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Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1884 in Washington, D.C. Her father was the internationally famous clown, Billy Burke, and she would spend most of her early years touring Europe before the family settled in London. In 1903, she appeared on the stage as an actress and came to America in 1907 to star opposite John Drew in "My Wife". A red-haired beauty, she became the toast of Broadway and married promoter Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in April 1914. Billie was signed in 1915 to make the film Peggy (1916). Of the next 15 films that she made, she would make 14 in New York. In between films, she would return to the stage which was her first love. Her last films were released in 1921 and she went into semi-retirement until their fortune was wiped out in 1929. Billie would return to films to support herself and her husband. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. would die, a broken man, in 1932.

It was in the comedy drama Dinner at Eight (1933) that Billie would find the character that she would play the rest of her career. It is the hapless, feather-brained lady with the unmistakably high voice who would be more interested in little details than what was at hand. In some films, like Piccadilly Jim (1936), she was obviously too old for the part, but played it to the hilt. Beginning in 1937, she starred in the "Topper" series of films (Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938) and Topper Returns (1941)) for producer Hal Roach in which she played Mrs. Topper with her usual fluffy performance. But for most of the people who were raised on television, she will always be remembered as Glinda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939). She continued to make films though out the 1940s and started another series with Father of the Bride (1950) and the follow-up Father's Little Dividend (1951).

A real trouper, she next went to television with the television series Doc Corkle (1952). The series was canceled after three weeks due to poor writing. By 1953, her career was slowing down and she would only make three more movies in 1959 and 1960. The best remembered one would be John Ford's Western Sergeant Rutledge (1960). Billie Burke retired for good and lived in Los Angeles, California, where she died at age 85 of natural causes on May 14, 1970.

Burt Mustin was a salesman most of his life, but got his first taste of show business as the host of a weekly radio variety show on KDKA Pittsburgh in 1921. He appeared onstage in "Detective Story" at Sombrero Playhouse in Phoenix Arizona, and played the janitor in the movie version, (Detective Story (1951)), after moving to Hollywood. Hundreds of screen appearances later, he announced his retirement while filming an episode of Phyllis (1975). In the episode, his character married Mother Dexter, played by actress Judith Lowry. Lowry died one month before, and Mustin died one month after the episode aired.

Silent screen leading man in films from 1915-1932. He left films in 1932 due to the arrival of sound. He was hit by a car on September 13, 1951, never fully recovered from his injuries and died on December 2, 1957.

For many years Walter Huston had two passions: his career as an engineer and his vocation for the stage. In 1909 he dedicated himself to the theatre, and made his debut on Broadway in 1924. In 1929 he journeyed to Hollywood, where his talent and ability made him one of the most respected actors in the industry. He won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Short, chubby-framed, twinkle-eyed, ever-huggable Charles Winninger was a veteran vaudevillian by the time he arrived in talking films. Born in a trunk to Austrian immigrant show biz folk in Athens, Wisconsin, on May 26, 1884, he was the son of Rosalia (Grassler) and Franz Winninge, a violinist. He was initially christened Karl Winninger. He left school while quite young (age 8) to join and tour with his parent's vaudeville family act which was called Winninger Family Concert Co. Upon his parents' retirement, he and his five brothers went off to play in various stock and repertory companies. On film Charlie found an "in" with silent comedy shorts between 1915-1916 but never truly settled into the movie business until the advent of sound.

In the meantime Broadway made great use of his musical comedy talents, marking his debut with "The Yankee Girl" in 1910 which also featured actress (and later stage star) Blanche Ring. He married Blanche in 1912 and the couple went on to star together quite frequently in vaudeville and on Broadway, including the musical "When Claudia Smiles" (1914) in which Blanche played the title role. Throughout the 1920s there were plenty of roles for Charlie on the Great White Way including a stint with the Ziegfeld Follies (1920), several Winter Garden productions, and in such musical comedy showcases as "The Broadway Whirl" (1921) (with Blanche), "The Good Old Days" (1923), "No, No, Nanette" (1925) and "Yes, Yes, Yvette" (1927). His most significant contribution was originating the role of beloved Cap'n Andy in "Showboat" (1927). Playing the Kern/Hammerstein musical for two years straight, he eagerly returned to the role on Broadway in 1932.

With the success of "Show Boat," Hollywood started taking more of an interest in the grey-haired song-and-dance man for character roles. Such early talking movies included the slapstick comedy Soup to Nuts (1930) with Ted Healy and The Three Stooges. Though Charlie was known for adding his immeasurable touch to the comedy genre (Flying High (1931) and Woman Chases Man (1937)), he was also a warm-hearted presence in heavier pictures as well, including the melodramas Bad Sister (1931) with Bette Davis and The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) with Helen Hayes, and rugged adventures Gun Smoke (1931) and White Fang (1936). Although he did not play his famous stage role in the 1929 version, Charlie was thankfully able to preserve his beloved Cap'n Andy to film in the superb Irene Dunne/Allan Jones remake of Show Boat (1936). He became so associated with the riverboat captain that he was asked to create several variations of the character on radio.

Charlie was relied upon for his benign, errant dads, old-theater entertainers, lovable drunks and other rather wanderlust types in film, characters that usually represented old-fashioned common sense or mores. He was quite entertaining in such classics as Nothing Sacred (1937), Three Smart Girls (1936) and Destry Rides Again (1939). In the 1940s he brightened up a number of MGM comedies and musicals including Babes in Arms (1939), Little Nellie Kelly (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), When Ladies Meet (1941), Broadway Rhythm (1944), and Living in a Big Way (1947). One of his last important roles was playing Will Rogers' Judge Priest role in director John Ford's film The Sun Shines Bright (1953), is only leading film role. He and wife Blanche never appeared together in a film although Blanche did play herself in the film If I Had My Way (1940), a film that featured Charlie. His Broadway swan song was in "Music in the Air" in 1951 and his final film occurred about a decade later with Raymie (1960). He also played Santa Claus in the hour-long entertainment The Miracle of the White Reindeer (1960) that same year.

TV roles dominated much of his work in the 50s. On the one-season The Charles Farrell Show (1956) he played the star's dear old dad. Divorced from wife Blanche in 1951, Charlie subsequently married stage actress-turned-novelist and screenwriter Gertrude Walker whom he originally met on Broadway when he returned to "Show Boat" in 1932 (Gertrude played the role of Lottie). Retired for many years, Charlie died in 1969 following an extended illness at the age of 84.

Frank Hagney was born on 20 April 1884 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor, known for It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Ride Him, Cowboy (1932) and The Sea Beast (1926). He was married to Edna M. Keating Shephard and Ethel Scott. He died on 25 June 1973 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Edgar Stehli was born on 12 July 1884 in Lyon, Rhône, France. He was an actor, known for Executive Suite (1954), 4D Man (1959) and Atlantis: The Lost Continent (1961). He was married to Emeline C Greenough. He died on 25 July 1973 in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, USA.

Harry Antrim was born on 27 August 1884 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951), The Heiress (1949) and Words and Music (1948). He was married to Bernice Gorman. He died on 18 January 1967 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Wonderfully talented German-born actor, capable of tremendous comedic and dramatic performances, usually as some type of pompous bureaucrat or similarly arrogant individual. Ruman was born on October 11, 1884, in Hamburg, Germany, and actually studied electrotechnology in college before making the switch to acting. He served with the Imperial German Forces in World War I before coming to the United States in 1924. He became friendly with playwright George S. Kaufman and critic Alexander Woollcott and was regularly appearing in high-quality stage productions on Broadway.

With the advent of talkies, he was kept very busy in the cinema and became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing as stiff-shirted NYC opera owner Herman Gottlieb in the comedy classic A Night at the Opera (1935). He played a know-it-all surgeon crossing swords with Groucho Marx over what exactly was wrong with hypochondriac Margaret Dumont in A Day at the Races (1937). and a dual role in A Night in Casablanca (1946). With his German accent, he was also a regular in several WWII espionage thrillers, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), They Came to Blow Up America (1943), and The Hitler Gang (1944), and gave a superb portrayal of the two-faced POW guard Schulz in the splendid Stalag 17 (1953). He was also popular with famed director Ernst Lubitsch, who cast Ruman in Ninotchka (1939), and To Be or Not to Be (1942). In all, he notched up over 100 feature film appearances as well as guest star spots on many TV shows.

Ruman suffered ill health for the final two decades of his life and passed away on February 14, 1967, from a heart attack.

Joseph Sweeney was born on 26 July 1884 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for 12 Angry Men (1957), The United States Steel Hour (1953) and Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950). He died on 25 November 1963 in New York City, New York, USA.

His real name was Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, and in the early 1900s, he was already working in the theater under Max Reinhardt's company. Important movies where he defined himself as a convincing actor were Passion (1919) and Quo Vadis? (1924), followed by The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh) in 1924 and Variety (1925) (aka Variety) in 1925. In 1928, he became the first male leading actor to receive the academy award for The Last Command (1928) directed by Josef von Sternberg. In 1929, Stenberg directed him in his world famous movie The Blue Angel (1930) (aka The Blue Angel) co-starring the young Marlene Dietrich (her first role). Later on, he concentrated on theater and dedicated his acting skills to the Nazi regime and also took part in the realization of Ohm Krüger (1941) in 1941, an expensive anti-British film production. When the Second World War ended, the US government cleaned his image, and he converted to Catholicism. He played in a few more German movies, but his career never recaptured its brilliance.

Mayer was born Lazar Meir in the Ukraine and grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after his parents fled Russian oppression in 1886. He had a brutal childhood, raised in poverty and suffering physical and emotional abuse from his nearly-illiterate peddler father. In the early 1890s, he changed his name to Louis and fudged his birth date to reflect the more "patriotic" date of July 4, 1885. He moved to Boston in 1904 and struggled as a scrap-metal dealer until he was able to purchase a burlesque house. Although he made large sums by showing films (he made a sizable fortune off The Birth of a Nation (1915)), his early business ventures favored legitimate theater in New England. As his theater empire expanded, he had acquired and refurbished enough small movie theaters that he was able to move his business to Los Angeles and venture into movie production in 1918. Along with Samuel Goldwyn and Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures, he formed a new company called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

Over the next 25 years, MGM was "the Tiffany of the studios," producing more films and movie stars than any other studio in the world. Mayer became the prime creator of the enduring Hollywood of myth, home to stars like Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Jean Harlow. Mayer became the highest-paid man in America, one of the country's most successful horse breeders, a political force and Hollywood's leading spokesman. Both he and MGM reached their peaks at the end of World War II, and Mayer was forced out in 1951. He died of leukemia in 1957.

Edward Keane was born on 28 May 1884 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for A Night at the Opera (1935), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). He was married to Helen. He died on 12 October 1959 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Griff Barnett was born on 12 November 1884 in Blue Ridge, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Pinky (1949), For the Love of Mary (1948) and Apartment for Peggy (1948). He died on 12 January 1958 in El Monte, California, USA.

When her Hollywood career began in 1934, Mary Nash was already a veteran performer, having appeared in vaudeville and on Broadway. Following a brief appearance as a dancer in 1904, she joined Ethel Barrymore in a 1905 off- Broadway production, 'Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire'. This was followed by 'Captain Jinks' and 'The Silver Box' with the same company, and in 1915 she acted in George Bernard Shaw's play 'Major Barbara' at the Playhouse Theatre. The versatile actress was as adept at comedy ('Captain Applejack',1921-22) as she was in drama (Cassie in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,1933).

She is best remembered on screen for being nasty to Shirley Temple in Heidi (1937) and The Little Princess (1939), and for playing Katharine Hepburn's elegant and proper society mother in The Philadelphia Story (1940). In addition, she gave excellent value-for-money in the role of Emma Louise in Come and Get It (1936) and as the ill-fated queen in the technicolor adventure Cobra Woman (1944). Mary Nash was briefly married to the actor José Ruben ((1888-1969).

J.M. Kerrigan was born on 16 December 1884 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor and director, known for Gone with the Wind (1939), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and The Wolf Man (1941). He died on 29 April 1964 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Godfrey Seymour Tearle was born in 1884, the son of British actor/manager George (Osmond) Tearle and American actress Marianne Conway (her second marriage). His father and uncle were first-generation acting Tearles, and his mother also came from a family of actors. It seems that Godfrey's destiny was set at birth. The Tearles' family's origins lay rooted in the rural areas of Bedfordshire. His grandfather was a soldier who served in the Crimean War. Godfrey made his stage debut at age nine as young Prince Richard, Duke of York, in his father's production of "Richard III." He subsequently attended Carlisle Grammar School in Carlisle, England, but continued acting in his father's company into his teen years. His older half-brother, Frederick (Levy), was also a successful actor and later billed himself as Conway Tearle and earned distinction as a suave silent-era matinée idol. In 1908 Godfrey made his film debut in a shortened version of Romeo and Juliet (1908), at the Lyceum Theatre, which co-starred then-wife actress Mary Malone. Building up his stage reputation in the classics, he became a Shakespearean player of note with sterling portrayals of "Othello", "Macbeth" and "Henry V", among others. Active service in the Royal Field Artillery in 1915 temporarily interrupted his budding theater career for nearly four years. He returned to the footlights, but also attempted to earn a reputation in silents. Although he was less successful, Godfrey's mellifluous voice proved ideal for sound and he made a mild go of it with occasional movie forays in the 1930s and 1940s. He distinguished himself as patrician gents in both character leads and supports. He made a particular impression in The 39 Steps (1935), Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller, in which he played the professor (aka menacing agent) minus a finger; The Beginning or the End (1947) as President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Crash of Silence (1952), a four-tissue tearjerker, as the grandfather of a deaf child; and the charming comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) as a genial bishop, which was released the year of his death. On the personal front, he and actress Malone were divorced after 20 years of marriage, and Godfrey married much-younger starlet Stella Freeman in 1932. Tragically she died aged 26 in May 1936 from pneumonia, just a few months after the suicide of his actor/brother Malcolm Tearle. A third marriage failed for but he managed to enjoy the last few years of his life in the company of Stratford stage actress Jill Bennett. He was knighted in 1951 and died two years later in London, following a lengthy illness, at age 68.

For over 30 years he was a fixture in Hollywood films that were set in England, Ireland or Scotland, His first film appearance was as Jock Gordon in The Lilac Sunbonnet (1922) which told the story of a supposedly innocent young girl who is anything but as an ingenue. Harvey played a man smitten with love. During his time in Hollywood, he made some 116 films 14 of which were silents, when sound came his character roles developed with the sound of his voice often being cast as a cockney tradesman, family gardener or a pub inhabitant. His more famous roles came in the 30's when he was cast as Beamish , part of a scheming safari group in the Johnny Weissmuller film Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). In 1933, he was cast as Herbert the innkeeper, in the classic The Invisible Man (1933) opposite Una O'Connor as his wife and they all but stole the film from Claude Rains. Other roles included Bradshaw in Frank Capra's Broadway Bill (1934), Twiddle in The Wolf Man (1941), and Mr Huggins in Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Charity Grace was born on 27 April 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Peter Gunn (1958) and 77 Sunset Strip (1958). She died on 28 November 1965 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

What becomes a legend most? For the beloved Russian-born entertainer Sophie Tucker, it was most definitely the live stage. The stage was her home. She fed off a live audience and it's what made her the sensation she was. Seeing her up close and personal was to get the very best of her. Movies and TV were too restrictive to capture the true essence of Sophie Tucker. For well over five decades, she performed everywhere -- Broadway, vaudeville, cabaret, clubs and burlesque.

This gutsy, irrepressible "Jazz Age Hot Mamma" was born Sonya Kalish in Russia in 1884 just as her family was about to emigrate to the United States. They left when she was a mere three months old, settling in Hartford, Connecticut. She started performing as a youngster in her parent's small restaurant, occasionally singing and playing the piano for tips. Marrying in her teens to a ne'er-do-well, she was forced to continue at the restaurant to support a family of three (including baby boy Bert). Within a short time, however, she divorced, left her child with her parents, and headed to nearby New York with visions of stardom. Changing her name to the more suitable marquee moniker of "Sophie Tucker" (her ex-husband's name was Louis Tuck), she proceeded to take the town by storm.

Sophie started out in amateur shows. Not a beauty by any stretch, she was grossly overweight and quickly found that self parody and racy comedy, punctuated by her jazzy musical style, would become the backbone of her popularity. Playing at various dives, she earned a minor break in 1906 after earning a singing/piano-playing gig on the vaudeville circuit. Disguised in blackface, she played ragtime music. Her humor, of course, came at the expense of her weight but, with such ditties as "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love," she had audiences eating out of the palm of her hand. They were laughing with her, not at her. One night her makeup kit was stolen and she was forced to stand in front of the curtain and entertain without it. The audience went crazy for her and the rest is history. She never wore blackface again.

Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. caught her act and started her off in his Follies shows in 1909. She proved to be such a scene-stealer, however, that other top female headliners refused to be on the same billing with her. She went on instead to headline her own shows. A cross between the sex-minded Mae West and the homely, self-effacing Fanny Brice, Sophie relied on aggressive sexual innuendo to win over her crowds. She had a faux confidence about her sexuality, dressing up with opulent, come-hither costumes. She gave advice to both women and married men in such songs as "You've Got to Make It Legal, Mr. Siegel." Sophie played The Palace -- vaudeville's "A" No. 1 showcase. She made huge hits out of such naughty novelty songs as "Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip van Winkle When Rip Van Winkle Went Away?" These songs stayed with her act for decades. Sophie was also a pioneer recording artist, recording her famous signature song "Some of These Days" for the Edison Company on February 24, 1911. She re-recorded the song in 1926. Other big hits would include "After You've Gone," "Cheatin' On Me" and "My Yiddishe Mama."

Her blockbuster success in America aggressively spread into Europe. Upon returning from her first trip to Berlin in 1925, however, things had changed. Vaudeville was dying and she started looking into radio and films as a viable means of livelihood. Radio, yes, but films were a major disappointment. She was too bawdy and larger-than-life for the small lens. Besides, she really couldn't act. Nevertheless, in 1929, Sophie made her film debut as an night club singer in Honky Tonk (1929) in which she sang her ever-popular "Some of These Days" in addition to "I Never Want to Get Thin" and "I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas." She went on to share the spotlight with Judy Garland in Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937), in which she played a non-singing boarding house owner. She would showcase her signature tune "Some of These Days" twice more in movies, in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) and Follow the Boys (1944).

In the 1930s Tucker brought a wave of burlesque-styled nostalgia into her show, now billing herself as "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas." She had a hit Broadway musical comedy with "Leave It to Me" in 1938-1939 which co-starred the comedy team of William Gaxton and Victor Moore, along with a debuting Mary Martin. With her financial success, she started the Sophie Tucker foundation in 1945.

In the 1950s and early 1960s the woman, hailed as "The First Lady of Show Business," made frequent TV appearances on the popular variety and talk shows of the day. She remained a favorite both here and abroad, especially in London music halls where she once greeted King George with an earthy "Hiya, King!" On April 13, 1963, a Broadway musical entitled "Sophie" opened with Libi Staiger in the title role, based on Sophie's early life (until 1922). It closed after eight performances.

Sophie went on doing her thing until the very end, playing the Latin Quarter only months before her death. She had developed lung cancer and died at age 82 of lung and kidney complications in 1966. She was interred at Emanuel Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut, her home state. For Sophie Tucker, a true legend, it was either her way or the highway, and the audiences embraced her for it.

Ms. Nesbit, artists' model and chorus girl, was at the heart of what was known at the time as the Crime of the Century. Her abusive husband, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Thaw, murdered 52-year old architect and socialite Stanford White (of the firm McKim, Mead, and White), who had taken advantage of 16-year old Evelyn and subsequently become her lover a couple of years before she married Thaw. Harry Thaw's mother mother quickly financed propaganda, even a film, to portray her son as a protector of women's virtue; at the same time, the media reported the very-married White's many other transgressions involving young women. After his first trial ended in a hung jury, Thaw was retried in 1908 and found insane. He was sent away to a mental institution for the criminally insane in upstate New York, from which he which he escaped once; in 1915 he was released with reputation untarnished--a homicidal hero.

Langdon first performed when he ran away from home at the age of 12-13 to join a travelling medicine show. In 1903 he scored a lasting success in vaudeville with an act called "Johnny's New Car" which he performed for twenty years. In 1923, he signed with Principal Pictures as a series star, but transferred to the Mack Sennett Studio when Mack Sennett bought the contract. Early in his film career, he had the good fortune to work regularly with the young Frank Capra. The two developed a unique character of an innocent man-child who found himself in dramatic and hazardous circumstances with only providence and good luck making him come out on top. This character clicked with the public and Langdon enjoyed a streak of artistic and commercial successes using it with Capra's direction. Unfortunately, he began to take the praise of his talent too seriously and broke with Capra so he could hog all the glory himself with his films. This proved to be a disastrous mistake as his first film "Three's a Crowd", a sickeningly sentimental film that plainly showed that he did not even approach the talent and skill of Capra which was needed to keep his character style viable. It has been also speculated the public was getting tired of Langdon's character, which contributed to Langdon's first solo film being an artistic and commercial failure. That film was the first in a series of bombs that ruined Langdon's career and relegated him to minor films from third string companies for the rest of his life.

Fred Kelsey was born on 20 August 1884 in Sandusky, Ohio, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Lone Wolf Strikes (1940), Red-Haired Alibi (1932) and On Trial (1928). He was married to Katherine Miller. He died on 2 September 1961 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Handsome smart tall blonde Danish performer Johannes Meyer born in 1884. After graduating grom Gymnasium, Mayer applied twice to the Royal Theatre School and was twice rejected. He made his stage debut at the Dagmarteatret in Copenhagen in 1905 and went on to perform at nearly every theatre in Copenhagen. He appeared in more than 100 movies, making his first film playing the role of Erneste des Tressailles in Viggo Larsen's 'Revolutionsbryllup' at the Nordist Film Co in 1909, His most memorable role as Viktor Frandsen in Carl Theodor Dreyer's 'Master of the House' at the Palladium Film Co in 1925. He was mostly seen in character or supporting roles in many talkies from 1933 until his last film appearance playing the role of Bilvis in Gabriel Axel's 'Hagbard and Signe' in 1967. He was also active on radio and in T.V. dramas and was stage director of the Fonixteatret and Norrebros Theatre before he was hired by the Royal Theatre in 1941. Died in Denmark in 1972 age 88.

In his earlier days, Halliday seems to have relished the life of an adventurer. At one time he fought with the British Army during the Boer War. As a mining engineer he then dug for gold nuggets in Nevada, rapidly made a fortune and lost it as quickly. He eventually switched to the more peaceful pursuit of acting, initially in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, then in dramatic plays on Broadway from 1912 to 1936 (lastly in "Tovarich", as Prince Alexandrovitch). Though Brooklyn-born, Halliday was raised in England and often adopted an upper-crust British accent. An incisive and debonair actor with a penchant for sophisticated comedy, he received good reviews as co-star of The Woman Accused (1933) with Cary Grant and Nancy Carroll. He was very much at home playing caddish bon vivants, gleeful villains (such as in Terror Aboard (1933)) or wily arch rogues (notably Desire (1936) with Marlene Dietrich). Halliday had another pivotal role in Intermezzo (1939) and was then cast to best advantage as Katharine Hepburn's charming philanderer of a father in The Philadelphia Story (1940). He died in Honolulu, Hawaii, from a heart ailment in October 1947 at the age of 67.