Trivia: Wryly humorous Canadian character actor Conrad Bain was all wrapped up in such athletic pursuits as hockey and speed skating when, in his junior year of high school, he suddenly became fascinated with acting. He studied at Alberta's Banff School of Fine Arts, served in the Canadian army during World War II, then resumed his training at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He worked at the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival and in live television before scoring his first real success in the 1956 Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. In the early 1970s, Bain began popping up in such New York-based films as Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) and Woody Allen's Bananas (1973). He gained national fame in the TV role of stuffy next-door neighbor Dr. Arthur Harmon on the Norman Lear sitcom Maude (1974-78). Bain was later awarded top billing as wealthy Phillip Drummond, foster father to Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges, on Diff'rent Strokes. His most recent regular-series assignment was as presidential aide Charley Ross on the George C. Scott TV vehicle Mr. President (1987). Conrad Bain's identical twin brother Bonar Bain occasionally guested on Conrad's various TV series. Conrad died at 89 in early 2013.

Trivia: African-American child star Gary Coleman grew up in Zion, IL, where his father worked as a forklift operator and his mother was a nurse. Before reaching the age of five, Coleman had undergone three operations for a congenital kidney defect known as nephritis. As a result of his medical condition, he would never grow any taller than 4'8". His smallness proved to be a professional advantage when he began appearing in Chicago-area TV commercials; even at the age of nine, he could still pass as a precocious five-year-old. In 1978, Coleman auditioned for a proposed television revival of the old Little Rascals comedy series. Though the project fell through, ABC chief executive Fred Silverman was enchanted by the talented tyke. Silverman cast Coleman as Arnold Jackson on the upcoming sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, which moved to NBC along with Silverman in the fall of 1978. It was this extraordinarily popular series, coupled with the precocious Coleman's spirited TV talk show appearances, that catapulted the ten-year-old to stardom. Within a year of Diff'rent Strokes' debut, Gary Coleman Productions was formed, for the purpose of starring the youngster in theatrical features like On the Right Track (1981) and made-for-TV movies like Scout's Honor (1980) and The Kid With the Broken Halo (1982). This last project was spun off into the Saturday-morning cartoon series The Gary Coleman Show (1983), with Coleman providing his own voice. An instinctive comic performer and extremely quick study, Coleman rapidly grew weary with the rigors of show business. As he grew older, Coleman's spontaneous cuteness faded. After the cancellation of Diff'rent Strokes in 1986, Coleman found the going decidedly rough. Occasionally he'd play a "stunt" part like a villainous gang leader on the TV series 227, in addition to appearances on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Drew Carey Show and other programs, but his short stature and ever-diminishing acting range made him difficult to cast. He still remained in the public eye, albeit as the central character in a bitter legal squabble between himself and his parents. Gary Coleman's later TV appearances were largely confined to a series of late-night commercials for a "psychic" telephone service, though he made headlines in 2003 when he ran in the Recall Election for Governor of the State of California, placing 8th behind winner Arnold Schwarzenegger and 6 others. Coleman died of cranial bleeding following a fall in late May 2010. He was 42 years old.

Trivia: Actor Todd Bridges is probably best known as big brother Willis on the classic '80s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. He was only 13 years old when he was cast in the series in 1978, though he had already cut his teeth in the world of television on shows like Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons. Even before that, Bridges had scored gigs in commercials, and his family had relocated from San Francisco to L.A. to support his young career when he was just six. He stayed with Diff'rent Strokes until 1986, when the series ended, and like a lot of child stars, Bridges had a hard time transitioning into the world of adult acting. He began to struggle with drug problems and trouble with the law, and the struggles forced the actor to move his career to the back burner as he battled to become free of addiction. With time and work, however, Bridges did surmount his problems and emerged ready to take on the world of acting again. He began a production company with his brother, Little Bridge Productions, and began working behind the camera too, directing 2003's Blackball. Additionally, Bridges has toured the country, speaking at schools on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.

Trivia: Actress Dana Plato is best known to audiences as Kimberly on the classic '80s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The California native began acting when she was just 11 in the movie Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, and when she joined the cast of Diff'rent Strokes in 1978, she instantly became a household name. She stayed with the show until 1984, but following its run, she ran into the same problems as many child stars and couldn't find success as an adult actress. She began to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, facing arrest in the early '90s for robbery and for forging a prescription. In 1999, Plato suffered what the police deemed to be an accidental overdose and died while visiting her fiancé's parents' house.

Trivia: Born in 1908, actress Nedra Volz began her career in show business as a little girl, appearing in vaudeville under the name "Baby Nedra" when she was a toddler. She served as a vocalist for a popular big band in the 1930s called Cato's Vagabonds, and was married in 1946 to Oren Volz, with whom she would have three children. It wasn't until the 1970s that Volz began the onscreen career that would make her a familiar face to so many fans, appearing on numerous TV shows like WKRP in Cincinnati and Maude. In 1980, she took on the role of Adelaide Brubaker on the popular sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, and she would stay with the series for two years. She also took on the recurring role of Emma Tisdale on The Dukes of Hazzard, and continued to wrack up a huge list of single-episode appearances on various shows throughout the '80s and '90s. Volz finally retired from acting in 1996 at the age of 88. She moved to Mesa, AZ, where she eventually passed away in 2003 at the age of 94.

Trivia: After spending three seasons with the Pasadena Playhouse, actor Robert Rockwell made his Broadway debut in Jose Ferrer's 1946 production of Cyrano de Bergerac, a job he landed on the strength of his dueling skills. Signed to a Republic Pictures contract in 1949, he starred in 11 films over a period of two years, including the infamous anti-Communist tract The Red Menace. From 1952 to 1955, he was seen as Mr. Philip Boynton, the stunningly handsome and incredibly naïve biology teacher on TV's Our Miss Brooks. So typecast was he by this role that he had some trouble finding work after the series' cessation, but the TV-Western boom came to his rescue in 1959, when he was cast as two-fisted frontier insurance investigator Sam Logan in The Man From Blackhawk. Active into the 1990s, Robert Rockwell could be seen in character roles in such TVers as Growing Pains and Beverly Hills 90210.

Trivia: A Yale man, American actor Robert Ginty was of the Sid Haig / Harry Dean Stanton / Charles Napier school of film performing. Whether good guy or bad, Ginty's acting style was sullen and laconic, as if he held some appalling secret that it was best the world not know. He specialized in low-budget films, where his expertise shone all the more in his many performance as drifters, loners, and troubled war vets. Ginty has also directed from time to time, though no festival awards have been garnered by The Bounty Hunter (1989) and Vietnam, Texas (1990). Among Robert Ginty's TV series credits are Black Sheep Squadron (1976), The Paper Chase (1979), and Hawaiian Heat (1984) (a rare "establishment" role as a cop).