Trivia: American actor John Astin was the son of Dr. Allen V. Astin, director of the National Bureau of Standards. Evidently inheriting his intellectual bent from his father, Astin was a voracious reader and mathematician, at one point in his high school career mastering an entire semester's worth of study in one evening (that's his story, anyway). A part in the senior play at Johns Hopkins University (where he was majoring in math) cemented his desire to act, and in 1952 Astin did graduate work in dramatics at the University of Minnesota, where he appeared in 40 plays in and around the campus, played the violin, and gambled incessantly (and badly). With $100 in his pocket, Astin headed to New York, where he did janitorial work in theatres until securing a role in the off-Broadway Threepenny Opera for a princely $15 per week. Better money came Astin's way when he started doing voice-over work for animated commercials; in 1961 he extended his acting skills to films in a small but memorable part as a smarmy social worker in the Oscar-winning West Side Story. In 1962, Astin was teamed with Marty Ingels on the blue-collar sitcom I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, which despite a loyal following failed to garner ratings. The show did, however, establish Astin as a reliable laugh-getter, leading to a more successful run as Gomez Addams, the macabre but passionate paterfamilias on The Addams Family. This series ran from 1964 to 1966, after which Astin spent a great deal of time touring the country in theatrical productions - often living out of a van, a lifestyle he seemed to thrive upon. Joining Astin during his barnstorming days was his second wife, actress Patty Duke, who called herself Patty Duke Astin for the duration (Astin and Duke raised a son, Sean Astin, who grew up to become a popular film actor in his own right). The marriage ultimately dissolved due in part to Astin's bohemian point of view, though while the union lasted both Astin and Duke were tireless workaholics who were rarely without acting gigs. His many credits during this time period include 1974's Skyway to Death, and playing the dad in the original version of Freaky Friday. He directed and appeared in the TV movie Operation Petticoat. In the 1980's he landed recurring roles on both Murder, She Wrote and the sitcom Night Court. His marriage to Patti Duke ended in 1985, but Astin maintained a busy schedule appearing as a game-show host in National Lampoon's European Vacation, Teen Wolf Two, and Return of the Killer Tomatoes! As the 90s got under way he made two more Killer Tomatoes movies, appeared on the TV shows Mad About You and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and earned favorable reviews for his appearance in The Frighteners.

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: Actor Hans Conried, whose public image was that of a Shakespearean ham, was born not in England but in Baltimore. Scrounging for work during the Depression era, Conried offered himself to a radio station as a performer, and at 18 became a professional. One of his earliest jobs was appearing in uncut radio adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, and before he was twenty he was able to recite many of the Bard's lengthier passages from memory. After several years in summer stock and radio, Conried made his screen debut in Dramatic School (1938). Conried's saturnine features and reedy voice made him indispensable for small character roles, and until he entered the service in World War II the actor fluctuated between movies and radio. Given a choice, Conried would have preferred to stay in radio, where the money was better and the parts larger, but despite the obscurity of much of his film work he managed to sandwich in memorable small (often unbilled) appearances in such "A" pictures as Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942), The Big Street (1942) and Passage to Marseilles (1944). While in the army, Conried was put in charge of Radio Tokyo in postwar Japan, where he began his lifelong hobby of collecting rare Japanese artifacts; the actor also had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of American Indian lore. As big-time radio began to fade during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Conried concentrated more on film work. He was awarded the starring role in the bizarre musical 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1952), written by his friend Dr. Seuss; unfortunately, the studio, not knowing how to handle this unorthodox project, cut it to ribbons, and the film was a failure. Later he was engaged for a choice co-starring role in Cole Porter's Broadway musical Can Can; in addition, he became a favorite guest on Jack Paar's late-night TV program, popped up frequently and hilariously as a game show contestant, and in 1957 made the first of many special-guest visits as the imperishable Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show. Cartoon producers also relied heavily on Conried, notably Walt Disney, who cast the actor as the voice of Captain Hook in the animated feature Peter Pan, and Jay Ward, for whom Conried played Snidely Whiplash on The Bullwinkle Show and Uncle Waldo on Hoppity Hooper. In 1963, Jay Ward hired Conried as the supercilious host of the syndicated comedy series Fractured Flickers. Conried cut down on his TV show appearances in the 1970s and 1980s, preferring to devote his time to stage work; for well over a year, the actor co-starred with Phil Leeds in an Atlanta production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. Just before his death, Conried was cast in a recurring role on the "realistic" drama series American Dream, where he was permitted to drop the high-tone Shakespearean veneer in the gruff, down-to-earth part of Jewish oldster Abe Berlowitz.

Trivia: Progressing from Miss San Francisco to Miss California, LA-born brunette beauty Lee Meriwether recited a monologue written by Irish playright John Millington Synge and won the 1955 Miss America contest. Lee's first television job was as Dave Garroway's "girl Friday" on NBC's The Today Show. She played small parts on such prime time TV series as Leave It to Beaver and Sergeant Bilko before securing her first recurring role on the 1960 daytime drama Clear Horizons. Subsequent series-TV assignments included Dr. Ann McGregor on Irwin Allen's 1966 sci-fier The Time Tunnel, the star's homespun housewife on 1971's The New Andy Griffith Show, and a regular panelist on the syndicated 1974 edition of Masquerade Party. Lee played The Catwoman in the 1966 theatrical feature Batman (she also appeared on the TV series of the same name, but not in the same part). While in the 1968 cinematic wallow Legend of Lylah Clare she essayed one of her favorite screen parts: a vituperative lesbian who beats the snot out of Kim Novak. Her best-known role was as Betty Jones, daughter-in-law and general factotum of folksy detective Buddy Ebsen, on the long running (1975-82) TV series Barnaby Jones. More recently, Meriwether exhibited a heretofore underexploited gift for broad comedy in the role of the ghoulish Lily Munster on the syndicated 1988 "retro" sitcom The New Munsters. For many years, Lee Meriwether was married to actor Frank Aletter.

Trivia: Allyn Joslyn was the son of a Pennsylvania mining engineer. On stage from age 17, Joslyn scored as a leading man in such Broadway productions as Boy Meets Girl (1936) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), appearing in the latter as beleaguered theatrical critic Mortimer Brewster. Joslyn's leading-man qualities surprisingly evaporated on camera, thus he spent most of his movie career playing obnoxious reporters, weaklings, and gormless "other men" who never got the girl. Among his more notable film appearances were as Don Ameche's snobbish rival for the attentions of Gene Tierney in Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait (1943), and as the jellyfish cardsharp who sneaks onto a lifeboat disguised as a woman in Titanic (1953). In the sprightly "B" picture It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog (1946), Joslyn was for once cast in the lead, even winning heroine Carole Landis at fade-out time. A prolific radio and TV performer, Allyn Joslyn played one-half of the title role on the 1962 TV-sitcom McKeever and the Colonel.

Trivia: A self-described "household face," character actor Jesse White made his first stage appearance as a teenager in his adopted hometown of Akron, OH. Supporting himself with a variety of civilian jobs, White worked the nightclub circuit in Cleveland, then moved on to what was left of vaudeville in the late '30s. White's first Broadway role was in 1942's The Moon is Down; two years later he scored his biggest success as the acerbic sanitarium attendant in Mary Chase's Harvey, a role he would repeat for the 1950 film version (though Harvey is often listed as White's film debut, he can be seen in a bit role as an elevator operator in 1947's Gentleman's Agreement). While he has appeared in some 60 films, White is best known for his TV work, which allowed him to play Runyon-esque gangsters, theatrical agents, neurotic TV talk show hosts, art connoisseurs, toy manufacturers, and whatever else suited his fancy. Two of his longest professional associations were with satirist Stan Freberg (White was featured in several of Freberg's commercials and comedy albums) and comedian/TV mogul Danny Thomas (White played agent Jesse Leeds during the first few seasons of Make Room for Daddy). In the 1970s, White became established as the "lonely" Maytag repairman in a series of well-circulated TV commercials; when he stepped down from this role in the late '80s, the event received a generous amount of press coverage. Jesse White was still in harness into the 1990s. In 1992, he was memorably cast as a sarcastic, cigar-chomping theater chain owner in Joe Dante's Matinee. He passed away at age 79 following complications from surgery on January 8, 1997.

Trivia: The son of an itinerant piano tuner-father and a restaurateur-mother, Richard Erdman was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Colorado. Having taken drama lessons since his early childhood, Erdman was 15 when he was brought to Hollywood by his mother to be "discovered." It wasn't until he'd held down an interim job as a sports reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner that Erdman finally appeared in his first film, Warner Bros.' Janie (1944). Rapidly outgrowing juvenile roles, Erdman played character parts in Hollywood films like Stalag 17 (1953) and in such European productions as Four Days Leave (1950) and Face of Fire (1959). In 1961, Erdman co-starred on the short-lived sitcom The Tab Hunter Show, playing Tab's millionaire-playboy buddy, Peter Fairchild III. In 1973, Erdman made his big-screen directorial debut with The Brothers O'Toole. Since that time, Richard Erdman has kept busy as a voice-over actor, offering a wide range of vocal characterizations for dozens of TV cartoon series, as well as the 1994 animated feature film The Pagemaster.