From my collection: JOEL DEAN & DEREK COOPER

Joel Dean played juveniles at Columbia Pictures from 1939. He was still available for work seven years later but did not earn any screen or television credits beyond 1942.

Derek Cooper was one of three performers signed exclusively by producer Hal Wallis in 1946. The other two were Lizabeth Scott, she of film noir fame, and Australian import Ann Richards. Wallis released through Paramount at the time.

                                                    

From my collection: RAY BARONS

Ray Barons' name appears in a couple of WW II melodramas and in 1948 he was signed by Columbia to appear in Mary Lou. To use the vernacular of the American Film Institute, his appearance in the final screen version could not be determined.

                                             

From my collection: ROBERT REGENT

Before appearing in a few films during World War II, Robert Regent starred opposite Eleanor Phelps on the CBS radio serial "Life and Love of Dr Susan" (1939).

I'll Sell My Life (1941)

Robert Regent plays Rose Hobart's blind artist brother (pictured) in this obscure crime "meller" (to use a typical Variety term) about a woman paid to accept culpability for a murder she didn't commit. It is a good performance as far as it goes but an awkward screenplay kills whatever merits the film may have had.

I knew the late great Rose Hobart quite well, having shared many Halloween and birthday parties in her company. I especially remember one occasion where, late at night and both of us two sheets to the wind, I had to hoist the nonagenarian Rose into a taxi van hired to take her back to the Motion a Picture Country House and Hospital in Calabassas, CA, where she resided in this the December of her long life.

From my collection; LEE ELSON

Hailing from Ohio, Lee Elson was under contract with RKO in 1946, playing a policeman in the classic noir Out of the Past (1947). Elson passed away in San Diego, CA, at the age of 79 in 1998.

                                    

From my collection: JOHN DEAUVILLE

Dancer John Deauville was listed among the 119 performers under term contract with Paramount Pictures in 1945. He hailed from New Haven, CT.

From my collection: GORDON CLARK alias BARON VON THRANE

Variously spelling his name "Clark" or "Clarke," this debonair performer went from being a stand-in for Douglas Faurbanks, Jr. in the late 1930s to playing bit roles well into the television era. But as a clipping from the 1938 fan publication HOLLYWOOD explained, Mr Clark's background was quite exotic:

                                     

As the caption to the still below suggests, Gordon did indeed use the moniker Baron Von Thrane:

"Just what the perfectly groomed film player wears in a romantic comedy is revealed in this photo of  Douglas Fairbanks (left) and his stand-in, Baron Von Thrane. Doug is rehearsing his lines for a scene with Dannielle Darrieux, French actress, in The Rage of Paris at Universal Studios."

Stage actor GARLAND BRUNTON

Stage actor and later radio writer/producer Garland Brunton listed himself available for "leading man" roles in the 1946 Academy Players Directory. Brunton, who had appeared on Broadway in "Falstaff" back in 1929, was born in California 24 July 1903 and passed away in Los Angeles, CA, on July 1, 1975. He is buried at famed Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  Brunton was also a songwriter of note.