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: Robert Foxworth was 18 years old when he began appearing at the Alley Theatre in his hometown of Houston. After studying at Carnegie Tech, Foxworth worked with the Arena Theatre in Washington DC and New York's American Shakespeare Festival. He made his off-Broadway bow in a 1969 production of Henry V, and the following year won a Theatre World award for his performance in The Crucible. His first significant TV assignment was as David Hansen in the "relevant" weekly series Storefront Lawyers (1970). Later TV roles of note included the title character in Dan Curtis' 1973 adaptation of Frankenstein, Chase Gioberti in Falcon Crest (1981-87) and General Hague in Babylon 5 (1992- ). In addition, Foxworth has made a number of theatrical-film appearances since 1975, and has directed several TV productions. He was also the creator/organizer of the Los Angeles Classic Theater and since 1985 has produced and hosted the syndicated radio series American Dialogues. Robert Foxworth was the fourth and final husband of actress Elizabeth Montgomery, with whom he appeared in the 1973 TV movie Mrs. Sundance.

Trivia: American actor William Daniels was teamed at age 6 with his sister Jackie in a song-and-dance act that would become "The Daniels Family" when his other sister Carol joined. At the height of their activity, the Daniels were performing in as many as three radio shows per week, a welcome break from the harshness of their Brooklyn neighborhood. Acting in the long-running Broadway play Life with Father in 1945, Daniels was advised by the play's star and co-author Howard Lindsey to attend college just in case the acting business fell apart; after Army service and graduation from Northwestern University, Daniels found that, for him, the business had fallen apart. His confidence eroded by several years of relative inactivity, Daniels nearly turned down an opportunity to play Brick in a road company production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but the play's author Tennessee Williams insisted upon casting him.In 1960, the actor was cast with George Maharis in the Edward Albee play The Zoo Story, which won him the Obie and Clarence Derwent Awards and led to such choice Broadway assignments as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and A Thousand Clowns. Much to his own amazement, Daniels found himself cast in a superhero-spoof sitcom, Captain Nice, in 1967, which fortunately wasn't on long enough to typecast him. The actor achieved recognition of a more positive nature for his role as Dustin Hoffman's obtuse father in The Graduate (1967) (he was all of ten years older than Hoffman). Daniels' role as John Adams in the 1969 Broadway musical 1776 resulted in another strong film showing when the play was transferred to celluloid in 1972. Reportedly as reserved and taciturn as his screen characters in real life, Daniels was perhaps ideally cast as the abrasive Dr. Mark Craig on the long-running (1982-88) TV drama St. Elsewhere; appearing as Mrs. Craig was Bonnie Bartlett, to whom Daniels had been married since college. Despite his high visibility in both films and television, William Daniels is probably best known internationally for a continuing TV role in which he was never seen--the ever-correct computerized voice of K.I.T.T., the superpowered automobile on the action series Knight Rider (1982-86).In the coming years, Daniels would continue to remain as active as ever, playing the beloved Mr. Feeny on the sitcom Boy Meets World, and making memorable appearances on shows like The Closer and Boston Legal.

Trivia: Blonde, buoyant Donna Mills began acting in local amateur and professional productions in her home town of Chicago. Donna made her Broadway bow as a harem girl in Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water, then played recurring roles on the Manhattan-based TV soap operas The Secret Storm and Love is a Many Splendored Thing. After playing Clint Eastwood's imperiled girlfriend in the theatrical feature Play Misty for Me (1971), Mills spent an unsatisfying few years typecast as a damsel in distress: all too typical was the title of her 1972 TV movie Bait. Donna Mills forever altered her on-screen image from trembling helplessness to calculating truculence in the role of Abby Cunningham Ewing, the second wife of Dallas "black sheep" Gary Ewing (Ted Shackleford), in the nighttime serial Knot's Landing (1980-89); coincidentally, Mills had co-starred with J. R. Ewing himself (aka Larry Hagman) on the now-forgotten 1971 sitcom The Good Life.

Trivia: The daughter of actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, June Lockhart made her own acting bow at age 8. In 1938, the 12-year-old June appeared in her first film, A Christmas Carol (1938), in which her parents portrayed Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cratchit. Few of her ingenue roles of the 1940s were memorable, though Lockhart did get to play the title character in The She-Wolf of London (1945) (never mind that she turned out not to be a she-wolf by fadeout time). In 1958, Lockhart took over from a recalcitrant Cloris Leachman in the role of rural wife and mother Ruth Martin on the long-running TV series Lassie. Though she professed to despise the role, Lockhart remained with the series until 1964, and over 20 years later satirically reprised the character on an episode of It's Garry Shandling's Show. She went on to play the young matriarch of the "space family Robinson" on the Irwin Allen TV endeavor Lost in Space (1965-68), and portrayed a lady doctor on the last two seasons of the bucolic sitcom Petticoat Junction. In deliberate contrast to her TV image, Lockhart enjoyed a bohemian, kick-up-your-heels offscreen existence. At one juncture, she was fired from her co-hosting chores at the Miss USA pageant when it was revealed that (gasp!) she was living with a man much younger than herself. June Lockhart is the mother of Anne Lockhart, a prolific TV actress in her own right.

Trivia: Comic actor Dick Wesson, he of the crew-cut hair and toothy grin, began his career in nightclubs in a double act with his brother Gene. Wesson spent virtually his entire film career at Warner Bros., providing genial comedy relief to such Technicolor musicals as About Face (1952), The Desert Song (1953) and Calamity Jane (1953). After playing a dyspeptic assistant director in Jerry Lewis' The Errand Boy, Wesson began appearing on episodes of sitcoms like The Beverly Hillbillies, Maude, and the TV weekly Friends and Lovers, while working as a producer for the hit series Petticoat Junction. He then retired from the spotlight, and passed away from a heart attack in 1996. Dick Wesson was the father of actress Eileen Wesson.