Trivia: The son of a Jewish movie-publicist father and an Irish Catholic musical-comedy actress, Michael Landon grew up in a predominantly Protestant New Jersey neighborhood. The social pressures brought to bear on young Michael, both at home and in the schoolyard, led to an acute bedwetting problem, which he would later dramatize (very discreetly) in the 1976 TV movie The Loneliest Runner. Determined to better his lot in life, Landon excelled in high school athletics; his prowess at javelin throwing won him a scholarship at the University of Southern California, but a torn ligament during his freshman year ended his college career. Taking a series of manual labor jobs, Landon had no real direction in life until he agreed to help a friend audition for the Warners Bros. acting school. The friend didn't get the job, but Landon did, launching a career that would eventually span nearly four decades. Michael's first film lead was in the now-legendary I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), widely derided at the time but later reassessed as one of the better examples of the late-'50s "drive-in horror" genre. The actor received his first good reviews for his performance as an albino in God's Little Acre. This led to his attaining the title role in 1959's The Legend of Tom Dooley, which in turn was instrumental in his being cast as Little Joe Cartwright on the popular TV western Bonanza. During his fourteen-year Bonanza stint, Landon was given the opportunity to write and direct a few episodes. He carried over these newfound skills into his next TV project, Little House on the Prairie, which ran from 1974 to 1982 (just before Little House, Landon made his TV-movie directorial bow with It's Good to Be Alive, the biopic of baseball great Roy Campanella). Landon also oversaw two spinoff series, Little House: The New Beginning (1982-83) and Father Murphy (1984). Landon kept up his career momentum with a third long-running TV series, Highway to Heaven (1984-89) wherein the actor/producer/director/writer played guardian angel Jonathan Smith. One of the most popular TV personalities of the '70s and '80s, Landon was not universally beloved by his Hollywood contemporaries, what with his dictatorial on-set behavior and his tendency to shed his wives whenever they matured past childbearing age. Still, for every detractor, there was a friend, family member or coworker who felt that Landon was the salt of the earth. In early 1991, Landon began work on his fourth TV series, Us, when he began experiencing stomach pains. In April of that same year, the actor was informed that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. The courage and dignity with which Michael Landon lived his final months on earth resulted in a public outpouring of love, affection and support, the like of which was seldom witnessed in the cynical, self-involved '90s. Michael Landon died in his Malibu home on July 1, 1991, with his third wife Cindy at his side.

Trivia: The son of a movie stunt man, Victor French made his screen entree in westerns, where his unkempt beard and scowling countenance made him a perfect heavy. He carried over his robbin' and rustlin' activities into television, making multiple appearances on such series as Gunsmoke and Bonanza. It was former Bonanza star Michael Landon, a great friend of French's, who "humanized" the veteran screen villain with the role of farmer Isiah Edwards in the weekly TV drama Little House on the Prairie. French temporarily left Little House in 1977 to star in his own sitcom, Carter Country, in which he played an affable Southern sheriff who tried his best to accommodate the ever-changing racial relationships of the 1970s. In 1984, Landon cast French as ex-cop Michael Gordon, whose bitterness at the world was softened by the presence of a guardian angel (Landon), in the popular TV series Highway to Heaven. French directed every third episode of this series, extending his directorial activities to the Los Angeles theatre scene, where he won a Critics Circle award for his staging of 12 Angry Men. In contrast to his earlier bad-guy roles, French went out of his way in the 1980s to avoid parts that required him to exhibit cruelty or inhumanity. Victor French died in 1989, shortly after completing work on the final season of Highway to Heaven.

Trivia: Character actress, onscreen from the '80s. She was married to actor Will Geer.

Trivia: Dapper, rotund character actor Don Beddoe was born in New York and raised in Cincinnati, where his father headed the Conservatory of Music. Beddoe's professional career began in Cincinnati, first as a journalist and then an actor. He made his Broadway debut in the unfortunately titled Nigger Rich, which starred Spencer Tracy. Beddoe became a fixture of Columbia Pictures in the 1930s and 1940s, playing minor roles in "A"s like Golden Boy, supporting parts ranging from cops to conventioneers in the studio's "B" features, and flustered comedy foil to the antics of such Columbia short subject stars as The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde and Charley Chase. Beddoe kept busy until the mid-1980s with leading roles in 1961's The Boy Who Caught a Crook and Saintly Sinners, and (as a singing leprechaun) in 1962's Jack the Giant Killer.

Trivia: Famous for her expressive blue eyes and wholesome smile, Kellie Martin's breakout role in Life Goes On brought the young actress into the homes of television viewers on a sensitive, character-driven series that dealt with family issues in a realistic and compassionate manner. Though she sacrificed much of the common joys of childhood in pursuit of her career, Martin remains content with her choices in life and dedicated to continuing her Yale education. Born in Riverside, CA, Martin's big break came when her aunt, a nanny for actor Michael Landon, showed pictures of her niece to Landon in hopes of winning her an audition. The plan proving successful; Martin soon made her television debut in an episode of Landon's Father Murphy. Later appearing in Landon's Highway to Heaven in 1986, Martin would also make her film debut that same year in the Whoopie Goldberg comedy Jumpin' Jack Flash. Continuing with appearances in television (Secret Witness [1988]) and features (Doin' Time on Planet Earth [1988]), Martin also began voice work for such animated series as A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. In 1989, Martin took the role of Becca Thatcher on Life Goes On and soon gained recognition as a talented young dramatic actress.Working frequently in television after Life Goes On, Martin continued to provide voice work in animation while appearing in the made-for-television adaptation of Catherine Marshall's Christy and the short-lived series of the same name that followed the same year. Making a brief appearance on Crisis Center in 1997 prepared Martin for her successful turn as an ill-fated medical student in ER the next year. Though a successful year in terms of her career, Martin was also faced with the devastating, untimely death of her closest friend and sister to Lupus, a tragedy that found the actress on a devoted mission to raise public awareness of the ravaging disease. The following year, Martin would wed longtime boyfriend Keith Christian. The new millennium found Martin departing from ER in order to finish her studies at Yale and appearing in her first starring feature role with the heartwarming drama-comedy All You Need (2001).Beginning in 2003, Martin made a series of TV movies for the Hallmark Channel, Mystery Woman, making eleven movies in a handful of years. In 2012, she joined the cast of Army Wives, and later had guest roles on shows like Mad Men and Satisfaction.