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For me and legendary French actress Anouk Aimée, it was love at first sight. Distinctly one-sided, mind you, since we never actually met. Yet precisely which of her films made me fall, suddenly and hard, I can’t recall.

“Who’s the greatest actor of all time?” When that unanswerable question gets asked in my circles, I tend to hear four names repeated: Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, Laurence Olivier, and Daniel Day-Lewis.

In the first two decades of television, many a star from Hollywood’s Golden Age found both a warm reception and a welcome paycheck on the small screen as their movie careers were waning. That move happens almost as frequently today with paid cable series enjoying immense popularity.

Actress Shirley MacLaine once observed: “An actor has many lives and many people within him. I know there are lots of people inside me. No one ever said I'm dull.” That’s for sure. Over the years, this irrepressible lady has sparked considerable bafflement and controversy over her outspoken views on reincarnation, extraterrestrials, and other New Age thinking.

On the night of January 30, 1937 in London, Laurence Olivier took the stage during the intermission of “Hamlet” to announce the birth of his co-star Michael Redgrave’s first child. Addressing the audience, he said: “Tonight a great actress is born.” His words were prophetic.

In this relatively enlightened age, it’s horrifying to consider how gay people were treated by society just half a century ago. Back then, being closeted was not an option but a necessity. As the 1960s dawned, homosexuality was still deemed an illness and a crime across the globe. Those caught and convicted often went to prison, and then were ostracized, their lives ruined.

Buster became part of his parents’ act when he was just three, and the routine he did with his father made full use of the the tiny young boy’s uncanny flexibility. It involved young Buster goading his Dad to the point where the older man would knock the kid around the stage, or even throw him off it. A luggage handle was sown into young Buster’s costume to make it easier to toss him. The act was often billed as “The Little Boy Who Can’t Be Damaged.”

 He might not like to hear it, but it’s hard to think of anyone who was more of a Hollywood natural than Warren Beatty. He was born Henry Warren Beaty in 1937. He exemplified that old saying: women wanted him, and men wanted to be him. And what made him so appealing what that he wasn't the least bit self-conscious about who he was or what he had.

If any movie star was larger than life, it was Burt Lancaster. This athletic, vibrant man with the thousand-watt smile bequeathed to us a stellar body of work that, like the actor himself, simply cannot be ignored. A look at the trajectory of his career also reveals a savvy businessman whose mind was as strong and agile as his physique.