Who is Joe Yore?

Former Marine and Korean War era veteran. Actor, singersongwriter, career movie extra, dabbler in property and career autograph hound.

Retired, he's also a local environmental activist and a selfproclaimed City Hall "agitator" in Palmdale, Calif.

Enter his home and you walk into a Hollywood backlot of the mind. Images of Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe abound on the walls covered with photographs, figurines, dolls, statuary and masks.

The Hollywood bug bit Yore early as he made his way west in the late 1950s from Cameron County. During his Hollywood period, spanning about 30 years, he collaborated with Debbie Reynolds on "Am I That Easy to Forget?" He was an extra in Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told."

Over the decades, Yore managed to amass a collection of movie posters and memorabilia that a museum curator would envy. Then he donated 1,050 movie posters to the library of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"You get to a point in your life where you've collected enough and you want to give something back," Yore said. "When I die, I don't want my stuff trashed. It's not junk."