Trivia: Rough-hewn American leading man Richard Boone was thrust into the cold cruel world when he was expelled from Stanford University, for a minor infraction. He worked as a oil-field laborer, boxer, painter and free-lance writer before settling upon acting as a profession. After serving in World War II, Boone used his GI Bill to finance his theatrical training at the Actors' Studio, making his belated Broadway debut at age 31, playing Jason in Judith Anderson's production of Medea. Signed to a 20th Century-Fox contract in 1951, Boone was given good billing in his first feature, Halls of Montezuma; among his Fox assignments was the brief but telling role of Pontius Pilate in The Robe (1953). Boone launched the TV-star phase of his career in the weekly semi-anthology Medic, playing Dr. Konrad Steiner. From 1957 through 1963, Boone portrayed Paladin, erudite western soldier of fortune, on the popular western series Have Gun, Will Travel. He directed several episodes of this series. Boone tackled a daring TV assignment in 1963, when in collaboration with playwright Clifford Odets, he appeared in the TV anthology series The Richard Boone Show. Unique among filmed dramatic programs, Boone's series featured a cast of eleven regulars (including Harry Morgan, Robert Blake, Jeanette Nolan, Bethel Leslie and Boone himself), who appeared in repertory, essaying different parts of varying sizes each week. The Richard Boone Show failed to catch on, and Boone went back to films. In 1972 he starred in another western series, this one produced by his old friend Jack Webb: Hec Ramsey, the saga of an old-fashioned sheriff coping with an increasingly industrialized West. In the last year of his life, Boone was appointed Florida's cultural ambassador. Richard Boone died at age 65 of throat cancer.

Trivia: Of Hungarian-Philippine heritage, Barbara Luna was a stage actress from childhood. In 1949, Luna was cast as one of Ezio Pinza's children in South Pacific; she can be heard on the original cast album, singing the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical's opening number "Dites Moi, Pourquoi?" She went on to appear in such Broadway productions as The King and I, Teahouse of the August Moon and A Chorus Line. In films from 1958, Luna has usually been seen in exotic ethnic roles in films like The Devil at Four O'Clock (1961) and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1961). Star Trek fans still send her complimentary letters for her performance as Marlene Moreau in the 1967 ST installment "Mirror Mirror." Her most recent film credit was 1992's Lady Against the Odds. Barbara Luna has been married to actors Doug McClure and Alan Arkin.

Trivia: Greco-American actor Nico Minardos inaugurated his film career in 1955. Many of his earlier assignments were unstressed minor roles like "Ali" in the Errol Flynn starrer Istanbul (1956). His larger parts include Carlos, potential "Latin Lover" to tourists Jill St. John and Carol Lynley, in Holiday For Lovers (1959), and hard-bitten westerner DeLeon in Day of the Evil Gun (1968). Nico Minardo's last film was 1975's Assault on Agathan, which he also produced.