Barbara Bedford may refer to:
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Coordinates: 52°08′01″N 0°27′28″W / 52.1337°N 0.4577°W / 52.1337; -0.4577
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 80,000 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town of Kempston. The Bedford Urban Area which includes Kempston, Elstow and Biddenham forms the 71st largest Urban Area in the UK with a population of 101,928. The wider borough, including a rural area, had a population of 153,000.[citation needed]
The name of the town is thought to derive from the name of a Saxon chief called Beda, and a ford crossing the River Great Ouse. Bedford was a market town for the surrounding agricultural region from the early Middle Ages[citation needed] The Anglo-Saxon King Offa of Mercia was buried in the town in 796. In 886 it became a boundary town separating Wessex and Danelaw. It was the seat of the Barony of Bedford. In 919 Edward the Elder built the town's first known fortress, on the south side of the River Ouse and there received the area's submission. This fortress was destroyed by the Danes. William II gave the barony of Bedford to Paine de Beauchamp who built a new, strong castle. The new Bedford Castle was razed in 1224 and today only a mound remains.
William Surrey Hart (December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946) was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity."
Hart was born in Newburgh, New York; to James Howard Hart (1829–1902) and Katherine Diédricht Hart (1833–1909). William had 2 brothers and 4 sisters. His father was of Irish ancestry, and his mother was of German heritage. In his twenties, Hart began his acting career on stage and would not consider acting in movies until he was 49 years of age. He toured and traveled extensively while trying to make a name for himself as an actor, and for a time coached shows at the Asheville Opera House around year 1900. His family had moved to Asheville but after his youngest sister Lotta died of typhoid fever they all left together for Brooklyn until William went back on tour.
A successful Shakespearean actor on Broadway who had worked with Margaret Mather and other stars, he appeared in the original 1899 stage production of Ben-Hur.
Lucien Littlefield (August 16, 1895, San Antonio, Texas — June 4, 1960, Hollywood, California) was an American actor in the silent film era. He later made numerous cameo appearances on television series.
His role of the doctor in The Cat and the Canary (1927) is one of his more notable performances. He appeared with Laurel and Hardy, first as an eccentric professor in Dirty Work, and finally as a vet in their classic feature Sons of the Desert, both made in 1933. He also played Mary Pickford's father in My Best Girl in 1927. Other roles include Tumbleweeds, with William S. Hart , Ruggles of Red Gap, with Charles Laughton, and Johnny Come Lately, with James Cagney.
He played an eccentric inventor in an early Adventures of Superman episode called "The Runaway Robot". Littlefield played many character roles in other TV shows of the 1950's, such as Blondie, Lassie, Dragnet and Peter Gunn.
He died in 1960 and was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery (April 1, 1885 - April 15, 1949) was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 movies over a 36-year span.
Beery was born in Kansas City, Missouri to Noah W. and Marguerite (Fitzgerald) Beery. He was a younger brother of actor/film executive William Beery and actor Noah Beery, who also had long careers in the motion picture industry, and was an uncle of actor Noah Beery, Jr., whose own screen career spanned seven decades. According to U.S. Census records, all three Beery brothers were born to the same parents, making them full brothers and not half-brothers as many biographies have claimed[citation needed].
Wallace Beery ran away from home and joined the Ringling Brothers Circus at age sixteen as an assistant elephant trainer. He left two years later, after being clawed by a leopard. Beery found work in New York City in comic opera as a baritone and began to appear on Broadway. In 1913, he moved to Chicago to work for Essanay Studios, cast as Sweedie, The Swedish Maid, a masculine character in drag. Later, he worked for the Essanay Studios location in Niles, California.