Every night, movies bring to life the big white screen at the Clyde Theater. From action adventure, comedy and drama, the stories reach out to the audience that fills the small Langley theater.

Monday night the movie experience expands, as “Hollywood Behind the Scenes” takes a look at the action behind the screen, in the back lots of Hollywood and in the lives of some of Tinsel Town’s most famous names.

At “Hollywood Behind the Scenes,” a panel of seven locals will give a glimpse behind that big white screen through the stories of their roles in making movies and TV shows.

“It’s a little reality check as to what it’s like behind the scenes, because at the Clyde we just see the end product,” said Lynn Willeford, co-owner of the Clyde. “People will be able to meet who wrote the script for a movie, wrote the music, did the sound, acted in it, and all these other roles it takes to get it to the screen.”

“Hollywood Behind the Scenes” is a major fund-raiser for Friends of Friends Medical Support Fund, the all-volunteer community-supported safety net that helps South Whidbey residents uncovered medically related expenses.

“Everyone I know knows someone who is two paychecks away from needing us, and because we know this, the community has been good about adopting Friends of Friends,” said Willeford, who is also the founder of Friends of Friends.

“Hollywood Behind the Scenes” is one of only two big events held each year with fundraising on a lesser scale throughout the year to help off set Friends of Friends operating costs.

The first “Hollywood Behind the Scenes” was held in October of 2001, and its popularity demand an encore.

This year, panelists Steffi Sidney-Splaver and Richard Evans will start the group off talking about old Hollywood and its golden age.

The daughter of Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, Sidney-Splaver grew up as Hollywood royalty. James Cagney even paced the waiting room with her father the night she was born.

“Jimmy and my dad were good friends, and my dad didn’t drive too much so he needed a ride,” she said.

It wasn’t unusual in her house growing up that Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and James Cagney were good friends of the family, and that Shirley Temple invited her and her parents to birthday parties.

Back then Hollywood was a town, a company town where everyone knew each other, Sidney-Splaver said.

“To network back then, everyone just hung out. My father ate at Chasen’s every Thursday and went to Schwab’s often,” she said. “Back then everyone went to bed early because they knew they had to get up at six the next morning.”

She began acting when she was 17. Sidney-Splaver was 20 when cast along side Natalie Wood and James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.”

“Jimmy,” as she refers to Dean, was in almost every scene that she was, but the on screen dialogue was limited. Even so, she chatted with Dean between takes.

“In the observatory scene he was sitting behind me, so he’s leaning over and talking to me between takes,” she said.

She even spent six weeks on Payton Place at the same time as another actor who would later live on Whidbey Island — Richard Evans.

Evan’s 36-year acting career, he’s worked with Jack Nicholson, Slim Pickens, three Lassies, George C. Scott and on movies and shows from “Nickel Ride” to “Gunsmoke.”

At the Clyde event, his wife, Jo, will share her experience as a casting director for commercial and industrial films from 1976-1992. She cast Robin Williams in his first commercial. Also thanks to Jo Evens, Michelle Pfeiffer and Drew Barrymore broke onto the scene.

The “Hollywood” panel consists of locals who come from all walks of Hollywood life, are currently or have worked in film or TV, and who have held numerous roles during their Tinsel Town days, including film composer and conductor Artie Kane, who is making a return engagement.

“Last time, the diversity of the people on stage was great,” Kane said. “We had almost one of everybody involved in the process, and it turned out we had a lot more in common than we thought.”

After a lot of movies at the Clyde, Willeford said, the audience applauds, but mostly for the people on screen. On Monday night, they will applaud again, for the people whose names show up a little further down in the credits.