Edmond O'Brien (September 10, 1915 – May 9, 1985) was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. (1950) and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa (1954). His many memorable films included The Killers, White Heat, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Wild Bunch.

Born in New York, New York of English and Irish stock, O'Brien made his film debut in 1938, and gradually built a career as a highly regarded supporting actor. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces and appeared in the Air Forces' Broadway play and film Winged Victory.

He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a harried publicity agent in The Barefoot Contessa (1954) and was also nominated for his role as an alcoholic U.S. senator in Seven Days in May (1964). Prior to that, O'Brien had an acclaimed role in 1950's D.O.A. as a poisoned man who sets out to find his own murderer before he dies.

His other notable films include The Killers (1946), White Heat (1949), The Girl Can't Help It (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Longest Day (1962), Fantastic Voyage (1966), and The Wild Bunch (1969).

The O'Brien dynasty (Irish: Uí Briain or Ua Briain; Modern: Ó Briain; IPA:oːˈbʲɾʲiənʲ) are a royal and noble house founded in the 10th century by Brian Boru of the Dál gCais or Dalcassians. After becoming King of Munster, through conquest he established himself as Ard Rí na hÉireann (High King of Ireland). Brian's descendants thus carried the name O'Brien, continuing to rule the Kingdom of Munster until the 12th century where their territory had shrunk to the Kingdom of Thomond which they would hold for just under five centuries.

In total, four O'Briens ruled in Munster, and two held the High Kingship of Ireland (with opposition). After the partition of Munster into Thomond and the MacCarthy Kingdom of Desmond by Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair in the 12th century, the dynasty would go on to provide around thirty monarchs of Thomond until 1542. During part of this period in the late 13th century they had a rivalry with the Norman de Clare house, disputing the throne of Thomond. The last O'Brien to reign in Thomond was Murrough O'Brien who surrendered his sovereignty to the new Kingdom of Ireland under Henry VIII of the House of Tudor, becoming instead Earl of Thomond and maintaining a role in governance. Today the head carries the title of Prince of Thomond, and depending on succession sometimes also Baron Inchiquin.

Frank Lovejoy (March 28, 1912 – October 2, 1962) was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He was born Frank Andrew Lovejoy Jr. in Bronx, New York, but grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman from Maine. His mother, Nora, was born in Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents.

A successful radio actor, Lovejoy was heard on the 1930s crime drama series Gang Busters. Lovejoy was a narrator for the show This Is Your FBI. He played the title character on the syndicated The Blue Beetle during the 1940s, and starred in the later crime drama series Nightbeat in the early 1950s.

In films of the 1940s and 1950s, Lovejoy mostly played supporting roles. Appearing in movies such as Goodbye, My Fancy (1951) with Joan Crawford, and The Hitch-Hiker (1953) directed by Ida Lupino, Lovejoy was effective playing the movie's everyman in extraordinary situations. He was in several war movies, notably Joseph H. Lewis' Retreat, Hell! (1952) which portrayed the United States Marine Corps' retreat from the Chosin Reservoir (aka the Changjin Reservoir) during the Korean War. In 1951, he had the title role in I Was a Communist for the FBI with co-stars Ron Hagerthy, Paul Picerni, and Philip Carey.

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (born 22 October 1917), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s, at ages 94 and 95 respectively.

Fontaine is the only actress to have won an Academy Award for a performance in a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Suspicion.

She was born in Tokyo, Fontaine is the younger daughter of Walter Augustus de Havilland, a British patent attorney with a practice in Japan, and Lillian Augusta Ruse, a British actress known by her stage name of Lillian Fontaine. Her parents married in 1914, and were divorced in April 1925.

Joan Fontaine is the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland. Her paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, designer of the famous de Havilland Mosquito aeroplane. Fontaine became an American citizen in April 1943. Reportedly a sickly child who developed anaemia following a combined attack of the measles and a streptococcal infection,^{[dead link]} her mother moved her and her sister to the United States upon the advice of a physician.

Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes. Additionally, she contributed as a writer to five films and four TV episodes.

Lupino was born in 1918 into an English family of performers. Her father, Stanley Lupino, was a music hall comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald (1892–1959), was an actress. As a girl, Ida Lupino was encouraged to enter show business by both her parents and her uncle, Lupino Lane. She trained at RADA and made her first film appearance in The Love Race (1931), the next year making Her First Affaire. She played leading roles in five British films in 1933 at Warner Bros.' Teddington studios and for Julius Hagen at Twickenham, including in The Ghost Camera with John Mills and I Lived with You with Ivor Novello. She moved to Hollywood at the end of that year.