Trivia: Born Krekor Ohanian, American actor Mike Connors was born and raised in the heavily Armenian community of Fresno, California. He studied law at UCLA, but distinguished himself in sports (he'd gotten in on a basketball scholarship). While in the Air Force, Connors switched his career goals to acting on the advice of producer/director William Wellman, who'd remembered Connors' college athletic activities. Hollywood changed young Mr. Ohanian's last name to Connors, and since this was the era of "Rocks" and "Tabs" it was decided that the actor needed a suitably rugged first name. So Connors spent his first few acting years as Touch Connors, a nickname he'd gotten while playing college football. His first picture was the Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear (1952) but handsome hunks were a glut on the market in the early '50s, so Connors found himself in "B" pictures, mostly at bargain-basement American International studios. Renaming himself "Mike," Connors was able to secure the lead role as an undercover agent on the 1959 detective series Tightrope. The series was a hit but was dropped from the network due to complaints about excessive violence, though it cleaned up in syndication for years afterward. After a few strong but non-starring roles in such films as Good Neighbor Sam (1963) and Where Love Has Gone (1964), Connors landed the title role in Mannix (1967), a weekly TV actioner about a trouble-prone private eye. For the next eight high-rated seasons, Connors' Joe Mannix was beaten up, shot at, cold-cocked and nearly run over in those ubiquitous underground parking lots each and every week. The series ran in over 70 foreign countries, allowing Connors a generous chunk of profits percentages in addition to his lofty weekly salary-- which became loftier each time that the actor announced plans to retire. Mike Connors has starred in the 1981 series Today's FBI and filmed a cop-show pilot titled Ohanian (playing a character with his own real name), but nothing has quite captured the public's fancy, or been as lucrative in reruns, as Connors' chef d'ouevre series Mannix.

Trivia: Respected in North America and the United Kingdom, actor John Vernon has worked steadily on stage, television, and feature films since the 1950s. A native of Montréal, Canada, Vernon's formal studies began after he won a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Prior to attending the school, Vernon gained experience in amateur theater. During his time in London, Vernon worked with several repertory companies. In 1956, he voiced the part of Big Brother in 1984, but he did not make his formal film debut until 1958 in The Long Rifle and the Tomahawk. By the mid-'50s, Vernon had returned to Canada and went on to specialize in Shakespearean television shows and theater presentations. Vernon made his first Broadway bow in Royal Hunt of the Sun. From there he went to Hollywood to start a prolific career as a supporting and occasional lead actor. Vernon was frequently cast as a villain.

Trivia: When Jan Murray was in high school, his mother became ill and was confined to bed for many months. To keep his mom's spirits up, Murray would go to the local vaudeville house, memorize all the acts, then replay the entire bill for her benefit. Discovering that he enjoyed performing, he polished his craft on the Catskills circuit and as star attraction of several wartime USO troupes. After the war, Murray headlined the vaudeville programs at such choice houses as Loews State and the Paramount Theater, and labored away as a monologist at the Copacabana and other popular nightspots. An early arrival on the TV scene, Murray hosted several TV variety and quiz programs, most memorably the late-1950s favorite Treasure Hunt. He was also a frequent sitcom guest star, never more hilariously than in the 1962 Car 54 Where Are You installment "Boom, Boom, Boom!" Since 1965, Jan Murray has shown up sporadically in films; his best screen role was as the slovenly riverboat skipper in 1967's Tarzan and the Great River. His later years frequently punctuated by memorable appearances in such popular 80's-era television programs as Hunter, Hardcastle and McCormick, and It's a Living, Murray took a furlough from the screen for the majority of the 1990s before succumbing to the devestating combined effects of emphasema, heart problems, and pneumonia in early July of 2006.