Trivia: American actor Arnold Stang was a professional almost all his life -- but unlike other "professional kids," he actively sought a career and wasn't strong-armed into it by ambitious parents. Winning an audition at age nine on radio's Horn and Hardart's Children's Hour, Stang launched a two-decade stint as one of radio's most stalwart supporting players. He appeared as a regular on Let's Pretend, and later was generously featured on Gertrude Berg's serialized family drama The Goldbergs. As his skills increased, Stang discovered he could get laughs, and worked steadily with such comedians as Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, and especially Milton Berle, with whom Stang continued his association on television. On the satirical Henry Morgan Show, Stang was a regular member of the comedy stock company, most often as a nerdy teenager named Gerard. Stang started doing cartoon voiceovers in the '40s, beginning with Popeye the Sailor's pal Shorty, then moving into a lengthy hitch as "Hoiman" the mouse in Paramount's Herman and Katnip series; he also performed in 24 episodes of Hanna-Barbera's 1961 cartoon series Top Cat, playing the title role in a "Phil Silvers" manner until the sponsors demanded less of Silvers and more of Stang. In films since 1942's My Sister Eileen, Stang had his best movie role in Man with the Golden Arm (1955) where he played Frank Sinatra's skuzzy but loyal pal Sparrow - a characterization eerily reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in the much-later film Midnight Cowboy (1969). During the '50s, Stang was the TV spokesman for Chunky candy, fondly remembered by today's baby boomers for his enthusiastic "Chunky...what a chunk o' chocolate!" Still active in the '90s, the owlish, bespectacled Arnold Stang delighted his long-time fans with an amusing character role in the John Hughes film Dennis the Menace (1993). Stang died at age 91 in December 2009.

Trivia: Comic supporting actor, onscreen (and in voice-over) from the '60s.

Trivia: Educated at Catholic University, American actress Pat Carroll trained for a career in musical comedy. From her 1950 off-Broadway debut in Come What May onward, the blonde, full-figured comedienne seldom lacked work. A busy television actress in the 1950s, Carroll won a 1956 Emmy for her work on Caesar's Hour. After starring in a 1959 Broadway revival of On the Town, Carroll settled in for a three-season run (1961-64) as Bunny Halper, wife of nightclub manager Charlie Halper (Sid Melton), on The Danny Thomas Show. The episode wherein Bunny has a baby garnered some of Danny Thomas' biggest ratings, encouraging the producers to develop a spin-off series for Carroll and Melton; this never materialized, nor did Carroll provide the voice of Jane Jetson on the cartoon series The Jetsons, as had been announced by Hanna-Barbera. Since the 1964 cancellation of Danny Thomas, Carroll has been a regular on such series as Getting Together (1971), Bustin' Loose (1977), The Ted Knight Show (1978) and She's the Sheriff (1986). During the last decade, Pat Carroll starred in the one-woman stage show Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, and provided the speaking and singing voice of flamboyant sea-witch Ursula in Disney's 1989 animated feature The Little Mermaid.

Trivia: Janet Waldo was a star of radio in the mid-1940s (at age 23) in the role of Corliss Archer, a typical American teenager. Twenty years later, Waldo became identified for another generation (or two) as the voice of the quintessential teenage girl Judy Jetson on the prime-time cartoon show The Jetsons. Born in Yakima, WA, in 1918, Waldo had a love of theater and acting from an early age, and while growing up, she participated in plays put on by her church. Her family had an artistic bent on both sides: her mother was a singer trained at the Boston Conservatory while her father, a railroad executive, was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and her sister Elizabeth was later a violin virtuoso who also appeared in movies. Waldo attended the University of Washington, where she engaged in student theatricals and won a special award in her freshman year. A distinguished alumnus -- Bing Crosby -- was visiting at the time, and they met when he presented her with the award. With him was a Paramount talent scout, ever on the lookout for new additions to the studio's stable of actors, who got Waldo signed up for a screen test and a role in the Crosby comedy The Star Maker. She was soon a bit player at the studio, but still waiting for her big break. That break ended up coming from radio rather than movies, however, on the Cecil B. DeMille-produced Radio Theatre, working with Merle Oberon and George Brent. Waldo's voice and range as an actress seemed to blossom when heard over the airwaves, and by 1943, at age 23, Waldo was starring or co-starring in Meet Corliss Archer, One Man's Family, The Gallant Heart, and Star Playhouse, as well as playing the cigarette girl on both The Red Skelton Show and People Are Funny; she also played roles on the Edward G. Robinson series The Big Town. Over the ensuing final great decade of radio, she worked on Dr. Christian, Silver Theater, Ozzie & Harriet, and Railroad Hour, although she never took as many roles as she might have. Waldo married writer/director/producer Robert E. Lee, who later achieved renown in the theater as the co-author, with Jerome Lawrence, of Inherit the Wind, First Monday in October, and Auntie Mame. The couple soon had a family to raise, and she turned down a great number of roles after that, even declining the offer to play Corliss Archer when the series jumped to television at the start of the 1950s. Waldo continued working in radio and subsequently did voice-over work in addition to returning to the theater. In the early '60s, as an established voice artist, she was chosen to portray the role of Judy Jetson in the prime-time cartoon series The Jetsons, produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Waldo took on the role, and has been known to a generation of baby boomer cartoon fans as Judy Jetson ever since, even returning to the role for later episodes of the series shot in the ensuing decades. She also made headlines in 1989, when, in a decision made by Universal Pictures and William Hanna, her voice was wiped from the audio track of Jetsons: The Movie so that she could be replaced by the singer Tiffany. Waldo got in the last word, however, in 2004, when, at age 83, she provided commentary for two episodes on The Jetsons: The Complete First Season DVD set from Warner Home Video. Waldo died in 2016, at age 96.

Trivia: Short, pleasantly plump, and endowed with an endearingly resonant voice, American actress Edie McClurg is still best remembered as the perky school secretary in Ferris Beuler's Day Off. McClurg has been a favorite supporting performer since her 1976 film debut in Carrie, and much of her TV work has been as a comedy sketch performer, notably on Tony Orlando and Dawn (1976), The David Letterman Show (a 1980 daytimer), The Big Show (1980) and No Soap, Radio (1982). Ms. McClurg has also played many a nosy neighbor/in-law/secretary on such TV sitcoms as Harper Valley PTA (1982), Small Wonder (1985) and The Hogan Family (1988). McClurg received larger roles in the TV series The Kallikaks (1977), in which she was the wife of series star David Huddleston. In the years to come, McClurg would continue to keep up a prolific career, most memorably staring on the series Life with Louie and 7th Heaven, as well as in movies like Flubber, Van Wilder, and Fired Up!.

Trivia: American comic character actor Allan Melvin worked on stage, radio, screen, and television, where he is best remembered for playing Sam the Butcher, the love interest of beloved housekeeper Alice on The Brady Bunch. He also appeared as Sergeant Bilko's right-hand man The Phil Silvers Show, and as Archie Bunker's best friend on All in the Family). Melvin also worked in commercials and voiced many animated cartoons. He died of cancer in January 2008 at age 84.