Trivia: Commenting on his notorious on-set irascibility in 1977, Jack Klugman replied that he was merely "taking Peter Falk lessons from Robert Blake," invoking the names of two other allegedly hard-to-please TV stars. Klugman grew up in Philadelphia, and after taking in a 1939 performance by New York's Group Theatre, Klugman decided that an actor's life was right up his alley. He majored in drama at Carnegie Tech and studied acting at the American Theatre Wing before making his (non-salaried) 1949 stage-debut at the Equity Library Theater. While sharing a New York flat with fellow hopeful Charles Bronson, Klugman took several "grub" jobs to survive, at one point selling his blood for $85 a pint. During television's so-called Golden Age, Klugman appeared in as many as 400 TV shows. He made his film debut in 1956, and three years later co-starred with Ethel Merman in the original Broadway production of Gypsy. In 1964, Klugman won the first of his Emmy awards for his performance in "Blacklist," an episode of the TV series The Defenders; that same year, he starred in his first sitcom, the 13-week wonder Harris Against the World. Far more successful was his next TV series, The Odd Couple, which ran from 1970 through 1974; Klugman won two Emmies for his portrayal of incorrigible slob Oscar Madison (he'd previously essayed the role when he replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway production of the Neil Simon play). It was during Odd Couple's run that the network "suits" got their first real taste of Klugman's savage indignation, when he and co-star Tony Randall threatened to boycott the show unless the idiotic laughtrack was removed (Klugman and Randall won that round; from 1971 onward, Odd Couple was filmed before a live audience). It was but a foretaste of things to come during Klugman's six-year (1977-83) reign as star of Quincy, M.E.. Popular though Klugman was in the role of the crusading, speechifying LA County Coroner's Office medical examiner R. Quincy, he hardly endeared himself to the producers when he vented his anger against their creative decisions in the pages of TV Guide. Nor was he warmly regarded by the Writer's Guild when he complained about the paucity of high-quality scripts (he wrote several Quincy episodes himself, with mixed results). After Quincy's cancellation, Klugman starred in the Broadway play I'm Not Rappaport and co-starred with John Stamos in the 1986 sitcom You Again?. The future of Klugman's career -- and his future, period -- was sorely threatened when he underwent throat surgery in 1989. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the larynx as early as 1974, but at that time was able to continue working after a small growth was removed. For several years after the 1989 operation, Klugman was unable to speak, though he soon regained this ability. He continued working through 2011, and died the following year at age 90.

Trivia: Actor Barry Sullivan was a theater usher and department store employee at the time he made his first Broadway appearance in 1936. His "official" film debut was in the 1943 Western Woman of the Town, though in fact Sullivan had previously appeared in a handful of two-reel comedies produced by the Manhattan-based Educational Studios in the late '30s. A bit too raffish to be a standard leading man, Sullivan was better served in tough, aggressive roles, notably the title character in 1947's The Gangster and the boorish Tom Buchanan in the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby. One of his better film assignments of the 1950s was as the Howard Hawks-style movie director in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Sullivan continued appearing in movie roles of varying importance until 1978. A frequent visitor to television, Barry Sullivan starred as Sheriff Pat Garrett in the 1960s Western series The Tall Man, and was seen as the hateful patriarch Marcus Hubbard in a 1972 PBS production of Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest.

Trivia: Michael (aka Mickey) Callan gained fame at the age of 21 when he originated the role of Riff in the Broadway production of West Side Story. For several years, Callan specialized in similar roles on TV and films, while pursuing a second career as a nightclub singer. His gift for light comedy was first exploited in Disney's Bon Voyage (1962), then further refined in his performance as Jane Fonda's amour in Cat Ballou (1965). While Callan was co-starring with Patricia Hardy in the 1967 sitcom Occasional Wife, the two became husband and wife in real life as well as "reel" life. In 1982, Michael Callan both produced and starred in Double Exposure.

Trivia: Supporting actor Mark Goddard first appeared onscreen in the '60s. He is now an agent.

Trivia: Actor Frank Campanella's physical form almost single-handedly defined his Hollywood typecasting. A 6' 5" barrel-chested Italian with a great, hulking presence and memorably stark facial features, Campanella excelled as a character player, almost invariably appearing as toughs and heavies. Born to a piano builder father who played in the orchestras of Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, and Al Jolson, Campanella studied music exhaustively as a young man, and trained as a concert pianist, but discovered a rivaling passion for drama and entered Manhattan College as an acting major. Campanella's career as an actor began somewhat uncharacteristically, on a light and jovial note, by playing Mook the Moon Man during the first season of the Dumont network's infamous and much-loved kiddie show Captain Video and his Video Rangers (1949-1954). One- and two-episode stints on many American television programs followed for Campanella, most on themes of crime and law enforcement, including Inside Detective (1952), The Man Behind the Badge (1954), Danger (1954), and episodes of the anthology series Playwrights '56 (1956), Studio One (1956), and Suspicion (1957) that called for gritty, thuggish, urban types. During the 1960s, Campanella sought out the same kinds roles in feature films -- a path he pursued for several decades. Turns included John Frankenheimer's 1966 Seconds (as the Man in the Station); Mel Brooks' 1968 The Producers (as a bartender); 1970's The Movie Murderer (as an arson lieutenant); the Steve Carver-directed, Roger Corman-produced gangster film Capone (1975, as Big Jim Colosimo); Ed Forsyth's 1976 Chesty Anderson -- U.S. Navy (as the Baron); Conway in Warren Beatty's 1978 Heaven Can Wait; and Judge Neal A. Lake in Michael Winner's 1982 Death Wish 2. Campanella teamed with director Garry Marshall seven times: as Col. Cal Eastland in The Flamingo Kid (1984), Remo in Nothing in Common (1986), Captain Karl in Overboard (1987), Frank the Doorman in Beaches (1988), Pops in Pretty Woman (1990), a retired customer in Frankie and Johnny (1991), and a Wheelchair Walker in Exit to Eden (1994). Campanella re-teamed with Warren Beatty for the first time since 1978 as Judge Harper in Dick Tracy (1990) and again as the Elevator Operator in Love Affair (1994). Additional series in which Campanella appeared during the 1970s and '80s included Maude, Hardcastle & McCormick, Quincy, M.E., The Love Boat, Barnaby Jones, The Rockford Files, The Fall Guy, St. Elsewhere, and many others. In middle age, Campanella parlayed his early musical training into two career choices that blended music and drama: a part on a commercial that required him to play the piano and a job as co-host of a musical program on KCSN Radio called "Offbeat Notes on Music." He also appeared on Broadway in such musicals as Guys and Dolls and Nobody Loves an Albatross. After many years of inactivity, Frank Campanella ultimately died at his home in the San Fernando Valley, of unspecified causes. He was 87. Survivors included his brother, actor Joseph Campanella, his sister-in-law, and 13 nephews and nieces.

Trivia: Amerasian lead actress Aimee Eccles appeared onscreen during the '70s.

Trivia: Primarily an actress of stage and television, June Dayton occasionally appeared in feature films. Born Mary June Wetzel, she took her stage name from her native Dayton, OH, and made her Broadway debut in the 1940s. Those remembering the early-'50s television series The Aldrich Family will recognize her for playing Mary Aldrich during the 1952-1953 season. After that, she guest starred on numerous series through the mid-'70s, including Inner Sanctum, My Favorite Martian, Land of the Giants, and The Six Million Dollar Man. She would also show up in a few television movies such as Letters From Three Lovers (1973) and Something for Joey (1977). She made her feature film debut in 1963, appearing in the Norman Vincent Peale biopic One Man's Way and Twilight of Honor.