The Old Cast Is Together Again : Retirement: As a home for movie and television industry members nears its 50th birthday, residents share a wealth of memories.

In 1941, as America went to war, Hollywood went to work.

It produced two masterpieces--Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” and John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon”--and amassed a body of art rarely rivaled in any year since.

That wasn’t all.

Fifty years ago, groundbreaking ceremonies were held in Woodland Hills for the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Country House and Hospital, a retirement home for members of the industry. Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple showed up that day to fulfill the dream of film pioneers who recognized a need to treat colleagues who weren’t as fortunate.

Today, the 21-acre facility has 150 permanent residents, a 256-bed hospital and an Alzheimer’s unit. Patients take leisurely walks on the well-groomed grounds and sit in the Louis B. Mayer Theater to watch first-run movies sent by the studios twice a week.

They are together again. For the last time.

“There is a kind of therapeutic feeling to have people take care of you that recognize who you are and where you came from,” said William Haug, executive director of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which oversees the facility.

This is not just a home for old actors. Its residents represent all segments of the movie and TV industry--costume designers, sound technicians, film editors, etc. The only entrance requirement is 20 years of employment in the business. Many remain on waiting lists for as long as five years. “We believe in doing things for our own,” Haug said.

On Sept. 22, the groundbreaking ceremony will be reenacted, kicking off a season of fund-raising efforts.

Following are the stories of four residents--an actor, an actress, a costumer and a tap dancer.

Whit Bissell, actor

At 81, the face isn’t familiar anymore.

He plays all his scenes in slow motion these days. Without cameras.

Whit Bissell may be in retirement, but his five decades as an actor live on in celluloid. And in memories.

“I always wanted to be a character actor,” said Bissell, who fulfilled his lifetime ambition in films such as “The Desperate Hours” (1955), “Gunfight at the OK Corral” (1957), “Creature From the Black Lagoon” (1954) and “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962). Many younger fans remember him best for his two-year stint as the general in the science-fiction television series “The Time Tunnel” (1966-67).

Going back in time still comes naturally to him.

The scene is 1946. The war is over, but Bissell has a new battle--unemployment. Low on money and confidence, he is bailed out by his friend, veteran actor Fredric March, who won an Academy Award for “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

It made Bissell’s year too.

“He asked me if I could use any money,” Bissell recalled. “And then he went into his den and handed me a $1,000 check. I damn near fainted. It was such a great gesture that I knew I could make it.”

And he did. Bissell didn’t conquer Hollywood; he survived it, which may be even more impressive. That includes blacklisting.

“For six months, I couldn’t get a job,” said Bissell, who was identified as a communist. “I was in a blind alley, and I didn’t know what they were saying.”

In 1954, Bissell bounced back in “The Caine Mutiny,” working with Humphrey Bogart. He didn’t retire until 1989. He developed tight friendships with some of Hollywood’s elite, including John Gielgud and Bette Davis.

Bissell is still hard on himself.

“I’m not complaining, but I didn’t stretch myself as an actor,” said Bissell, who often played the mild-mannered authority figure. “I got stereotyped.” (Ironically, though, perhaps his best-known movie role remains the mad psychiatrist who turns young Michael Landon into a beast in the 1957 cult favorite, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.”)

These days, Bissell is comfortable at the Woodland Hills facility. His health has dramatically improved since he became a resident two years ago.

But something is missing.

“I’d like to have another good part,” he said. “If anyone offered me a part tomorrow, I’d jump at it.”

Rose Hobart, actress

Rose Hobart, 85, assumed that she’d last six months at the industry home. That was nine years ago.

Then again, Hobart has never done the expected.

The normal routine for actresses in her heyday--the 1930s--was to sign long-term contracts with the major studios. Trade freedom for fame.

Hobart didn’t feel that it was a fair exchange. After two years of servitude to Universal, Hobart became a free agent.

The price was probably her career.

“That’s why I never became a star because without the studios, you don’t get the buildup,” said Hobart, who appeared in mostly secondary roles in 43 pictures, including “East of Borneo” (1931) and “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” (1932).

There is no touch of regret in Hobart’s voice. Unlike so many of her contemporaries, she never compromised. Not even when the hunt for red infiltrators spread to Tinseltown, implicating her for her involvement with the Actors Lab, a company of actors who participated in classes and small productions. The House Un-American Activities Committee called her to testify.

She offered no names and gave no apologies.

She also got no roles.

“I remember when a casting director simply told me that I had been blacklisted,” Hobart said. “I was livid. I also knew I had done it to myself. I had spoken out against what I considered unfair treatment of people in Hollywood.”

For the most part, Hobart starred in B-movies, including “The Soul of a Monster” (1944), in which she played the devil’s emissary. She calls “East of Borneo” the “schlockiest movie ever made.” After her film career ended, she appeared on television, becoming a regular on “Peyton Place.”

Hobart doesn’t dwell in the past.

“Everyone thinks we sit around here and reminisce,” Hobart said. “That’s not true at all.”

Still, Hobart says the pecking order at the retirement home reminds her of her Hollywood days.

“There are certain people here who won’t speak to me because I was an actress, and they think I feel I’m more important.”

Elva Martien, costumer

Much of the world has one view of Joan Crawford. Elva Martien has another.

For 17 years, Martien, 85, worked as Crawford’s costumer. They became friends. And the loyalty to the famous actress continues 14 years after her death.

“I never saw anything but a wonderful human being,” said Martien, disputing the account by Crawford’s adopted daughter, Christina, that her mother abused her children. “She always expressed her love and listened to the kids’ problems. There was never a night that she didn’t take time and talk to each of them.”

Martien’s eyes welled up. She misses her best friend. Crawford’s picture hangs from the wall of her small cottage. It all seems like yesterday.

“We used to go around the world together,” said Martien, staying on her favorite subject. “On location, she’d get up and make breakfast for me every day.”

Someone was always there for Martien. When she first arrived in Los Angeles in 1944, no affordable rooms were available. She shuttled between temporary dwellings, finally landing at the home of a rich Los Angeles socialite she met through a work contact.

After less than a year working for a Beverly Hills boutique, Martien got work as an assistant to a costume designer in the motion picture business. From the start, she was fascinated with Crawford.

“You couldn’t put anything on this woman that would make her look bad,” Martien said. “She had such a wonderful body.”

Martien described how, during 1949’s “Flamingo Road,” trying to make Crawford look dowdy was impossible.

“No matter what we did, she looked great,” Martien said.

But Martien didn’t get along with every movie star. Once, actress Lilli Palmer, who appeared in such films as “The High Commissioner” (1968) and “Jack of Diamonds” (1967), asked Martien to fetch her a cup of coffee.

“I told her that I didn’t get coffee,” Martien said. “I never had any problems with her again. You don’t do errands for these people. You only do your job.”

Fayard Nicholas, dancer

Fayard Nicholas can’t sit still for an entire interview. He’s always talked with his feet and, at 76, he’s not about to change.

He starts to tap dance. The steps, as always, are graceful, electric. It is the 1940s all over again.

“When I’m on stage,” Nicholas said, “I’m home. It’s been my life.”

And it still is. Along with his brother, Harold, Nicholas formed the dynamic black dancing duo, the Nicholas Brothers. They toured the nation for decades and appeared in such films as “Sun Valley Serenade” (1941) and “Stormy Weather” (1943).

Nicholas will never retire. Two years ago, he received a Tony Award for best choreography for the musical “Black and Blue.” And just last week, the brothers were among the winners of the 1991 Kennedy Center Honors, awarded for outstanding contributions to the nation’s cultural life.

Periodically, Nicholas entertains residents at the home, flashing his old acrobatic moves.

For him, the look back is one of peace. Even the hectic schedule--he claims he worked 52 weeks a year--never lessened his devotion to show business.

These days, he does more talking than dancing. But the animation is still there.

“I’m not looking at my feet,” Nicholas said, explaining his style. “I don’t have to look down there. I know what my feet are going to do. So many dancers today look at their feet. I look at the audience.”

The Nicholas Brothers made their professional debut in 1929 at a burlesque house in Philadelphia. They followed a striptease act.

“We got some of the guys to turn their attention away from the girls,” Nicholas said.

Yet, as prominent as they became, Fayard Nicholas knows that the brothers could have been more famous.

“I’m not bitter,” he said. “But if we had been white, we would have been with the leading ladies. We would have been dancing with Ginger Rogers, not Fred Astaire.”

Ironically, Nicholas said, he never thought that “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” would be a hit. The Nicholas Brothers sang the song in “Sun Valley Serenade.”

“I thought it was the worst song in the world,” Nicholas said. “Glen Miller thought so too. It just shows you that you never know these things.”