Trivia: Glamorous, down-to-earth leading lady Suzanne Pleshette was the daughter of the managing director of Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. She attended Performing Arts High School, Finch College, and Syracuse University. After some TV experience, she made her film debut in Jerry Lewis' The Geisha Boy (1958), then went on to replace Anne Bancroft as star of Broadway's The Miracle Worker. During her years at Warner Bros., Pleshette successfully avoided simpering ingénue roles, holding out for parts requiring beyond-her-years emotional depth. Her flair for comedy was delightfully tapped during her subsequent tenure with Disney in such films as The Ugly Dachsund (1967) and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1968). Pleshette's film work, however, has never struck so responsive a chord with the fans as her television work, notably her portrayal of Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978) -- a role that she briefly and hilariously reprised on the very last episode of Newhart's subsequent series, Newhart. She then starred in several short-lived TV series, including Maggie Briggs (1984), Bridges to Cross (1986), and The Boys Are Back (1994), and was also a ubiquitous presence in such made-for-TV movies as Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean. And yes: Incredible as it may seem, Suzanne Pleshette was once married to Troy Donahue. Pleshette died of respiratory failure in January 2008.

Trivia: American actress Diane McBain was first presented to the paying public as a Warner Bros. contract starlet. Evidently built up as Warner's answer to Carroll Baker, the young blonde actress appeared in such films as Ice Palace (1960), Parrish (1961) and Claudelle Inglish (1963) (in the title role), and also spent two years in the role of "girl Friday" Daphne Dutton on the Warners TV private-eye series Surfside Six (1960-62). McBain also did box-office duty with Elvis Presley in Spinout (1966). Her career petered out towards the late '60s, with such negligible roles as the head of a biker gang in The Miniskirt Mob (1968), but Diane McBain managed to survive into the '80s, when she played the recurring role of Claire Howard on General Hospital.

Trivia: "As familiar as a favorite leather easy chair" is how one magazine writer described the craggy, weather-beaten face of ineluctable character actor James Gregory. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any time in the past six decades that Gregory hasn't been seen on stage, on TV or on the big screen. There were those occasional periods during the 1930s and 1940s when he was working on Wall Street rather than acting, and there were those uniformed stints in the Marines and the Naval Reserve. Otherwise, Gregory remained a persistent showbiz presence from the time he first performed with a Pennsylvania-based travelling troupe in 1936. Three years later, he was on Broadway in Key Largo; he went on to appear in such stage hits as Dream Girl, All My Sons, Death of a Salesman and The Desperate Hours. In films from 1948, Gregory was repeatedly cast as crusty no-nonsense types: detectives, military officers, prosecuting attorneys and outlaw leaders. With his bravura performance as demagogic, dead-headed senator Johnny Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Gregory launched a second career of sorts, cornering the market in portraying braggadocio blowhards. One of his best characterizations in this vein was as the hard-shelled Inspector Luger in the TV sitcom Barney Miller. He played Luger for six seasons (1975-78, 1979-81), with time out for his own short-lived starring series, Detective School (1978). He also played Prohibition-era detective Barney Ruditsky on The Lawless Years (1959-61) and T. R. Scott in The Paul Lynde Show (1972), not to mention nearly 1000 guest appearances on other series. James Gregory has sometimes exhibited his sentimental streak by singing in his spare time: he has for many years been a member of the SPEBQSA, which as any fan of The Music Man can tell you is the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.

Trivia: Although in films from 1951 (he played the Rommel's son in The Desert Fox that year), when he was placed under contract by Universal-International, strapping six-foot William Reynolds (born William de Clercq Reynolds) did better on television, where he starred on Pete Kelly Blues (1959) and The Islanders (1960-1961). The handsome actor later enjoyed his greatest success as Special Agent Tom Colby on The F.B.I. (1967-1973).

Trivia: Trained at Northwestern University's drama department, onetime salesman Claude Akins was a Broadway actor when he was selected by a Columbia talent scout for a small role in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). With a craggy face and blunt voice that evoked memories of Lon Chaney Jr., Akins was a "natural" for villainous or roughneck roles, but was versatile enough to play parts requiring compassion and humor. A television actor since the "live" days, Akins achieved stardom relatively late in life via such genial adventure series as Movin' On (1974), B.J. and the Bear (1979), The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo (1979) and Legmen (1984). In his last decade, Claude Akins was a busy-and most genial-commercial spokesperson.

Trivia: Manhattan native Bartlett Robinson headed to Los Angeles in the mid-'30s for the express purpose of becoming a radio actor. He appeared in innumerable soap operas and anthologies, and starred as Erle Stanley Gardner's super-lawyer Perry Mason in a 1943 radio series. His stage credits on both coasts included Sweet River, Merchant of Yonkers, and Point of No Return. In films from 1956 to 1973, he was often cast as doctors and military officials. Bartlett Robinson's TV credits include the recurring roles of Willard Norton in Wendy and Me (1964) and Frank Campbell in Mona McCluskey (1965).

Trivia: American actor Larry Ward played supporting roles in several Hollywood features. A native of Columbus, OH, he has appeared on television and on-stage. Ward also wrote a screenplay and a pair of plays.

Trivia: Before he became an actor, Richard Xavier Slattery spent 12 years on the beat as a street cop in New York. It was during that time that he began appearing off-Broadway. Slattery made it to Broadway in 1961 where he appeared in a couple of plays. In the mid-'60s, he began playing character roles on a wide variety of television series ranging from Bonanza to Bewitched to Mr. Roberts. In the distinguished miniseries The Winds of War, Slattery played Admiral Halsey. He has also appeared in a few feature films, including Walking Tall and The Apple Dumpling Gang, but Slattery may best be remembered for the 17 years in which he portrayed Murph in UnoCal commercials. He passed away on January 27, 1997, at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA. The official cause of death was listed as a stroke.

Trivia: Having served as a bombardier in World War II, Russell Johnson used the GI Bill to finance his studies at the Actor's Lab. Between performing assignments, Johnson supported himself by driving a cab and working the assembly line at a ballpoint pen factory. His first movie break (indeed, his first movie) was in director Paul Henreid's For Men Only (1952), an exposé of barbaric college-fraternity initiation ceremonies; Johnson was suitably loathsome as the sadistic frat leader who is exposed as a snivelling coward in the climax. The balance of the 1950s found Johnson appearing in several fondly remembered science fiction efforts like It Came From Outer Space (1953), This Island Earth (1955), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956) and The Space Children (1958). He carried over this relationship with the Unreal into his classic performance as an anguished time-traveller desperately attempting to prevent Lincoln's assassination in the 1961 Twilight Zone installment Back There. In 1964, Russell Johnson took his first steps into TV sitcom immortality when he assumed the role of "The Professor" (aka Roy Hinkley) in Gilligan's Island, a role that he'd continued to essay on and off for the next two decades in Gilligan cartoons and TV-movie spin-offs. Johnson worked in television through the 1980s and early '90s before retiring from acting; he died in 2014 at age 89.

Trivia: American actor Lane Bradford spent most of his film career in westerns - and in so doing carried on the tradition of his father, veteran sagebrush villain John Merton. Breaking into movies in bit parts, Bradford's first verified screen role was in 1946's Silver Range. He came a bit too late to flourish in B westerns (which died out in 1954), but Bradford essayed cowpoke roles, usually menacing in nature, until 1968. Once in a while, Bradford would venture far afield from the Old West - notably as the Martian villain Marex in the 1952 Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere. Lane Bradford retired to Hawaii shortly after completing his last film, Journey to Shiloh (1968).