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: Ian Abercrombie achieved broadest recognition in the mid-'90s for his work in character roles, principally stuffy upper-crust types, including Mr. Pitt, Elaine's employer on Seinfeld, Alfred the butler in the series Birds of Prey, and the staid auctioneer in the climactic sequence of Mouse Hunt. Abercrombie was born in 1936 to a working-class English family, and he showed a natural interest in performing from an early age, taking up tap dancing as a boy. At 17, he left for New York and pursued the beginnings of a career on stage -- among his early engagements, he appeared in a 1955 production of Stalag 17 starring Jason Robards Jr., and he understudied Roddy McDowall in a stock production of Bell, Book and Candle that also starred Maria Riva, the daughter of Marlene Dietrich. He did a short stint in the army, in Special Services, where he directed plays as well as acting in them. A trip to California for a production of a play about W.C. Fields that never materialized ended up putting Abercrombie into movies, and over the next few years he played small roles in pictures like Von Ryan's Express, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Molly Maguires, and Young Frankenstein, as well as leading parts in theatrical productions of The Vortex and Crucifer of Blood. Abercrombie was working steadily for most of the 1980s and beyond, appearing in such movies as Army of Darkness, Wild Wild West, and The Lost World. It was with his portrayal on Seinfeld of Mr. Pitt -- lovably eccentric and just sufficiently full of himself to put Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Elaine on the defensive -- that Abercrombie became an actor whose name and face were remembered by the general public. He remained active on prime time television portraying Alfred the butler in the Warner Bros. television series Birds of Prey, while also doing a huge amount of voice-over and radio work, as well as a one-man show entitled Jean Cocteau -- A Mirror Image. Back on the big screen, Ambercrombie could be spotted in both the family comedy Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties and David Lynch's Inland Empire in 2006. Abercrombie died of kidney failure at age 77 in early 2012, not long after being diagnosed with lymphoma.

Trivia: American character actor Jay Varela appeared on stage, television, and in a few feature films of the '70s and '80s. He was typically cast as a Native American or someone of Spanish descent.