Trivia: Best remembered for his high-profile acting roles on two 1970s television sitcoms -- that of genial news writer Murray Slaughter on CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) and that of sweet-natured Captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat (1977-1986), stage-trained actor Gavin MacLeod in fact began his career typecast as a villain. He landed parts in Hollywood features including The Sand Pebbles (1966), Deathwatch (1966), and The Comic (1969), and enjoyed a tenure as Joseph "Happy" Haines on the sitcom McHale's Navy from 1962 through 1964. After The Love Boat permanently laid anchor in the mid-'80s, MacLeod signed on as a spokesperson and pitchman for Princess Cruises and returned to regional theatrical work. He also tackled guest spots on programs including Touched by an Angel and (in a move that surprised everyone) the HBO prison drama Oz. Off-camera, MacLeod is an outspoken born-again Christian. He hosted a popular talk show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, along with his wife, Patti (whom he divorced in 1982 and remarried three years later), called Back on Course, and personally funded many of the Greatest Adventure Stories from the Bible animated videos for children.

Trivia: Universally recognized as Ship's Doctor Adam Bricker on the blockbuster prime-time sitcom The Love Boat (1977-1986) -- a part he held for the entire nine-season run of the series -- actor Bernie Kopell entered the doors of show business via a most unlikely route. Born in Brooklyn, Kopell attended Erasmus High and then New York University (with a dramatic art major). After a stint at sea aboard the naval vessel USS Iowa, Kopell signed on to drive a taxicab in Southern California -- and achieved his big break on the day that Oregon Trail (1959) film producer Dick Einfeld hitched a ride in the back of his cab. In a span of minutes, Kopell reportedly managed to convince Einfeld that he was not really a cab driver but an actor in serious need of work. The effort paid off, and Kopell snagged his first part -- a two-line part in Oregon as an aide to president James K. Polk. In the early '60s, Kopell joined the Actors' Ring Theatre in Los Angeles, where he developed a knack for characterizations and voices; this led, in turn, to character-type roles on a myriad of television programs including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Steve Allen Show, and My Favorite Martian (which often, though not always, cast the wiry Kopell as a Hispanic). By the early '70s, Kopell had landed steady assignments on Get Smart, Bewitched, That Girl, and other series. The Love Boat, however, embodied his breakthrough. He followed it up with an emcee assignment on The Travel Channel (hosting its Railway Adventures Across Europe) and a surge in theatrical work, with portrayals in regional productions of such plays as Rumors, A History of Shadows, and Death of a Salesman.

Trivia: Actor Fred Grandy enjoyed two distinct careers -- an initial career as an actor and a proverbial second wind on the political stage. As a thespian, Grandy signed for guest spots on early-'70s series including Maude and Phyllis, but built his reputation via his nine-season portrayal of Yeoman-Purser Burl "Gopher" Smith, right-hand man to Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), on the popular television sitcom The Love Boat (1977-1986). He proved popular with audiences, but by the mid-'80s reportedly grew tired of acting and gravitated to the political arena because he found it more challenging. Indeed, in 1986 -- the year of Boat's cancelation -- Grandy was elected as a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Iowa.

Trivia: For millions of Americans, the prime-time situation comedy The Love Boat will be forever inseparable from the image of Ted Lange, an actor cast for nine seasons as the genial Isaac the Bartender on the Pacific Princess luxury liner and trademarked by his iconic "two-finger drop" greeting. Yet Lange's portrayal of Isaac scarcely hinted at the actor's dexterity or dramatic range. In truth, this actor received classical dramatic training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and would go on, after the Princess took its final voyage in September 1986, to establish himself as a revered creative force in regional theater.Lange initially broke into films with many portrayals in Hollywood programmers during the early '70s, including Trick Baby (1972), Blade (1972), and Black Belt Jones (1974), and landed a regular role in the one-season ethnic sitcom That's My Mama (1974), as a streetwise philosopher opposite Clifton Davis (Amen) and Theresa Merritt. The Love Boat, of course, brought Lange his most widespread recognition; nonetheless (as indicated), he hearkened back to his theatrical roots beginning in the late '80s and divided his time between writing, directing, and stage acting roles. His resumé as a scribe sports at least 17 original plays including Lemon Meringue Facade, Behind the Mask -- An Evening with Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Evil Legacy -- The Story of Lucretia Borgia, while he has appeared dramatically in productions including Hair and Taming of the Shrew and has directed plays ranging from Othello to the rock & roll musical Born a Unicorn.

Trivia: Pennsylvania-born actress Lauren Tewes achieved broadest recognition for her stint as Cruise Director Julie McCoy on the long-running ABC situation comedy The Love Boat. Unfortunately, Tewes (unlike many of her fellow cast members) left the program prior to the final voyage of the Pacific Princess -- reportedly spiraling into a much-publicized bout of severe cocaine addiction from which she eventually fully recovered, but which cost her the role on the series. Tewes nevertheless demonstrated admirable resilience by returning for at least two Love Boat telemovies and remained active in television and film. Subsequent projects included guest appearances on the small-screen series dramas Hunter and Murder, She Wrote, and roles in features such as The Doom Generation (1995) and It Came From Outer Space 2 (1996).

Trivia: Petite, dark-haired, and beautiful Susan Lucci is best known for playing one of the most famous characters in American television soap opera history, the sexy, conniving, but somehow lovable vixen Erica Kane. Her work has won her numerous industry awards, including a People's Choice Award (1992), the 1993 Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Lead Actress, a Crystal Apple (1994), a Best Soap Actress award from a People magazine poll in 1985, a Canadian TV Guide People's Choice Award for Best Soap Actress (1989), and more. She was even voted the Italian-American Welfare League's Woman of the Year she has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy 16 times, and has won once. Lucci was quite young when she was hired to play precocious, self-centered teen Erica Kane in 1970. In 1973, she appeared in Secret Passions, the first of many television movies. During its final season, Lucci joined the cast of the nighttime soap Dallas. When not acting, she exploits her glamorous image by hawking her own collection of beauty products, the Susan Lucci Collection, on cable TV shopping networks. She has two children and, unlike her alter ego, Erica Kane, has been married to the same man, Helmut Huber.

Trivia: American actor Willie Aames, born Albert William Upton, spent his youth working steadily on television and occasionally in low-budget foreign and domestic features. He first began making guest appearances on television in 1969. In 1975, he was cast in Irwin Allen's short-lived adventure series The Swiss Family Robinson. One of his co-stars was a young Helen Hunt. By this time, he had also appeared in a few television movies, including Unwed Father (1974). In 1977, Aames began a long stint in one of his best-known roles, that of rebellious teen Tommy Bradford in the popular domestic comedy/drama Eight Is Enough. With his mop of dark blonde hair, slim physique, and handsome face, Aames became a popular teen idol. In 1979, Aames made his feature-film debut in Scavenger Hunt. When Eight Is Enough was finally canceled in 1981, Aames went on to appear in a couple more films, including Zapped (1982), before returning to series television in the role for which he may be best remembered, as Scott Baio's irresponsible foil in the sitcom Charles in Charge (1984-1990). Through this period he continued to show up in movies. Through much of the '80s, Aames battled with cocaine and depression and became notorious in Hollywood for his erratic behavior. By the time Charles was canceled in 1990, he had cleaned up his act, become a born-again Christian, married for the second time, and in 1991, decided to move to Kansas City where he became a producer and director of videos and commercials. In the mid-'90s, he began starring as an evangelical superhero in the Bibleman series of youth-oriented musical videos.

Trivia: Singer/actress Michelle Phillips was Holly Michelle Gilliam when she arrived in New York in 1962 to become a model. The 17-year-old ex-California girl met and fell in love with Greenwich Village folksinger John Phillips, ten years her senior. After Michelle and John were married, she devoted her time to raising MacKenzie, John's daughter from an earlier marriage, and occasionally singing in John's group, the Journeymen. Upon that group's breakup in 1963, John and Michelle teamed with Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty, both formerly of the defunct group The Mugwumps and the result was The Mamas and The Papas. This new singing aggregation was a success from its first 1965 release, "California Dreamin'," onward. Other hits followed: "Monday, Monday," "I Call Your Name," "Do You Wanna Dance," and on and on. In 1966, Michelle and John broke up; by 1967 Michelle was living with Dennis Hopper, and within three years the Phillips were divorced. The Mamas and The Papas also dissolved around this time, with "Mama" Cass Elliot opting for a solo career. The group's individual successes (including John's briefly best-selling songs) were ethereal, however, and in 1971 The Mamas and The Papas -- including Michelle, -- reunited. The results were dishearteningly bad, thus Michelle renounced singing for good, hoping instead to make her mark as an actress. Michelle Phillips' later press coverage was due more to her high-profile romances with the likes of Warren Beatty and Rudolph Nureyev than to her acting, though critics were kindly disposed towards her performance in Nureyev's 1977 film vehicle Valentino.

Trivia: Very early in his stage career, Richard Deacon was advised by Helen Hayes to abandon all hopes of becoming a leading man: instead, she encouraged him to aggressively pursue a career as a character actor. Tall, bald, bespectacled and bass-voiced since high school, Deacon heeded Ms. Hayes' advice, and managed to survive in show business far longer than many of the "perfect" leading men who were his contemporaries. Usually cast as a glaring sourpuss or humorless bureaucrat, Deacon was a valuable and highly regarded supporting-cast commodity in such films as Desiree (1954), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Kiss Them For Me (1957), The Young Philadelphians (1959) and The King's Pirate (1967), among many others. Virtually every major star who worked with Deacon took time out to compliment him on his skills: among his biggest admirers were Lou Costello, Jack Benny and Cary Grant. Even busier on television than in films, Richard Deacon had the distinction of appearing regularly on two concurrently produced sitcoms of the early 1960s: he was pompous suburbanite Fred Rutherford on Leave It to Beaver, and the long-suffering Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Deacon also co-starred as Kaye Ballard's husband on the weekly TV comedy The Mothers-in-Law (1968), and enjoyed a rare leading role on the 1964 Twilight Zone installment "The Brain Center at Whipples." In his last decade, Richard Deacon hosted a TV program on microwave cookery, and published a companion book on the subject.

Trivia: Stocky comedic actor Jerry Van Dyke -- the younger brother by several years of actor Dick Van Dyke -- achieved some of the success of his older sibling, albeit with a somewhat lower profile and his own distinct persona. Time and again, Jerry specialized in portrayals of flustered, befuddled, and slightly klutzy goofballs who projected grating angst. (His typical characterizations could be contrasted with the "laid-back everyman" qualities and smoothness required by many of Dick's roles.) Raised in Danville, IL -- a community about 130 miles south of Chicago -- Van Dyke evinced a flair for comedic buffoonery and loved to entertain audiences as early as high school, then spent several years touring the country and performing in every comedy club he could find that agreed to book him. His career only began to take off, however, following his decision to join the Air Force Special Services in 1952 (during the Korean War) -- which, in turn, provided him with the opportunity to travel around the world and entertain the troops. His act soon caught the eye of Ed Sullivan, who booked Jerry for two popular engagements on his iconic variety series, and in the mid-'60s he began appearing alongside his brother on The Dick Van Dyke Show (conveniently playing Rob Petrie's brother, Stacey Petrie). In the years that followed, Jerry Van Dyke began associations with two key television producers -- relationships that would serve him well in the years to come. The first -- a collaboration with Grant Tinker (off-camera husband of Mary Tyler Moore from The Dick Van Dyke Show) led to Van Dyke's starring role in the 1965 fantasy-tinged sitcom My Mother the Car, which cast him as Dave Crabtree, a fellow revisited by his deceased mother -- in the form of an automobile. That program failed within a year, but the actor and producer would team up again nearly a decade later when Tinker and Co. cast Van Dyke in a brief multi-episode stretch of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as Wes Callison, an ex-boyfriend of Mary Richards who is plagued by complications when he happens to take a job in the same newsroom as Mary. During the same decade, Van Dyke also turned up as a guest star on series including That Girl, Love, American Style, and Fantasy Island. Van Dyke then tried out for the role of dim-witted Vermont handyman George Utley on the seminal '80s sitcom Newhart. Producer/creator Barry Kemp felt that the actor would be the wrong choice for the part (and eventually handed it to Tom Poston instead), but also felt so impressed by Van Dyke's talents that he both cast the actor in a guest-starring role on a season-one episode of that series (he played a flustered travel agent named Roy Herzog), and promised Van Dyke a more substantial recurring assignment on a sitcom. Kemp realized that promise five years later, by enlisting Van Dyke to play spaced-out assistant football coach Luther Van Dam on the top-tiered sitcom Coach (1989-1997). For that portrayal, the actor received numerous Emmy nominations. In subsequent years, Van Dyke continued his television work (he enjoyed a lengthy run on the sitcom Yes, Dear as Big Jimmy Hughes), did standup comedy bookings around the country, and emceed advertisements for various brands, products, and companies, including Big Lots.

Trivia: The year (give or take a few) was 1929: Stepping on to the stage of New York's Mecca Theatre was 3-year-old Rose Marie Mazetta, offering a surprisingly full-throated rendition of the torch ballad "What Can I Say, Dear, After I Say I'm Sorry." By the time she'd finished dancing her Charleston, Rose Marie had won a trip to Atlantic City and a spot on a major radio program. Amazingly, Rose Marie's father, a professional singer-musician, had nothing to do with this star-making turn: the girl had been entered in the contest by her next-door neighbors. By 1932, Rose Marie--or rather, "Baby Rose Marie"--was one of the hottest stars on the NBC radio network. Her raspy, insinuating singing style was mature beyond her years, so much so that some people wrote into NBC, angrily accusing them of passing off an adult midget as a child. She successfully toured in vaudeville, was spotlighted in a handful of movies (the best-known was 1933's International House), then disappeared completely at the age of 12. No, Rose Marie wasn't washed up; her family had moved from New York to New Jersey and had placed their daughter in a convent school. Resuming her career at 17 as "Miss Rose Marie," the former child sensation endured a few lean years before establishing herself as a comedienne. Wearying of traversing the nightclub circuit by the 1950s--she now had a husband and daughter to look after--Rose Marie began accepting guest-star assignments on such dramatic TV series as Jim Bowie, Gunsmoke and M Squad. She was also seen in continuing roles on the video sitcoms Love That Bob and My Sister Eileen, and was co-starred with Phil Silvers in the 1953 Broadway musical Top Banana. In 1961, Carl Reiner cast Rose Marie as wisecracking, man-chasing Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show. The close-knit camaraderie of her Dick Van Dyke co-stars helped her survive the untimely death of her husband, jazz musician Bobby Guy. Rose Marie's post-Van Dyke projects have included such films as Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title (1966) and Cheaper to Keep Her (1980), frequent appearances on the daytime quiz show The Hollywood Squares, and regular roles on the prime time TVers The Doris Day Show (1969-71, as Myrna Gibbons), Scorch (1992, as Edna Bracken) and Hardball (1994, as Marge Schott-like baseball club owner Mitzi Balzer).

Trivia: Born in Chicago, Morey Amsterdam was raised in California, where his musician father was in charge of the San Francisco Symphony. Originally intending to be a cello player, Amsterdam instead gravitated to entertaining with words. A well-above-average student, Amsterdam was enrolled at the University of California at the age of 14, but quit after one year to go on the road with a comedy act. At 16, he was master of ceremonies at Colosimo's, a Chicago speakeasy run by Al Capone. Amsterdam got along fine with big Al, but after getting caught in the middle of a gangland shoot out, the young comic sought out safer work in California. He wrote gags and special material for such prominent laughmakers as Jimmy Durante, Fannie Brice and Will Rogers, and in 1939 made his television debut in an experimental Hollywood broadcast. He spent the war years touring with the USO, taking time out to write radio and movie scripts and to pen the popular novelty song "Rum and Coca-Cola." After the war, he was headlined on several radio and TV programs, notably NBC's Broadway Open House, the 1950 precursor to The Tonight Show. By the mid-1950s, Amsterdam was renowned far and wide as "The Human Joke Machine," able to come up with a joke on literally any topic without even pausing for breath. In 1960, his livelihood was sorely threatened when he suffered a head injury while appearing in the film Murder Inc.; for three tension-filled weeks, he completely forgot every one of the thousands of jokes he'd filed away in his memory banks. Happily, he recovered, and by 1961 he was gainfully employed as Buddy Sorrell on the long-running TV sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. After Van Dyke's series folded in 1966, Amsterdam continued to play nightclub dates and make TV guest-star appearances (he briefly produced and hosted a 1970 TV revival of the old radio series Can You Top This?) As funny as ever in his eighth decade, Morey Amsterdam surprised his fans by playing a villainous role on the CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Amersterdam died of a heart attack on October 27, 1996.

Trivia: Jill Whelan enjoyed an acting career as a child star, with a seven-season (1979-1986) portrayal of Vicki, Captain Merrill Stubing's young daughter, on the prime-time ABC situation comedy The Love Boat. After the series wrapped in 1986, Whelan returned for a number of Love Boat telemovies, acted in regional theater, and played a regular role on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless. Astute movie buffs may remember Whelan for a brief but memorable big-screen contribution that happened during her Love Boat tenure: she also portrayed Lisa Davis, the ailing child sent into convulsions when a singing nun knocks out her I.V., in the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker farce Airplane! (1980).