Austin Cedric Gibbons (March 23, 1893 – July 26, 1960) was an Irish American art director and production designer who was one of the most important and influential in the field in the history of American film. He also made a great impact on motion picture theater architecture through the 1930s to 1950s, the period considered the golden-era of theater architecture. He is credited as the designer of the Oscar statuette in 1928.

Gibbons was born in Dublin, Ireland and studied at the Art Students League of New York and worked for his architect father. While at Edison Studios from 1915, he first designed a set for a film released in 1919, assisting Hugo Ballin. But, after this first foray, the studio closed, and he signed with Samuel Goldwyn in 1918. This evolved to working for Louis B. Mayer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1924 to 1956—a 32-year career.

Gibbons was one of the original 36 founding members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and oversaw the design of the Academy Awards statuette in 1928, a trophy for which he himself would be nominated 39 times, winning 11—second only to Walt Disney, who won 26.

Jacques Feyder (21 July 1885 – 24 May 1948) was a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director who worked principally in France, but also in the USA, Britain and Germany. He was a leading director of silent films during the 1920s, and in the 1930s he became associated with the style of poetic realism in French cinema. He adopted French nationality in 1928.

Born Jacques Frédérix in Ixelles, Belgium, he was educated at the École régimentaire in Nivelles, and was destined for a military career. At age twenty-five however he moved to Paris where he pursued an interest in acting, first on stage and then in film, adopting the name Jacques Feyder. He joined the Gaumont Film Company and in 1914 he became an assistant director with Gaston Ravel. He started directing films for Gaumont in 1916, but his career was interrupted by service with the Belgian army during 1917-1919.

Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990), born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of her films were sensational hits, and all but three of her twenty-four Hollywood films were profitable. Garbo was nominated four times for an Academy Award and received an honorary one in 1954 for her "luminous and unforgettable screen performances". She also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for both Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1936). In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of greatest female stars of all time, after Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman.

Garbo launched her career with a leading role in the 1924 Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling. Her performance caught the attention of Louis B. Mayer, chief executive of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), who brought her to Hollywood in 1925. She immediately stirred interest with her first silent film, Torrent, released in 1926; a year later, her performance in Flesh and the Devil, her third movie, made her an international star.

Lew Ayres (born Lewis Frederick Ayres III; December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor, best known for starring as Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front and for playing Dr. Kildare in several movies, which was apt since originally he had studied medicine at the University of Arizona.

Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and reared in San Diego, California. Ayres began acting in bit player roles in films in 1927. He was discovered that year playing banjo in the Henry Halstead Orchestra as Halstead was recording one of the earliest Vitaphone movie shorts called Carnival Night in Paris (Warner Brothers, 1927). Ayres wrote, "I was a member of Henry Halstead's orchestra in 1927 at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego, California for the summer. My instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar. After a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Year's Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a memorable occasion."

Harriet Hoctor (September 25, 1905 — June 9, 1977) was a ballerina, dancer, actress and instructor from Hoosick Falls, New York. Composer George Gershwin composed a symphonic orchestral piece (Hoctor's Ballet) specifically for Hoctor in the film Shall We Dance (1937).

Born to Timothy Hoctor and Elizabeth Kearny, Harriet Hoctor was one of four children, the others being Martin Francis ("Frank"), John, and Eloise. Harriet Hoctor never married.

Hoctor's maternal aunt, Annie Kearney, was a social secretary to a wealthy woman in Hoosick Falls who took an interest in young Harriet. At the age of twelve she was sent to New York City and placed under the tutelage of Russian ballet master Louis H. Chalif of the Normal School of Dancing. In 1930 Hoctor lived with Kearney in a house on Murray Hill, Manhattan, just around the corner from the home of J. Pierpont Morgan.^{[citation needed]}

By the time she was sixteen, Hoctor was touring in vaudeville on the same bill as the Duncan Sisters. She was asked to join their act and became a key player in their Topsy and Eva show presented on Broadway. Hoctor appeared in a doll ballet and was informed that Florenz Ziegfeld was offering her a trial part in his production of The Three Musketeers (1928). By 1929, she was given the first opportunity to dance during a ballet staging of George Gershwin's An American in Paris.^{[citation needed]}