Trivia: An shy, slender actor whose name became virtually synonymous with legendary screen Psycho Norman Bates despite numerous solid performances in films outside the Hitchcock originated series, Anthony Perkins' sensitive and versatile early performances remain unfortunately obscured by his portrayal of the gender-bending sociopath that made filmgoers reluctant to shower alone for decades to come. Born to actor Osgood Perkins in April 1932 (who would die when Tony was but five years old), the young Perkins decided to follow in his father's footsteps when, at age 15, he became a member of the Actor's Equity. Soon taking the stage in summer stock, the fledgling and humble thespian embraced even the more unglamorous aspects of stage work and worked tirelessly to develop into an actor who could find celluloid success. Subsequent performances in such Rollins College productions as The Importance of Being Ernest helped him to develop the necessary skills, and following a relocation to Hollywood, Perkins was cast alongside Spencer Tracy in the film adaptation of Ruth Gordon's dramatic play The Actress. Reluctant to dive headfirst into what he considered the questionable ethics of Tinsletown, Perkins packed his bags for Columbia University. Landing roles in such Golden Age of Television staples as Studio One and G.E. Theater found the actor continuing to gain positive notice and exposure, with the success carrying over to Broadway, where Perkins would gain the respect of some of New York's harshest critics for his performance as a college student suspected of homosexuality in Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy. Nearly becoming a teen idol after crooning "A Little Love Goes a Long, Long Way" in the Goodyear TV Playhouse production Joey, Perkins was signed to Epic Records and later RCA Victor shortly before earning an Oscar nomination for his breakthrough roles in both William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (1956) and Robert Mulligan's Fear Strikes Out (1957). With his portrayal as a timid pacifist and a disturbed baseball player respectively, Perkins' sensitive performances riveted audiences and resulted in numerous film offers. Appearing in The Matchmaker (1958) and On the Beach (1959) in the following years, Perkins' screen image as a soft-spoken everyman would be forever shattered with the release of Alfred Hitchcock's controversial masterpiece Psycho. Purposefully cast against type as twitchy, psychotic mama's boy Norman Bates, it would be that characterization which would haunt Perkins' career for the rest of his days. In an attempt to shake the association, Perkins would move to Europe after becoming a minor cultural icon following his role in Goodbye Again (1961) (for which he was named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival). Appearing in such efforts as Orson Welles' The Trial (1963) and Is Paris Buring? (1966) throughout much of the duration of the 1960s, Perkins made somewhat of a return to American screens with such later efforts as Pretty Poison (1968), Catch-22 (1970), and Mahogany (1975). Working more frequently in television moving into the 1980s (1978's Les Miserables and The Sins of Dorian Gray [1983]), Perkins also continued to thrill theatergoers with roles in such films as The Black Hole (1979) and Ffolkes (1980) before returning to the character of Norman Bates in the inevitable sequel Psycho II. Directed this time by Hitchcock protégé Richard Franklin, the film proved a success and ranked among the top ten releases of 1983. From this point forward there would be little deviation from the twitchy theatricals that Perkins had perfected, and though entertaining in such efforts as Crimes of Passion (1984) and Edge of Sanity (1989), contemporary audiences would sadly witness little of the talented actor's pre-Psycho dramatic range. Associated almost exclusively with horror films by the onset of the 1990s, Perkins would return to the role of Bates for one last outing in the made-for-cable Psycho IV: The Beginning before serving as host to the short-lived television horror anthology series Chillers (1990). Taking the director's chair for the curious but widely ignored Psycho III (1986), it was only a short time later that Perkins would learn of his contraction of the virus that causes AIDS after reading of it in the tabloids. Working tirelessly alongside his longtime wife, Berry Berenson, for Project Angel Food (a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing meals to AIDS patients) in his later years, Perkins' philosophical statements regarding the ravaging disease that many considered a curse of humanity showed neither bitterness, anger, nor resentment toward the disease, but that his experiences in dealing with it had taught him more about compassion and love than he ever learned in his years in the film industry. On September 12, 1992, Perkins succumbed to AIDS-related pneumonia in Hollywood, CA, leaving behind a haunting but hopeful message to those who have suffered from the disease in an uncredited epilogue to the AIDS drama And the Band Played On (1993). Perkins left behind a son, who also embarked on an acting career with such efforts as Legally Blonde and Not Another Teen Movie (both 2001). Tragically, Perkins' wife was a passenger on one of the terrorist-hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center a day before the nine-year anniversary of Perkins' death.

Trivia: A leading teen ingénue of the 1950s and 1960s, Tuesday Weld later emerged as one of the more intriguing actresses in Hollywood, delivering a string of well-received performances in the kinds of offbeat and idiosyncratic projects rarely visited by performers of her beauty and glamour. Born Susan Weld August 27, 1943, in New York City, the name "Tuesday" was an extension of a girlhood nickname, "Tu-Tu." She began working as a child model at age four to help support her family after the death of her father, quickly moving from mail-order catalogues to television commercials. She made her film debut in 1963's Rock, Rock, Rock before understudying in Broadway's 1957 production of The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Upon signing a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox, Weld was labeled by the press as "Fox's answer to Sandra Dee," but after just one film, 1959's Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!, the studio dropped her.Weld shot to prominence through her work in the television comedy The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which premiered in 1959. That same year she appeared on the silver screen opposite Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies, followed in 1960 by the campus drama Because They're Young. Also in 1960, Weld began appearing under schlockmeister Albert Zugsmith, first in Sex Kittens Go to College and later in the following year's The Private Lives of Adam and Eve. Successive roles in Return to Peyton Place and the Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country further crippled her attempts to mount a serious acting career, although her turn in the 1962 Frank Tashlin comedy Bachelor Flat showed signs of life. Weld then turned down the seemingly tailor-made title role in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita in order to study her craft at the Actors' Studio, and after holding her own opposite Steve McQueen and Jackie Gleason in 1963's Soldier in the Rain, she announced she would no longer accept teenage roles.However, teen roles were all that continued to come Weld's way, and after a two-year absence from the screen she resurfaced in 1965's I'll Take Sweden as the young daughter of star Bob Hope. She followed with an appearance in the McQueen gambling drama The Cincinnati Kid, and in 1966 delivered her strongest performance to date in George Axelrod's little-seen satiric gem Lord Love a Duck. That same year Weld married, later giving birth to her first child. Motherhood brought a temporary halt to her career, forcing her to turn down plum assignments including Bonnie and Clyde, Cactus Flower, True Grit, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. She returned to work in 1968's Pretty Poison, again earning strong critical notices, but after 1970's I Walk the Line, it was reported that she had moved to Britain and retired from film.The move was not permanent, for in 1971 Weld appeared in her friend Henry Jaglom's A Safe Place. After 1972's Play It As It Lays, she returned to television work, starring in the TV films Reflections of Murder and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood. In 1977, Weld appeared in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a year later she starred in Who'll Stop the Rain? From 1980 to 1985, Weld was married to Dudley Moore, a period during which she appeared in Michael Mann's 1981 thriller Thief and Sergio Leone's 1984 classic Once Upon a Time in America. In the latter half of the decade, however, she appeared more infrequently before the camera, with only a pair of TV-movie credits, 1986's Something in Common and Circle of Violence: A Family Drama, and a lead role in the 1988 feature Heartbreak Hotel. In the 1990s, Tuesday Weld sightings were even more rare, including only 1991's Mistress, 1993's Falling Down, and 1996's Feeling Minnesota.

Trivia: Had the Fates smiled upon her, the versatile Beverly Garland would have been one of the biggest female stars in films. She started out well, with a plum part in the noir classic DOA (1949), in which she was billed as Beverly Campbell. Alas, Garland was never one to keep her opinions to herself, and her pointed comments about some of her DOA colleagues turned her into a Hollywood pariah before her career had even begun. She eventually worked her way back up the ladder with supporting roles in theatrical features and guest-star assignments on television. Garland rapidly earned a reputation as a "good luck charm" for TV-pilot producers, who could usually count on a sale if Garland was featured in their product. She guested on the first episode of Medic as an expectant leukemia victim, and was co-starred in the pilots of no fewer than three Rod Cameron TV vehicles: City Detective, State Trooper and Coronado 9, all of which sold. In the mid-1950s, Garland was briefly the inamorata of quickie producer/director Roger Corman, who prominently cast her in such cheapies as It Conquered the World (1955) and Not of This Earth (1956). She starred in the 1957 syndicated TV series Policewoman Decoy, which permitted her to adopt a variety of convincing guises in the line of duty. From the 1960s on, Garland was everyone's favorite TV wife or mother: she played Bing Crosby's wife in The Bing Crosby Show (1964), Fred MacMurray's wife on the last three seasons (1969-72) of My Three Sons, Stephanie Zimbalist's mother in Remington Steele (1982-86) and Kate Jackson's mother on Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-87). Active into the 1990s, Beverly Garland supplemented her acting income with her job as spokesperson for a major Midwestern travel agency. She died in 2008 at age

Trivia: CCNY and Columbia University alumnus John Randolph was first seen on Broadway in the 1937 opus Revolt of the Beavers. Randolph served in the Air Force in World War II, then resumed what seemed at the time to be an increasingly successful, near-unstoppable acting career. But in 1951, Randolph found himself on a specious "Commie sympathizers" list. After appearing as a hostile witness before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, Randolph was effectively blacklisted from movies, TV and radio commercials for the next twelve years. Fortunately, he could always rely upon the theatre to provide him an income, though it was touch-and-go for a while when a Broadway show in which he was appearing was picketed by anti-Red zealots. Throughout the 1950s, Randolph was featured in such major stage productions as Come Back Little Sheba, The Visit, Sound of Music and Case of Libel. In 1963, he was at long last permitted to guest-star on a network TV program, The Defenders. Appropriately, it was in an episode titled "Blacklist," which condemned the knee-jerk policy of banning artists because of their political views; ironically, Randolph was very nearly denied the part when the network complained that he hadn't been "cleared." Though he'd played a small part in 1948's The Naked City, Randolph's movie career began in earnest in 1965. In John Frankenheimer's Seconds, he was cast as aging businessman Arthur Hamilton, who through the magic of plastic surgery is given a fresh new identity (he emerges from the bandages as Rock Hudson)! Since his career renaissance, Hamilton hasn't stopped working before the cameras. He has been featured in films like Gaily Gaily (1969), Little Murders (1971), King Kong (1976), Heaven Can Wait (1978) Prizzi's Honor (1985; as Pop Prizzi); in TV movies like Wings of Kitty Hawk (1978; as Alexander Graham Bell) and The American Clock (1993); and as a regular in the TV series Angie (1979) Annie McGuire (1988) and Grand (1990). Though he'd probably rather you not mention it, Randolph is a dead ringer for former attorney general John Mitchell; accordingly, he played Mitchell in the TV miniseries Blind Ambition, and was heard but not seen in the same role in the 1976 theatrical feature All the President's Men. Despite the upsurge in his film and TV activities, Randolph has never abandoned the theatre: in 1986, he won a Tony Award for his work in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound. As if to slap the faces of those self-styled patriots who denied him work in the 1950s, Randolph has in recent years accepted the German Democratic Republic's Paul Robeson Award, and has served on the National Council for US-Soviet friendship. John Randolph has also served on the board of directors of all three major performing guilds: SAG, AFTRA and Equity. After taking on a variety of grandfatherly roles, including Jack Nicholson's father in Prizzi's Honor and Tom Hanks' grandfather in You've Got Mail), Randloph passed away at 88-years-old in April of 2004.

Trivia: American character actor Dick O'Neill began showing up in films in 1961. Most of O'Neill's movie roles were in the supporting category, e.g. his portrayal of Sol Zuckermann in The Buddy Holly Story. His extensive TV credits include recurring roles on at least four weekly series. Dick O'Neill was seen as Judge Praetor D. Hardcastle in Rosetti and Ryan (1977), street-smart Malloy in Kaz (1978), corporate vice president Arthur Broderick in Empire (1984), and Fred Wilkinson in the 1987 episodes of Falcon Crest. Fans of the detective series Cagney and Lacey will remember O'Neill for playing Charlie Cagney. Before entering film and television, O'Neill was a well established supporting actor on the New York stage where he appeared on and off Broadway. In the early '50s, O'Neill was a charter member of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. For the last seven years of his life, O'Neill served on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Screening Committee.

Trivia: American supporting actress Clarice Blackburn has worked on stage, screen and television. In theater, she was a major figure in the development of off-Broadway theater.

Trivia: Ken Kercheval couldn't always count on his acting income to keep groceries in his icebox during his early years in show business. During slack times, Kercheval took a wide variety of part-time jobs: encyclopedia salesman, airline reservation clerk, sewer-line dynamiter, even cemetery plot peddler. When times were good, Kercheval appeared on stage by night, and in such New York-based soap operas as Search for Tomorrow, The Secret Storm and How to Survive a Marriage. He was also a journeyman film actor, essaying supporting roles in such productions as Pretty Poison (1968), The Seven Ups (1971) and Network (1976). Beginning in 1978, Kercheval played lawyer Cliff Barnes, the long-suffering brother-in-law of Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) on TV's Dallas. Evidently Barnes' retainer was generous enough for him to ignore the endless humiliations doled out by the shifty J. R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), inasmuch as Kercheval and Hagman were the only Dallas regulars to appear continuously until the series' cancellation. During Dallas' run, Ken Kercheval occasionally moonlighted in made-for-TV films, notably in the role of Buffalo Bill in 1984's Calamity Jane.

Trivia: American character actor Parker Fennelly usually played taciturn New Englanders on stage, screen, television and mostly on radio. His Yankee upbringing made him well-suited to the roles. In addition to acting, Fennelly was also a noted playwright.