Trivia: An American-born actor reared in Ireland and England, McGoohan made a memorable impression on the American and English viewing audiences by playing essentially the same role in three different television series. He began his performing career as a teen-ager, eventually played Henry V for the Old Vic company in London, and made mostly unremarkable films in the '50s. His movies include the delightful Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). Success came in 1961, when McGoohan played government agent John Drake in Danger Man, a role he continued on Secret Agent (1965-66). He created, produced and often wrote episodes of the nightmarish, surrealistic cult series The Prisoner (1968-69). This show featured a character assumed to be the same John Drake (although he was known as Number 6 and his real name was never mentioned), who had been kidnapped and taken to a strange community. McGoohan later starred in the TV series Rafferty (1977) and directed the film Catch My Soul (1974). He won an Emmy Award in 1975 for his guest appearance on Columbo with Peter Falk.

Trivia: Trained for her craft at Illinois' Northwestern University, North Carolina-born actress Penny Fuller made a name for herself on Broadway in the mid-to-late '60s. After appearing in Barefoot in the Park, Cabaret, and a handful of Shakespeare productions, Fuller won critical plaudits for her portrayal of the outwardly sweet but inwardly subversive Eve Harrington in Applause, the 1970 musical version of All About Eve. After this starmaking turn, Fuller found herself typed in films and TV as schemers and "steel magnolias." In addition to her many TV-movie appearances, Fuller has had regular roles on three series: The Edge of Night (early '70s) Bare Essence (1983) and Fortune Dane (1986). She won an Emmy for her performance in the 1982 TV staging of The Elephant Man. More recently, Penny Fuller has appeared as Mrs. Drysdale in the 1993 filmization of The Beverly Hillbillies and has periodically shown up as Helen Hunt's mother on the NBC sitcom Mad About You.

Trivia: He first acted in college productions and in Seattle, then moved to England, where he became well-respected as a fine stage actor; he also appeared in two or three films in the '50s. In the late '50s he gave several impressive performances on Broadway; for his work in Broadway's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? he won a Tony Award in 1962. His film work has been sporadic, with occasional bursts of activity; he has often played intelligent, introspective leads and key supporting roles. He has done similar work in many TV productions. He starred in the TV series Owen Marshall: Counsellor at Law.

Trivia: Educated at Roosevelt University, bearded, booming-voiced Louis Zorich has been a working actor for nearly 50 years. Zorich made his off-Broadway debut in a revival of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, and has appeared on Broadway in Becket, Moby Dick, Hadrian VII, and Moonchildren. He also appeared as Ben in Dustin Hoffman's 1984 staging of Death of a Salesman, repeating this role in the 1985 film version. On television, Zorich has been seen as Jules Berger in Brooklyn Bridge (1991) and as Paul Reiser's father in Mad About You (which ran from 1992 to 1999), and heard in innumerable commercial voice-overs. Louis Zorich is the husband of Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis.

Trivia: Though she got her start in the film industry late in life, actress Anne Haney would go on to become a dependable character actress with a strong reputation and a healthy sense of humor.Born in March of 1934 in Memphis, TN, Haney studied radio, drama, and television at the University of North Carolina before marrying Georgia Public Television executive John Haley. Soon raising a daughter and devoting herself to family life, Haney began to seek work in the local theater in the 1970s, touring with Noel Coward's Fallen Angels and joining the Screen Actors Guild in preparation for her family's post-retirement move to Southern California. Her plans sadly stifled by her husband's death in 1980, with her daughter in college Haney was on her own for her Westward voyage, though soon after arriving she got an agent and a role in the Walter Matthau vehicle Hopscotch (1980). Alternating between stage and screen for the duration of her Hollywood career, Haney gained over 50 credits with her frequent appearances in television and film. With memorable roles in such films as Liar Liar and Mrs. Doubtfire, in addition to her appearances on Matlock, L.A. Law, The Geena Davis Show, and Ally McBeal, Haney's likeable personality proved both enduring and endearing.On May 26, 2001, Anne Haney died of natural causes in her Studio City, CA, home. She was 67.

Trivia: An offbeat character actor whose stark features lent him to effective portrayals of villains and seedy figures, Stanley Kamel grew up in New Jersey and attended Boston University, where he received formalized dramatic training under the aegis of noted instructor Sanford Meisner. Kamel began his acting career with roles in off-Broadway productions during the early '70s, and quickly landed his first major on-camera role, as Eric Peters, on the daytime soap Days of Our Lives. His subsequent work over the following three decades consisted largely of recurring roles and guest parts in prime-time series including Cagney & Lacey, Hunter, Melrose Place, and -- most visibly -- the Tony Shalhoub sitcom Monk, as the lead character's shrink, Dr. Charles Kroger.

Trivia: In critiquing a minor science fiction film of the late '50s, a prominent film historian characterized star Phillip Abbott as "...the kind of actor whose face you forget five minutes after seeing it." While there is some truth in this, let it be recorded here and now that Abbott's professional credentials were as impeccable and impressive as any "unforgettable" star. After serving with the U.S. Air Force in World War II (and earning an air medal and three oak-leaf clusters in the process), Abbott attended Fordham University, and later studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Making his Broadway debut in 1948, he went on to appear in such stage successes as Detective Story and Two for the Seesaw. Far from being completely unmemorable in films, Abbott had at least two praiseworthy screen characterizations to his credit: nervous groom-to-be Arnold in The Bachelor Party (1957) and doctor-with-a-secret George Scudder in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). His many network television credits included a stint as host/narrator on the experimental 1960 psychological soap opera House on High Street, and the continuing role of Assistant Director Arthur Ward on The FBI (1965-1974). Before, during, and after the height of his film and TV activities, Abbott continued to be a busy stage actor/director. In 1962, he co-founded Theatre West, an L.A.-based actor's workshop. He also produced, directed, and wrote nine instructional films for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, as well as the ten-episode Lessons for Living, an in-school training project underwritten by the Disney studios. In addition, he created and produced the TV weekly Hidden Places on behalf of Nebraska Public Television. Outside of his professional activities, Abbott was active with the United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children's Foundation, and was one of the leading citizens of Tarzana, CA, where he served as president of the Nelson Company. Forgettable though his screen appearances may have been at times, Phillip Abbott will always be remembered by someone.

Trivia: American actor Bruce Kirby made his Broadway bow at age 40 in the 1965 production Diamond Orchid. More stage work followed, and then movie assignments, commencing with the all-star Catch 22 (1970), and continuing into the 1980s with such productions as Sweet Dreams (1985) and Throw Momma from the Train (1987). Kirby's TV career has embraced both series successes (1989's Anything But Love, as Jamie Lee Curtis' father), ignoble failures (1976's Holmes and Yoyo, as Henry Sedford), and a few projects which never sold (Kirby was in two busted pilots for something called McNamara's Band). In 1984, Kirbyreturned to Broadway to understudy Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman. Bruce Kirby, sometimes billed as Bruce Kirby Sr., was the father of actor Bruno Kirby, who formerly billed himself as B. Kirby Jr.

Trivia: Supporting actress, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Mike Lally started in Hollywood as an assistant director in the early 1930s. Soon, however, Lally was steadily employed as a stunt man, doubling for such Warner Bros. stars as James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. He also played innumerable bit roles as reporters, court stenographers, cops and hangers-on. Active until 1982, Mike Lally was frequently seen in functionary roles on TV's Columbo.

Trivia: Character actor John Finnegan first appeared onscreen in the '70s.

Trivia: American character actor Vito Scotti may not be the living legend as described by his publicity packet, but he has certainly been one of the most familiar faces to bob up on small and large screens in the last five decades. Scotti's father was a vaudeville impresario, and his mother an opera singer; in fact, he was born while his mother was making a personal appearance in San Francisco. Launching his own career at seven with an Italian-language commedia del arte troupe in New York, Scotti picked up enough improvisational knowhow to develop a nightclub act. When the once-flourishing Italian theatre circuit began to fade after World War II, Scotti began auditioning for every job that came up -- whether he could do the job or not. Without his trademarked mustache, the diminuitive actor looked like a juvenile well into his thirties, and as such was cast in a supporting role as a timorous East Indian on the "Gunga Ram" segment of the '50s TV kiddie series Andy's Gang. Once the producers discovered that Scotti had mastered several foreign dialects, he was allowed to appear as a comic foil to Andy's Gang's resident puppet Froggy the Gremlin. In nighttime television, Scotti played everything from a murderous bank robber (on Steve Canyon) to a misplaced Japanese sub commander (on Gilligan's Island). He was indispensable to TV sitcoms: Scotti starred during the 1954 season of Life with Luigi (replacing J. Carroll Naish), then appeared as gesticulating Latin types in a score of comedy programs, notably The Dick Van Dyke Show (as eccentric Italian housepainter Vito Giotto) and The Flying Nun (as ever-suspicious Puerto Rican police captain Gaspar Fomento). In theatrical films, Scotti's appearances were brief but memorable. he is always greeted with appreciative audience laughter for his tiny bit as a restauranteur in The Godfather (1972); while in How Sweet it Is (1968) he is hilarious as a moonstruck chef, so overcome by the sight of bikini-clad Debbie Reynolds that he begins kissing her navel! Vito Scotti was still essaying dialect parts into the '90s.

Trivia: Actor George Hamilton got his start in high school dramatics. Movie-star handsome, Hamilton played the lead in his very first film, Crime and Punishment USA (1959). While his acting talent was barely discernible in his earliest effort, Hamilton steadily improved in such MGM films as Home From the Hill (1960), Where the Boys Are (1960), Light in the Piazza (1961). He was at his best in a brace of biopics: in Warner Bros.' Act One (1963) he played aspiring playwright Moss Hart, while in Your Cheatin' Heart (1965), he registered well as self-destructive C&W singer Hank Williams. His much-publicized mid-1960s dating of President Johnson's daughter Lynda Bird was unfairly written off by some as mere opportunism, a calculated ploy to buoy up a flagging career. In fact, it did more harm than good to Hamilton: by 1969, movie roles had dried up, and he was compelled to accept his first TV-series role, playing jet-setter Duncan Carlyle in The Survivors. The following year, he starred as State Department functionary Jack Brennan in the weekly TV espionager Paris 7000. He staged a spectacular comeback as star and executive producer of Love at First Bite (1979), a screamingly funny "Dracula" take-off that won the actor a Golden Globe nomination. Even better was Zorro the Gay Blade (1980), which unfortunately failed to match the excellent box-office performance of First Bite but which still provided a much-needed shot in the arm to Hamilton's career. He went on to play such campish roles as villainous movie producer Joel Abrigor in TV's Dynasty (1985-86 season only) and jaded 007-type Ian Stone in the weekly Spies (1987). Throughout the thick and thin of his acting career, Hamilton remained highly visible on the international social scene, squiring such high-profile lovelies as Elizabeth Taylor and Imelda Marcos. He also remained financially solvent with his line of skin products and tanning salons. In 1995, George Hamilton hopped on the talk-show bandwagon, co-starring with his former wife Alana (who'd remarried rocker Rod Stewart) on a not-bad syndicated daily TV chatfest.

Trivia: Publicity notwithstanding, Lesley Ann Warren did not exactly burst fully grown into the world in 1966 to star in the Rodgers and Hammerstein TV special Cinderella. Trained at New York's Professional Children's School, Lesley Ann studied under Lee Strasberg before making her Broadway debut in 110 in the Shade, the 1964 musical version of The Rainmaker. On the strength of Cinderella, Lesley Ann was signed to a Disney contract; but after starring in The Happiest Millionaire (1966) and The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band, she rebelled against her studio-imposed sweetness-'n'-light image. Upon replacing Barbara Bain in the long-running espionage TVer Mission: Impossible in 1970, Warren publicly emphasized that her character, Dana Lambert, was a "now" person, wise in the ways of sex. She stayed with Mission for only a year, after which she established herself as a leading light in the made-for-TV movie field, frequently cast as an older woman involved romantically with a much-younger man. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her hilarious performance as bleach-blond gangster's moll Norma in Victor/Victoria (1981), then starred in a couple of intriguing Alan Rudolph-directed dramas, Choose Me (1984) and The Songwriter (1986). Her more recent roles include Molly, the homeless woman in Mel Brooks' Life Stinks(1991), who goes into a "death throes" act whenever she feels like it, and the barracuda booking agent for c-and-w star George Strait in Pure Country (1994). For nearly a decade, Lesley Ann Warren was the wife of producer/hairstylist Jon Peters.