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: The very feminine Lois Nettleton made her first stage appearance as "The Father" in a grade-school production of Hansel and Gretel. After studying at the Goodman Theatre and the Actors' Studio, 20-year-old Lois made her Broadway boy in 1949's The Biggest Thief in Town, very briefly adopting the stage name of Lydia Scott (she found her given name too plain and "schoolmarmy"). She understudied Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie the Cat in the original 1955 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, occasionally getting to play the role herself. For her work in the stage play God and Kate Murphy, Lois won the Clarence Derwent Award. While her official film debut was 1962's Period Adjustment, she previously played a minor role in director Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). Lois' film work, while extensive, has not been as rewarding as her stage and TV endeavors. Bypassing her co-starring stints in the short-term sitcom Accidental Family (1967) and You Can't Take It With You (1987), Lois Nettleton was seen as a regular on the NBC soap opera Brighter Day (1954), enjoyed a healthy two-season run as Joann St. John on the weekly TV version of In the Heat of the Night, and has won two Emmies, the first for the 1977 daytime special The American Woman: Profiles in Courage, and the second for "A Gun for Mandy," a 1983 episode of the syndicated religious anthology Insight. She died of lung cancer at age 80 in January 2008.

Trivia: The son of actors, juvenile performer Clint Howard began showing up on screen in the mid-1960s, usually in the TV series and feature films co-starring his older brother Ron Howard. Clint's best-known TV guest appearances include the part of Balok in the 1966 Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver," and his vivid portrayal of a youthful prognosticator in the opening installment of Night Gallery's 1971-72 season. He was starred in the 1967 Ivan Tors theatrical feature Gentle Giant and in that property's TV-series spin-off Gentle Ben. Upon attaining adulthood, Howard was mostly consigned to character parts; he has also been featured in the films directed by his brother Ron Howard, from Eat My Dust (1978) to Apollo 13 (1995).

Trivia: Tall (6'2"), sandy-haired American leading man Frank Converse studied at Carnegie Tech before launching his acting career with stage, commercial and soap-opera assignments. Converse became a star by way of a TV series that literally died before it was born. Thirteen episodes of Coronet Blue, in which Converse played an amnesiac pursued by mysterious assassins, were filmed in 1965, then shelved when no room could be cleared on CBS' fall schedule. Most of these episodes were telecast as a 1967 summer replacement series, sparking an intensely loyal fan following for Converse; by that time, however, he was committed to the weekly cop series NYPD and could not continue with Coronet Blue, thus his fans never did find out who his character really was or why he was being chased all over the country. Active in all aspects of entertainment, Frank Converse has been most visible on television: he starred on the prime time series Movin' On (1974-75), The Family Tree (1983), Dolphin Cove (1989), and for several years was a regular on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live.