Buntline in Annie Oakley with Barbara Stanwyck in 1935;  Marryin' Sam in L'il Abner in1940; the judge in Christmas in Connecticut in 1945 again starring Barbara Stanwyck; and as a whiskey drummer in The Dude Goes West in 1948 with Eddie Albert. Dick Elliott also appears in It's a Wonderful Life from 1946 as the man on the porch  who tells Jimmy Stewart to stop jabbering and go ahead and kiss Donna Reed. 

Television provided a  whole new world of roles for Dick Elliott. He appeared in dozens and dozens of TV shows, including Dick Tracy (in which he had a recurring role as Chief Murphy) My Little Margie, The Adventures of Superman, I Love Lucy, I Married Joan, December Bride, Wagon Train, and Rawhide. He will always be remembered as Mayor Pike on The Andy Griffith Show. 

Dick Elliott died during the second season of The Andy Griffith Show, on December 22, 1961, in Burbank, California, at the age of 75 and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Olan Soule (1909 - 1984)

Olan Soule was an American character actor with hundreds of credits in films, radio, commercials, television and animation, most notably as the primary television animation voice of Batman from 1968 to 1984.

Born on February 28, 1909, in LaHarpe, Illinois, Soule left Illinois at the age of seven and arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived until he was seventeen. He then launched his theatrical career by joining Jack Brooks' tent show in Sabula, Iowa. After leaving the tent show, he appeared on stage in Chicago for seven years before moving to radio in 1933, including a stint on Chandu the Magician (1935–36). On radio he performed for eleven years in the daytime soap opera Bachelor's Children. Beginning in 1943, he did lead male characters on radio's famed The First Nighter Program for nine years.From 1941 on, Soule had the role of L. William Kelly, SS-11, the second in command of the Secret Squadron on the Captain Midnight radio adventure serial. He was the only actor who performed on both the Captain Midnight radio and television shows.

Concluding his nine-year run on First Nighter, Soule moved to Hollywood where he did films and television, building a reputation as a reliable character actor. He appeared on many television series including The Donald O'Connor Show, Captain Midnight, and I Love Lucy. He made several appearances on The Andy Griffith Show and was a semi-regular as real-life LAPD criminalist Ray Pinker on Dragnet (the character became "Ray Murray" in the 1967 revival). Other TV guest-starring roles were endless: The Real McCoys, Perry Mason, Mister Ed, The Rebel, The Twilight Zone, Bewitched, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Laramie, The Monkees, Fantasy Island, Dallas, Simon & Simon to name a few.

Soule is remembered by many for providing the voice of Batman in several animated series. He first performed as the Caped Crusader on the 1968 Filmation--produced  The Batman/Superman Hour. He reprised his role as Batman on The Adventures of Batman, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Seasame Street and Super Friends. He appeared as a newscaster on the live-action Batman television series (in "The Pharaoh's in a Rut") with his Super Friends successor Adam West.

On February 1, 1994, Olan Soule died at the age of 84 of lung cancer in Los Angeles, California. He is buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery.

Willis Bouchey (1907 - 1977)

Willis Bouchey was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films and television shows. He was born on  May 24, 1907, in Vernon, Michigan, but reared by his mother and stepfather in Washington State.

Bouchey may be best known for his appearances in The Horse Soldiers, The Long Gray Line, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Big Heat, and Suddenly. He also made uncredited appearances in From Here to Eternity, How the West Was Won, A Star is Born.  Bouchey appeared as a sheep trader in the title 1958 episode "Cash Robertson" of the NBC children's western series, Buckskin. In 1960 to 1961, he was cast twice in the ABC sitcom, Harrigan and Son, starring Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry and four times times in the role of Springer in the CBS sitcom, Pete and Gladys.

He guest starred on CBS's Dennis the Menace and played a judge in twenty-three episodes of that same network's Perry Mason. He also worked again with Perry Mason title star Raymond Burr in an episode of NBC's Ironside. He made guest appearances on Sheriff of Cochise, Dragnet, Richard Diamond Private Eye, Stoney Burke, and The Andy Griffith Show. On ABC's Colt .45 television series, Bouchey played Lew Wallace,  the governor of the New Mexico Territory, in the episode "Amnesty".

Throughout his career, Bouchey worked in twelve different productions for director John Ford and was one of the more frequently-used members of the John Ford Stock Company.  In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance he delivered the line, "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance."

Willis Bouchey died at the age of 70 on September 27, 1977, in Burbank, California.