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Cold, calculating and hard-as-nails is probably the best definition of Gail Patrick's femmes on the 30s and 40s silver screen, and the actress herself was no softie in real life. The tall, slender, patrician beauty was born with the equally stately-sounding name Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 20, 1911. She received a B.A. and was a dean of women at her alma mater, Howard College, for a time. She was studying pre-law at the University of Alabama at the time she, by happenstance, became a finalist in a nationwide contest for a Paramount film role (which she did not get). This led her to go to Hollywood and, despite her loss, the studio wound up offering her a studio contract at $50 a week (she managed to finagle her way to $75).

After the usual grooming in bit parts, Gail moved stealthily up the ladder to featured roles in a wide assortment of genres including the fantasy Death Takes a Holiday (1934), the melodramatic thriller The Crime of Helen Stanley (1934), the musical Mississippi (1935) and the easy comedy Early to Bed (1936). Just as quickly she began essaying the occasional co-star or leading lady -- that of a woman lawyer in Disbarred (1939) and a romantic diversion in the Zane Grey western adaptations of Wagon Wheels (1934) and Wanderer of the Wasteland (1935). She was most identified, however, in manipulative second leads while usually tangling with the star femme as the "other woman," haughty socialite or scheming villainess.

Gail participated grandly in three well-known film classics. In the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (1936), she was at odds with Carole Lombard as a spoiled, treacherous sister; in Stage Door (1937), she engaged in some marvelous cat-fights with Ginger Rogers as a cynical wannabe actress, and in My Favorite Wife (1940) she played Cary Grant's exacting second wife who must contend with the reappearance of his first, supposedly dead wife Irene Dunne. Gail exuded wit, confidence, assertiveness and elegance in all her characters, nothing less, and her male co-stars were the sturdiest assortment Hollywood could offer -- Bing Crosby, Randolph Scott, Richard Dix, John Howard, Preston Foster, Dean Jagger and George Sanders.

In 1947, she did an abrupt about-face and left her highly respectable career following her third marriage. After involving herself successfully in clothing design, she became (as Gail Patrick Jackson) the executive producer of the Perry Mason (1957) TV series (1957-1966), alongside producer and husband (Thomas) Cornwell Jackson, who was a literary agent to author/creator Erle Stanley Gardner. The courtroom "whodunnit" was a long and highly successful run. She and Jackson divorced in 1969, and one of her few failures in life was in her attempt to revive the series with The New Perry Mason (1973) in 1973, but Monte Markham was a mighty pale comparison to Raymond Burr in the title role and the show quickly tanked. Divorced three times, she and Mr. Jackson had two adopted children. She was married to her fourth husband John Velde Jr., at the time of her death in 1980 of leukemia. She was 69.

Mary Hignett was born on 31 March 1916 in Madras, Madras Presidency, British India. She was an actress, known for Doomwatch (1970), Jane Eyre (1956) and All Creatures Great & Small (1978). She was married to Michael Brennan. She died on 6 July 1980 in Chichester, Sussex, England, UK.

Jane Lambert was born on 21 January 1921 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Fury (1978), Sanford and Son (1972) and ABC Saturday Comedy Special (1976). She died on 6 July 1980 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

Born in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1918, Frank Cordell (his full original name) won a Melody Maker poll at age 17 for most promising jazz pianist of 1935. However, his skills at arranging and conducting were acquired while serving in the RAF (1940-1946), during which time he was appointed musical director of Forces Radio. In 1947 Frank married Magda Lustigova, a 26-year-old Hungarian artist who in 1952 would become a founding member of The Independent Group (IG), a British art movement best known for launching Pop Art. Also in 1947, Frank joined the BBC as composer and arranger for radio and television, and his most notable radio score was the historical drama The Gay Galliard (1951) starring Valerie Hobson as Mary, Queen of Scots. His film scores date from 1952, and he composed music for many advertising commercials. Leaving the BBC in 1955, he became musical director of HMV Records (later EMI) up to 1962. Apart from his feature film scores, he scored the eight-part cliffhanger serial Project Z (1968) for the Children's Film Foundation, and music for several TV series. Although usually based in London, he travelled to Japan to score Flight from Ashiya (1964). Today, Frank Cordell is chiefly remembered for scoring two large-scale epics Khartoum (1966) and then Cromwell (1970) for which he received an Oscar nomination. In between film scores he wrote concert hall works including the Concerto for Cello, the Concerto for Horn and a wind quartet entitled Interplay. Before his untimely death in Hastings in 1980 at the age of 62 he scored two documentary shorts, Tiger Tiger (1977) and Fathers of Pop (1979), the latter of which charted the story of The Independent Group. Magda married fellow IG founder John McHale and adopted the professional name Magda Cordell McHale. Frank Cordell's original manuscripts are preserved at the Trinity College of Music in London.

Paul Malcolm was born on 12 March 1903 in Virginia, USA. He is known for Hell's Belles (1969), Dante (1960) and High Tide (1947). He died on 6 July 1980 in Los Angeles, California, USA.