Trivia: Blessed with a soaring tenor and a knack for writing upbeat songs promoting nature, love, the simple life and American values, John Denver was among the top mainstream country/pop of the early to mid '70s. At the peak of his popularity, Denver made a bid at becoming an actor playing an average Joe who finds himself face to face with God (as played by George Burns) in Oh God! (1977). Though consistently upstaged by the deadpan, cigar-chomping Burns, Denver held his own and showed a knack for acting. But despite the promise of this film, Denver did not act again until 1986 when he played a supporting role in Michael Pressman's made-for-TV holiday movie, The Christmas Gift (1986). Denver had a starring role opposite Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn in Foxfire (1987); he made his final film appearance as an actor the following year in Higher Ground (1988). When not performing, Denver worked with charitable organizations, including the fight against world hunger --he was appointed to the Presidential Commission on World Hunger by President Ronald Reagan. Denver was worked with pro-ecology, and wilderness protection. His hobbies included space exploration -- Denver was awarded a NASA commendation for his contributions, photography and aviation. He was a skilled pilot and often flew from his Colorado home to Northern California to visit his daughter. On Oct 12, 1997, Denver was killed when the ultra-light plane he was flying over Monterrey Bay crashed into the sea.

Trivia: Down to earth midwesterner Jane Kaczmarek established herself as a multi-talented supporting actress in movies and TV before Malcolm in the Middle turned her into a bona fide TV star in 2000. Born in Milwaukee on December 22nd, 1955, Kaczmarek considered a teaching career, but majored in theater at the University of Wisconsin instead. After earning her M.F.A. at the Yale Drama School, Kaczmarek headed to New York to hit the stage. Moving from theater into TV and film in the early '80s, Kaczmarek revealed her aptitude for both comedy, in such TV movies as Door to Door (1984), and drama, with recurring guest parts on St. Elsewhere in 1983 and Hill Street Blues in 1984, as well as a small role in the ground-breaking TV film There's Something About Amelia (1984). As a testament to her acting chops, Kaczmarek earned her first starring film role as Robert De Niro's wronged wife in the De Niro/Meryl Streep romance Falling in Love (1984). Kaczmarek was back to comedy with the ill-received fantasy The Heavenly Kid (1985) and the Judge Reinhold age-switch romp Vice Versa (1988). After she married fellow actor Bradley Whitford in 1992, Kaczmarek starred in the TV movie Without Warning (1994) and nabbed multi-episode guest-starring parts in several TV series, including Party of Five and Cybill in 1996. Following a small role as Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon's mother in the reflexive fantasy Pleasantville (1998), Kaczmarek was ready to settle down to raise her family. When the producers of Malcolm in the Middle came calling, however, Kaczmarek signed on, figuring it wouldn't last. Instead, Malcolm's absurd, unsentimental take on sitcom family life became a spring 2000 hit, earning Kaczmarek Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors' Guild nominations for her performance as the no-nonsense mother of a genius and his incorrigible brothers. Malcolm in the Middle enjoyed a long run from 2000 to 2006. In 2010, Kaczmarek she starred as the mother of a 16-year-old girl in an abusive relationship for the Lifetime Original Movie Reviving Ophelia.

Trivia: Bulky, blustery American actor Pat Corley came to films in the early '70s after several years of stage character parts. He appeared conspicously (it was hard for a man his size to be inconspicuous) in such films as The Super Cops (1973), The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977), Coming Home (1978), True Confessions (1982) and Against All Odds (1984), often cast as an antagonistic athlete or a law enforcement officer. He also showed up on episodic television, co-starring as shifty baseball-team owner Ray Holtz on Bay City Blues (1983) and bumbling police chief Walter Padgett on He's the Mayor (1986). Since 1989, Pat Corley has been on duty as Phil, the affable bar owner on the Candice Bergen sitcom Murphy Brown.

Trivia: "I'm not a comic," insisted Mary Wickes. "I'm an actress who plays comedy." True enough; still Wickes was often heaps funnier than the so-called comics she supported. The daughter of a well-to-do St. Louis banker, Wickes was an excellent student, completing a political science degree at the University of Washington at the age of 18. She intended to become a lawyer, but she was deflected into theatre. During her stock company apprenticeship, Wickes befriended Broadway star Ina Claire, who wrote the young actress a letter of introduction to powerful New York producer Sam Harris. She made her Broadway debut in 1934, spending the next five seasons in a variety of characterizations (never the ingenue). In 1939, she found time to make her film bow in the Red Skelton 2-reeler Seein' Red. After a string of Broadway flops, Wickes scored a hit as long-suffering Nurse Preen (aka "Nurse Bedpan") in the Kaufman-Hart comedy classic The Man Who Came to Dinner. She was brought to Hollywood to repeat her role in the 1941 film version of Dinner. After a brief flurry of movie activity, Wickes went back to the stage, returning to Hollywood in 1948 in a role specifically written for her in The Decision of Christopher Blake. Thereafter, she remained in great demand in films, playing an exhausting variety of nosy neighbors, acerbic housekeepers and imperious maiden aunts. Though her characters were often snide and sarcastic, Wickes was careful to inject what she called "heart" into her portrayals; indeed, it is very hard to find an out-and-out villainess in her manifest. Even when she served as the model for Cruella DeVil in the 1961 animated feature 101 Dalmations, Cruella's voice was dubbed by the far more malevolent-sounding Betty Lou Gerson. Far busier on TV than in films, Wickes was a regular on ten weekly series between 1953 and 1985, earning an Emmy nomination for her work on 1961's The Gertrude Berg Show. She also has the distinction of being the first actress to essay the role of Mary Poppins in a 1949 Studio One presentation. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Wickes did a great deal of guest-artist work in colleges and universities; during this period she herself went back to school, earning a master's degree from UCLA. Maintaining her professional pace into the 1990s, Wickes scored a hit with modern moviegoers as Sister Mary Lazarus in the two Sister Act comedies. Mary Wickes' final performance was a voiceover stint as one of the gargoyles in Disney's animated Hunchback of Notre Dame; she died a few days before finishing this assignment, whereupon Jane Withers dubbed in the leftover dialogue.

Trivia: Character actor Kurtwood Smith was educated at Stanford University, then worked briefly as a drama teacher before distinguished himself on the San Francisco theatrical circuit. Making his first fleeting film appearance in Roadie, Smith toiled away in quiet, mild-manner roles until finding his niche in oily villainy as the drug lord in Robocop (1987). The actor was at his all-time nastiest as Mr. Perry, the ultra-judgmental father who drives his sensitive son (Robert Sean Leonard) to suicide in Dead Poet's Society (1989). More character roles followed over the next decade until Smith found fame as Red, the comedically tough dad in the sitcom That '70s Show.He continued to work steadily into the next decade tackling parts in film as diverse as the comedy Teddy Bears' Picnic, the drama Girl, Interrupted, and Cedar Rapids, where he played an ethically compromised real estate salesman.

Trivia: Supporting actor James Callahan appeared onscreen from 1959.

Trivia: Though she got her start in the film industry late in life, actress Anne Haney would go on to become a dependable character actress with a strong reputation and a healthy sense of humor.Born in March of 1934 in Memphis, TN, Haney studied radio, drama, and television at the University of North Carolina before marrying Georgia Public Television executive John Haley. Soon raising a daughter and devoting herself to family life, Haney began to seek work in the local theater in the 1970s, touring with Noel Coward's Fallen Angels and joining the Screen Actors Guild in preparation for her family's post-retirement move to Southern California. Her plans sadly stifled by her husband's death in 1980, with her daughter in college Haney was on her own for her Westward voyage, though soon after arriving she got an agent and a role in the Walter Matthau vehicle Hopscotch (1980). Alternating between stage and screen for the duration of her Hollywood career, Haney gained over 50 credits with her frequent appearances in television and film. With memorable roles in such films as Liar Liar and Mrs. Doubtfire, in addition to her appearances on Matlock, L.A. Law, The Geena Davis Show, and Ally McBeal, Haney's likeable personality proved both enduring and endearing.On May 26, 2001, Anne Haney died of natural causes in her Studio City, CA, home. She was 67.

Trivia: Character actor Harvey Vernon came to Hollywood following his discharge from the Coast Guard after WWII. Over his busy and prolific career, he has appeared in films and television and has occasionally showed up on-stage. His film credits include MacArthur (1977) and Teen Wolf (1985). Vernon has worked most often in television appearing in series ranging from Charlie's Angels during the '70s to Moonlighting in the '80s, to such '90s hits as Cybill and ER. Vernon's stage credits include a Broadway stint in The Grass Harp.