Trivia: Patrick O'Neal made his first stage appearance in 1944 in his home state of Florida. While still a teenager, O'Neal was assigned to direct Signal Corps training shorts. Following his training at the Actors Studio and Neighborhood Playhouse, O'Neal entered the virgin territory of live TV, making appearances on such early anthologies as Gruen Playhouse. He played the romantic lead in his first film, 1954's The Mad Magician, thereafter settling into stuffed-shirt or villainous roles. It was fun to watch the usually reserved O'Neal make a meal of a mad-killer part obviously intended for Vincent Price in Chamber of Horrors (1966). It was also amusing to watch him bring a reluctant, droopy-eyed approach to the silly secret agentry of the 1967 spy spoof Matchless (1967). After appearing with Doris Day in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out (1966), O'Neal essayed the occasional role of dashing foreign correspondent on TV's The Doris Day Show (1968-73). Additional television assignments for O'Neal included his co-starring stint with Hazel Court in the 1957 comedy-melodrama series Dick and the Duchess (1957), the top-billed role of pathologist Daniel Coffee in the impressively produced videotaped medical series Diagnosis Unknown (1960), the straight-laced supporting role of lawyer Samuel Bennett in Kaz (1978) and the JR-type part of evil businessman Harlan Adams during the first (1983-84) season of Emerald Point NAS (Robert Vaughn took over the role in 1980). Making his Broadway debut in 1961, O'Neal appeared opposite Bette Davis the following year in his favorite part, the discredited, debauched Reverend Shannon in Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana. Going public by admitting his alcoholism in the 1970s, O'Neal appeared in a number of public-service announcements on behalf of AA; he also provided voiceovers for innumerable commercial products. When not performing, Patrick O'Neal pursued a successful second career as a restaurateur.

Trivia: An attractive blonde actress who scoffed at early typecasting as the pretty ingenue, Kathie Browne was the wife of popular actor Darren McGavin, and a notable talent in her own right. Born in San Luis Obispo, CA, Browne attended L.A. City College while honing her acting skills in numerous local theaters. Spotted by a television director while performing as the lead in a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it wasn't long before Browne began working frequently on television. Browne's early roles included appearances in such popular television Westerns as Bonanza and Gunsmoke, and after making her film debut in 1958's Murder by Contract she began a successful film career. Though at first succumbing to the casting agents wishes and appearing in roles where a pretty face and little more was needed, Browne began to branch out in the 1960s with such roles as a scientist on Sea Hunt and a deft grifter in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Married to McGavin in 1969, the young actress slowly began her fade from the limelight in order to better promote the career of her husband. In addition to being a driving force behind the success of The Night Stalker, Browne would join McGavin in founding their own production company, Formed Taurean Films. Frequently appearing onscreen together, Browne and McGavin would acquire nearly 50 credits together, between film and television. Diagnosed with breast cancer later in life, the strong-willed Browne would make a full recovery and, at age 70, go into full retirement. On April 8, 2003, Kathie Browne-McGavin died in Beverly Hills following a brief illness. She was 63.

Trivia: A high school teacher and athletic coach in his native Alabama, George Lindsey decided in his early 20s that his destiny lay in the theater. Lindsey and his wife packed themselves off to New York, where he studied diligently at the American Theatre Wing. He spent a great deal of time losing his Southern accent, only to be forced to regain it when he found he couldn't get any work as a "Yankee." At first cast in unpleasant or sinister roles, Lindsey was forever pigeonholed as comedian when he played the one-shot role of Goober Beasley on a 1963 episode of The Andy Griffith Show, scoring a bull's-eye of hilarity with his inept celebrity impressions. When next he appeared on Griffith, he was Goober Pyle, cousin to Mayberry's resident village idiot Gomer Pyle. And when Gomer (aka Jim Nabors) was spun off into his own series, Lindsey became a Griffith regular. He stayed with Goober until 1971, by which time The Andy Griffith Show had evolved into the Griffith-less Mayberry RFD. He then joined the Hee Haw troupe, remaining with that popular syndicated TV variety series for two decades. Lindsey extended his oafish TV persona into his big-screen work, appearing in such films as Take This Job and Shove It and Cannonball Run II. Far wittier and more versatile than the hapless Goober, Lindsey has remained a popular attraction on the TV convention/country-western concert/rodeo circuit; he has made several singing appearances on The Grand Ole Opry, and for many years was a judge at the Miss USA pageant. In 1995, George Lindsey (assisted by Jim Beck and Ken Clark) published his autobiography, Goober in a Nutshell.

Trivia: Torin Thatcher came out of a military family in India to become a top stage actor in England and a well-known character actor in international films and television. Born Torin Herbert Erskine Thatcher in Bombay, India, in 1905, he was the great-grandson and grandson of generals -- one of whom had fought with Clive -- but he planned for a quieter life; educated at Bedford School, he originally intended to become a teacher before being bitten by the acting bug. Instead, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and later worked in every kind of theatrical production there was, from Greek tragedy to burlesque. Thatcher made his London debut in 1927 as Tranio in a production of The Taming of the Shrew with the Old Vic Company, and he subsequently portrayed both the Ghost and Claudius in Hamlet with the same company. In the years that followed, Thatcher was in more than 50 Shakespearean productions and 20 plays by George Bernard Shaw. The outbreak of the Second World War took Thatcher into uniform, and he served for six years in the army, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel before he returned to civilian life in 1946. In 1944, Thatcher had made his first acquaintance of the theater world in New York when he found himself on leave in the city with only ten shillings in his pocket -- he spent it sparingly and discovered that Allied servicemen, even officers, were accorded a great many perks in those days; he was also amazed and delighted when he was recognized while on his way into a play in New York by a theatergoer who was able to name virtually every movie that he'd done in England over the preceding decade. He got a firsthand look at the city's generosity and also made sure to meet a number of people associated with the New York theater scene, contacts that served him in good stead when he returned to New York in 1946, as a civilian eager to pick up his career. He starred in two plays opposite Katharine Cornell, First Born and That Lady, and portrayed Claggart in a stage adaptation of Billy Budd, but his big success was in Noel Langley and Robert Morley's Edward My Son. Thatcher had been in movies in England since 1933, in small roles, occasionally in major and important films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937) and Michael Powell's The Spy in Black (1939); his British career had peaked with a superb performance in a small but important role in Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol (1948). After moving to the United States, however, Thatcher quickly moved up to starring and major supporting roles in Hollywood movies, beginning with Affair in Trinidad (1952). He was busy at 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. over the next decade, moving between their American and British units, and stood out in such hit movies as The Crimson Pirate (1952) (as the pirate Humble Bellows) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Although Thatcher could play benevolent characters, his intense expression and presence and imposing physique made him more natural as a villain, and he spent his later career in an array of screen malefactors, of whom the best known was the sorcerer Sokurah in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), directed by Nathan Juran. Thatcher and Juran were close friends and the director loved to use him -- the two became a kind of double act together for a time, turning up in "The Space Trader" episode of Lost in Space, guest-starring Thatcher and directed by Juran.

Trivia: American actress Alice Backes has played supporting roles on stage, screen, radio, and primarily television (where she has played over 100 roles) since 1946.