Edward S. Brophy (February 27, 1895 – May 27, 1960) was an American character actor, voice artist, and comedian. Small of build, balding, and raucous-voiced, he was known for portraying gangsters, both serious and comic.

In 1928, with only a few minor film roles to his credit, Brophy was working as a junior production executive for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when he was chosen to appear with Buster Keaton in one sequence of Keaton's film The Cameraman. As two clients in a bath-house, Brophy and Keaton attempt to undress and put on bathing suits while sharing a single tiny changing room. Each time Keaton attempts to hang his clothes on one hook, Brophy removes the clothes and hands them back to Keaton and gestures to the other hook. He manhandles the smaller, more slender Keaton, at one point picking him up by the feet and dumping him out of his trousers. Appearing only in this one brief scene, Brophy attracted enough attention to receive more and better roles. Most of his long and prolific career was spent at MGM.

Curt Bois (April 5, 1901 – December 25, 1991) was a German actor. He is best remembered for his performance as the Pickpocket in Casablanca (1942).

Bois was born in Berlin and began acting in 1907, becoming one of the film world's first child actors, with a role in the silent movie Bauernhaus und Grafenschloß. In 1909, he played the title role in Der Kleine Detektiv ('The Little Detective').

Bois' acting career spanned eighty years, a longer period than can be claimed by any other actor. His final performance was in 1987's Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). Bois performed in theatre, cabaret, musicals, silent film and "talkies" over his career as an actor.

In 1934, Bois was forced to leave his home for the United States, where he found work on stage on Broadway. By 1937, he had found his way to Hollywood, and began acting in American pictures, the best-known of which was Casablanca (1942), with a single speech warning about pickpockets as "vultures everywhere". After World War II Bois decided it was safe to return to Germany, which he did in 1950. He finished his life and career in Germany, first in the East, and finally in the West. Bois died in Berlin, the city of his birth, at the age of ninety.

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".

Buster Keaton (his lifelong stage name) was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st-greatest male star of all time. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies."

Orson Welles stated that Keaton's The General is "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made."

A 2002 worldwide poll by Sight & Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the magazine's survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator.

Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.

Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada, the son of Ukrainian parents. He grew up in San Francisco when his family moved to the United States. After his mother died, his father, Michael Dmytryk, remarried. At the age of 31, Dmytryk became a naturalized citizen.

Dmytryk made his directorial debut with The Hawk in 1935. His best known films from the pre-McCarthy period of his career were film noirs Crossfire, for which he received a Best Director Oscar nomination, and Murder, My Sweet, the latter an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely. In addition, he made two World War II films: Hitler's Children, the story of the Hitler youth and Back to Bataan starring John Wayne.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.

Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.