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: Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1931, Robert Ito has spent his film career as a character actor, often in the science fiction genre. He enjoyed success on the long-running television series Quincy, and his voice has been used in many animated films, such as Batman and Superman.Robert Ito's first performances were on the stage as a dancer in the National Ballet of Canada. After a decade with the company, Ito moved to New York in the 1960s, to dance on Broadway in The Flower Drum Song.Ito moved to Hollywood and began his film career in 1966 with some forgettable science fiction vehicles, such as Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Dimension 5. The B-movie genre often turned to Ito when it wanted an actor to portray someone of his Japanese heritage. Over the years, he played many such roles, the most outstanding of which was his performance as Professor Hikita, the kidnapped scientist in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.Ito fared well in television, in which he was given roles that showcased his talents in made-for-television movies and series. He appeared in some memorable dramas, such as Helter Skelter (1976), American Geisha (1986), and The War Between Us (1996). The latter film starred Ito as a Canadian World War I veteran and patriarch of a family of Japanese descent, forced to leave his home in Vancouver during the dark days of Japanese resettlement following Pearl Harbor.Ito also gained distinction for his role as Fong in the Kung Fu series, as well as on popular show Quincy. He made cameo appearances in many other television shows including Magnum, P.I. and Star Trek, which featured him in a 2001 production.

Trivia: A bona fide member of the American aristocracy (her father was Wall Street magnate E.F. Hutton and her mother, Marjorie Merriweather Post, was heiress to a huge cereal fortune), Dina Merrill (born Nedinia Hutton) dropped out of George Washington University in the 1940s to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and become an actress. She spent ten years on-stage, including Broadway, performed on television, and made her Hollywood debut in Desk Set (1957). The cool, sophisticated, blonde supporting actress was typically cast as an heiress or socialite. She married actor Cliff Robertson in 1966 and took a decade off, but for a few television movie appearances, to raise a family until returning to films in 1975. In 1988, she launched Pavilion, an entertainment development and production company with her new lover, investment banker Ted Hartley. The two married in 1989. After the late '80s, Merrill started appearing more frequently in features and television movies.

Trivia: A busy teenaged model, Carol Lynley rose to fame by virtue of a series of popular hair-conditioner commercials. Her first important acting assignment was as a high-school-age murderess on a 1958 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directed by Robert Altman. The blonde ingenue played a more sedate role in her first film, Disney's The Light in the Forest. Carol Lynley continued essaying a variety of sympathetic and menacing roles into the 1990s, earning extensive press coverage for her portrayal of film-legend Jean Harlow in a 1965 "electronivision" production, released at the same time as another Harlow biography starring Carroll Baker.

Trivia: Whenever Monte Markham guest-stars on a TV whodunit these days, chances are it was Markham who "done it." Long before he became everybody's favorite mystery killer, however, Markham was a likeable leading man in the Jimmy Stewart mode. A graduate of the University of Georgia, Markham started out as a stage actor. In 1967, he landed the starring role in his first-ever TV series, playing the dual role of a "quick-frozen" 99-year-old man and his 33-year-old grandson on The Second Hundred Years. Two years later, he essayed the Gary Cooper role in the weekly TV version of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. And in 1973, he played the title character in the ill-advised New Perry Mason. That same year, Markham made his Broadway debut in Irene, winning a Theatre World Award for his performance. In the 1980s, he played Clint Ogden in the prime-time serial Dallas (1981) and Carter Robinson in the syndicated soap opera Rituals (1984); he also briefly hosted the daily informational series Breakaway (1984). Contemporary TV viewers know Markham as Captain Don Thorpe in Baywatch and Mr. Parker in Melrose Place. In addition to his extensive acting credits, Monte Markham has directed two feature films, Defense Play (1988) and Neon City (1992).

Trivia: An acclaimed Broadway actress, Phyllis Newman has been occasionally appearing in feature films and on television since the mid-'50s. In the latter medium, Newman was the first woman to fill in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show; she was also one of Carson's most frequent guests. She made her feature film debut in Picnic (1955). In addition to acting, Newman has published a book of memoirs: Just in Time: Notes From My Life.

Trivia: American actress Joanna Barnes went from Southern-belle complacency to a contract with Warner Bros. studios. Joanna was generally cast as steely-eyed, truculent blondes in such films as Home Before Dark (1958) and (freelancing for director Stanley Kubrick) Spartacus (1960). She also held the dubious distinction of being the latest in a long line of "Janes" in the 1959 cheapie Tarzan of the Apes. Barnes worked a great deal on television in the 1950s and 1960s: she was detective Dennis Morgan's girl Friday on 1959's 21 Beacon Street; the ex-wife of pennyante attorney Peter Falk in the 1965 weekly drama The Trials of O'Brien; and the hostess of the 5-minute ABC gossipfest Dateline Hollywood. In 1973, Joanna gave up acting to pursue a career as a novelist, and to that end took a room in a Los Angeles office building leased exclusively to professional writers. While Joanna Barnes might not be remembered for her writings, she made an indelible impression as Vassar-educated socialite Gloria Upson, who spoke as though she had novacaine in her upper lip (the playwrights' description of the character) in the 1958 film comedy Auntie Mame.

Trivia: On stage from 1957, American actor Andy Romano made his film bow two years later. Romano's earlier assignments included the part of J.D., a member of Eric Von Zipper's "Rat Pack," in several of American-International's Beach Party movies. He later played lawmen and crooks, both comic and otherwise. On TV, Andy Romano played Detective Joe Caruso in Get Christie Love! (1975) and Frank Richards in Friends (the 1979 "teen angst" sitcom, not the current NBC hit).

Trivia: Over his 50-year-long career, Fred Sadoff worked steadily on stage, television, and in feature films as a supporting actor, director, and occasional producer. In addition, Sadoff co-founded the prestigious Actors Studio. Sadoff learned his craft in summer stock and first trod the Broadway boards in the original production of South Pacific in 1942. After remaining busy in New York, Sadoff had a stint assistant directing at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in Stratford-on-Avon in 1958 (Sadoff was the first American to work there in that capacity) through the early '70s when he moved to the West Coast to get into television and film. Sadoff had already made his film debut with a small part in The Quiet American (1959), but did not become active in films until he settled into Southern California. Sadoff's subsequent film credits include Cinderella Liberty, Papillion (both 1973), and The Starmaker (1981). Sardoff's television work included guest appearances on episodes of Kung Fu, The Magician, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Trivia: American actor Roger Bowen spent most of the 1960s playing "preppie" types on a number of TV commercials. His film bow was in 1968's Petulia, but Bowen's big movie break came in 1970, when he created the role of lackadaisical Colonel Henry Blake in the Robert Altman film M*A*S*H (1970). While it was another TV-ad veteran, McLean Stevenson, who would play Col. Blake on the television version of M*A*S*H, Roger Bowen hardly lacked exposure in the early 1970s. He gained a fan following as Hamilton Majors Jr., the pleasantly snooty Ivy League boss of Herschel Bernardi on the TV sitcom Arnie (1970-72). After Arnie, Bowen joined the cast of The Brian Keith Show (1972), then returned to commercials and movie cameo roles, showing up briefly in such films as Heaven Can Wait (1978), The Main Event (1979) and Zapped (1981). In the early 1980s, Roger Bowen enjoyed another round of weekly TV work with recurring roles on House Calls, At Ease, and Suzanne Pleshette is Maggie Briggs. He made his final film appearance in the Bill Murray/Richard Dreyfus vehicle What About Bob? (1991). In addition to performing Bowen was a talented comedy writer who penned satirical sketches for television and theatre. He co-founded Chicago's Second City and also wrote 11 novels including Just Like a Movie.

Trivia: Saturnine, generously bearded character actor Richard Libertini cut his comic teeth with Chicago's Second City Troupe. With MacIntyre Dixon, Libertini appeared in the nightclub comedy act "Stewed Prunes;" he then began toting up such New York stage credits as The Mad Show. From 1968's The Night They Raided Minsky's onward, Libertini has brightened many a film with his vast repertoire of chucklesome characterizations. Favorites include the looney General Garcia in The In-Laws (1979), who confers with a hand puppet before making crucial political decisions, and plot-galvanizing spiritualist Brahka Lasa in All of Me (1984). Richard Libertini's television contributions include a comedy-ensemble gig on The Melba Moore-Clifton Davis Show (1972), the recurring role of the Godfather on Soap (1977-78 season), supporting character Father Angelo in The Fanelli Boys (1990) and full-fledged leads in the sitcoms Family Man (1988) and Pacific Station (1991).

Trivia: American character actor Jim Boles has also worked as a voice artist and is known for his impersonations of Abraham Lincoln.

Trivia: American character actor Pitt Herbert appeared on stage, screen, television and in commercials. He got his start on stage and during the '30s and '40s appeared on Broadway. He has also worked as a director and a drama instructor. Later Herbert was an active member of the Screen Actors Guild legislative committee and helped to pass Chapter 1217 of the Unemployment Compensation/Pension Refund Act.