Trivia: He debuted onscreen in The Blackbord Jungle (1955) as a sadistic high school student, and after several years he moved up to starring roles. He often played vicious bad guys. He starred in the '60s TV series Combat. In the mid '60s he directed several off-Broadway plays and a couple of short films, then directed, co-produced, and co-wrote the film Deathwatch (1966), adapted from a Jean Genet play; after directing another feature he returned to acting, having gone eight years between screen roles. In 1982 he was killed by the blades of a helicopter while filming an action sequence in the film Twilight Zone: The Movie. He was the father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Trivia: Actor/dancer Ken Berry was brought to Broadway as a member of the Billy Barnes revue. His early TV work included the recurring role of Woody the bellhop on The Ann Sothern Show (1959-60). In 1965, Berry was cast in his most celebrated TV role: bumbling Cavalry captain Wilton Parmenter on F Troop (1965-67). When Andy Griffith decided to leave his highly rated TV sitcom in 1968, the series' title was changed to Mayberry RFD and Berry was cast in the central role of town-councillor Sam Jones. CBS' peremptory cancellation of Mayberry in 1971 left Berry in a financial bind, compelling him to accept a hosting stint on a doomed-from-the-start variety series, Ken Berry's WOW (1972). More recently, Berry has been seen as Vint Harper on the well-distributed Vicki Lawrence sitcom Mama's Family (1983-1989). For many years, Ken Berry was married to dancer/comedienne Jackie Joseph, of Little Shop of Horrors fame.

Trivia: German-born Hans Gudegast was still in his teens when he made his first film appearance in The Colossus of Rhodes (1957). Spending virtually his entire career in Hollywood, Gudegast achieved TV fame as the eternally outflanked Afrika Korps officer Hauptman on the weekly TV series The Rat Patrol (1967-1969). Sensing that he'd forever be typecast as a Nazi under his given name, Gudegast changed his professional cognomen to Eric Braeden in 1970 (he reportedly borrowed the name of his home town in Germany, though some sources indicate that he was actually born in Kiel). The actor's instincts were correct: under his new professional name, Braeden was afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his versatility as both leading man -- he was Charles Forbin in Colossus: The Forbin Project -- and villain. He was often called upon to convey insufferable arrogance, vide his memorable appearance as a media critic on an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (that's the one where Braeden received a pie in the face, courtesy of Ted Knight). Eric Braeden's best-known characterization was as the smoothly sinister Victor Newman in the CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Braeden played a small role as the wealthy John Jacob Astor in 1997's mega-hit Titanic, and co-starred in the comedy Meet the Deedles the following year. Following a long run on The Young and the Restless, Braeden co-starred with fellow Titanic alumni Billy Zane in The Man Who Came Back (2008), and took on the role of Robin Scherbatsky, Sr. for the television series How I Met Your Mother.

Trivia: Primarily a stage actor, Dick Patterson also worked extensively on television, but had only a handful of film credits to his name. He made appearances on such TV shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Carol Burnett Show.

Trivia: Lew Gallo was a general-purpose actor in theater and television and, occasionally, feature films, who moved up to producing for television in the 1970s and '80s. Gallo was born in 1928 in Mt. Kisco, NY, and made his Broadway debut in 1955 with a role in George Axelrod's satirical comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, which starred Orson Bean, Martin Gabel, Jayne Mansfield, and Walter Matthau. By 1957, Gallo had moved to Hollywood, where his early feature-film credits included roles in I Want to Live!, Pork Chop Hill, and Odds Against Tomorrow. During the early '60s, he also appeared in Soldier in the Rain and PT 109.Gallo was most active in television, however, starting in the late '50s, and he did his share of Westerns, including Gunsmoke and The Virginian. It was at Fox, however, that he seemed to keep busiest -- he had a recurring role on 12 O'Clock High as Major Joseph Cobb, and also appeared in episodes of Adventures in Paradise. Additionally, producer Irwin Allen apparently liked his work as well, and used him in episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, and The Time Tunnel. Gallo was equally good at portraying working stiffs and enlisted men, and high-ranking officers and educated, even devious, authority figures, and he was never "typed" in either movies or television. By the start of the 1970s, however, he had moved into production on the comedy anthology series Love, American Style.Although he continued to take acting roles into the 1990s, Gallo was much busier on the production side, on series such as Lucan and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, and made-for-television features such as Mafia Princess. He died in June of 2000, one day before his 72nd birthday, while being treated for an aortic aneurysm.