Biography

- Season 26

(1987)

In the film This Gun for Hire, as supporting actor, Alan Ladd's performance as a cold, ruthless killer with a core of sadness had an impact on audiences. He became an immediate star and helped launch the age of film noir. In 1954, Photoplay magazine voted him the world's most popular male film star. Ironically, Ladd and the female star of the year, Marilyn Monroe, both headed for self-destruction.

Amiable and unassuming, Fred MacMurray went from small-town boy to one of Hollywood and television's most enduring stars. This program includes clips from some of MacMurray's most notable films, such as The Gilded Lily, The Apartment, The Absent Minded Professor, Swing High, Swing Low and the TV series, My Three Sons.

This glamorous and hugely popular actress raised herself from brutal poverty to Academy Award-winning stardom through guts, determination and hard work. During her 50-year career, she made more than 80 films. But her obsessive perfectionism led to a later caricature of coat-hanger-wielding harridan that even the adoration of her fans could not counter.

As the first "blonde bombshell," Mae West reigned supreme and changed the nation's view of women, sex and race- on stage, in films, on radio and television. Including clips from Night After Night, She Done Him Wrong, I'm No Angel, Belle of the Nineties, and Klondike Annie. In addition to home movies and archival footage, Anthony Quinn, Rex Reed and Robert Wise provide interviews.

Actor Walter Matthau was barely three when his father deserted the family. Poverty and New York street smarts produced a self-deprecating humor that never left. He began studying acting and by 1951 he earned a New York Drama Critics Award. Television dramas followed and then came Hollywood where his fame grew to new heights creating millions of fans and admirers in the entertainment industry.