Trivia: Pencil-thin Canadian actress Lynn Carlin was Oscar-nominated for her very first film, the John Cassavetes-directed Faces. Ms. Carlin had some difficulty matching that early career peak in her subsequent roles, often taking pedestrian assignments; in one 1974 episode of Hawaii 5-0, she was killed off before the second commercial! The actress was better served with her top-billed portrayal of Buck Henry's "liberated" middle-aged wife in Milos Forman's Taking Off (1971). In 1977, Lynn Carlin was seen as the mother of mixed-up teenager Lance Kerwin on the critically praised TV series James at 15.

Trivia: Robert Fuller spent his first decade in show business trying his best to avoid performing. After his film debut in 1952's Above and Beyond, Fuller studied acting with Sanford Meisner at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse but never exhibited any real dedication. He tried to become a dancer but gave that up as well, determining that dancing was "sissified." Fuller rose to nominal stardom fairly rapidly in the role of Jess Harper on the popular TV western Laramie (1959-63). Once he found his niche in cowboy attire, he stuck at it in another series, Wagon Train, turning down virtually all offers for "contemporary" roles. When westerns began dying out on television in the late 1960s, Fuller worked as a voiceover actor in commercials, earning some $65,000 per year (a tidy sum in 1969). On the strength of his performance in the Burt Topper-directed motorcycle flick The Hard Ride, Fuller was cast by producer Jack Webb as chief paramedic Kelly Brackett on the weekly TVer Emergency, which ran from 1972 through 1977. In 1994, Robert Fuller was one of several former TV western stars who showed up in cameo roles in the Mel Gibson movie vehicle Maverick.

Trivia: Sultry blues vocalist Julie London began her film career long before she achieved fame as a recording artist. In 1945, 18-year-old London was selected to play a bargain-basement jungle princess, appearing opposite a gorilla in the PRC cheapie Nabonga. She was pretty bad, but no worse than the film itself. By the time she was cast as a sexy teenager in The Red House (1947), her acting had improved immensely, and by the time she played the female lead in the 1951 programmer The Fat Man, it looked as though she actually had a future in films. Still, London's greatest claim to fame was her long string of hit records ("Cry Me a River" et. al.) of the 1950s; many male admirers bought her albums simply to gaze upon her come-hither countenance on the dust jacket. Her status as every red-blooded American boy's wish dream was gently lampooned in Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956), in which she appears as a spectral vision who transfixes a wistful Tom Ewell. Her best dramatic film appearances of this period include her leading-lady gigs in Voice in the Mirror (1958) and Man of the West (1958). From 1945 through 1955, Julie London was the wife of actor/producer Jack Webb; years after the divorce, London played Nurse Dixie McCall on the popular Jack Webb-produced TV series Emergency, in which she co-starred with her second husband, actor/jazz musician Bobby Troup.

Trivia: Dawn Lyn appeared in a number of films and television shows during the '70s. Her brother, Leif Garrett,is also an actor.

Trivia: Actress Melissa Gilbert literally grew up before our eyes in the role of Laura Ingalls on the TV series Little House on the Prairie. A professional from the age of 3, Gilbert was ten years old when she assumed the role of Laura, and in her mid-20s when Little House branched off into a handful of TV movies in the 1980s. Outside of this series, Gilbert was the uncrowned queen of the TV remakes: She starred as young Helen Keller in 1979's The Miracle Worker, played the title role in 1980's The Diary of Anne Frank, and assumed the old Natalie Wood role in 1981's Splendor in the Grass. More recently, she has been showing up in made-for-TV biopics, e.g. Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story (1993) and Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story (1994). Gilbert's latter-day series-TV work has included the parts of Kate Delany in Sweet Justice and Rochelle in Stand By Your Man; she has also been heard as the voice of Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, in the daily Batman: The Animated Series. In all of these, she has been billed under her married name of Gilbert-Brinkman (her marriage to Bo Brinkman has since dissolved). Melissa Gilbert is the sister of Sara Gilbert, who played Darlene on TV's Roseanne; her grandfather, Harry Crane, was one of the creators of the Jackie Gleason series The Honeymooners.Though she continued to work, often in TV movies, her career took a shift when she got deeply involved with the Screen Actors Guild, eventually being elected as president of the organization and serving in that capacity from 2001-2005.

Trivia: Supporting actor Michael C. Gwynne first appeared onscreen in the '70s.