Trivia: Leading man Ben Piazza spent most of his Hollywood career just a step or so short of stardom. He was brought to Tinseltown on the strength of his performance in the Canada-filmed A Dangerous Age (1958), subsequently appearing in support of Gary Cooper in the A-western The Hanging Tree. His leading-man period peaked in the early '60s, though he was constantly in demand for supporting and character roles, often playing an uptight suburbanite. Possibly Piazza's best showing in the latter stages of his career was as the father of schizophrenic Kathleen Quinlan in 1971's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. On television, Piazza had regular roles as Jonas Falk on the daytime drama Love of Life and as teacher George Benton in the 1978 sitcom The Waverly Wonders. Ben Piazza died at the age of 57, shortly after appearing in Guilty By Suspicion (1990).

Trivia: Memorably portraying gruff authority figures in such features as Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and King Kong Lives (1986), longtime character actor John Ashton possesses just the sort of rough-around-the-edges, grating quality that viewers love to hate. A native of Springfield, MA, who graduated from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Ashton got his start onscreen with a supporting role in the 1973 thriller The Psychopath, a role that served to define his future career path in cinematic law enforcement. Small-screen roles in Kojak and Police Story only served to reinforce this path, and in 1978 Ashton became a familiar face to television viewers when he joined the cast of the prime-time hit Dallas. Continuing to alternate between television and film into the following decade, the 1980s proved a lucrative period for Ashton as roles in Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984), Beverly Hills Cop (as well as its sequel), and Midnight Run (1988) found him toying with his haggard image to the amusement of movie lovers worldwide. Though not as prominent onscreen in the 1990s, Ashton averaged about two films a year with roles in The Tommyknockers (1993), Trapped in Paradise (1994), and Meet the Deedles (1998), culminating with an impressive performance as the eponymous character in the 2001 thriller Bill's Gun Shop, which proved once and for all that his edge was still very much intact. His performance was so impressive, in fact, that he was subsequently cast in the lead of the 2002 drama Sweet Deadly Dreams.