Trivia: Carl Reiner knew he wanted to be an actor -- preferably a Shakespearean actor -- from the time he was wearing knee pants. Trained in New York's Works Progress Administration Dramatic Workshop, he spent the war years touring with Maurice Evans' G.I. Hamlet, appearing with another young hopeful, Howard Morris. After the war he accumulated scores of stock company and Broadway credits, then in 1948 made his television debut in the short-lived series Fashion Story. While starring in NBC's 54th Street Revue, he was hired as one of the regulars on Your Show of Shows, appearing on a weekly basis with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, and old pal Howie Morris. During the scripting sessions for Show of Shows, Reiner became friends with a bombastic staff writer named Mel Brooks, with whom he improvised a number of wild stream-of-consciousness comedy bits which would eventually crystallize as the classic "2000 Year Old Man" routines. An Emmy winner for his work on the various Sid Caesar programs, he entered films as a character actor in 1959. That same year, he wrote, produced, and starred in the pilot episode for a proposed series about a comedy writer named Rob Petrie, titled Head of the Family. The network executives liked the concept, but vetoed Reiner as the star; swallowing his pride, he retooled the property with another leading man, and that's how the Emmy-winning Dick Van Dyke Show was born. During the series' five-year run, Reiner made innumerable cameo appearances on the program, most memorably as Rob Petrie's mercurial TV-comedian boss Alan Brady. In 1967 he made his film directorial debut with Enter Laughing, an adaptation of his own semi-autobiographical 1958 novel (the book had already been transformed into a Broadway play with Alan Arkin as star). Reiner's later directing assignments included The Comic (1967), a bittersweet farce based on the lives of Stan Laurel, Harry Langdon, and Buster Keaton; the black comedy cult favorite Where's Poppa? (1970); the whimsical fantasy Oh, God (1977); and a popular series of Steve Martin vehicles, among them The Jerk (1978) and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). His film output decreased in number and quality in the l980s and 1990s, though critics enjoyed his offbeat 1989 working-class comedy Bert Rigby, You're a Fool and his 1997 Bette Midler starrer That Old Feeling. In 1995, he earned yet another Emmy award for his revival of the Alan Brady character on a memorable episode of TV's Mad About You. And though Reiner appeared to retire from directing following That Old Feeling, he still maintained a notable presence in film and television with roles in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven and it's two sequels, House M.D., Hot in Cleveland, and Parks and Rec.Carl Reiner is the father of directors Rob Reiner and Lucas Reiner; his wife Estelle has enjoyed a latter-day career as a night club singer and as a cameo performer in her son Rob's films (she's the lady who says, "I'll have what she's having!" in When Harry Met Sally).

Trivia: Vivacious American actress Barbara Britton was active in student theatricals at Long Beach City College before signing with Paramount Pictures in 1941. Many of her film appearances were enjoyable but unmemorable, with a few exceptions like her comic turn as Ronald Colman's sister in Champagne for Caesar (1950). Barbara's chief claim to fame was her two-year tenure as inquisitive amateur sleuth Pam North on the Thin Man-like TV series Mr. and Mrs. North. Thereafter, Barbara was best known for her long tenure as commercial spokeswoman for Revlon Products. Perhaps the most intriguing assignment of Barbara Britton's post-North years was the 1959 TV sitcom pilot Head of the Family, in which she created the role of Laura Petrie--a role later essayed by Mary Tyler Moore when Head of the Family was retooled as The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Trivia: American actress Sylvia Miles was one of several performers of the 1960s to parlay a vulgar, sex-obsessed screen personality into a successful career. Miles started out at the Actors Studio, then moved on to Broadway, playing fairly conservative roles. The first foretaste of things to come was Miles's role as The Thief in the off-Broadway production of The Balcony, in which she allowed a man dressed as a judge to whip her -- but only after she forced him to lick her foot! Though this kind of material is kid's stuff today, it packed quite a wallop in 1960, and established Miles as, at best, a "peculiar" personality. In 1969 Miles was nominated for an Oscar for her brief role in Midnight Cowboy, in which she outhustles would-be hustler Jon Voight following an athletic and sometimes amusing sex scene. Her second Oscar nomination was for Farewell My Lovely (1975), in which she played a boozer with something to hide from detective Phillip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum). The story most often told about Miles concerns the time she responded to a bad review from critic John Simon by dumping a greasy plate of food on his head. Less often told is the story of how Miles came awfully close to being a regular on The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the 1959 Van Dyke pilot, then titled Head of the Family, Miles played comedy writer Sally Rogers -- the role ultimately played by another outspoken actress, Rose Marie.

Trivia: American actor Gary Morgan is the son of acrobats Barney Morgan and Dotty May (professionally billed as "Morgan and May"). Morgan began touring with his parents when he was five years old. Like them, he is also an accomplished acrobat and in film often portrays animals and early forms of hominids. Both of his daughters, Molly Morgan (1978- ) and Bonnie Morgan (1981- ), are also actresses.