Trivia: Like Clark Gable, David Janssen lost quite a few film roles in the early stages of his career because his ears were "too big" and -- also like Gable-- he did pretty well for himself in the long run. The son of a former beauty queen-cum-stage mother, Janssen was virtually strong-armed into show business, appearing as a child actor on-stage and as a juvenile performer in such films as Swamp Fire (1946). Signed to a Universal contract in 1950, he showed up fleetingly in films both big-budget (To Hell and Back) and small (Francis Goes to West Point). Full stardom eluded Janssen until 1957, when he was personally selected by actor/producer Dick Powell to star in the TV version of Powell's radio series Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Though he didn't exactly become a millionaire (for several years he earned a beggarly 750 dollars per week), Janssen's saleability soared as a result of his three-year Diamond gig, and by 1960 he was earning top billing in such Allied Artists productions as King of the Roaring 20s (1960), in which he played gambler Arnold Rothstein, and Hell to Eternity (1960). In 1963, he landed his signature role of Dr. Richard Kimble on TV's The Fugitive. For the next four years, Janssen/Kimble perambulated throughout the country in search of the "one-armed man" who committed the murder for which Kimble was sentenced to death, all the while keeping one step ahead of his dogged pursuer, Lieutenant Gerard (Barry Morse). The final episode of The Fugitive, telecast in August of 1967, was for many years the highest-rated TV episode in history. There was little Janssen could do to top that, though he continued appearing in such films as Warning Shot (1967) and Green Berets (1969), and starring in such TV series as O'Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971) and Harry O (1974-1976). David Janssen died of a sudden heart attack at age 49, not long after completing his final TV movie, City in Fear (1980).

Trivia: The son of a London shopkeeper, Barry Morse enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts at age 15. Upon graduation, Morse spent four years in provincial repertory, playing (by his own count) some 300 roles. In 1942 he made his first film appearance in Will Hays's The Goose Steps Out. Firmly established in London theatrical circles by 1951, he starred in an early BBC telecast of Hamlet--then left for Canada, where he would spend the next decade. Dubbed "the Laurence Olivier of Canada" by more than one admirer, Morse appeared with regularity on the CBC, occasionally producing and directing as well. He began dividing his time between Toronto and Hollywood in 1959, showing up in such American TV anthologies as Playhouse 90 and The Twilight Zone. In 1963, he was hired by producer Quinn Martin to play the diligent Lieutenant Girard in the popular weekly series The Fugitive. Morse's post-Fugitive television work includes two weekly series, The Adventurer (1974) and Space: 1999 (1975-77), and any number of specials and miniseries. Barry Morse's best performances of the past two decades include his interpretation of Menachem Begin in the American miniseries Sadat (1980) and his hilarious turn as a numbskull American president (who happens to be a former movie actor!) in the London Weekend Television black comedy Whoops Apocalypse (1982). Morse died in February 2008 at age 89.

Trivia: Coleman attended a Virginia military school before studying law and serving in the army. While attending the University of Texas, Coleman became attracted to acting, and headed to New York, where he studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After stage experience and TV work, Coleman made his movie debut in 1965's The Slender Thread. Minus his trademarked mustache for the most part in the mid-1960s, Coleman specialized in secondary character roles. He began to branch into comedy during his supporting stint as obstetrician Leon Bessemer on the Marlo Thomas sitcom That Girl, but his most memorable role would come in 1980 as the nasty, chauvinistic boss in 9 to 5. He would go on to appear in other films, like On Golden Pond [1981], The Beverly Hillbillies [1993], You've Got Mail [1998], and Moonlight Mile, but the actor found more success in television, appearing on a few cult hits that were tragically cancelled, like Drexell's Class and Madman of the People, as well as The Guardian, Courting Alex, Heartland, and Boardwalk Empire.

Trivia: Cincinnati native Collin Wilcox Paxton honed her performing skills with the Chicago improve troupe the Compass Players in the 1950s before moving eastward to cultivate a successful career on Broadway. She appeared in productions like The Day Money Stopped and Look, We've Come Through and also worked in the realm of movies, most notably playing Mayella Violet Ewell in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. She continued to act throughout the coming decades, appearing in Catch-22, Jaws 2, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and many other projects. Paxton passed away in 2009 at the age of 74.

Trivia: American actor Malcolm Atterbury may have been allowed more versatility on stage, but so far as TV was concerned he was the quintessential grouchy grandfather and/or frontier snake-oil peddler. Atterbury was in fact cast in the latter capacity twice by that haven of middle-aged character players The Twilight Zone. He was the purveyor of an elixir which induced invulnerability in 1959's "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" and a 19th century huckster who nearly sets a town on fire in "No Time Like the Past" (1963). Atterbury enjoyed steadier work as the supposedly dying owner of a pickle factory in the 1973 sitcom Thicker Than Water, and as Ronny Cox's grandfather on the 1974 Waltons clone Apple's Way. Malcolm Atterbury's best-known film role was one for which he received no screen credit: he was the friendly stranger who pointed out the crop-duster to Cary Grant in North By Northwest (1959), observing ominously that the plane was "dustin' where they're aren't any crops."

Trivia: American actor Nicholas Colasanto worked in feature films and extensively in television as both an actor and a director, but he is best remembered for playing Coach Pantusso, the sweetly addle-pated bartender and former baseball coach, on the long-running NBC sitcom Cheers. Colasanto passed away just before the show's third year.

Trivia: Tall, balding, good-looking actor Michael Conrad came to prominence in the role of Sgt. Esterhaus on the TV series Hill Street Blues. He had many supporting roles in movies.

Trivia: American actor Paul Lukather played supporting roles on television, stage, and in feature films during the '50s and '60s.

Trivia: Actor/director/producer William Conrad started his professional career as a musician. After World War II service, he began building his reputation in films and on Hollywood-based radio programs. Due to his bulk and shifty-eyed appearance, he was cast in films as nasty heavies, notably in The Killers (1946) (his first film), Sorry Wrong Number (1948) and The Long Wait (1954). On radio, the versatile Conrad was a fixture on such moody anthologies as Escape and Suspense; he also worked frequently with Jack "Dragnet" Webb during this period, and as late as 1959 was ingesting the scenery in the Webb-directed film 30. Conrads most celebrated radio role was as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, which he played from 1952 through 1961 (the TV Gunsmoke, of course, went to James Arness, who physically matched the character that the portly Conrad had shaped aurally). In the late 1950s, Conrad went into the production end of the business at Warner Bros., keeping his hand in as a performer by providing the hilariously strident narration of the cartoon series Rocky and His Friends and its sequel The Bullwinkle Show. During the early 1960s, Conrad also directed such films as Two on a Guillotine (1964) and Brainstorm (1965). Easing back into acting in the early 1970s, Conrad enjoyed a lengthy run as the title character in the detective series Cannon (1971-76), then all too briefly starred as a more famous corpulent crime solver on the weekly Nero Wolfe. Conrad's final TV series was as one-half of Jake and the Fatman (Joe Penny was Jake), a crime show which ran from 1987 through 1991.