Trivia: African American leading man Dorian Harewood attended the University of Cincinnati before establishing his theatrical reputation, first in the cast of the Broadway rock musical Two Gentlemen of Verona, then in the road company of Jesus Christ, Superstar. He won a Theatre Guild Award for his work in the 1974 production Don't Call Back. In films since 1976's Sparkle, Harewood is best known for his powerful supporting roles, most notably the unfortunate "grunt" Eightball in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). His television resumé includes the part of Alex Haley's father in the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generation and the title roles in the made-for-TV movies The Jessie Owens Story (1984) and Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story (1987); he has also played recurring roles on such series as Glitter, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, and Viper. Harewood has always attributed much of his success to actress Bette Davis, who while lecturing at the U. of Cincinnati encouraged the young actor to aggressively pursue his dreams of stardom. Dorian Harewood is the husband of actress Ann McCurry.

Trivia: If awards were bestowed for versatility, the graceful and congenial African-American actress Debbi Morgan would take first place. A veritable decades-long mainstay in the casts of A-list dramatic features, soap operas, acclaimed prime-time series dramas, big-screen exploitationers, sitcoms, and telemovies, Morgan has proven herself equally adept at each, while the number of roles she tackles each year suggests a die-hard craftswoman with no signs of slowing down. Born September 20, 1956, in Dunn, NC, Morgan moved with her family to New York City at the age of three. Despite the family's residence in a South Bronx housing project, they managed without difficulty. Five years into the move, Morgan's father died, which forced her mother, Lora, to support the two children (Debbi and younger sister Terry) as a secretary; she funded the girls' parochial educations through the end of high school. The photogenic Debbi sought out an entertainment career in her teens -- initially against the wishes of her mother. Lora issued stringent objections, terrified that Debbi -- a high-honors student -- would drift in with a bad element and engage in aberrant behavior. This never occurred; Debbi rapidly launched herself as an actress -- first in a series of commercials, then onto the Broadway stage (in the 1975 play What the Wine Sellers Buy) and in feature films (with a role in, regrettably, the Richard Fleischer-directed debacle Mandingo). After moving to L.A. in her early '20s, Morgan commenced series television work, with guest appearances on such ethnically oriented sitcoms as What's Happening!!, Good Times, and Sanford. Morgan's crowning network achievement arrived at the tail end of the '70s, with her acclaimed portrayal of Elizabeth (Alex Haley's aunt) in the smash miniseries Roots: The Next Generations. After a stint on the CBS series Trapper John, M.D. during the early '80s, Morgan discovered, through her agent, that the producers of the wildly popular daytime soap All My Children needed a young African-American actress to portray the romantic interest of the character Jesse (Darnell Williams). Morgan auditioned for the role and signed instantly, recurring on the series, intermittently, for 14 years. During the early to mid-'80s, Morgan also memorably essayed the part of Ruth Owens, the love interest of track star Jesse Owens (Dorian Harewood), in the critically praised epic telemovie The Jesse Owens Story (1984); in fact, Morgan's plaintive, emotionally charged protests regarding Owens' discriminatory treatment gave the film several of its most memorable scenes and images. Morgan continued her TV work throughout the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, with guest appearances on a myriad of series programs -- everything from The Cosby Show to Boston Public and Charmed. During the late '90s, however, Morgan broke from the small screen and made two enduring contributions to A-list features. She played Aunt Mozelle in Eve's Bayou, actress-cum-director Kasi Lemmons' acclaimed, finely wrought gothic drama of Southern life, and Mae Thelma Carter, the wife of wrongfully accused and incriminated boxer Rubin Carter (Denzel Washington), in Norman Jewison's Oscar-nominated biopic The Hurricane (1999). More recently, Morgan portrayed Twana in director Michael Schultz's cinematization of T.D. Jakes' play, Woman Thou Art Loosed (2004).

Trivia: Born into a show business family, George Kennedy made his stage debut at the age of two in a touring company of Bringing up Father. By the time he was seven, he was spinning records on a New York radio station. Kennedy' showbusiness inclinations were put aside when he developed a taste for the rigors of military life during World War II, and he wound up spending 16 years in the army. His military career ended and his acting career began when a back injury in the late 1950s inspired him to seek out another line of work.Appropriately enough, given his background, Kennedy first made his name with a role as a military advisor on the Sergeant Bilko TV series. In films from 1961, the burly, 6'4" actor usually played heavies, both figuratively and literally; quite often, as in Charade (1963) and Straitjacket (1964), his unsavory screen characters were bumped off sometime during the fourth reel. One of his friendlier roles was as a compassionate Union officer in Shenandoah (1965), an assignment he was to treasure because it gave him a chance to work with the one of his idols, Jimmy Stewart.Kennedy moved up to the big leagues with his Academy Award win for his portrayal of Dragline in Cool Hand Luke (1967). An above-the-title star from then on, Kennedy has been associated with many a box-office hit, notably all four Airport films. Unlike many major actors, he has displayed a willingness to spoof his established screen image, as demonstrated by his portrayal of Ed Hocken in the popular Naked Gun series. On TV, Kennedy has starred in the weekly series Sarge (1971) and The Blue Knight (1978), and was seen as President Warren G. Harding in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House. During the mid '90s, he became known as a persuasive commercial spokesman in a series of breath-freshener advertisements. In 1997, he provided the voice for L.B. Mammoth in the animated musical Cats Don't Dance, and the following year again displayed his vocal talents as one of the titular toys-gone-bad in Small Soldiers. Kennedy continued to steadily work through the next two decades; his final role was in The Gambler in 2014. He died in 2016, at age 91.

Trivia: African-American actor/director Georg Stanford Brown was seven-years-old when his family moved from Havana to Harlem. Chronically absent during his high school years, Brown was invited to drop out by his frustrated teachers. At 15, he organized a singing group called the Parthenons, which broke up after a single network TV appearance. He moved to Los Angeles at 17, where, after passing the college entrance exam, he enrolled in the L.A. City College theater program. "I just wanted to take something easy," he explained later, "but after a while I really got to like it." He liked it well enough to study further at New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Making his professional stage debut in Joseph Papp's Central Park Shakespearean productions, Brown headed back to L.A., certain that his theatrical credits would assure him steady work in films and TV, which they did, though at a molasses-slow pace. After increasingly larger roles in such films as The Comedians (1967), Bullitt (1968), and Colossus: The Forbin Project (1971), Brown was cast as officer Terry Webster on the Aaron Spelling-produced TV series The Rookies, which ran from 1972 to 1976. After Rookies, Brown began curtailing his acting in favor of directing. He helmed several episodes of TV's Hill Street Blues, as well as such made-for-TV movies as Grambling's White Tiger (1981), Miracle of the Heart: A Boys' Town Story (1986), Stuck With Each Other (1989), Father and Son: Dangerous Relations (1992), and The Last POW: The Bobby Garwood Story (1993). In 1986, Georg Stanford Brown won an Emmy for his direction of the Cagney and Lacey episode "Parting Shots," which starred his then-wife Tyne Daly.

Trivia: An alumnus of Eastern New Mexico University, American actor Ronny Cox received one the best early film showcases an actor could ask for. In 1972, he was cast as one of the four unfortunate rafters in Deliverance; it was Cox who engaged in the celebrated "dueling banjos" sequence with enigmatic albino boy Hoyt J. Pollard. Two years later, Cox found himself in Apple's Way, a homey TV dramatic weekly described as a "modern Waltons". Most of his subsequent roles were in this benign, All-American vein--and then Cox shocked his followers by portraying Jerry Rubin in the 1975 PBS TV drama The Trial of the Chicago Seven. During this telecast, Cox became one of the first (if not the first) actors to mouth a now-familiar expletive of disgust on American television. As his physique thickened and his hairline thinned in the 1980s, Cox was much in demand in films as a corporate villain, notably in Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1984) and Total Recall (1990). The flip side of this hard-nosed screen image was his portrayal of the apoplectic but scrupulously honest police chief in Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop films.

Trivia: Born to a Syrian-Lebanese family in Brooklyn, Victor Tayback grew up learning how to aggressively defend himself and those he cared about, qualities that he'd later carry over into his acting work. Moving to California with his family, the 16-year-old Tayback made the varsity football team at Burbank High. Despite numerous injuries, he continued his gridiron activities at Glendale Community College, until he quit school over a matter of principle (he refused to apologize to his coach for breaking curfew). After four years in the navy, Tayback enrolled at the Frederick A. Speare School of Radio and TV Broadcasting, hoping to become a sportscaster. Instead, he was sidetracked into acting, working as a cab driver, bank teller and even a "Kelly Girl" between performing gigs. Shortly after forming a little-theatre group called the Company of Angels, Tayback made his movie debut in Door-to-Door Maniac (1961), a fact he tended to exclude from his resumé in later years. His professional life began to improve in 1967, when he won an audition to play Sid Caesar's look-alike in a TV pilot. Throughout the early 1970s the bulging, bald-domed actor made a comfortable living in TV commercials and TV guest-star assignments, and as a regular on the detective series Griff (1973) and Khan (1975). In 1975, he was cast in the secondary role of Mel Sharples, the potty-mouthed short-fused owner of a greasy spoon diner, in the theatrical feature Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. When the film evolved into the weekly TV sitcom Alice in 1976, Tayback was engaged to recreate his "Mel" characterization. He remained with the program for the next nine years. In contrast to his gruff, abusive screen character, Tayback was dearly loved by the rest of the Alice cast, who regarded him a Big Brother and Father Confessor rolled into one. Five years after Alice's cancellation, Vic Tayback died of cancer at the age of 61; one of his last screen assignments was the voice of Carface in the animated feature All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Trivia: Effervescent African-American entertainer Ben Vereen attended New York's High School of the Performing Arts and Emerson College. Vereen was 18 when he made his New York stage bow in Prodigal Son; shortly thereafter, he was cast in the touring company of Sweet Charity, eventually making his 1969 screen debut in the film version of that Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields musical. He joined the cast of Hair in 1969, at various junctures playing both Claude and Berger. The following year, he won the Theatre World Award for his portrayal of Judas in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. After a season with the National Shakespeare Company, Vereen was cast as "The Leading Player" in the Broadway musical Pippin, a performance that earned him a Tony Award. While he seemed destined to appear in naught but film musicfests like Funny Lady (1975) and All That Jazz (1979), Vereen proved his dramatic mettle with his unforgettable portrayal of Chicken George in the landmark miniseries Roots. While he didn't win the Emmy for this role (as many expected), his 1978 TV special Ben Vereen...His Roots copped the gold statuette. Vereen has also been honored with the American Guild of Variety Artists' George M. Cohan award, and with the NAACP's Image Award. In 1980, he co-starred with Jeff Goldblum in the Steven Cannell-produced TV series Tenspeed and Brownshoe. Though the series failed, Vereen reserved a warm place in his heart for his wheeler-dealer "Tenspeed Turner" character, reprising the role on the 1987 TV weekly J. J. Starbuck. His additional TV credits include the 1975 summer series Ben Vereen...Comin' at Ya, the recurring role of Uncle Phillip on Webster (1986), and the hosting chores for the syndicated talent contest You Write the Songs (1986) At the height of his fame, Vereen ebulliently attributed his success to "Jesus." His faith was sorely tested in the late 1980s; enduring the death of his son, Vereen began contemplating suicide, at one point deliberately standing in the middle of a busy Los Angeles street, allowing himself to be struck down by a passing car. Happily, Vereen recovered both emotionally and professionally; his recent credits include the Broadway musical Jelly's Last Jam and the recurring role of Captain Hutchinson in the TV cop series Silk Stalkings (1991- ).

Trivia: While growing up in Chicago, Tom Bosley dreamed of becoming the star left-fielder for the Cubs. As it turned out, the closest Bosley got to organized athletics was a sportscasting class at DePauw University. After additional training at the Radio Institute of Chicago and two years' practical experience in various dramatic radio programs and stock companies, he left for New York in 1950. Five years of odd jobs and summer-theater stints later, he landed his first off-Broadway role, playing Dupont-Dufort in Jean Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival. Steadier work followed at the Arena Theatre in Washington, D.C.; then in 1959, Bosley landed the starring role in the Broadway musical Fiorello!, picking up a Tony Award, an ANTA Award, and the New York Drama Critics Award in the bargain. In 1963, he made his film bow as Natalie Wood's "safe and secure" suitor Anthony Colombo in Love With the Proper Stranger. Occasionally cast as two-bit criminals or pathetic losers (he sold his eyes to blind millionairess Joan Crawford in the Spielberg-directed Night Gallery TV movie), Bosley was most often seen as a harried suburban father. After recurring roles on such TV series as That Was the Week That Was, The Debbie Reynolds Show, and The Sandy Duncan Show, Bosley was hired by Hanna-Barbera to provide the voice of flustered patriarch Howard Boyle on the animated sitcom Wait Til Your Father Gets Home (1972-1973). This served as a dry run of sorts for his most famous series-TV assignment: Howard Cunningham, aka "Mr. C," on the immensely popular Happy Days (1974-1983). The warm, familial ambience of the Happy Days set enabled Bosley to weather the tragic death of his first wife, former dancer Jean Elliot, in 1978. In addition to his Happy Days duties, Bosley was narrator of the syndicated documentary That's Hollywood (1977-1981). From 1989 to 1991, he starred on the weekly series The Father Dowling Mysteries, and thereafter was seen on an occasional basis as down-to-earth Cabot Cove sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder, She Wrote. Reportedly as kind, generous, and giving as his Happy Days character, Tom Bosley has over the last 20 years received numerous honors for his many civic and charitable activities.

Trivia: African American actor LeVar Burton was a 19-year-old UCLA drama student when he was catapulted into international fame. On January 23, 1977, Burton made his professional debut as young Kunta Kinte, the protagonist of the classic TV miniseries Roots. He went on to give first-rate performances in such TV movies as Dummy (79) and One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (78). Among LeVar Burton's more conspicuous TV appearances in the past decade have included his hosting chores on PBS' Reading Rainbow and his regular role as sightless Lieutenant Geordi LaForge on the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation (87-92). He has continued playing Lt. LaForge in the feature film versions of Star Trek. Burton is also a published author. Aside from the Star Trek films, his big-screen credits include the biopic Ali. Burton has also directed a handful of projects including episodic television, the senior-citizen romantic comedy Reach for Me, and Miracle's Boys - a drama about three brothers growing up in difficult circumstances.

Trivia: A prolific character player whose lived-in face was his fortune, Norman Fell attended Temple University, served in World War II, then took acting lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Art and the Actors' Studio. Fell entered films in 1959, playing such peripheral roles as the radio technician in Inherit the Wind (1960) until achieving a measure of fame as a detective named Meyer Meyer on TV's 87th Precinct (1961). His meatier film assignments included the role of Mr. McCleery in The Graduate (1967) and a pushy American tourist in If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium (1969). In 1966, Fell was cast as the second lead in the pilot for the Girl From UNCLE series, but "skewed old" and was replaced by Noel Harrison. Fell finally achieved TV stardom as the sex-obsessed landlord Mr. Roper in the popular 1970s sitcom Three's Company, which resulted in a spin-off vehicle for Fell titled The Ropers (both series were based on British TV originals; the English equivalent of The Ropers was George and Mildred). A later video vehicle for Fell, 1982's Teachers Only, was less successful. Norman Fell made his final film appearance in the independent feature The Destiny of Marty Fine (1996).

Trivia: Fans of the original action /espionage series Mission Impossible (1966-70) may recognize black actor Greg Morris for playing electronics wizard Barney Collier. Morris spent most of his career on television, appearing on such shows as Ben Casey, The Dick Van Dyck Show and The Twilight Zone. During the 1970s, Morris was a regular on Vega$ (1978-81), playing police officer Lt. David Neslon. A native of Cleveland who spent part of his childhood in New York City, his mother worked as a secretary for black labor leader A. Phillip Reynolds. Before becoming a television actor during the early '60s, Morris attended Ohio State University and the University of Iowa. Morris passed away at the age of 61 on August 27, 1996. The cause of death was unreported.

Trivia: Actor Barry Corbin may be best remembered for portraying Maurice Minnifield, the blustery but good-hearted ex-astronaut and entrepreneurial owner of Cicely, Alaska, in the popular TV show Northern Exposure (1990-95). Prior to that, he worked steadily on stage, screen and television since the mid '70s. With his stocky build and big voice, the Texas native is noted for his portrayals of policemen, soldiers, and father figures. He received formal training in theater at Texas Tech, and, after spending two years in the Marines, Corbin returned home and began acting in regional theater. He later went to New York where he worked on and off Broadway. He moved to L.A. in 1977 where he began writing radio plays for National Public Radio. In 1980 Corbin began his feature-film career, appearing in three popular films: Any Which Way You Can, Stir Crazy, and Urban Cowboy. Among his other early career highlights are Six Pack, Honkytonk Man, and playing General Beringer in John Badham's nuclear thriller WarGames. He continued to work steadily in TV and film in projects such as LBJ: The Early Years, Nothing In Common, Critters 2, and Who's Harry Crumb before landing his iconic part on Northern Exposure.After the quirky CBS series ended, he could be seen in Curdled, The Drew Carey Show, and in a recurring role on the drama series One Tree Hill. In 2007 he was in the Best Picture winning No Country For Old Men. His most recent credits include Feed he Fish, and Valley of the Sun.