Virginia Cherrill (April 12, 1908 – November 14, 1996) was an American actress best known for her role as the blind flower girl in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931).

Virginia Cherrill was born on a farm in rural Carthage, Illinois, to James E. and Blanche (née Wilcox) Cherrill. She initially did not plan on a film career, but her friendship with Sue Carol (who would later marry Alan Ladd) eventually drew her to Hollywood. She had been voted "Queen of the Artists Ball" in Chicago in 1925 and was invited to perform on the variety stage by Florence Ziegfeld, an offer she declined. She found her first marriage unsatisfying and, courtesy of her friendship with Lederer, decamped to California where she would meet William Randolph Hearst. When she went to Hollywood for a visit, she met Charlie Chaplin when he sat next to her at a boxing match.

Chaplin soon cast her in City Lights. Although the film and her performance were well-received, her working relationship with Chaplin on the film was often strained. As indicated in the documentary Unknown Chaplin, Cherrill was in fact fired from the film for leaving the set for a hairdressing appointment at one point and Chaplin planned to refilm all her scenes with Georgia Hale, but ultimately realized too much money had already been spent on the picture. Cherrill recalls in the documentary that she followed close friend Marion Davies's advice to hold out for more money when Chaplin asked her to return to the film.

Virginia (ⁱ/vərˈdʒɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.

The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914. From the April 1914 one-reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin was identified with left-wing politics during the McCarthy era and he was ultimately forced to resettle in Europe from 1952.

Georgia Hale (June 24, 1905 (or June 25, 1900 ) – June 7, 1985) was an actress of the silent movie era.

Georgia Theodora Hale was Miss Chicago 1922 and competed in the Miss America Pageant. She began acting in the early 1920s, and achieved one of her most notable successes with her role in Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925).

Chaplin cast Hale in his film based on her performance in The Salvation Hunters, which also came out in 1925. The Gold Rush temporarily made her a star, but she did not survive the transition from silent film to sound, and she did not act in films after 1928. The documentary Unknown Chaplin revealed that Hale was hired by Chaplin to replace actress Virginia Cherrill as the female lead in the film City Lights (1931) during a brief period after he had fired Cherrill (and before he re-hired her). Approximately seven minutes of test footage of Hale in the role survives and is included in the DVD release of the film and excerpts appear in Unknown Chaplin. The editor's introduction to Hale's memoir also reveals that she was Chaplin's original choice for the female lead in his film The Circus, a role eventually played by Merna Kennedy.^{[citation needed]}

Charles Starrett (March 28, 1903 - March 22, 1986) was an American actor best known for his starring role in the Durango Kid Columbia Pictures western series. He was born in Athol, Massachusetts.

A graduate of Worcester Academy in 1922, Starrett went on to study at Dartmouth College. While on the Dartmouth football team, he was hired to play a football extra in the 1926 film The Quarterback. In 1930 he played the romantic lead in Fast and Loose, which also featured Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard and Frank Morgan. He also starred in the Canadian production The Viking (1931), filmed on location in Newfoundland, which had begun as a Paramount Pictures project.

After that, he was very active for the next two years but his roles were unremarkable. In 1933 he was featured in Our Betters and helped organize the Screen Actors Guild, and in 1936 signed with Columbia Pictures and become one of the top ten western stars, starring in 115 movies the following 16 years.

After playing assorted sheriff and rangers roles, Starrett gained fame for his role as the Durango Kid. The first film in which he played his famous alter-ego character was known as The Durango Kid, which was released in 1940, but for some reason, Columbia did not see fit to continue with the series at that time. The character was revived in 1944 and lasted through 1952. Dub Taylor, as "Cannonball", worked with Starrett until 1946. At that time, Smiley Burnette, who had been a very popular sidekick to Gene Autry, was brought in to replace Taylor. Burnette, appropriately enough, played a character called Smiley Burnette. The Durango Kid films combined vigorous action sequences – often with speeded up camera work and spectacular stunts performed by Jock Mahoney – and western music. Each film featured a singing group, and many gave free rein to Burnette's singing and playing.