Trivia: Redheaded leading man Robert Horton attended UCLA, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, and acted in California-based stage productions before making his entree into films in 1951. Horton's television career started off on a high note in 1955, when he was cast in the weekly-TV version of King's Row as Drake McHugh (the role essayed by Ronald Reagan in the 1942 film version). The series barely lasted three months, but better things were on the horizon: in 1957, Horton was hired to play frontier scout Flint McCullough in Wagon Train, which became the highest-rated western on TV. Horton remained with Wagon Train until 1962. He then did some more stage work before embarking on his third series, 1965's The Man Called Shenandoah. When this one-season wonder ran its course, Horton toured the dinner-theatre circuit, then in 1982 accepted a major role on the popular daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Horton continued acting until the late 1980s. He died in 2016, at age 91.

Trivia: James Best started appearing on film in 1950 in such westerns as Winchester 73 and Kansas Raiders, he was touted as a bright new face on the cinematic scene. When Best showed up as a regular on the 1963 TV series Temple Houston, he was promoted as a "promising" performer. When co-starred in Jerry Lewis' Three on a Couch in 1965, Best was given an "and introducing" credit. And in 1979, He finally found his niche when he was cast as Sheriff Roscoe Coltrane on the immensely popular weekly TVer The Dukes of Hazzard. Best played the role for all seven seasons of the show, and returned to it for TV movies and video games. He died in 2015, at age 88.

Trivia: American actor Ken Mayer played character roles in feature films of the '50s and '60s (primarily Westerns). He also worked in summer stock and was a regular on the television series Space Patrol. Occasionally, Mayer also worked in TV commercials.

Trivia: Nestor Paiva had the indeterminate ethnic features and gift for dialects that enabled him to play virtually every nationality. Though frequently pegged as a Spaniard, a Greek, a Portuguese, an Italian, an Arab, an even (on radio, at least) an African-American, Paiva was actually born in Fresno, California. A holder of an A.B. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Paiva developed an interest in acting while performing in college theatricals. Proficient in several languages, Paiva made his stage bow at Berkeley's Greek Theatre in a production of Antigone. His subsequent professional stage career was confined to California; he caught the eye of the studios by appearing in a long-running Los Angeles production of The Drunkard, which costarred another future film player of note, Henry Brandon. He remained with The Drunkard from 1934 to 1945, finally dropping out when his workload in films became too heavy. Paiva appeared in roles both large and small in so many films that it's hard to find a representative appearance. Fans of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby can take in a good cross-section of Paiva's work via his appearances in Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1945) and Road to Rio (1947); he has a bit as a street peddler in Morocco, is desperado McGurk in Utopia, and plays the Brazilian theatre manager who isn't fooled by the Wiere Brothers' attempt to pass themselves off as Americans ("You're een the groove, Jackson") in Rio. During his busiest period, 1945 through 1948, Paiva appeared in no fewer than 117 films. The familiar canteloupe-shaped mug and hyperactive eyebrows of Nestor Paiva graced many a film and TV program until his death in 1966; his final film, the William Castle comedy The Spirit is Willing (1967), was released posthumously.

Trivia: Statuesque, brunette American actress Jacqueline De Wit built her reputation in icy "other woman" roles. Active from the early 1940s, DeWit accepted assignments at practically every studio from MGM to Monogram. She holds the distinction of being the only film actress ever to play the wife of comedian Bud Abbott (in the 1946 Abbott and Costello vehicle Little Giant). She also essayed featured roles in "A" pictures like The Snake Pit (1948), Carrie (1952, as the title character's sister), Tea and Sympathy (1956) and The Toy Tiger (1956), her characters becoming less truculent and more maternal as the years rolled on. After several years' inactivity, Jacqueline DeWit briefly returned before the cameras in 1966 and 1967, with supporting parts in theatrical features and guest shots on TV.

Trivia: American actor Ward Bond was a football player at the University of Southern California when, together with teammate and lifelong chum John Wayne, he was hired for extra work in the silent film Salute (1928), directed by John Ford. Both Bond and Wayne continued in films, but it was Wayne who ascended to stardom, while Bond would have to be content with bit roles and character parts throughout the 1930s. Mostly playing traffic cops, bus drivers and western heavies, Bond began getting better breaks after a showy role as the murderous Cass in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Ford cast Bond in important roles all through the 1940s, usually contriving to include at least one scene per picture in which the camera would favor Bond's rather sizable posterior; it was an "inside" joke which delighted everyone on the set but Bond. A starring role in Ford's Wagonmaster (1950) led, somewhat indirectly, to Bond's most lasting professional achievement: His continuing part as trailmaster Seth Adams on the extremely popular NBC TV western, Wagon Train. No longer supporting anyone, Bond exerted considerable creative control over the series from its 1957 debut onward, even seeing to it that his old mentor John Ford would direct one episode in which John Wayne had a bit role, billed under his real name, Marion Michael Morrison. Finally achieving the wide popularity that had eluded him during his screen career, Bond stayed with Wagon Train for three years, during which time he became as famous for his offscreen clashes with his supporting cast and his ultra-conservative politics as he was for his acting. Wagon Train was still NBC's Number One series when, in November of 1960, Bond unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and died while taking a shower.

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.