As a kid, one of the treats of staying home sick (aside from Vernor's, a local Detroit ginger ale) was getting to watch Bill Kennedy at the movies. He would ramble on about "the good old days" in Hollywood, and had a tendency to reveal the denouement of the film during the last commercial break, but he seemed to have a lot of heart. To this day, if I pronounce "WWII" as "double-u double-u eye eye," it evokes knowing laughter from others who were raised on Bill's quirky ways.
Especially fun were movies with Bill in them. He would give background information about the filming and the other actors on the set. Then, he would point out his scene - he might be the young thug to the left of the screen brandishing the gun, or cowpoke number seven, but there was always a vicarious thrill. Years later, Spalding Gray made high art out of describing his thoughts at playing a minor character in "The Killing Fields." For those of us from Detroit, we already knew a bit of what it was like.