Trivia: Universally recognized as Ship's Doctor Adam Bricker on the blockbuster prime-time sitcom The Love Boat (1977-1986) -- a part he held for the entire nine-season run of the series -- actor Bernie Kopell entered the doors of show business via a most unlikely route. Born in Brooklyn, Kopell attended Erasmus High and then New York University (with a dramatic art major). After a stint at sea aboard the naval vessel USS Iowa, Kopell signed on to drive a taxicab in Southern California -- and achieved his big break on the day that Oregon Trail (1959) film producer Dick Einfeld hitched a ride in the back of his cab. In a span of minutes, Kopell reportedly managed to convince Einfeld that he was not really a cab driver but an actor in serious need of work. The effort paid off, and Kopell snagged his first part -- a two-line part in Oregon as an aide to president James K. Polk. In the early '60s, Kopell joined the Actors' Ring Theatre in Los Angeles, where he developed a knack for characterizations and voices; this led, in turn, to character-type roles on a myriad of television programs including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Steve Allen Show, and My Favorite Martian (which often, though not always, cast the wiry Kopell as a Hispanic). By the early '70s, Kopell had landed steady assignments on Get Smart, Bewitched, That Girl, and other series. The Love Boat, however, embodied his breakthrough. He followed it up with an emcee assignment on The Travel Channel (hosting its Railway Adventures Across Europe) and a surge in theatrical work, with portrayals in regional productions of such plays as Rumors, A History of Shadows, and Death of a Salesman.

Trivia: Actress Diane Baker's well-scrubbed, all-American beauty has frequently been employed as a cool veneer for film characters of smoldering passions. The daughter of actress Dorothy Harrington, Diane was studying at USC when she was tapped for her first film role as Millie Perkins' sister in 20th Century-Fox's The Diary of Anne Frank (1959); the studio then cast Diane as Pat Boone's "girl back home," who didn't get to go along on Boone's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959). She remained at Fox until 1962, essaying the title role in the studio's re-remake of Tess of the Storm Country (1961). Her most famous screen assignment was at Columbia, where she portrayed axe murderess Joan Crawford's supposedly well-balanced daughter in Straitjacket (1963). Diane became a documentary director in the 1970s with Ashanya, and a producer with Never Never Land (1982). The best of Diane Baker's latter-day roles was the media-savvy politico mother of the kidnap victim in Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Trivia: Cheryl Miller -- also sometimes billed as Cheryl Lynn Miller -- was a popular ingenue of the mid-1960's, in movies and on television. She was born in Sherman Oaks, California in 1943 (some sources say 1944), and made her screen debut as an infint in the movie Casanova Brown (1944). She studied at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, taking occasional acting roles, on series such as Leave It To Beaver and Perry Mason, and photo modeling spots. The year 1965 marked her breakthrough -- first, though she didn't realize its importance at the time, a guest spot on Flipper brought her to the attention of producer Ivan Tors, who cast her in the feature film Clarence, The Cross-Eyed Lion (1965), which became the pilot for a proposed series called Daktari. And she was discovered by Walt Disney, who signed her to a contract and put her into a prominent supporting role in The Monkey's Uncle (1965). And in November of that year, she was named one of dozen actresses designated as Hollywood Deb Stars of 1966, a group that also included Melody Patterson, Edy Williams, Peggy Lipton, and Sally Field, and led to her appearance on a television special early the following year. Daktari was sold as a series and in January of 1966 Miller and the rest of the cast, headed by Marshall Thompson, headed for Africa to begin filming. For the next four years, Miller was seen as Paula Tracy, the daughter of veterinarian Marsh Tracy, on the series. Following the cancellation of the series in early 1969, she was cast in the short-lived daytime drama Bright Promise. By that time, her wholesome good looks were no longer in fashion. Her public support for Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential race -- alongside such marginal pop-culture figures as Burt Ward (Robin on Batman) -- reflected how out-of-touch she was, in terms of image. Miller continued to work regularly, mostly in television, and also ventured into a singing career for a time -- and got onto The Tonight Show -- and by the 1970s her days of co-starring roles were behind her. Miller's last recorded small-screen appearance was in an episode of The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo.

Trivia: American actor Jim Hutton was performing in a military show in Germany when he was discovered by director Douglas Sirk. Sirk promptly cast Hutton in A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), which though released by Universal, led to an MGM contract for the young actor. Evidently MGM had plans to turn Hutton into the new Jimmy Stewart, for the studio insisted upon casting their young star in roles calling for ingenuous clumsiness. Perhaps the quintessential Hutton role was as The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962), in which his constant bumbling eventually transforms him into a war hero. MGM frequently paired Hutton with another player of acute comic skill, Paula Prentiss; they worked so well together that many fans assumed Hutton and Prentiss were married -- which must have been amusing to Paula's longtime husband Richard Benjamin. Hutton was allowed a few non-comedy "outdoors" roles in Major Dundee (1965) and The Green Berets (1969), but for the most part was locked into playing gangling young goofs. Oddly, Hutton's screen persona worked quite well for his TV-series role as Ellery Queen in the mid-1970s. The actor was charming and convincing as the self-effacing, deceptively preoccupied criminologist, especially when he turned to the camera 45 minutes into each Ellery Queen episode and invited the folks at home to help him solve the mystery. Hutton died of cancer at age 46 -- too soon to fully realize the success of his son, actor Timothy Hutton.