Trivia: A bout of roseola infantum rendered actress Marlee Matlin almost completely deaf at the age of 18 months. Never permitting her affliction to impede her ambitions, Matlin launched her stage career at age 8, playing Dorothy in the Des Plaines Childrens Theatre of the Deaf production of The Wizard Oz. She put her theatrical aspirations on the back burner while studying criminal justice at William Rainey Harper college, but by her early 20s was back on stage, playing a minor role in the original Chicago Immediate Theatre Production of Children of a Lesser God. By the time this community-theatre effort went "professional" and was transplanted to New York, Matlin had been promoted to the leading role of Sara. She repeated this role in the 1988 film version of Children of a Lesser God, and in so doing became the first deaf actress to win the Academy Award. During this same period, Matlin was involved in a well-publicized romance with her Lesser God co-star William Hurt. In her talk-show appearances, Matlin is invariably accompanied by an interpreter, who relays the meaning of her sign language to the studio audience; from the 1989 TV movie Bridge of Silence onward, however, the actress has endeavored to speak as often as possible. From 1991 through 1993, Marleen Matlin starred as assistant district attorney Tess Kaufman on the weekly TV series Reasonable Doubt and in 1995 and '96 she played Mayor Laurie Bey on the Emmy Award-winning Picket Fences.Moving into the new millennium Matlin continued to be active in television and film, frequently essaying recurring roles in such popular shows as My Name is Earl, The West Wing, and The L Word and turning up as the lead in the existential documentary What the #$*! Do We Know (2004).

Trivia: Character actor Larry Drake worked steadily on television and in feature films since making his feature-film debut in This Stuff'll Kill You (1971). Though the burly actor has played roles ranging from rednecks to murderous doctors (Dr. Giggles) to detectives (Power 98), Drake is best remembered for his convincing portrait of gentle, mentally retarded Benny on the NBC television series L.A. Law (1986-1994). Drake continued working through the '00s; he died in 2016, at age 66.

Trivia: American actress Miriam Hopkins studied to be a dancer, but her first major opportunity with a touring ballet troupe was cut short when she broke her ankle. Opting for an acting career, Hopkins drew upon her Georgia background to specialize in playing Southern belles, most notably in the 1933 Broadway play Jezebel. Entering films with 1930's Fast and Loose, Hopkins became a popular film star, though many critics and film historians deemed her histrionic, uninhibited style as "an acquired taste." During the early stages of her film career, Hopkins contributed at least two memorable performances: Champagne Ivy, the doomed cockney songstress in the Fredric March version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), and the title role in Becky Sharp (1935), the first feature film to be shot in the three-strip Technicolor process. Relatively charming offscreen, Hopkins could be a terror on the set, driving co-stars to distraction with her lateness, lack of concentration and self-centered attitude towards camera angles; she owned the distinction of being one of the few actors ever reprimanded in full view of the production crew by the otherwise gentlemanly Edward G. Robinson. Still, she had her following, and was able to continue her stage career (she was particularly good in the 1958 Pulitzer Prize winner Look Homeward Angel) after her movie popularity waned. One of Hopkins' best later roles was her character part in 1961's The Children's Hour; 25 years earlier, Miriam had starred in the first film version of that Lillian Hellman play, These Three (1936).

Trivia: Yale grad John Hoyt had been a history instructor, acting teacher and nightclub comedian before linking up with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in 1937. He remained with Welles until he joined the Army in 1945. After the war, the grey-haired, deadly-eyed Hoyt built up a screen reputation as one of most hissable "heavies" around, notably as the notorious political weathervane Talleyrand in Desiree (1954). He was a bit kinder onscreen as the Prophet Elijah in Sins of Jezebel. Nearly always associated with mainstream films, Hoyt surprised many of his professional friends when he agreed to co-star in the softcore porn spoof Flesh Gordon; those closest to him, however, knew that Hoyt had been a bit of a Bohemian all his life, especially during his frequent nudist colony vacations. TV fans of the '80s generation will remember John Hoyt as Grandpa Stanley Kanisky on the TV sitcom Gimme a Break; those with longer memories might recall that Hoyt played the doctor who told Ben Gazzara that he had only two years to live on the pilot for the 1960s TV series Run For Your Life. Hoyt also holds a footnote in Star Trek history playing the doctor in the first pilot episode, "The Cage."

Trivia: American actor Buck Taylor was the son of western comical sidekick Dub "Cannonball" Taylor. Buck was born in 1938, coincidentally the same year that Taylor pere made his film debut in You Can't Take it with You. True to his heritage, Buck showed up in the occasional western, notably Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980) and Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983). For the most part, Taylor's film roles fell into the "young character" niche, notably his appearances in Ensign Pulver (1964), The Wild Angels (1966) (as motorcycle punk Dear John), and Pickup on 101 (1972). Buck Taylor will probably be seen on TV in perpetuity thanks to his recurring role as Newly O'Brian on the marathon TV western Gunsmoke, a role which he recreated for a 1987 Gunsmoke reunion film.

Trivia: A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Vic Perrin's first significant stage credit was in the touring company of Helen Hayes' Victoria Regina. While working as a news announcer with the ABC radio network in the mid-'40s, he decided to return to acting, and within a few years was one of radio's busiest character players. He was one of the regulars on the long-running soap opera One Man's Family, and could also be heard on such prestigious anthologies as Escape and Suspense. He is most closely associated with the original radio versions of Dragnet and Gunsmoke, writing several scripts for the latter series. He continued his association with Dragnet creator Jack Webb into the TV versions of the 1950s and 1960s, playing a wide variety of kindly priests, two-bit crooks, soft-spoken detectives, suburban alcoholics, liberal professors, and homicidal maniacs. In films from 1952, he was seen as a publicity-seeking gunman in The Racket (1953), a gay art director in Forever Female (1956), and a bearded pedant in The Bubble (1969), among other films. A prolific voice-over specialist, Vic Perrin provided countless characterizations for such television cartoon series as Jonny Quest and Fantastic Four; he is perhaps best known for his two-year stint as the unseen Control Voice ("There is nothing wrong with your television set?") on TV's The Outer Limits (1963-1965).