Trivia: Sherman Hemsley is best remembered for playing George Jefferson, the lovably pompous, diminutive loud-mouth who made a fortune from his dry cleaning business and moved from Queens to a posh Manhattan high rise in The Jeffersons, a popular sitcom that ran for ten years on the CBS network. Before becoming an actor in the late '60s, Hemsley worked for the U.S. Post Office. He started out on the New York stage where his first break came from playing Gitlow in the Broadway musical Purlie (1970). Television producer Norman Lear was impressed by Hemsley's performance and so created George Jefferson for him. Originally designed as an African-American alter ego/foil to his blustery, bigoted Archie Bunker character on the smash hit All in the Family, Hemsley's George became so popular that he and his family were given their own series in 1975. Following the series' demise, Hemsley played an egotistical, loud-mouthed deacon/lawyer at the First Community Church of Philadelphia who tried to keep the new minister, Reverend Gregory, from taking over what he viewed as his personal domain, on Amen. The series broke ground by being the first hit sitcom centered on religion and ran from 1986 to 1991. In between his series work, Hemsley occasionally played supporting roles in feature films after making his debut playing Rev. Mike in the comedy Love at First Bite (1979). Most of his subsequent films were low-budget affairs such as Stewardess School and Club Fed; he also continued to appear frequently on television as a guest star and starred in such failed series as Townsend Television (1993) and Goode Behavior (1996-1997), but never quite recaptured the success he had during the '70s and '80s. His final small-screen appearance came in 2006 when he was a cast member on the sixth season of the reality TV show The Surreal Life. Hemsley died at age 74 in late July, 2012.

Trivia: On television, supporting actress Roxie Roker may best be remembered for playing outspoken Helen Willis for ten years on the popular television sitcom The Jeffersons. She and TV husband Franklin Cover comprised the first interracial married couple on network television. But in addition to television, Roker had also found success on stage and in the occasional feature film. Miami-born and Brooklyn-raised, Roker graduated from Howard University with a drama degree and then flew to England to study at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-on-Avon. During the 1960s, Roker supported herself with a secretarial job at NBC's New York office while trying to find acting jobs. Roker launched her drama career off-Broadway in productions such as Jean Genet's The Blacks. Between 1967 and '68, Roker hosted a local community television show, but that wasn't close enough to acting, so she quit to practice her craft full time. With the Negro Ensemble Company she appeared in Ododo and Rosalie Pritchet. In 1974, she earned an Obie and a Tony nomination for The River Niger. In 1975, shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Norman Lear cast Roker in The Jeffersons. In addition to this role, Roker occasionally guest-starred on other series and appeared in television movies. Her feature-film appearances were rare. Roker made her debut in Claudine (1974). In the '90s, Roker resumed her stage career, appearing in a theatrical version of The Jeffersons and then touring opposite Mary Martin and Carol Channing in Legends. Roker's son, Lenny Kravitz is a noted rock musician and record producer.

Trivia: Acting career began on stage in Hamlet and Henry IV. Appeared in numerous Broadway productions, including Applause and Born Yesterday. Made history playing the husband in the first interracial married couple featured on a network primetime show (Tom Willis on The Jeffersons). Son, Bradford Cover, is also an actor.

Trivia: African American actor/director Terry Carter is a unfairly unheralded trailblazer. After growing up in (and growing out of) the tough Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Carter played a leading role on The Story of Ruby Valentine, radio's first all-black soap opera. He was the first equal-footing black regular on a TV sitcom, portraying Private Sugarman on Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko. He co-starred with Sally Ann Howes in Richard Adler's ground-breaking Broadway musical Kwamina. He was the first black newscaster on a major-market television station (Boston's Westinghouse outlet, WBZ-TV). And he was founder of the first black-owned TV-commercial production firm. While his film credits are comparatively sparse, Terry Carter has built up a solid fan following with his TV work, notably as Sgt. Joe Broadhurst on McCloud (1970-77) and as Tigh on Battlestar Gallactica (1978-79).

Trivia: Defying her mother's wishes, African-American actress Isabel Sanford secretly worked as a nightclub performer in her teens. Upon winning 3rd prize in an Apollo Theatre amateur contest, Sanford could keep her new career a secret no longer. Married to a house painter who worked only on a seasonal basis, she held down a full-time job as a keypunch operator at the New York City department of Welfare, spending her evenings acting with such groups as Harlem Y and the American Negro Theatre. Seeking out better opportunities, Sanford packed her family into a bus and headed to Hollywood in the early 1960s. Her breakthrough film role was in Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; she played Tillie the cook, who heartily disapproved of the upcoming interracial marriage between Katharine Houghton and Sidney Poitier (the hardest part of this assignment was not mouthing the "controversial" dialogue but preparing dinner in a key scene; Sanford had never learned to cook!) On the strength of this film, Isabel Sanford was hired for several guest spots on The Carol Burnett Show, which led to her most famous characterization: Louise Jefferson, the acerbic but loving wife of "movin' on up" Sherman Hemsley, on the immensely popular sitcom The Jeffersons (1975-82).

Trivia: Was employed by a major airline when she was cast on The Jeffersons; continued working for the airline during her first few seasons on the show. Is also a singer; released an album, It's Never Too Late, in 2006. Reunited with actress Regina King, who played her daughter on the 1980s sitcom 227, in a 2012 episode of Southland.