Trivia: Robert Fuller spent his first decade in show business trying his best to avoid performing. After his film debut in 1952's Above and Beyond, Fuller studied acting with Sanford Meisner at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse but never exhibited any real dedication. He tried to become a dancer but gave that up as well, determining that dancing was "sissified." Fuller rose to nominal stardom fairly rapidly in the role of Jess Harper on the popular TV western Laramie (1959-63). Once he found his niche in cowboy attire, he stuck at it in another series, Wagon Train, turning down virtually all offers for "contemporary" roles. When westerns began dying out on television in the late 1960s, Fuller worked as a voiceover actor in commercials, earning some $65,000 per year (a tidy sum in 1969). On the strength of his performance in the Burt Topper-directed motorcycle flick The Hard Ride, Fuller was cast by producer Jack Webb as chief paramedic Kelly Brackett on the weekly TVer Emergency, which ran from 1972 through 1977. In 1994, Robert Fuller was one of several former TV western stars who showed up in cameo roles in the Mel Gibson movie vehicle Maverick.

Trivia: The son of Broadway singer/actor Harry Stockwell, Guy Stockwell made his stage debut at age 5 in The Innocent Voyage. Also appearing in this 1943 Theatre Guild production was Guy's younger brother Dean Stockwell. Dean went on to fame as a child actor, specializing in sensitive roles; conversely, Guy did not truly achieve prominence until adulthood, playing rugged, outdoorsy types. More active on the stage than on screen, Guy nonetheless chalked up plenty of on-camera credits, including regular roles on such TV series as Adventures in Paradise (1961), The Richard Boone Show (1963), and the daytime drama Return to Peyton Place (1972; as Dr. Michael Rossi). Guy Stockwell's best big-screen assignment was the title role in the 1966 remake of Beau Geste.

Trivia: Formidable American character actress Reta Shaw was the daughter of a New England orchestra leader. Educated in virtually all forms of the arts except acting, Shaw took a series of musical and "civilian" jobs before appearing in her first play, the 1946 dud It Takes Two. She went on to character roles in such major Broadway musicals as Annie Get Your Gun and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Shaw was one of the few members of the original Broadway cast of Picnic to be invited to appear in the 1956 film version. The hefty Ms. Shaw was subsequently shown to good advantage as a pajama factory employee in the 1957 film musical The Pajama Game (again repeating her stage role), and in dozens of smaller but still showy roles, such as Mrs. Brill the maid in 1964's Mary Poppins. From 1968 through 1970, Reta Shaw was seen on a weekly basis as housekeeper Martha Grant on the TV sitcom version of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Trivia: Michael Burns went from playing boyish male ingénues in the early '60s to a somewhat less successful career as a male lead in such offbeat movies as That Cold Day in the Park. Born in Mineola, NY, in 1947, he was raised in Yonkers, NY, and later in Beverly Hills, CA. His father, Frank Burns. had been a pioneering engineer in the field of television during the '30s and was later a director. It was through a chance encounter with the father of a classmate in his Beverly Hills school (who knew of an opening for a boy actor) that Michael Burns began a television career in August 1958 at the age of nine. His subsequent small-screen appearances included Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Loretta Young Show, The Twilight Zone, and G.E. Theatre before he landed the role of Barnaby West, a young orphan adopted by the crew of the wagon train, in the MCA-produced series Wagon Train. He later appeared in episodes of Bonanza and other dramatic series. In 1969, he graduated to adult roles in the drama That Cold Day in the Park, directed by Robert Altman, in which he was obliged to portray some sexual situations that would have been unheard of in movies at the time he entered the business. Despite pursuing his acting career into adulthood, Burns is best remembered for roles during his teenage years. He served in production capacities beginning in the '80s, notably as an executive producer of Monster's Ball in 2001.

Trivia: A versatile, commanding, leathery character actor, he learned to raise and ride broncos on his family's ranch during his youth. He attended college for two years, became a seaman, then began his performing career as a radio announcer; he became nationally known as an announcer on the "March of Time" broadcasts. Onscreen from the late '40s, he often portrayed law officers; he was also convincing as a villain. He was well-known for his TV work; he starred in the series Naked City and Wagon Train. He was married to actress Jeanette Nolan, with whom he appeared in Saddle Tramp (1950) and Two Rode Together (1961); they also acted together on radio, and in the late '60s they joined the cast of the TV series The Virginian, portraying a married couple. Their son was actor Tim McIntire.

Trivia: Redheaded leading man Robert Horton attended UCLA, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, and acted in California-based stage productions before making his entree into films in 1951. Horton's television career started off on a high note in 1955, when he was cast in the weekly-TV version of King's Row as Drake McHugh (the role essayed by Ronald Reagan in the 1942 film version). The series barely lasted three months, but better things were on the horizon: in 1957, Horton was hired to play frontier scout Flint McCullough in Wagon Train, which became the highest-rated western on TV. Horton remained with Wagon Train until 1962. He then did some more stage work before embarking on his third series, 1965's The Man Called Shenandoah. When this one-season wonder ran its course, Horton toured the dinner-theatre circuit, then in 1982 accepted a major role on the popular daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Horton continued acting until the late 1980s. He died in 2016, at age 91.